Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax kills wife before taking own life
Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax shot and killed his wife inside their Annandale home before killing himself, according to police. Their 2 teenage children were inside the house when it happened.
The shootings happened just after midnight on Thursday in the 8100 block of Guinevere Drive in Annandale, a suburb west of Washington, D.C. Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said one of the couple’s children called 911.
Davis said Fairfax shot his wife several times in the basement of the home, which he described as unfinished, before going upstairs to the primary bedroom and killing himself with the same gun. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
Police identified the gunman as Justin Fairfax. Davis said the killings appeared to be the culmination of an ongoing domestic dispute tied to what he described as a complicated divorce.
“What we know is that Mrs. Fairfax, at some point in time, and Mr. Fairfax were living together while separated, in separate bedrooms,” Davis said. “Everybody’s shocked. We are shocked.”
Fairfax had recently been served paperwork connected to a court proceeding, which Davis said may have been “the spark” of the incident.
According to NBC News, Cerina Fairfax was awarded custody of the couple’s children last month. The outlet said the two were due back in court on Monday for a three-day trial over the division of assets, and Fairfax had been ordered to leave the home by April 30.
Davis said police had only one prior call to the home before the killings. In January, he said, Fairfax called police and claimed his wife had assaulted him, but officers reviewed home surveillance cameras and found that the alleged assault had not occurred.
The children, described by Davis as high school students, were in the house during the shooting. “That’s horrible news for the family, certainly a traumatic event for those children to live through,” he said.
Fairfax, 47, served as Virginia’s lieutenant governor from 2018 to 2022 under Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam. He had once been seen as a rising Democratic figure in Virginia politics.
In 2019, two women accused Fairfax of sexual assault in separate incidents from years earlier, allegations he denied and said involved consensual encounters, according to NBC News. The accusations led some Virginia Democrats to call for his resignation.
NBC News also reported that court records said Fairfax bought a handgun in 2022 after losing the personal security that came with serving as lieutenant governor.
The outlet said separate court filings described an incident that year in which Fairfax left home with the gun and was later found in a public park while experiencing what relatives described as an adverse psychological event.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
