A Virginia man was indicted in the killing of his wife and another man at the married couple’s Fairfax County home, authorities said Monday, nearly a year after the family’s au pair was charged in the case.

A grand jury indicted Brendan Banfield on the charge of aggravated murder in the February 2023 killings of Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan, according to a bench warrant filed in Fairfax Circuit Court. Banfield was also charged with one count of felony firearm use.

Police Chief Kevin Davis said at a news conference that Banfield was arrested while driving in Fairfax County, and that authorities were searching his home on Monday. An attorney for Banfield did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Banfield’s arrest comes nearly a year after Juliana Peres Magalhães, an au pair caring for the Banfields’ daughter, was charged with second-degree murder in Ryan’s killing, but not Christine Banfield’s, CBS affiliate WUSA-TV reported. Magalhães is scheduled for trial in that case in November.

“The fact that we’ve indicted Brendan today and made that arrest does not mean that her case is being thrown out,” Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano said. “We intend to go forward with that case as scheduled.”

WUSA-TV posted video of a handcuffed Banfield being led into a police vehicle outside the Fairfax County Public Safety Headquarters.

On the day of the killings, authorities have said Magalhães called 911 at least two times within minutes, but ended the calls before speaking with first responders. More than 10 minutes later, authorities have said in court, Magalhães called 911 a final time and reported the emergency. Brendan Banfield then spoke into the phone and said he had shot a man because that man stabbed his wife.

Authorities soon arrived at the Banfields’ home in Herndon, Virginia, and found that Ryan had been fatally shot and Christine Banfield suffered from stab wounds. She was taken to the hospital, where she died.

According to affidavits, Magalhães told authorities she and Brendan Banfield left the house early that morning, leaving Christine Banfield home alone. Magalhães said she and Brendan Banfield returned later that morning.

When Magalhães and Brendan Banfield went inside, the two found Ryan holding a knife to Christine Banfield’s throat, Magalhães said. She alleged Ryan stabbed Christine Banfield and that Brendan Banfield then shot Ryan. Magalhães also told authorities that she shot Ryan once with a second firearm.

Earlier this year, Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Clingan shared records that showed two months before the shooting, Magalhães and Brendan Banfield visited a fun range in Ashburn, Virginia, WUSA-TV reported. A few weeks later, Clingan said Brendan Banfield also purchased a gun which would eventually be used to shoot Ryan.

Authorities have said the killings were part of a larger scheme between Magalhães and Brendan Banfield, whom officials allege began a romantic relationship in the months leading up to the killings. At court hearings for Magalhães, prosecutors questioned her telling of events, arguing that Ryan was not known to be violent. Prosecutors also have said Magalhães and Brendan Banfield continued their romantic relationship after the double homicide.

Ryan’s mother, Deirdre, told WUSA-TV Monday that she was grateful that the charges were filed.

Prosecutor Descano said Banfield would be arraigned later this week. He was being held without bail at the Fairfax County jail.

Banfield is facing four counts of aggravated murder and one count of using a firearm during the commission of a felony, even though only two people were killed that day in 2023, WUSA-TV reported.

“The reason we did that is, it’s very lawyerly and technically, but essentially it boils down to in the aggravated murder statute there are a number of different options to prove that. When we took a look at what we intend to present at trial, we believe our presentation of evidence can possibly hit both of those different subsection elements,” Descano said.

“We wanted to cover all our bases and make sure the jury had every option that they could want when looking at the evidence,” Descano added.

Geneva — Independent U.N. human rights experts said in a new report Tuesday that their findings show Venezuela’s government has intensified the use of “harshest and most violent” tools of repression following the disputed July presidential election. The official results of the July 28 vote have been widely criticized as undemocratic, opaque and aimed primarily at maintaining President Nicolás Maduro’s position in power.

In its report, the fact-finding mission on Venezuela, commissioned by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council, denounced rights violations including arbitrary detentions, torture, and sexual and gender-based violence by the country’s security forces that “taken as a whole, constitute the crime against humanity of persecution on political grounds.”

“During the period covered by this report, and especially after the presidential election of July 28, 2024, the state reactivated and intensified the harshest and most violent mechanisms of its repressive apparatus,” said the experts in the report, which covered a one-year period through Aug. 31.

The findings echo concerns from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Human Rights Watch, and others about Venezuela and its democracy, including repression before and after the highly anticipated vote and the subsequent flight into exile of Venezuela’s opposition leader Edmundo González.

Marta Valiñas, head of the experts team, said that between July 29 and Aug. 6, Venezuelan authorities acknowledged they arrested more than 2,200 people.

“Of these, we have confirmed the arrest of at least 158 children — some with disabilities,” Valiñas told reporters at a news conference Tuesday in Geneva, noting that some had been accused of serious crimes, such as terrorism.

“This phenomenon is something new and extremely worrying,” she said. “We are facing a systematic, coordinated and deliberate repression by the Venezuelan government which responds to a conscious plan to silence any form of dissent.”

Among those detained recently are three U.S. nationals, two Spaniards and a Czech citizen, all accused of plotting to destabilize Venezuela through “violent actions,” the government said on Sept. 14, adding that hundreds of weapons were allegedly seized. 

One of the Americans is an American Navy sailor detained earlier this month while visiting the country on personal travel, U.S. officials have confirmed to CBS News. The sailor is a petty officer first class and formerly a Navy SEAL who was assigned to a West Coast team, U.S. officials said. 

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, said he won the election with 52% of the vote. But opposition supporters collected tally sheets from 80% of the nation’s electronic voting machines, and said that indicated González had won the election — with twice as many votes as Maduro.

Global condemnation over the lack of transparency prompted Maduro to ask Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice, whose members are aligned with the ruling party, to audit the results. The high court reaffirmed his victory.

The independent experts, who do not represent the United Nations, comprise a fact-finding mission created in 2019. They have been reporting on rights violations — including alleged crimes against humanity — in Maduro’s Venezuela for years. This report, the fifth of its kind, decried the government’s efforts to crush peaceful opposition to its rule.

The justice system — led by the Supreme Tribunal — “is clearly subordinated” to the interests of Maduro and his close allies and served as a “key instrument in its plan to repress all forms of political and social opposition,” they wrote.

In the hours after Maduro was declared the winner, thousands of people took to the streets across Venezuela. The protests were largely peaceful, but demonstrators also toppled statues of Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, threw rocks at law enforcement officers and buildings, and burned police motorcycles and government propaganda.

Maduro’s government responded to the demonstrations with full force, carrying out arbitrary detentions, prosecutions as well as a campaign that encourages people to report relatives, neighbors and other acquaintances who participated in the protests or cast doubt on the results.

Patricia Tappatá Valdez, a member of the expert team, said it had verified that at least 143 arrests involved members of seven opposition parties, including 66 leaders of political movements.

“Politically motivated persecution is evident,” she said. “These figures represent a level of repression that we have not seen since 2019.”

The independent experts said they compiled the report through interviews with 383 people and reviews of court case files and other documents while also acknowledging limits to their information-gathering in the post-election period.

The experts said their requests for information from Venezuelan authorities were “ignored” despite appeals for cooperation from the rights council, which is made up of a rotating membership among 47 U.N. member countries.

Washington — The Senate is set to vote Tuesday on legislation to protect access to IVF as Democrats look to draw attention to Republicans’ positions on the issue following former President Donald Trump’s statements supporting the fertility treatments.

The package, called the Right to IVF Act, centers on a right to receive and provide IVF services, while working to make the treatments more affordable. The legislation was blocked by Senate Republicans just three months ago.

Now, Democrats are daring the GOP to reconsider their votes, with fewer than 50 days until Election Day.

“If Donald Trump and Republicans want to protect people’s right to access IVF, they can vote yes on it,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who sponsored the legislation, said in an interview with CBS News. “He’s shown that it only takes one sentence from him, and the Republican Party will fall in line behind him.”

The issue was thrust into the national spotlight early this year, when the Alabama Supreme Court deemed that embryos are children under state law, which prompted providers to temporarily halt fertility treatments in the state. Since then, amid concern about access to IVF in Alabama and beyond, many Republicans have expressed their support for the popular fertility treatments, including Trump in last week’s presidential debate. 

Democrats have sought to tie IVF to reproductive rights more broadly, arguing that the 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade opened the door to restrictions on other procedures.

“From the moment the MAGA Supreme Court reversed Roe as Donald Trump promised they would, Democrats warned that the hard-right would not stop there in eliminating reproductive freedoms,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a letter to colleagues on Sunday, adding that “IVF has become one of the hard-right’s next targets.”

The New York Democrat said the upper chamber would vote again on the package due to Trump’s recent pledges of support for the issue, including backing a mandate that would require insurance companies to cover IVF services, which is also a provision in the Democratic-led legislation. All but two Senate Republicans voted against the bill in June.

“So, we are going to give our Republican colleagues another chance to show the American people where they stand,” Schumer wrote. 

Senate Republicans have repeatedly expressed support for IVF, while claiming that the  Democratic package goes too far. And when two GOP senators unveiled their own package to protect access to the procedure in May, Democrats quickly rejected it, questioning its scope and its enforcement mechanism, which makes continued access to IVF a condition for states to receive federal funding for Medicaid.

The two sides have yet to identify a bipartisan path forward on the issue as they head toward what will likely be another failed vote on the IVF legislation Tuesday. 

Trump has been under pressure from multiple sides in recent months over reproductive rights. While he’s often touted his appointment of three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, he’s also said he believes that abortion should now be left up to the states. And his recent statements in support of expanding access to IVF, while claiming to be a “leader on fertilization,” have earned him rebukes from conservatives who oppose the practice.