Former lieutenant governor of Virginia kills wife and self
You can find the horrendous story here:
Embattled former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax killed his estranged wife and himself inside their million-dollar home outside the nation’s capital early Thursday, cops said.
The 47-year-old Democrat repeatedly shot Cerina Fairfax in the basement of their Annandale residence just after midnight before turning the gun on himself in another part of the abode, according to Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis.
The couple’s two teenage children were inside the home at the time of the murder-suicide, and their son called 911 to report the shootings.
A bit of background – during 2019, when Governor Northam was facing calls to resign, Fairfax had been the subject of allegations of rape from over fifteen years earlier. They were never proven, he denied them, Northam stayed put, and Fairfax lost a 2021 run for governor. Fairfax is black, his wife is black, and the rape accusers were black. More recently Fairfax’s life seemed to be falling apart:
“I don’t think it’s a secret that there’s 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.”
Conservative columnist Sophia Nelson, who described Fairfax as a “close friend,” claimed on X that he was “deeply depressed” due to the ongoing divorce battle, but insisted “we never saw this coming. Ever. We are all devastated.”
Police had responded to the family home back in January after Fairfax accused his wife of assaulting him.
Investigators later determined he’d lied after reviewing footage from multiple cameras that Cerina had set up inside the home.
How did police know so quickly that he killed his wife and then himself? It was on those same cameras, which he did not bother to disable
More here, from documents filed by his wife during their divorce. Again, we don’t know if this is true, but at this point it’s easy to believe it is:
Fairfax apparently was drinking so heavily that he would lock himself away in the office of his family’s home, where he lived among “empty wine bottles, trash and piles of dirty laundry” — and would only emerge “long enough to get food or smoke cigarettes,” the documents allege.
Cerina alleged that Fairfax “had chosen not to be a productive member of the family and that the dictionary definition of ‘deadbeat’ was accurate as applied to him,” the filing states.
The judge noted that Fairfax, who was representing himself in the acrimonious divorce, didn’t dispute the facts of the allegations against him.
As a result of his deadbeat behavior, a judge had ordered Fairfax to leave the family home by April 30.
It’s also a logical conclusion that the order to vacate was the immediate motivation for the murder-suicide. With 20/20 hindsight, it’s also easy to say that he should have been removed from the home earlier by police and sent to rehab (involuntarily if necessary), although that kind of action would have been unusual.
Things had gotten this bad financially:
Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax was more than $750,000 in debt when his estranged wife Cerina filed for divorce this past July, according to documents reviewed by The Post.
Fairfax, who shot and killed Cerina and himself early Thursday in their Annandale home, claimed in financial disclosures to have set up a private law practice out of his residence. However, his gross income was given only as “varies” and his frequency of pay was listed only as “periodic.”
The onetime Democratic rising star also claimed to have no cash on hand, credit card debt nearing $28,000, an additional personal loan or lien against him worth an estimated $25,000, and outstanding student loans worth an estimated $33,700.
Fairfax also claimed a line of credit worth $550,000 from Long Island-based mortgage lender Arcdec Capital Solutions and a separate $117,000 loan from Florida-based AHA Real Estate LLC.
This seems to be a case of a man spiraling down into failure, alcoholism, and degradation, who decided not to let his wife escape either. It is a terrible tragedy and crime and I see no particular political implications in it. I hope the children get a lot of help; I assume they will need it.
[NOTE: Here’s a post I wrote about Fairfax back in 2019, when the sexual allegations were in the news.]
Extremely tragic, in every way. It really shines the light on how little recourse there may be when a spouse or family member goes off the deep end (thinking of the Reiner’s son.)
Tragic. The point is, if it had been a Republican, it would be top story of network news. Democrat…..crickets.
“I see no political implications in it” I do.
Typo alert [wink] – Governor Ralph Northam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Northam
M J R:
Thanks, fixed.
Sennacherib:
Plenty of people see this as somehow a political story. I do not, and that’s why I mentioned it. I see it as a classic fall. Can happen to people of any race, religion, or political persuasion. It usually doesn’t happen to people who’ve been lieutenant governors; I can’t think of another, offhand.
Over a period of 15 years, he had two stints in government law jobs and held positions at three private law firms.
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I’m remembering Vester Flanagan, a local television news reporter who, over a period of 18 years, had a long string of positions in progressively smaller markets. He was fired from his last position in 2013. Two and a half years later, broke and reduced to working for call center and gay escort services, he woke up one early morning and returned to the station in question. He waited until two employees left on an early morning to do promotional interviews with the executive director of one of the local Chambers of Commerce. The two employees in question were a young reporter and young cameraman whom he’d known. He arrived at the mall where they were conducting the interviews and murdered the reporter, murdered the cameraman, and put a bullet in the back of the lady from the Chamber of Commerce (who successfully played dead). He was dead of a suicide before the day was out.
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Kinda wondering if Justin Fairfax was the legal profession’s version of Vester Flanagan and discovered upon leaving the Lt. Governor’s office that there was no one in the law business who would hire him or work the phones for him and no one he’d ever had as a client who would take an interest in what services he had to offer. (In Flanagan’s case, it was his generation of drama in the workplace that was the issue).
Prayers for his late wife, his children, and the proximate relations on both sides.
And him too, Art. To be that lost. God have mercy.
What a tragic fall. The teenaged children will start adulthood with nothing, since debts will surely swallow the sale value of the house.