A Year and a Half Later, Hubby Charged in Odd Double Murder

It's been more than a year and a half since a man and a woman were found murdered in a Virginia home, and almost a year since the live-in au pair for the woman's family was charged in one of the murders. Now, the woman's husband has been charged in both murders, and authorities say he and the au pair had been engaged in an extramarital affair, the New York Times reports. The details:

• The victims: Christine Banfield, 37, was fatally stabbed in the Herndon home she shared with her husband, Brendan Banfield, and their daughter, who was 4 at the time. Joseph Ryan, 38, was shot dead in the home.
• The suspects: Brendan Banfield, now 39, is accused of plotting the murders with his family's Brazilian au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães, now 24. Both made 911 calls and were at the scene when authorities arrived. (More details on how that morning went down in our previous coverage.) Magalhães is charged with second-degree murder in Ryan's death; Brendan Banfield is charged with aggravated murder in both deaths.

• The alleged plot: The Washington Post took a detailed look at the case earlier this month, before Brendan Banfield was indicted, and says authorities believe Magalhães was "part of an elaborate ruse that lured a man interested in sexual fetishes to the Banfields' Fairfax County home and ended in both his and Christine Banfield's deaths." Ryan came to the Banfields' home that morning after getting a message on a fetish site from an account that was maintained on Christine Banfield's computer, but a prosecutor says authorities have not found "one iota of evidence that she was into knife play, binding, BDSM." Authorities believe someone else was messaging Ryan from Christine Banfield's computer and arranged the meeting, NBC Washington reports. Magalhães and Brendan Banfield claimed they shot at Ryan after finding him stabbing Christine Banfield.
• The alleged affair: Authorities say Magalhães and Brendan Banfield had been romantically involved for months prior to the murders; by the time the au pair was arrested, she had moved into the Banfields' master bedroom, where a framed photo of her and Brendan Banfield sat on the nightstand and where her clothes hung in Christine Banfield's old closet. Authorities say before the murders, Magalhães and Brendan Banfield went to a shooting range together, and that Banfield bought a gun there weeks later. They also say both of them got new phones days before the murders.

(More Virginia stories.)