"I Was Heartbroken For What I Was Doing To Brendan" — Juliana Peres Magalhaes Testifies Against Her Former Lover
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3.3 • 910 Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
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Summary
From a jail cell, Juliana Peres Magalhaes wrote to her mother that she was "heartbroken" for what she was doing to Brendan Banfield. She said she still loved him. But she wanted to go home.
Now she's the prosecution's star witness — and on Day 1 of Banfield's murder trial, she delivered. Magalhaes described in graphic detail how Banfield allegedly shot Joseph Ryan in the head, then stabbed his wife Christine repeatedly in the neck while their 4-year-old daughter waited in the basement.
Prosecutors allege Banfield and Magalhaes created a fake fetish website profile using Christine's identity to lure Ryan to the home for what he believed was a consensual sexual encounter. Instead, they say, he walked into an ambush.
But Magalhaes spent a year in jail facing murder charges before she changed her story. Her plea deal gives her time served and a return to Brazil — but her sentencing is scheduled after Banfield's trial. That timing is deliberate. Her freedom depends on conviction.
Retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer has worked with cooperating witnesses throughout her career. She knows how to evaluate credibility — and she knows how prosecutors prepare a witness whose motivation is obvious. In this coverage, she examines what corroborating evidence prosecutors need, how defense attorneys will attack Juliana's credibility, and what jurors should watch for when testimony comes from someone with everything to gain.
The defense argues digital forensics show Christine — not Brendan — was communicating with Ryan. They say investigators who contradicted the catfishing theory were removed from the case.
Banfield faces four counts of aggravated murder. If convicted, he faces life without parole plus 13 years. The trial continues.
#BrendanBanfield #JulianaPeresMagalhaes #ChristineBanfield #JosephRyan #AuPairMurder #JenniferCoffindaffer #HiddenKillers #MurderTrial #CooperatingWitness #TrueCrime
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the big breakdown. A long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers podcast and true crime today. |
| 0:09.2 | This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Burski, Stacey Cole, and Todd Michaels. |
| 0:17.7 | The prosecution's entire case here in the Auxair Affair murder trial that's getting underway of |
| 0:23.7 | Brennan-Brandt. It comes down to one person, Juliana Perez Mangalese. She spent a year in jail |
| 0:30.6 | facing second-degree murder charges. Then she changed her story, took a plea deal for manslaughter with time served and agreed to testify |
| 0:40.3 | against the man she allegedly helped commit double murder. |
| 0:43.3 | She gets to go home to Brazil. |
| 0:45.3 | All she has to do is say what prosecutors need her to say. |
| 0:49.3 | But here's the thing. |
| 0:50.3 | From a jail cell, she wrote to her mother mother and she was heartbroken for what she was doing |
| 0:56.9 | to Brendan, that she still loved him. So how does the juryway testimony from a witness whose |
| 1:02.0 | freedom depends entirely on conviction? Jennifer Coffendaff, a retired FBI special agent, |
| 1:08.7 | is here to help us break all that down. |
| 1:12.2 | The sentencing is scheduled for after Banfield's trial. |
| 1:17.2 | This is the scheduling for Juliana, meaning nothing or go back to Brazil, to ensure that she continues to cooperate. |
| 1:26.3 | I mean, essentially, that means to ensure that she continues to say what we want her to say. |
| 1:30.3 | If she doesn't say what we want her to say, they could say you're not going back home. |
| 1:34.1 | I mean, this, again, it just, this doesn't feel like the free will of a witness in a case like this when you're holding literally her future in front of her. |
| 1:43.9 | And Tony, that happens every day in every investigation from the standpoint of we get witnesses that are jailhouse snitches. |
| 1:55.2 | We get witnesses. |
| 1:56.3 | Look, you can't get choir boys to talk about gangbanging or to talk about murders, right? It's people who have |
| 2:02.0 | their hands dirty in one way or the other in terms of the crime because those are the witnesses |
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