{"id":200261,"date":"2026-04-17T01:57:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/200261\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T01:57:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:57:23","slug":"justin-fairfax-was-a-raging-drunk-who-bought-gun-with-kids-horseback-riding-money-before-murder-suicide-court-docs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/200261\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Fairfax was a raging drunk who bought gun with kids’ horseback-riding money before murder-suicide: court docs"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANNANDALE, Va. \u2014 Disgraced ex-Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax became a raging alcoholic and deadbeat father after his professional life and marriage unraveled<\/a> \u2014 and he stole money meant for his kids in order to buy a gun, bombshell divorce documents obtained by The Post reveal.<\/p>\n

The father of two\u2019s apparent mental breakdown was laid bare in court filings filed in January tied to his ongoing divorce \u2014 just months before he killed his wife, Cerina<\/a>, on Thursday in a tragic murder-suicide.<\/p>\n

Fairfax apparently was drinking so heavily that he would lock himself away in the office of his family\u2019s home, where he lived among \u201cempty wine bottles, trash and piles of dirty laundry\u201d \u2014 and would only emerge \u201clong enough to get food or smoke cigarettes,\u201d the documents allege.<\/p>\n

Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and his wife, Cerina Fairfax, with their two children. Facebook\/Justin Fairfax<\/p>\n

He purchased a handgun in 2022 with cash that was supposed to be used for his teenage children\u2019s horseback riding lessons, according to the filings.<\/p>\n

He also repeatedly allowed the family\u2019s mortgage to go into default and dodged household bills, the docs claim.<\/p>\n

Cerina alleged that Fairfax \u201chad chosen not to be a productive member of the family and that the dictionary definition of \u2018deadbeat\u2019 was accurate as applied to him,\u201d the filing states.<\/p>\n

The judge noted that Fairfax, who was representing himself in the acrimonious divorce, didn\u2019t dispute the facts of the allegations against him.<\/p>\n

As a result of his deadbeat behavior, a judge had ordered Fairfax to leave the family home by April 30. <\/p>\n

The couple\u2019s bodies were removed from the home Thursday morning. Kyle Mazza-CNP for New York Post<\/p>\n

But two weeks before that deadline, Fairfax ended up killing his estranged wife<\/a> and himself inside their million-dollar home in Annandale outside the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n

The court documents shed light on Fairfax\u2019s downward spiral in the years after his stunning fall from grace.<\/p>\n

His mental health started to decline after multiple women came forward in 2019 to\u00a0accuse him of sexual assault, the filing states. <\/p>\n

Follow the latest news on ex-Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax\u2019s murder-suicide:<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time, [Fairfax] was the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia and was an ascendant political figure who was eyeing a run for Governor. The assault allegations deeply affected [him] and appear to have put an end to those plans,\u201d per the documents. <\/p>\n

The estranged couple were going through a contentious divorce at the time of the murder-suicide. Facebook \/ Justin Fairfax<\/p>\n

Then, after he left office in 2022, Fairfax only withdrew further from his family and his behaviors \u201chave not abated to this day,\u201d his wife alleged. <\/p>\n

\u201cTogether, these facts paint a vivid picture of [Fairfax] as a talented man who struggles with undefined emotional and psychological issues. Yet there can be no mistake that these undefined issues are in fact defining him and limiting his ability to be the person he is capable of being, including but not limited to the role of dad,\u201d the docs stated. <\/p>\n

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\u201cAll things considered, it is clear the trauma experienced by [Fairfax] has not been fully processed, and the isolation, drinking, and lack of participation in family life are manifestations of what seems to be a sense of fatalism and hopelessness. [He] presented no plan to address the root causes of the situation and exhibited little or no self-awareness of the impact of his behavior on others.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Cerina first slapped her husband with divorce papers in July 2025, a year and a day after the couple initially separated.<\/p>\n

Police acknowledged the \u201cmessy divorce\u201d was likely to blame for Thursday\u2019s bloodshed that saw Fairfax repeatedly shoot his wife in the basement of their home before\u00a0turning the gun on himself in another part of the house<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANNANDALE, Va. \u2014 Disgraced ex-Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax became a raging alcoholic and deadbeat father after his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200262,"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-200261","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\/200261","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=200261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}