The Au Pair Murders
Criminology
Emash Digital
4.7 • 7.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 March 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Brendan and Christine Banfield had been together for nineteen years. They dated for many years, got married, and had a daughter named Valerie. The family was living in Herndon, Virginia, and because of their busy schedules they decided to hire a nanny.
Join Mike and Morf as they discuss what has been called "The Au Pair Murders" by the press. On the morning of February 24th, 2023, Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, and Brendan Banfield called 911. They claimed they found Brendan's wife, Christine, and that she had been attacked by an intruder who turned out to be a man named Joseph Ryan. Both Joseph and Christine were dead, but the authorities thought that the story told by Brendan and Juliana sounded suspicious.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. |
| 0:05.8 | Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 402 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. |
| 0:43.1 | And this is Mike Morford. |
| 0:44.8 | Mr. Morford, how you doing this week, buddy? |
| 0:47.0 | I'm doing pretty good. How you doing? |
| 0:48.9 | I'm doing great. I am ready for March Madness. It's one of my favorite times of year. |
| 0:55.4 | Yeah, I know that's a time when, you know, when you've got extra time, |
| 0:58.8 | you're watching some basketball. |
| 1:00.3 | So I was thinking about that when we got on this morning. |
| 1:03.5 | Yeah, I mean, I didn't watch as much college basketball as I normally do this year. |
| 1:08.3 | But for some reason, I just love the tournament. |
| 1:11.3 | You know, I love the upsets, the small schools versus the big schools. |
| 1:15.3 | And it's just fun to sit and watch. |
| 1:18.9 | And sometimes, you know, go with your friends and go to like a Buffalo Wild Wings or whatever |
| 1:24.2 | it is and just sit and watch a bunch of games one after another. |
| 1:28.8 | Yeah, you got to do what you got to do to relax and rewind a little bit. |
| 1:32.7 | Absolutely. |
| 1:33.9 | Well, we didn't have any new Patreon support. |
| 1:36.6 | So no new shoutouts to give. |
| 1:38.7 | But, you know, like we always said, we really appreciate those who support us on Patreon. |
| 1:43.6 | Yeah, that really helps us out. And for all those that do support the show, thank you so much. |
| 1:48.2 | For anyone else that wants to, you can get started by going over to patreon.com slash criminology. |
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