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Posted: 2024-07-24T11:00:00Z | Updated: 2024-07-24T11:00:00Z

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A murder trial in a baffling case involving an au pair, her two employers, a visiting stranger and a fetish website has been pushed back to this fall as questions continue to swirl about whether it was self-defense or a premeditated plot.

Juliana Peres Magalhaes, 23, was indicted in April on charges of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Joseph Nathan Ryan, 39, at the Fairfax County home where she lived with married couple Brendan and Christine Banfield, providing child care for their 4-year-old daughter.

When police arrived at the house in the affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., just after 8 a.m. on Feb. 24, 2023, they found Ryans body in the Banfields upstairs bedroom. Ryan had allegedly been shot twice, by different guns, and died at the scene.

But Ryan wasnt the only victim.

Not far from his body, Christine Banfield lay dying. The 37-year-old pediatric nurse had been stabbed numerous times in her upper body, investigators said, and died at the hospital.

She was nude, and Ryan, a stranger to the family, was fully clothed, authorities said.

The Banfields daughter was at home when the killings took place but was physically unharmed, authorities said.

Peres Magalhaes mother, Marina Peres Souza, told the Brazilian news outlet Folha in October that her daughter had acted in self-defense to protect herself and the family. She was shocked by her daughters arrest, she said, because Peres Magalhaes told her the case had been closed several months prior.

They are saying horrible things about my daughter but its not true. She wouldnt hurt a fly, Peres Souza said.

A July trial was pushed to November as questions remain whether any charges will be filed against Brendan Banfield, a 39-year-old IRS criminal special agent who authorities said also fired at Ryan and initially told a 911 dispatcher he was responsible for the shooting. Authorities have also hinted that he may face charges, and theyve said that he and Peres Magalhaes were having an affair before and after the killings. At one point, they allegedly visited a gun range together.

Prosecutors and the defense are expected to argue before a jury about Brendan Banfields role in the killings and whether the gunshot fired by Peres Magalhaes was self-defense or murder. Also at issue is an account created with Christine Banfields laptop on a website catering to people with fetishes, including BDSM. Both sides agree that the account sent messages to Ryan, arranging a date at the house. But did Christine Banfield write them? Or were they a ruse to lure the man to the house?