Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax shot and killed his wife Cerina Fairfax before turning the gun on himself in their Annandale home Thursday, police say.
Investigators at the scene of a fala shooting in Annandale.(WTOP/Neal Augenstein)
Investigators at the scene of a fala shooting in Annandale.(WTOP/Neal Augenstein)
Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax shot and killed his wife Cerina Fairfax before turning the gun on himself in their Annandale home Thursday, police say.
Officers responded to the 8100 block of Guinevere Drive shortly after midnight.
When they arrived, police found a man and a woman dead inside the Annandale home.
“Former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, shot and killed his wife ( inside of their home and then shot and killed himself<‘ Fairfax Police Chief Kevin Davis told reporters at a briefing.
“This has been an ongoing domestic dispute surrounding what seems to be a complicated or or messy divorce.”
Davis noted that divorce proceedings had been ongoing for some time.
Fairfax was apparently “recently served some paperwork associated with an upcoming court proceeding that apparently led to this incident last night,” Davis said.
The police chief said their children, two teenage boys and a younger girl were in the house when it happened.
According to Davis, Fairfax “shot several times and killed his wife ran to a different part of the home and then killed himself with the same firearm.”
The murder, Davis said, happened in the basement. Then Fairfax ran upstairs.
Fairfax had previously alleged that his wife assaulted him.
“We responded to that scene. There are several cameras set up inside the house. Apparently, Mrs. Fairfax, at some point during these divorce proceedings, set up a lot of cameras inside the home, we review those cameras, and we corroborated that the alleged assault never occurred,” Davis said.
He added that there had certainly been a “fall from grace” for Fairfax.
The former Lt. Gov. faced accusations of sexual assault in 2019.
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