A 24-year-old Brazilian woman accused in a brutal love-triangle double murder at a Virginia mansion complained to her mother that she was tired of prison.
“I’m tired of this place, this situation,” Juliana Perez Magalhães wrote in a recent e-mail to her mother from the Fairfax County Jail, Washington Post,
“I am miserable and nothing can cheer me up,” she wrote in an email in June. “I just want to get out of here and go back home to be with you guys. God willing we will be together soon, Mom.”
The letter was the latest twist in a bizarre murder case that has captivated true crime buffs around the world.
Magalhaes, who prosecutors said was involved in a torrid affair with her 39-year-old employer, IRS investigator Brendan Banfield, has been taken into custody. Man charged with shooting stranger seeking sexual favours Joseph Ryan allegedly stabbed Banfield's wife to death on February 24, 2023, at the married couple's home.
Ryan was allegedly lured to the million-dollar home through an online sexual erotica site and was attacking a naked Christine Banfield when Magalhaes arrived with her boyfriend, Christine's husband Brendan.
The Washington Post said Brendan allegedly shot at and wounded Ryan — but it was Au Pair who picked up another gun hidden in the home and fired the fatal shots at Ryan.
Magalhaes is claiming self-defense. But prosecutors allege the whole episode was a ruse designed by Magalhaes to get rid of Christine. They say Ryan was a fraud who was lured into this sordid plot.
Investigators have yet to determine who created the account named Anastasia9 on the sick-sex dating app allegedly linked to Christine, who lured Ryan into the home.
Prosecutors have also questioned the circumstances surrounding Magalhaes leaving home just after 7 a.m. to visit the zoo with Banfields' young child — and allegedly returning having forgotten his lunch.
Brendan left home at 7:10 a.m. and waited in the parking lot of a nearby McDonald's until his wife called him at 7:37 a.m., when she returned home.
The two approached at the same time and shot Ryan, authorities said.
Prosecutors have questioned why Brendan did not fire his service revolver until after Ryan attacked his wife with a knife, and they are puzzled as to why Magalhaes then pulled out his gun.
The two waited for 10 minutes before calling 911, the outlet reported.
“That's not something a person would do in a situation like this unless they were trying to hide something,” Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Kelsey Gill said during a court hearing on the case in December.
Brendan has not been charged with anything and when questioned in court he cited Section 5. No one has been charged for his wife's death.
Magalhaes, who joined the Banfield family in 2021, is only charged with shooting and killing Ryan while investigators continue to try to solve this complicated murder case.
Her mother, Marina Perez Souza, still maintains that her daughter is innocent.
She told reporters in Portuguese that Magalhaes, whom she called a “little rare gem,” was not a person who should be behind bars.
“I pray the prosecutors and the judge understand who is at fault in this case, because the culprit is not Juliana,” she added.
