ANNANDALE, VA — Court documents reveal that former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax had lost custody of his two teenage children and had been ordered by a judge to leave the family home before he shot and killed his wife and himself early Thursday, The Washington Post reports.
Fairfax’s wife, Cerina Wanzer Fairfax, had filed for divorce in July 2025. The couple had married in 2006. In court documents cited by the Washington Post, she described her husband as steadily spiraling out of control after leaving office in 2022. He began “heavy daily alcohol use” that year, she testified, and isolated himself from his family. He also bought a gun with money intended for horseback riding lessons for the family’s two children.
Money had been an issue for the couple. In documents shared by DC News Now, Cerina Fairfax testified that her husband had not abided by a post-nuptial agreement the couple had arrived at in December 2024, including not paying child support or contributing to the mortgage of their home on Guinevere Drive in Annandale.
He was refusing to leave the home, although the Associated Press reports that at the end of March, the judge in their case had ordered the former lieutenant governor to move out. Cerina Fairfax intended to buy out her husband’s interest in the home.
The judge had also awarded primary custody of their children to Cerina Fairfax, with Justin Fairfax allowed parenting time twice a week, contingent upon him taking Breathalyzer tests before and after seeing them.
In that court order, the Associated Press reports, the judge noted that “it is clear tensions in the Fairfax home have been extremely high for an extended period of time.”
But the judge appeared to write with some sympathy about the former lieutenant governor, according to the Washington Post, describing him as someone struggling with "undefined emotional and psychological issues" that were limiting his ability to function as a husband and father.
At some point, Cerina Fairfax had security cameras installed inside their home. Fairfax County police officers used that footage to investigate a January 2026 incident in which Justin Fairfax claimed his wife had assaulted him. Police determined that hadn’t happened. Police say that was the only time they were ever called to the Fairfax home.
Justin Fairfax shot his wife multiple times before turning the gun on himself. Their two teenage children were present. It was the couple’s son who called 911.
Fairfax served as Virginia's lieutenant governor to Gov. Ralph Northam from 2018 to 2022. He was thought to have a promising political future until assault allegations were made against him in 2019. Fairfax denied the allegations and successfully resisted calls to resign, but he was not able to parlay his turn as lieutenant governor into a run for governor: he finished fourth in the Democratic primary in 2021.
Cerina Fairfax was a dentist with her own practice in Fairfax.
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