Por Pablo el mezquino | Analista social principal
This story begins in a quiet cul-de-sac, the kind of place built for routine, school drop-offs, and peaceful evenings. Then a new person joins a young family’s household, and what follows grips national attention for years. In ABC’s 20/20 report, the Banfield family’s private life fractures in a single morning, leaving investigators trying to map out what really happened inside their home.
A busy household hires an au pair, and the stakes feel ordinary at first
Christine and Brendan Banfield were raising a young daughter (3 years old at the time Juliana arrived). Like many working parents, they needed help keeping the day-to-day moving. In 2021, Juliana Peres Magalhães came from Brazil to Virginia to live with the Banfields and work as their au pair.
An au pair in plain terms is someone from another country who joins a family and helps out, basically a live-in nanny. It’s a setup built on trust, schedules, and the small routines that keep a home calm.
Those routines mattered, because on February 24, 2023, the normal structure of the household collapsed fast. According to the report, a frantic call to 911 came from inside the home, and within minutes the situation turned into an active investigation with national attention.
When a case starts with confusion on a 911 call, every detail that follows gets scrutinized.
The frantic 911 call that set everything in motion
The 911 call begins with Juliana on the line, struggling to communicate clearly. She sounds panicked and overwhelmed, and the dispatcher repeatedly tries to slow things down and get an address and basic details. In the audio, Juliana describes a friend who “wasn’t stopping,” and says a woman is hurt and losing a lot of blood.
Soon, Brendan Banfield takes over the call and identifies himself by name. He tells the dispatcher he is a federal agent, says it is his home, and claims he shot someone who was attacking his wife. He describes his wife as unresponsive, still breathing, and badly injured, including a serious neck wound.
That call frames the first version of events: Brendan says he interrupted an attack in the primary bedroom and fired to protect his wife. Meanwhile, police are already closing in on the address and preparing to enter a chaotic scene.
For more reporting connected to the case, see ABC’s later coverage, Au pair in Virginia double murder sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Police arrive, secure the home, and focus on the child’s safety
When officers and detectives respond, they head upstairs toward the primary bedroom. The video depicts confusion and urgency, but one clear priority emerges quickly: locating the Banfields’ child.
Juliana tells an officer that the 4-year-old girl is in the basement. Together, the officer and Juliana go downstairs. The footage shows a gentle, controlled approach as an officer introduces himself to the child and asks her to come outside. Another officer offers “stickers,” a small detail that lands hard in the moment, because it shows law enforcement trying to protect a child from absorbing what’s happening around her.
Once the child is escorted out, officers ask Juliana to explain what happened. She appears shaken and has trouble getting full sentences out. The tone is not polished, it’s raw and scattered, like someone trying to rewind a morning that won’t slow down.
Foto de cottonbro studio
Juliana’s account: a forgotten lunch, a strange car, then a rush upstairs
Juliana tells police she and the child were headed to the zoo, but she forgot items (she mentions laundry, and also lunches). When she returned, she saw a strange car in the driveway. Then, she says, a man got out and walked through the front door.
She says she called Christine Banfield, but Christine didn’t answer. Next, Juliana called Brendan to alert him that something felt off. In her telling, Brendan was nearby at a McDonald’s and returned home quickly.
According to Juliana, the three of them moved through the house, leaving the child in the basement, and went upstairs. She claims they encountered a man holding a knife to Christine and threatening to kill her. Juliana describes Brendan pleading for the man to drop the knife. She suggests the situation escalated rapidly, and that Brendan shot the man.
In the report’s framing, this is where questions begin to stack up. Police must sort out who the man was, why he was there, and what happened minute by minute.
For another summary of the early charging developments described publicly, see NBC News coverage of the au pair being charged.
Key moments described in the video
This table captures the sequence as presented in the report.
| Step | What’s described |
|---|---|
| Juliana returns home | She says she forgot items before a zoo outing and came back. |
| A strange car appears | She reports seeing an unfamiliar vehicle and a man entering the home. |
| Phone calls | She says she called Christine (no answer), then called Brendan. |
| Brendan returns | Juliana says he came back from a nearby McDonald’s. |
| Upstairs confrontation | Juliana claims they saw a man threatening Christine with a knife. |
| 911 call | Juliana calls first, then Brendan takes over and says he shot the man. |
The takeaway: the initial narrative is simple on paper, but messy in real life.
Brendan at the hospital, and a police chief confirms two people died
Outside the home, Brendan is escorted out and complains of leg pain. Officers and medics speak with him as he’s transported to a hospital. In the video, Brendan asks for updates about Christine and says he got blood on himself while trying to apply pressure to her injuries.
At the hospital, a doctor tells Brendan his wife has died, attributing it to blood loss and describing the injuries as not survivable. The moment is intimate and devastating, and the report includes Brendan praying afterward with a patient advocate present.
Back at the scene, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis speaks to reporters and confirms two adults were killed, one from a shooting and one from stabbing injuries. He notes the man was “unrelated to the household,” and says the relationship is unclear. Investigators, he explains, still need to work out the sequence of violent acts.
Conclusion: a story that starts with “intruder” and ends with unanswered questions
Part 1 of “The Au Pair, the Affair and Murder” lands on the unsettling gap between a first explanation and what police still needed to confirm. The video lays out a household, a new au pair, a frantic 911 call, and a morning that left investigators sorting relationships, timelines, and credibility. Whatever comes next in the broader story, the opening chapter is already a reminder that the first story isn’t always the full story.
For the full broadcast context mentioned in the description, the episode is promoted as available to stream via the official 20/20 episode link, and ABC also points viewers to ABC News’ official site for updates.
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