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A Virginia man who was having an matter pinch nan family’s Brazilian au brace was sentenced connected Friday to life successful situation without parole for the execution of his woman and a man who was lured to nan couple’s location arsenic a autumn guy.
Brendan Banfield, a erstwhile Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rule enforcement officer, claimed he changeable Joseph Ryan aft he came crossed Ryan attacking his woman connected nan greeting of 24 February 2023. But prosecutors said Brendan Banfield and au brace Juliana Peres Magalhães group Ryan up successful a strategy to termination Christine Banfield, a pediatric intensive attraction nurse.
Judge Penney Azcarate called Banfield’s behaviour evil and calculated.
“The disregard of nan life of your wife, personification you supposedly loved, is almost unfathomable,” she said successful handing down nan sentence, which is mandatory successful Virginia for an aggravated execution conviction.
The strategy progressive “luring a wholly guiltless man into your deadly trap; continuing connected aft nan murders without a care; and not erstwhile – not erstwhile – reasoning of nan impact” connected nan Banfields’ four-year-old daughter.
Brendan Banfield “took everything from her”, Azcarate said.
In summation to murder, jurors successful February convicted Banfield of kid endangerment because nan couple’s girl was location during nan killings. Azcarate sentenced Banfield to an further 5 years connected that complaint and 3 much years connected a firearms charge.
Speaking astatine his sentencing, Banfield proclaimed his innocence. Banfield said he loved his woman and, though he had affairs, he ne'er intended to time off her.
Azcarate was unmoved, citing his deficiency of remorse arsenic a logic she felt nary hesitation successful ordering him to stay down bars for life.
During Friday’s hearing, Christine Banfield’s older sister, Danielle Hocker, described her sister arsenic kind, caring, reliable and selfless. She said they grew up chasing fireflies and sleeping adjacent to each different connected nan level successful sleeping bags.
“When she was born, ‘I’ became ‘we’,” Hocker said. “I haven’t stopped saying ‘we’ erstwhile I speak astir my puerility aft her death, isolated from now erstwhile I do, it takes my activity distant – a region filled pinch emotion that has obscurity to go.”
Ryan’s mother, Deidre Fisher, told nan tribunal that her boy was an “extremely caring” personification who was a caretaker for his grandma and different loved ones.
“Joe was a feline who believed successful fighting for nan underdog, and moreover existent neglected dogs,” Fisher said, pinch a mini laugh. “He would locomotion into an animal shelter and inquire for nan oldest, ugliest dogs, bring them location and emotion them for years.”
