The Virginia mother 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 least two years around 2015 as a sexual assault nurse examiner at the Family Violence and Rape Crisis Center on Long Island, near where she earned her nursing degree at Stony Brook Medicine.
From there, Christine went on to serve as a supervisor overseeing nurses in that role as part of a Suffolk County domestic violence program, according to her LinkedIn.
Less than 10 years later, however, Christine would endure the same trauma she spent years helping women overcome — when a strange man slipped into her home with a knife in February 2023 and attempted to assault her as she slept, before she bled to death from vicious stab wounds.
But it wasn’t her assailant who was arrested — her husband, 40-year-old IRS agent Brendan Banfield, was instead cuffed over a year later in September 2024, and charged with staging the entire rape attempt so that he could “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 home by posing as Christine on a fetish website, where they pretended she was looking for someone to live out a violent rape fantasy with, prosecutors alleged in his explosive murder trial last week.
The husband and au pair deliberately burst into the bedroom in the middle of the orchestrated assault and fatally shot Ryan in the head, then allegedly stabbed Christine in the neck and face until she died, Magalhães testified after striking a plea deal.
Banfield allegedly decided to murder Christine just two months after he began sleeping with Magalhães, then 21, because he didn’t want to pay for a divorce and thought she was a “terrible” mother who “wasn’t good” for their young daughter.
But Christine’s social media told a much different story — with countless photos showing her doting over their adorable then-4-year-old daughter who she referred to as her “sunshine,” her “silly girl,” and “my world.”
Christine’s last post on Feb. 21, 2023 — just three days before her murder — showed a drawing by the little girl titled “my mama the queen.”
Photos on social media also showed a devoted nurse who labored long hours through the 2020 pandemic, and a fitness nut who was proud of a years-long weight-loss and health journey.
And Christine appeared to be a woman who welcomed people into her life with open arms — writing in a 2021 post about a former au pair who become her daughter’s “best friend, her sister, her third parent, her everything.”
“A lot of people don’t understand the au pair program, but this is it right here,” Christine captioned the photo, which showed the former au pair beaming with her daughter.
“It is opening your home and your heart up to someone with big dreams of changing their life while in America, and in the process they changed your life more than you could measure,” she wrote.
Christine even became a bridesmaid in that au pair’s wedding, and she shared posts telling how would “always be part of our family” after she moved away.
But that welcoming spirit may have cost Christine her life.
Not long after they said goodbye to their beloved au pair, Magalhães took the job and moved into Christine and Brendan’s Herndon home to help take care of their daughter.
Less than a year later, Banfield allegedly started sleeping with Magalhães, betraying his two-decade relationship with Christine, who he met in 2002 when she was a freshmen at Quinnipiac University.
They married six years later in June 2010, and spent time living on Long Island before moving to Virginia around 2018 when their daughter was born.
Banfield pleaded not guilty to murder charges after his Sept. 2024 arrest, with his defense arguing the alleged rape-fantasy frame-job plot was invented by Magalhães after prosecutors pressured her into pleading guilty to manslaughter in return for a lighter sentence.
Christine featured her husband on social media, where she posted photos of the seemingly-happy couple holding each other and their daughter with captions like “#truelove” and “My whole world in one picture.”
In one photo — posted a day before their five-year wedding anniversary — Christine and Banfield smiled on a playground jungle gym in tuxedo and white dress as a local kids played around them.
Christine wrote that the photo was her favorite from their wedding day, adding the hashtag “#tildeathdouspart.”
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