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 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 did not, at least in the initial briefing, offer details on motive beyond the domestic context.
Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said the shooting came amid “an ongoing domestic dispute,” and that the couple was in the middle of a “complicated or messy divorce.” Davis told reporters that court records indicate 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 said.
The case lands at a moment when Fairfax’s political story already carries heavy baggage. He was once considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, elected Virginia’s lieutenant governor in 2017 and becoming only the second African American elected to statewide office. He served under Democratic Governor Ralph Northam, whose tenure included 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.
Misryoum newsroom reported that Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., offered 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. Misryoum newsroom also noted that Sophia A. Nelson, a political journalist and author who followed Fairfax closely, said she was “horrified” and “devastated” by the news.
Nelson, who had called for Fairfax’s resignation in 2019, later retracted her position in a 2022 op-ed. She told Misryoum newsroom that she had “just spoke[n] to him the other day,” adding that he “was deeply depressed” and “going through a bad divorce.” She said, “Those who knew him were talking to him. We never saw this coming,” and that “We are all devastated.”
For people who watched Virginia politics in those years, the announcement is jarring—like the sudden hush right after a door closes, before anyone can decide what to say next. And yet, police say the immediate circumstances were rooted in a domestic dispute and a divorce process that had grown complicated enough to involve court paperwork. How any of this is processed publicly—by parties, by colleagues, by anyone who felt connected to Fairfax’s rise and fall—may take time, and it won’t be tidy.
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