Former Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax Murders Wife Before Killing Himself

Former Democratic lieutenant governor of Virginia Justin Fairfax murdered his wife before committing suicide overnight, police said Thursday. 

Police believe Fairfax shot his wife Cerina after a domestic incident at their home in Annandale, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. Police waited hours to release the identities while they said they notified next of kin.

“Former Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax shot and killed his wife inside of their home, and then shot and killed himself,” police said Thursday, adding that the couple was in the middle of a messy divorce.

Local outlet Fox5 reported that the first call to report the incident came shortly after midnight from someone who said he believed his father had stabbed his mother. Police arrived and found a woman unconscious and bleeding, discovering that she had been shot. The caller did not know where their father was, but police later found him dead in another part of the house.

The house was later identified as belonging to Fairfax and there were reportedly multiple people inside the house at the time of the suspected murder-suicide. Fairfax had two children, both teenagers, who were in the house at the time of the murder.

The first information about the killing began trickling in shortly after midnight when police posted an alert on their investigation.

“Shortly after midnight, officers responded to the 8100 block of Guinevere Drive in Annandale, where they located an adult male and an adult female deceased inside of a residence. Preliminarily, it appears that the adult male shot the adult female before shooting himself in a domestic related incident. We were withholding the identities of the individuals until next of kin can be notified.”

Police added that “all parties are accounted for & there is no threat to the community.”

Fairfax was the lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2018 to 2022 and faced sexual assault allegations in 2019 shortly after images of then Democratic Governor Ralph Northam wearing blackface emerged.

The FBI later conducted an investigation into how the allegations surfaced against Northam and probed whether they were politically motivated.

Fairfax later ran for governor in 2021, but did not make it out of the Democratic primary. During his time in office, he pushed for gun control, including restrictions on magazine capacity and so-called assault rifles. He also supported abortion and raising the minimum wage.