A 24-year-old Brazilian au pair charged in a brutal love-triangle double slaying at a Virginia mansion whined to her mommy that she’s tired of jail.
“I am tired of this place, this situation,” Juliana Peres Magalhaes wrote in a recent e-mail to her mom from Fairfax County Jail, according to the Washington Post.
“I am unhappy, and nothing makes me happy,” she said in the June e-mail. “I just want to get out of here and go back home to be with you guys. We will be together soon, with God’s grace, mommy.”
The missive was the latest turn in a bizarre murder case that has captivated true-crime buffs worldwide.
Magalhaes, who prosecutors said was involved in a steamy affair with her 39-year-old employer, IRS investigator Brendan Banfield, is accused of fatally shooting fetish-seeking stranger Joseph Ryan as he allegedly stabbed Banfield’s wife to death at the married couple’s home Feb. 24, 2023.
Ryan was allegedly summoned to the million-dollar home through a sexual fetish online site and was attacking a naked Christine Banfield when Magalhaes walked in with her lover, Christine’s husband Brendan.
Brendan allegedly fired at and wounded Ryan — but it was the au pair who then unleashed the fatal shots at Ryan after grabbing another gun stashed in the house, the Washington Post said.
Magalhaes is claiming self-defense. But prosecutors allege that the entire episode was a ruse orchestrated by Magalhaes to get rid of Christine. They maintain that Ryan was a dupe lured into the sordid plot.
Investigators have not determined who created an account on the sick-sex dating app allegedly linked to Christine under the name Annastasia9, which lured Ryan to the house.
Prosecutors also question the circumstances that had Magalhaes leave the house shortly after 7 a.m. for a day at the zoo with the Banfields’ young child — only to return after allegedly forgetting their lunches.
Brendan had left the house at 7:10 a.m. and waited in the parking lot of a nearby McDonald’s until the au pair called him around 7:37 a.m. when she returned to the house.
The two walked in together and shot Ryan, authorities said.
Prosecutors have questioned why Brendan didn’t fire his service revolver until after Ryan was allegedly stabbing his wife, and are puzzled why Magalhaes then retrieved her own gun.
The pair waited 10 minutes before calling 911, the outlet reported.
“That is not what a person in that situation would do unless they were trying to cover something up,” Deputy Commonwealth Attorney Kelsey Gill said at a court hearing in the case in December.
Brendan has not been charged and pleaded the Fifth when questioned in court. No one has been accused of his wife’s death.
Magalhaes, who joined the Banfield household in 2021, remains charged only in Ryan’s shooting death while investigators continue to try to unravel the convoluted murder case.
Her mother, Marina Peres Souza, continues to maintain her daughter is innocent.
She told reporters in Portuguese that Magalhaes, who she calls “little rare jewel,” is not the one who should be behind bars.
“I pray for the prosecutors and the judge to understand who is guilty in this case, because it is not Juliana,” she said.
