Brendan Banfield double murder trial: Verdict reached for man accused of elaborate plot to get rid of his wife
Brendan Banfield testifies in his own defense on Jan. 28, 2026, during his double murder trial in Fairfax County, Virginia. (Pool/ABC News)
(FAIRFAX, Va.) — A jury has reached a verdict in the double murder trial of a Virginia man accused of killing his wife and a stranger lured to their home under false pretenses in an elaborate plot to get rid of his spouse so he could be with his au pair, with whom he was having an affair.
Brendan Banfield, 40, is accused of stabbing his wife to death in their home in Fairfax County and fatally shooting a man he allegedly “catfished” on a fetish website. Prosecutors said he pretended to be his wife to lure the man to their home for what was believed to be a consensual fake rape scenario in order to frame that stranger for his wife’s murder.
The jury deliberated nearly nine hours over two days, starting Friday, before reaching a verdict Monday afternoon. The verdict is expected to be read in court at 5 p.m. ET Monday.
The former IRS agent was charged with aggravated murder in 2024 following a monthslong investigation into the deaths of his wife, 37-year-old nurse Christine Banfield, and the man, 39-year-old Joseph Ryan.
Prosecutors accused Brendan Banfield of plotting the murders with the family’s au pair, 25-year-old Juliana Peres Magalhaes, who was initially charged with second-degree murder in connection with the deaths.
Ahead of the trial, Peres Magalhaes pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Under the plea agreement with prosecutors, she will receive time served for testifying against Brendan Banfield.
During closing arguments on Friday, the prosecutor made the case that the murders were premeditated.
“He was in love with Juliana. He can pretend that this was a fling and affair — he’d had them before, no big deal. He was in love with Juliana,” prosecutor Jenna Sands said. “He was afraid of losing her. He needed to get rid of his wife so that they could be together, so that they could marry, so that they could have those babies that he was picking out names for.”
Sands said there was no evidence that Christine Banfield had previously used dating or fetish websites, argued that there were signs that the crime scene had been “manipulated,” and reminded jurors that during the au pair’s testimony, Peres Magalhaes “told us how the plan was crafted and how it played out.”
The defense, meanwhile, pushed back on the catfishing theory, questioned the thoroughness of the investigation and argued that there were conclusions made based on confirmation bias. The attorney, John Carroll, claimed that prosecutors pressured Peres Magalhaes to change her story and that she “secured herself a deal that benefited her.” Carroll also said Brendan Banfield didn’t have to testify, but he did as they sought “to get the truth out there.”
“Is it reasonable, after a six- to eight-week affair, that someone is going to try to get rid of their companion of 19 years, wife of 12 years? Is that reasonable?” Carroll asked the jury. “You heard from my client: He thinks it’s absurd.”
During his testimony, Brendan Banfield called the allegations “absolutely crazy” and said his affair with Peres Magalhaes was just that and nothing more.
He said he came home on Feb. 24, 2023, after the au pair called to alert him about a stranger in the home. He said he went up to his bedroom with his gun drawn and found his wife naked with Ryan and that she called out, “Brendan, he has a knife!”
“I was extremely terrified,” Brendan Banfield told the jury. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more panicked in my life.”
He said he fired his government-issued firearm, striking Ryan in the head, after the man appeared to stab his wife.
Prosecutors said Christine Banfield was stabbed seven times in the neck.
Peres Magalhaes testified that Brendan Banfield expressed his desire to “get rid of” his wife in October 2022, saying, “At first, I thought he was joking.”
She testified that she had helped Brendan Banfield catfish Ryan on the fetish website to lure Ryan to the home.
Peres Magalhaes told the court that Brendan Banfield told her he wanted to marry her and have children with her, and that he didn’t want to divorce his wife because “she would have more money than he would” and because he wanted custody of the couple’s daughter.
Brendan Banfield was additionally charged with using a firearm while committing or attempting to commit murder and child endangerment. The couple’s then-4-year-old daughter was in the house at the time of the killings, in the basement.
“He left her in the basement, knowing that Joe Ryan was upstairs,” Sands said during her closing argument. “He left her in the basement while he shot and killed Joe Ryan. He left her in the basement while he stabbed his wife.”
Former President Bill Clinton and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrive prior to the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump at the United States Capitol on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Melina Mara – Pool/Getty Images)
(CHAPPAQUA, NEW YORK) — Former President and first lady Bill and Hillary Clinton are facing lawmakers this week over their ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Clintons are scheduled to participate in closed-door depositions with the House Oversight Committee in Chappaqua, New York, after months of continuous negotiations over their appearance.
Hillary Clinton is scheduled to appear on Thursday, with Bill Clinton appearing the day after. Friday’s deposition will be the first time a former president has appeared in front of a congressional panel since former President Gerald Ford in 1983.
The committee first attempted to subpoena the Clintons in July of last year as Republicans demanded more information on the former president’s travels on Epstein’s private aircraft and what the committee called the “family’s past relationship” with Epstein and his convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell, as part of their probe into Epstein.
The Clintons were subpoenaed to appear under oath in front of the committee for a deposition in January, but failed to comply, arguing the subpoenas were without legal merit. Rather, they proposed a four-hour transcribed interview instead.
David Kendall, the Clintons’ lawyer, argued that the couple has no information relevant to the committee’s investigation of the federal government’s handling of investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, and should not be required to appear for in-person testimony. Kendall contends the Clintons should be permitted to provide the limited information they have to the committee in writing.
Former Secretary of State Clinton “has no personal knowledge of Epstein or Maxwell’s criminal activities, never flew on his aircraft, never visited his island, and cannot recall ever speaking to Epstein. She has no personal knowledge of Maxwell’s activities with Epstein,” Kendall wrote in an Oct. 6 letter to the committee. “President Clinton’s contact with Epstein ended two decades ago, and given what came to light much after, he has expressed regret for even that limited association.”
Republican House Oversight Chairman James Comer responded that the committee was “skeptical” of the claim that the Clintons only had limited information.
“[T]he Committee believes that it should be provided in a deposition setting, where the Committee can best assess its breadth and value,” Comer responded in October.
Comer had long threatened to hold the Clintons in contempt if they failed to appear before the committee, so when they didn’t, a contempt resolution was drafted and put to a vote. The Oversight Committee passed the contempt resolution, with nine Democrats voting in favor of it, teeing it up for a full House vote.
At the last minute, before the resolution was brought for a full House vote, the Clintons agreed to sit for a deposition, postponing further consideration of a contempt vote.
This week’s interviews with committee investigators will be video recorded and transcribed in accordance with the House’s deposition rules.
“We look forward to questioning the Clintons as part of our investigation into the horrific crimes of Epstein and Maxwell, to deliver transparency and accountability for the American people and for survivors,” Comer said in a statement when the deposition was agreed upon.
While the Clintons have agreed to speak with the committee behind closed doors, they have still pushed for public hearings as part of the committee’s probe into Epstein.
“I will not sit idly as they use me as a prop in a closed-door kangaroo court by a Republican Party running scared,” Bill Clinton wrote in a lengthy post on X. “If they want answers, let’s stop the games & do this the right way: in a public hearing, where the American people can see for themselves what this is really about.”
Hillary Clinton has echoed her husband’s sentiments while also continuing to call for the full release of the Epstein files, which they have accused the Department of Justice of selectively releasing.
“It is something that needs to be totally transparent,” Hillary Clinton said during a panel appearance at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month. “I’ve called for, many, many years, for everything to be put out there so people can not only see what is in them, but also — if appropriate — hold people accountable. We’ll see what happens.”
Neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing and both deny having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. No Epstein survivor or associate has ever made a public allegation of wrongdoing or inappropriate behavior by the former president or his wife in connection with his prior relationship with Epstein.
TikTok logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen for illustration photo. Krakow, Poland. On April, 20th, 2026. (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — An alleged TikTok antagonist is accused of stabbing a 17-year-old to death outside his New York City apartment building, authorities said.
Andrew Tollinche, 22, has been charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the killing outside his Bronx home on Wednesday, according to New York City police.
Detectives had been looking for Tollinche after determining the stabbing stemmed from his posts on TikTok. Tollinche allegedly antagonizes people on the social media platform, and neighborhood teens have recently been gathering outside his home, knocking on his door and calling him out, according to police.
The victim, Jonathan Melo, who has no criminal record, was part of a group that went to the suspect’s apartment building, according to police. The interaction turned sour, and Tollinche went inside to grab a knife, came outside and allegedly stabbed the 17-year-old in the back, police said.
Melo was rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, officials said.
Tollinche has a prior unsealed arrest for allegedly raping a minor in 2025, according to records. He has other prior interactions with police, some of them stemming from social media posts.
Tollinche is due in court on Friday. It was not immediately clear whether he had a lawyer.
Tucker Carlson, former FOX News host and current host of The Tucker Carlson Show, attends a meeting with oil executives in the East Room of the White House on January 9, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump’s decision to carry out strikes on Iran has further exposed a fracture among some of the president’s fiercest supporters inside MAGA world — one that many supporters say will only widen with every week the conflict continues.
Since the first strike last week, Trump’s actions in Iran have faced stark criticism from some of the most popular voices in MAGA media who helped boost his 2024 campaign, ranging from longtime adviser Steve Bannon to more recent converts like conservative media personalities Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly.
Watch special coverage on Nightline, “War with Iran,” each night on ABC and streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
Prominent figures within the movement say the strikes have already tested the limits of their support, according to interviews with over a dozen leading voices inside President Trump’s MAGA coalition, who point to shifting justifications, no clear endgame, the specter of another Middle East forever war, and the use of American resources overseas versus at home as concerns that they warn will only deepen and carry a steeper political price the longer the operation lasts.
“He has a maximum of a month,” Natalie Winters, White House correspondent for Bannon’s War Room program, told ABC News. “After that people will start viewing this as just another dragged-out conflict.”
Since the strikes last week, the president and Trump officials have offered a creeping timeline for how long the operation in Iran could last, with Trump initially stating the operation was “ahead of schedule” and that the war could last “four weeks — or less.”
But in recent days the administration has signaled the potential for a much longer conflict, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stating this week that the operation had “only just begun.”
“We have only just begun to fight and fight decisively,” Hegseth told reporters. “Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation.”
On Wednesday, Hegseth said the war could go as long as eight weeks or beyond, the longest timeline the Trump administration has offered thus far.
For a base filled with influential — and loud — voices who say they supported the president in large part because of his promise to avoid not just foreign intervention but “forever wars,” the administration’s shifting timeline has become a ticking clock.
‘They tell us it’s regime change’ Winters, one of the young rising stars on the MAGA right, has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and has become a prominent voice on Bannon’s War Room, where she filled in as a guest host while Bannon was serving time in prison for refusing to testify before the Jan. 6 Congressional committee.
She joined the movement at 18, and while she covers the Trump administration for a pro-Trump outlet, she has not been shy about criticizing the administration on issues like the Epstein files and foreign military action.
Winters said her main issue with the war in Iran is that nobody can explain the goal.
“They tell us it’s regime change, but not regime change. It’s a war, but it’s not a war. But we can’t rule out boots on the ground. And if it we want it to be a forever war, it can be a forever war, but it’s not a forever war,” Winter said. “There have been no publicly made comments in the last four days to give me any comfort that this is not going to turn into [a forever war].”
Curt Mills, the executive director of The American Conservative, told ABC News that the longer the operation drags on, the worse it will be for the president’s standing with his supporters.
“It all depends on how long the war goes. I think you are going to see this start eating into Trump’s approval rating, beyond his core MAGA supporters. And that’s the difference between Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. James Talarico,” Mills said, referencing the war’s potential impact on critical Senate midterm races like the one in Texas, where the Republican primary between Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is now headed for a runoff.
The impact the war could have on the midterms appears to be one of the unifying concerns among influential voices on the right, who worry about the coalition of supporters that swept Trump into power in 2024. Jack Posobiec, a popular MAGA commentator and Turning Point Action official, told ABC News the president’s victory was built in part on two distinct groups: the traditional Republican base and a newer wave of younger, low-propensity voters who had never engaged in politics before, which includes the podcast and sports fan crowd that the campaign worked to bring into the fold ahead of November.
It is that second group, Posobiec warned, where the Iran strikes are landing hardest — making what is emerging inside MAGA also a generational fault line.
“For the younger end of the spectrum inside MAGA, foreign intervention is just off the radar. It’s not something they want to see because they see it as prioritizing foreign interests over populist interests,” Posobiec said. “They want to see economic relief as No. 1. They’re interested in Epstein, arrests, deportations — but anything to do with foreign intervention is just off the radar for them. When you get to say [age] 40, 45, you see the split in the other direction, where you do see more support for the president’s actions.”
Posobiec also said the divide comes down to younger voters fearful of a repeat of the interventionist wars of the George W. Bush era.
“There’s this huge shadow cast over anything to do with military intervention because of the Bush years. People just have massive indigestion over that. I’m a veteran myself and I totally understand,” he said. “Donald Trump is not George W. Bush. JD Vance is not Dick Cheney. You got to give them some credit for that.”
Backlash to the backlash
The dissent has not gone unanswered. Even as the criticism has grown, a counter-offensive of sorts has taken shape inside MAGA world, with other prominent voices pushing back against those speaking out.
Perhaps no voice within MAGA has defended the president and the Iran strikes more aggressively than Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who, while having her own history of criticizing the administration, has become the movement’s most visible counterweight to the growing dissent.
“A lot of these people are not even Trump supporters. They build up audiences lying to people, pretending like they’re conservative,” Loomer told ABC News when asked about the backlash to Iran.
Loomer, on X, has lavished praise on the operation in Iran, and has launched attacks at MAGA voices who have been critical. “I love President Trump. I would take anyone to the floor for the United States and for Donald J. Trump. I am always eager to throw down on anyone who works to undermine his plan to restore our country to greatness,” Loomer wrote.
In the days following the initial strikes, the president called Loomer personally, telling her he had spent the day on the phone with world leaders and generals but wanted to reach out to thank her for her support, according to Loomer.
“I said, ‘Congratulations! You’re a hero to the Iranian people, you’re a hero to the American people,'” Loomer told ABC News.
Loomer, who has emerged as one of the most influential pro-Trump voices, said the president also asked her how the Iran strikes were going over with his supporters. “What are people saying about it? I believe there’s overwhelming support for this,” she said Trump asked.
Loomer agreed with the president but told him there were “some people who aren’t happy about it, but they’re the general misfits,” specifically referring to Tucker Carlson, who had earlier that day told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that the strikes were “absolutely disgusting and evil.”
“I asked him, ‘Are you aware of this? Tucker keeps going online about you and he called you disgusting and evil today,'” Loomer said.
Loomer said she was surprised to learn that at that time Trump was still not aware of the critical comments Carlson had been making, many of which she had been highlighting on her X account.
“He didn’t know any of the stuff,” Loomer said. “And so he asked me to send it over.”
Loomer said she then sent over information about what Carlson, and also Megyn Kelly, had been saying about the president. Later that day, Trump said in an interview that “MAGA’s not the other two,” referring to Carlson and Kelly.
Days later, Trump told ABC Jonathan Karl, “Tucker has lost his way” and that he “knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”
In the aftermath of the back and forth between Trump and Carlson, Loomer wrote on X, “Loomered,” taking credit for the blowback on Carlson.
Other prominent MAGA voices are now seeking to discredit the idea that any meaningful divide exists at all — creating a fight within the movement over whether there is a fight within the movement.
“This is all b——-, doomer, black pilled, liberal media b——- designed to fracture you before an election, to drive down approval ratings and voter enthusiasm, so Republicans lose and Donald Trump can get impeached,” podcaster and former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino said on his show this week. “That is all this is.”
Some have dismissed the concerns as little more than the voices of a handful of dissenting podcasters — but others reject that characterization.
“I think it’s nonsense,” Mills, another longtime leading voice in the MAGA movement, told ABC News. “Say what you will, if you even took the extreme cynical view of Carlson, Bannon, Kelly — they’re businessmen. And they wouldn’t be doing this if there wasn’t a large audience for the message.”
“It’s demoralization at the margins that I’m worried about. It doesn’t tell us anything to say 80% of Republican voters support the Iran thing. You’re not fighting for the median Republican voter,” Mills said. “You lose 50,000 people who just don’t show up — you lose Georgia. Can they afford to lose point 5% of the vote? I don’t think so.”
‘Foundational to MAGA’ But there are some on the right who have actually been surprised the blowback hasn’t been louder. Earlier this week, Winters spoke out for the first time regarding the Iran strikes during an appearance on Bannon’s War Room, delivering what she believed to be measured criticism of the administration’s efforts and saying, “I’m as MAGA as it gets. We love Trump, but it’s fair to ask for clarity.”
“If this turns into another dragged out kinetic conflict, that’s not what we voted for,” Winters said.
Winters said she was shocked by the immediate backlash she faced online for her comments. “The comments were pretty rough. Which is wild, my commentary was pretty measured,” she said, adding that she had also been “smeared as a MAGA sycophant and cultist. It’s very frustrating. I could not have been more measured. I literally read the administration’s quotes.”
Given the gravity of the issue, Winters said she has been surprised that the outcry from the base hasn’t been even more forceful.
“The debate over the Epstein files created more political blowback on the administration than what they’re doing in Iran, standing on the brink of a potential forever war,” she said.
“And seeing the base not more outrageous about that — it’s pretty wild, because that’s a tenant that’s foundational to MAGA.”
