The Virginia mom murdered in a twisted rape fantasy frame-job allegedly orchestrated by her philandering husband and nanny spent years working as a nurse for sexual assault victims.
Christine Banfield, 37, spent at the least two years round 2015 as a sexual assault nurse examiner on the Household Violence and Rape Disaster Middle on Lengthy Island, close to the place she earned her nursing diploma at Stony Brook Drugs.
From there, Christine went on to function a supervisor overseeing nurses in that position as a part of a Suffolk County home violence program, based on her LinkedIn.
Lower than 10 years later, nevertheless, Christine would endure the identical trauma she spent years serving to ladies overcome — when an odd man slipped into her house with a knife in February 2023 and tried to assault her as she slept, earlier than she bled to loss of life from vicious stab wounds.
But it surely wasn’t her assailant who was arrested — her husband, 40-year-old IRS agent Brendan Banfield, was as a substitute cuffed over a yr later in September 2024, and charged with staging your complete rape try in order that he may “get rid” of her and run off with their daughter’s Brazilian au pair, 25-year-old Juliana Peres Magalhães.
Banfield and Magalhães allegedly lured the supposed attacker — 38-year-old Joseph Ryan — to their house by posing as Christine on a fetish web site, the place they pretended she was in search of somebody to dwell out a violent rape fantasy with, prosecutors alleged in his explosive homicide trial final week.
The husband and au pair intentionally burst into the bed room in the course of the orchestrated assault and fatally shot Ryan within the head, then allegedly stabbed Christine within the neck and face till she died, Magalhães testified after placing a plea deal.
Banfield allegedly determined to homicide Christine simply two months after he started sleeping with Magalhães, then 21, as a result of he didn’t need to pay for a divorce and thought she was a “horrible” mom who “wasn’t good” for his or her younger daughter.
However Christine’s social media instructed a a lot totally different story — with numerous pictures displaying her doting over their cute then-4-year-old daughter who she known as her “sunshine,” her “foolish lady,” and “my world.”
Christine’s final submit on Feb. 21, 2023 — simply three days earlier than her homicide — confirmed a drawing by the little lady titled “my mama the queen.”
Images on social media additionally confirmed a loyal nurse who labored lengthy hours by way of the 2020 pandemic, and a health nut who was happy with a years-long weight-loss and well being journey.
And Christine seemed to be a girl who welcomed individuals into her life with open arms — writing in a 2021 submit a couple of former au pair who grow to be her daughter’s “greatest pal, her sister, her third dad or mum, her every little thing.”
“Lots of people don’t perceive the au pair program, however that is it proper right here,” Christine captioned the picture, which confirmed the previous au pair beaming together with her daughter.
“It’s opening your house and your coronary heart as much as somebody with massive goals of adjusting their life whereas in America, and within the course of they modified your life greater than you might measure,” she wrote.
Christine even grew to become a bridesmaid in that au pair’s marriage ceremony, and he or she shared posts telling how would “at all times be a part of our household” after she moved away.
However that welcoming spirit could have value Christine her life.
Not lengthy after they stated goodbye to their beloved au pair, Magalhães took the job and moved into Christine and Brendan’s Herndon house to assist deal with their daughter.
Lower than a yr later, Banfield allegedly began sleeping with Magalhães, betraying his two-decade relationship with Christine, who he met in 2002 when she was a freshmen at Quinnipiac College.
They married six years later in June 2010, and hung out dwelling on Lengthy Island earlier than shifting to Virginia round 2018 when their daughter was born.
Banfield pleaded not responsible to homicide costs after his Sept. 2024 arrest, together with his protection arguing the alleged rape-fantasy frame-job plot was invented by Magalhães after prosecutors pressured her into pleading responsible to manslaughter in return for a lighter sentence.
Christine featured her husband on social media, the place she posted pictures of the seemingly-happy couple holding one another and their daughter with captions like “#truelove” and “My entire world in a single image.”
In a single picture — posted a day earlier than their five-year marriage ceremony anniversary — Christine and Banfield smiled on a playground jungle gymnasium in tuxedo and white costume as a neighborhood youngsters performed round them.
Christine wrote that the picture was her favourite from their marriage ceremony day, including the hashtag “#tildeathdouspart.”
