<\/p>\n
Virginia\u2019s former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who was a rising star in the Democratic party several years ago before his career was derailed by sexual assault allegations, fatally shot his wife before killing himself early Thursday, police said.<\/p>\n
Both were found dead at their northern Virginia home in Annandale after the couple\u2019s teenage son called 911 shortly after midnight, said Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis.<\/p>\n
The couple was going through a divorce, and Fairfax was served recently with paperwork that indicated when he was next to appear in court, Davis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat may have been a spark,\u201d the chief said. \u201cDetectives will figure out if that led to this tragedy here.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a brief period in 2019, Fairfax had seemed poised to become Virginia governor as Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam became engulfed in a scandal over a racist photo on his medical school yearbook that led to calls for Northam\u2019s resignation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But then two women came forward, accusing Fairfax of sexually assaulting them years earlier. He adamantly denied the allegations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vanessa Tyson said Fairfax – at the time a Columbia Law School student serving as an aide to Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards – forced her to perform oral sex in his hotel room during the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004. Two days after Tyson\u2019s statement, Meredith Watson issued her own, accusing Fairfax of raping her in 2000, when they were students at Duke University.<\/p>\n
Fairfax said the encounters were consensual and refused calls to resign.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they are victims of sexual assault, but both women came forward publicly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very sad for this community,\u201d Davis said. \u201cA lot of people who know the Fairfax family, everybody\u2019s shocked. We\u2019re shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n
EDITOR\u2019S NOTE – This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org<\/em><\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press.\u00a0<\/em> Virginia\u2019s former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who was a rising star in the Democratic party several years ago before his career was derailed by sexual assault allegations, fatally shot his wife before killing himself early Thursday, police said. Both were found dead at their northern Virginia home in Annandale after the couple\u2019s teenage son called<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[505,1256,8973,8974,1797,2517,785],"class_list":{"0":"post-27025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jesus","8":"tag-dead","9":"tag-governor","10":"tag-lieutenant","11":"tag-murdersuicide","12":"tag-police","13":"tag-virginia","14":"tag-wife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"