Fairfax had compiled an ‘enemies list’ of fellow Democrats who turned sour on him following sexual assault allegations in 2021
Former Virginia lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax (D.) and his wife are dead after a murder-suicide at their Annandale home early Thursday morning, local police announced.
Fairfax, 47, shot his dentist wife, Cerina Fairfax, several times in the basement of their home before turning the gun on himself in a different part of the house. His two teenage children were home at the time of the incident, according to Fairfax County police chief Kevin Davis, who said the couple had been going through a “complicated or messy divorce.”
“I don’t think it’s a secret that there’s been a divorce proceedings that have been ongoing,” Davis said. “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.”
Cerina Fairfax filed for divorce in July 2025. Court records show the couple were amid contentious proceedings concerning child custody and assets. A county judge had recently ordered Fairfax to appear in court on April 21.
The gruesome incident comes several years after Fairfax used his personal X account to make a so-called enemies list of his fellow Democrats who spoke out against him in February 2019, when he faced sexual assault allegations from two women, including a John Kerry staffer at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger (D.), then a congresswoman, was among those calling for Fairfax’s resignation over the allegations, saying in a statement that the then-lieutenant governor had shown “exceptionally poor judgment in his handling of these allegations” by using “vile and degrading language” to describe his accuser.
The allegation came at a tenuous time in Virginia politics. One week earlier, reports surfaced showing then-governor Ralph Northam (D.) pictured in a yearbook image showing a man costumed in blackface and another in a Klansman’s hood, leading to widespread calls for Northam’s resignation.
Had Northam resigned, Fairfax would have taken his position as Virginia governor. But Northam stood fast as Fairfax found himself under fire for the sexual assault allegations, which he said were “false and unsubstantiated.”
Fairfax’s accuser had taken her story to the Washington Post months before the right-wing site Big League Politics reported on the allegations in February 2019. The Post, which praised Fairfax as a prosecutor with “a passion for justice” in 2017, when it endorsed his campaign for lieutenant governor, said it couldn’t corroborate the allegations.
Fairfax was instrumental in passing Virginia’s first red flag gun law in 2020, when he served as lieutenant governor, casting the tie-breaking vote in the State Senate to pass the measure. The law allowed authorities to temporarily take weapons away from individuals suspected of posing a danger to themselves or others.