Former Virginia lt. governor killed wife in murder-suicide while their children were home: police

A former Virginia lieutenant governor and his wife were found dead in the early hours of Thursday morning at their home in Annandale, in what police are calling a murder-suicide.

Fairfax County Police say that Justin Fairfax, 47, shot his wife, Cerina, multiple times before taking his own life. Their two teenage children were home at the time and called 911, according to police.

Police Chief Kevin Davis reported on Thursday that the shooting came amid “an ongoing domestic dispute,” and that the couple was in the middle of a “complicated or messy divorce.” Court records indicate that the two were still living together, but that divorce proceedings were ongoing.

“Former Lieutenant Governor Fairfax was recently served some paperwork associated with an upcoming court proceeding that apparently led to this incident last night,” Davis told reporters.

Fairfax was once considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, after he was elected Virginia’s lieutenant governor in 2017, making him only the second African American elected to statewide office. He served under Democratic Governor Ralph Northam, who was himself at the center of a notorious blackface scandal.

In 2019, Fairfax faced two sexual assault allegations from women who said he forced himself on them. Fairfax denied the allegations and finished out his term in 2022, but lost the support of his party, effectively ending his political career amid calls for his resignation. In the 2021 Democratic primary for governor, Fairfax received just 3.6% of the vote.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., offered his condolences to Fairfax’s children. “I’m keeping Cerina and Justin Fairfax’s children in my prayers as we all process this shocking and horrifying news,” he said in a post on social media.

Sophia A. Nelson, a political journalist and author who followed Fairfax closely, said she was “horrified” and “devastated” by the news. “I just spoke to him the other day,” Nelson said in post to X.

Nelson, who called for Fairfax’s resignation in 2019, retracted her position in a 2022 op-ed in the Washington Post.

“He was deeply depressed. He was going through a bad divorce,” Nelson said in a separate post. “Those who knew him were talking to him. We never saw this coming,” Nelson said. “We are all devastated.”