Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said he believed the interior cameras were on during the murder-suicide, which occurred just after midnight on Thursday
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Cerina and Justin Fairfax in 2018 (left); Fairfax County police outside their home on April 16, 2026 (right).Credit :
Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty; AP Photo/Cliff Owen
Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax’s wife, Cerina Fairfax, set up cameras inside their house as the estranged couple went through a “messy divorce,” police said. On Thursday, April 16, authorities say Justin fatally shot Cerina at home before killing himself.
Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis told reporters outside the family’s home in Annandale, Va., that police first became aware of the cameras in January, when they were called to the home after Justin alleged that Cerina assaulted him.
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Davis added he believed the cameras were on during the apparent murder-suicide, which occurred just after midnight on Thursday. The pair’s teenage daughter and son were home at the time and their son called 911, he added.
“Certainly, there’s enough cameras inside the home that we were able to corroborate some” of the details of the shootings, Davis said.
In January, police relied on footage from the home security cameras to determine that Cerina had not assaulted Justin.
“Apparently, Mrs. Fairfax at some point during these divorce proceedings set up a lot of cameras inside the home,” Davis said. “We reviewed those cameras and we corroborated that the alleged assault never occurred. So there was no arrest made.”
He said the couple was separated and living in the same home but in different bedrooms, describing it as “an ongoing domestic dispute surrounding what seems to be a complicated or messy divorce.”
The police did not file charges against Justin in January for falsely reporting a crime because “there’s a high bar to charge someone with making a false report,” the police chief explained, but a report was written.
“The family was going through seemingly a tough time with the separation and the divorce,” Davis added.
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Cerina was a dentist, Davis said. Justin was the state’s lieutenant governor from 2018 to 2022.
In 2019, Justin faced multiple sexual assault allegations from the early 2000s, but denied all wrongdoing and stayed in office.
He ran for governor in 2022, placing fourth in the Democratic primary before returning to private practice as an attorney.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
