Justin Fairfax, the former lieutenant governor of Virginia, shot and killed his wife Cerina Fairfax before taking his own life, police have said. The shootings occurred on Thursday at their home in Annandale, Virginia, after an evening of domestic dispute linked to a divorce.
Police received a 911 call from one of the couple’s teenage children shortly after midnight. Kevin Davis, chief of Fairfax county police, said the killings were the culmination of “an ongoing domestic dispute surrounding what seems to be a complicated or messy divorce”. The couple were living together despite the divorce proceedings.
Fairfax, 47, served as lieutenant governor from 2018 to 2022 under Ralph Northam. He was the second African American to hold statewide office in Virginia since Reconstruction but his political career was derailed in 2019 when two women accused him of sexual assault, allegations he denied. In 2021 he finished fourth in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Court documents revealed a troubled life after office, including heavy daily alcohol consumption and isolation. In 2022 he purchased a gun and once left home with the firearm and a packed suitcase, later found by family in a park. A judge had set a 30 April deadline for Fairfax to move out and granted primary custody of their two children to Cerina.
Police had been called to the residence once before, in January, when Fairfax accused his wife of assault, but cameras showed no incident occurred. Journalist Sophia Nelson, a friend, said Fairfax was “depressed” and “in darkness”, and that he had told her, “I need somebody to help me, to prove my innocence.” She said Cerina “did not deserve what Justin did to her”.
