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FAIRFAX, Va. — <\/span>A Brazilian au pair who has pleaded guilty to manslaughter testified against her former employer and lover on Wednesday in a double homicide case that prosecutors say was part of an elaborate scheme to get rid of the man’s wife. <\/p>\n Brendan Banfield is charged with aggravated murder<\/a> in the 2023 killings of Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan at the Banfields\u2019 home in northern Virginia. He has pleaded not guilty and could face life in prison if convicted. <\/p>\n Prosecutors have said that Banfield, an IRS agent, and Juliana Peres Magalh\u00e3es, the family\u2019s au pair, were in love. In order to get rid of Christine Banfield, the pair impersonated her on a social media site for sexual fetishes and spent a month arranging an elaborate rape scenario with Ryan, a stranger. They killed Ryan and Christine Banfield after staging it to look like they had shot an intruder who was attacking Christine Banfield with a knife, Magalh\u00e3es testified on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Magalh\u00e3es, who was raised in the outskirts of S\u00e3o Paulo, was originally charged with murder but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter<\/a> in 2024 after cooperating with investigators. She will be sentenced at the conclusion of Banfield\u2019s trial. Depending on her cooperation with authorities, attorneys have said she could be sentenced to the time she\u2019s already served.<\/p>\n Banfield\u2019s attorney, John Carroll, said in opening statements on Tuesday that Magalh\u00e3es had maintained her innocence for a year but eventually changed her story after she lost faith in her attorney. <\/p>\n \u201cThe whole reason she was arrested was to flip her against my client,\u201d Carroll said.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Carroll asked Magalh\u00e3es to read portions from letters she had written from jail to Brendan Banfield and others. They expressed depression and frustration with her situation. \u201cNo strength. No courage. No hope,\u201d she wrote at one point. <\/p>\n Banfield, whose 4-year-old daughter was at the house on the morning of the killings, is also charged with child abuse and felony child cruelty<\/a> in connection with the case. He will face those charges during the aggravated murder trial.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Associated Press writer Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n