Democrat At Center Of Murder-Suicide Was Rocked By Sexual Assault Claims

Seven years before former Virginia Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax murdered his wife and committed suicide, he faced sexual assault allegations that derailed his rising political career.

Fairfax, who was found dead Thursday morning by police after apparently shooting his wife during a domestic dispute, was once a rising star in Democratic politics before multiple women came forward in 2019 accusing him of sexual assault. Those allegations came to light after then-Governor Ralph Northam weathered his own scandal when old pictures of him in blackface surfaced.

Following Northam’s blackface scandal, some, including former President Joe Biden, floated the idea that Fairfax could become the next governor of Virginia.

“There is no place for racism in America. Governor Northam has lost all moral authority and should resign immediately. Justin Fairfax is the leader Virginia needs now,” Biden said.

Those calls quieted down weeks later after Fairfax was accused by two women of sexual assault dating back to 2000 and 2004.

Vanessa Tyson, the first woman to lodge accusations against Fairfax, said he sexually assaulted her during the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. In an interview with CBS News, she said that he forced himself on her after they started kissing in his hotel room.

“You know, and he kind of … gently takes my hands and … guides me towards the bed … And we’re still kissing, right? And it’s completely consensual,” she said. “He guides me to the bed. And then, you know, he sits down on the bed … And what happens from there, you know — we start kissing lying down, but on the very edge of the bed.”

She then accused him of forcing her head into his crotch and said she couldn’t move her neck.

The second woman, Meredith Watson, accused Fairfax of raping her back in 2000 when they were both students at Duke University.

Fairfax denied both allegations and said he was being targeted, but many Democrats abandoned him and called for him to resign.

The FBI later launched a probe into the allegations and looked at whether there was a potential political motive at play. At the time, Fairfax said he was interviewed as part of an investigation into whether there was any benefit offered to his accusers.

During his run for governor in 2021, Fairfax compared himself to lynching victims. He accused Terry McAuliffe, one of his Democratic primary opponents, of treating him like George Floyd.

“Everyone here on the stage called for my immediate resignation, including Terry McAuliffe three minutes after a press release came out,” Fairfax said. “He treated me like George Floyd; he treated me like Emmett Till — no due process, immediately assumed my guilt. I have a son and a daughter. I don’t ever want my daughter to be assaulted, I don’t want my son to be falsely accused. And yet this is the real world that we live in.”

His claims did not garner much sympathy from Democrats, and he failed to break 5% in the Democratic primary election. After his failed gubernatorial bid, he left politics to enter the private sector.

Police suggested Thursday that Fairfax shot his wife because the couple was going through a messy divorce. They said that Fairfax was recently served papers related to the ongoing split.

“While he served as lieutenant governor, and even afterwards, was a rising star politically, not just in northern Virginia, but in Virginia, so it’s high-profile in nature,” Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said Thursday. “It’s tragic in nature, certainly a fall from grace for a relatively high-profile family that seemingly had a lot of things going in their favor.”