{"id":199336,"date":"2026-04-16T14:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T14:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/199336\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T14:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T14:02:12","slug":"ex-lt-gov-justin-fairfax-kills-wife-in-virginia-in-murder-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/199336\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax kills wife in Virginia in murder-suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Embattled former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax<\/a> killed his wife and then shot himself inside their home early Thursday in the throes of a \u201cmessy divorce,\u201d cops said.<\/p>\n

The 47-year-old Democrat repeatedly shot his dentist wife, Cerina Fairfax, in the basement of their Annandale home just after midnight before turning the gun on himself, according to police.<\/p>\n

The couple\u2019s two teenage children were inside the home at the time of the murder-suicide. Their son was the one who called 911 to report the shootings, cops said.<\/p>\n

Embattled former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax killed his wife, Cerina Fairfax, before killing himself in their Virginia home, police say. Facebook \/ Justin Fairfax<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is high-profile in nature, it\u2019s tragic in nature. Certainly a fall from grace for a relatively high-profile family that seemingly had had a lot of things going in their favor,\u201d Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said of the shocking violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo tragic for the children to lose both parents, extra tragic for them to actually be in the home when it occurred. So yeah, there\u2019s a lot going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple, who had been married 20 years, were separated but still living together amid the ongoing divorce proceedings, cops confirmed.<\/p>\n

Cerina first slapped the former federal prosecutor with the divorce papers in July last year, according to court records.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been an ongoing domestic dispute surrounding what seems to be a complicated or messy divorce,\u201d Davis said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fairfax County Police investigate the scene where Fairfax and his wife died Thursday morning in Annandale, Virginia, April 16, 2026. Kyle Mazza-CNP for New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a secret that there\u2019s been a divorce proceedings that have been ongoing. From what I understand in this early stage, former Lieutenant Governor Fairfax was recently served some paperwork associated with an upcoming court proceeding that apparently led to this incident last night.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tragic saga unfolded just months after police responded to the family\u2019s home back in January after Fairfax falsely accused his wife of assaulting him.<\/p>\n

Investigators later determined he\u2019d lied after reviewing footage from multiple cameras that the wife had set up inside the home.<\/p>\n

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It wasn\u2019t immediately clear when, or why, Fairfax\u2019s wife installed the cameras.<\/p>\n

The reason for their split also wasn\u2019t clear.<\/p>\n

The apparent marital woes came several years after Fairfax was hit with a slew of sexual assault claims<\/a> while he was in office in 2019.<\/p>\n

Justin and Cerina\u2019s children were inside the home at the time of the murder-suicide. Facebook \/ Justin Fairfax<\/p>\n

At least two women publicly accused him of sexually assaulting them in 2000 and 2004.<\/p>\n

He maintained the sexual encounters were both consensual and refused to resign.<\/p>\n

Fairfax then launched a failed bid for governor in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He ultimately left his post in 2022 when he was ousted by Republican Winsome Earle-Sears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Embattled former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax killed his wife and then shot himself inside their home early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[79280,14034,9,11,10,58,418],"class_list":{"0":"post-199336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-justin-fairfax","9":"tag-murder-suicide","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-us-news","14":"tag-virginia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}