Police say former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax shot his wife in the basement of their home before killing himself upstairs, a violent end to what authorities described as a “complicated or messy divorce.”
Officers responding after midnight found Cerina Fairfax unconscious and bleeding on the floor of the unfinished basement, while Justin Fairfax was later discovered in a bedroom with a gun and an apparent self-inflicted wound to the head, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said during a briefing.
Davis outlined the sequence investigators have pieced together: Justin Fairfax fired on his wife in the basement, then moved to the primary bedroom where he turned the weapon on himself.
Authorities say the couple had been living in the same home despite being separated and were using different bedrooms.
The couple’s two teenage children were inside the house when the shooting unfolded, and one of them made the 911 call that brought police to the scene.
Davis described the situation as “a traumatic event for those children to live through.”
Dispatch recordings and initial reports indicate the call came from the couple’s 16-year-old son, Cameron, who told operators his mother was lying on the ground bleeding and that he could see holes in her shirt. He also said he did not know where his father was at the time.
When first responders arrived, a medic radioed that the victim appeared to be dead at the scene, telling dispatch, “The husband’s not gonna be here. It’s gonna look like an obvious D.O.A.,” and adding that she “doesn’t have a pulse.”
Investigators say the killings came as the couple’s divorce proceedings were moving forward, with Cerina Fairfax, 49, having filed for divorce the previous year and a court appearance scheduled in the coming days.
🎇Honor America’s 250th Anniversary!!!🎇 Get your 2026 Heritage Foundation commemorative membership card ➡️➡️➡️ ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP NOW!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Authorities said Justin Fairfax had recently been served paperwork connected to that upcoming hearing.
Davis said that service of court papers “apparently led to this incident,” while also noting investigators believe the legal developments “may have been a spark” for the violence.
Police have also examined earlier calls to the home, including a January report in which Justin Fairfax alleged his wife had assaulted him.
Davis said surveillance cameras inside the house showed that “the alleged assault never occurred,” and officers have since collected footage to help corroborate details surrounding the fatal encounter.
Officials with the county medical examiner’s office removed both bodies from the residence, and autopsies are expected to determine the exact causes of death.
“It is high profile in nature, 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,” Davis said.
“So tragic for the children to lose both parents, extra tragic for them to actually be in the home when it occurred.”
Justin Fairfax, 47, served as Virginia’s Democratic lieutenant governor from 2018 to 2022 under then-Gov. Ralph Northam and later ran for governor in 2021.
During his time in public life, he faced sexual assault allegations from two women related to incidents in 2000 and 2004.
Fairfax denied those accusations, saying the encounters were consensual, and his wife publicly supported him at the time.
Authorities have not indicated any direct connection between those past allegations and the events inside the home.
Elsewhere in Virginia, a separate case involving a Virginia lawmaker and domestic tensions is also moving forward in court.
Prosecutors say Shotsie Michael Buck-Hayes, 29, plans to change his plea to guilty after allegedly setting a city councilman on fire in an attack tied to an affair involving his wife.
According to police testimony, Buck-Hayes admitted he bought gasoline at a station with the intent to murder Danville City Councilman Lee Vogler.
Officers said he used a lighter to ignite the fuel after dousing Vogler during the July 30, 2025 attack.
At a preliminary hearing, an officer testified that Buck-Hayes told police “he set the person on fire who had an affair with his wife.”
The assault left Vogler, with second- and third-degree burns across roughly 60 percent of his body. His wife later said he also suffered burn shock and inhalation injuries affecting his lungs.
Vogler spent months recovering before eventually returning to his duties on the city council, according to local reports.
Investigators say Buck-Hayes fled immediately after the attack, but witnesses provided a description of him and his vehicle. Officers located him several blocks away and took him into custody.
Court records indicate that Buck-Hayes’ wife had filed for divorce just two weeks before the incident, a timeline prosecutors have highlighted as part of the case.
He initially pleaded not guilty to charges including attempted first-degree murder, aggravated malicious wounding and breaking and entering, but is now expected to change that plea in court.
