Man Kills Daughter, Attacks Family Members With Meat Cleaver In Fairfax

FAIRFAX, VA — Two people were killed and two others were hospitalized with severe injuries early Monday morning, when a man attacked his family with a "meat cleaver" at a garden-style apartment complex east of the City of Fairfax, according to authorities.

A 30-year-old man was cleaning snow off his car in a parking lot of an apartment complex in the 3900 block of Persimmon Circle in the Mantua neighborhood, when he heard a disturbance inside the apartment where he lives with his wife, one-year-old baby and his wife's parents.

"The son-in-law goes back into the apartment, finds his wife suffering from stab wounds," said Chief Kevin Davis, during a news conference. "He enters the apartment and sees that his father-in-law is armed with a knife."

Davis described the knife as having a 10-inch blade that resembled a meat cleaver.

"His father-in-law is stabbing his wife," Davis said. "He had already stabbed his daughter, and then the father-in-law turned the knife on his son-in-law."

Hearing the disturbance, a neighbor called 911 and two officers responded to the attack, according to police.

Entering the apartment, the officers repeatedly told the man to drop the knife, but he continued to attack his son-in-law, according to Davis. One of the officers fired their service weapon, killing the older man who'd just killed his daughter and stabbed his wife and son-in-law.

The son-in-law and his mother-in-law were taken to a nearby hospital with serious injuries, according to Davis. The one-year-old child was unharmed.

"I've been doing this a long time, as have all of us," Davis said. "That a person, a patriarch of a family, attempts to take so many lives in such a moment like this, thank God, doesn't happen here or elsewhere very often. But when it does, it reminds all of us that domestic violence can start at a really low level and escalate really, really quickly."

FCPD had not received any previous reports of domestic violence in connection to the apartment where Monday's attack had occurred, Davis said.

Police have not released the names of the suspect or any of the family members.

The officer who shot the suspect was placed on modified duty for the duration of the investigation, according to Davis. The department will work with the Commonwealth Attorney's office to investigate the shooting.

"The services that are being afforded to not only the family and those who are impacted by this crime, who live in the community, it's the same level of care that we afford our own police officers who are involved in these traumatic, critical incidents," he said. "It's tough. In spite of their training, it's a difficult scenario for them to go through as well."