The news out of Annandale, Virginia this morning is hard to process. A former Democratic Lieutenant Governor — a man who once sat a heartbeat from running his state — is dead. And so is his wife. Police say he shot her first. Then he turned the gun on himself. It happened just after midnight. Their children were in the house. Fox News confirmed the basics of the horror story early Thursday morning: BREAKING: Former Democratic Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax shoots and kills wife before taking his own life, Fairfax County police say pic.twitter.com/QjYqDNNnmb— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 16, 2026 The former Lt. Gov’s name is Justin Fairfax. If that rings a bell, it should. He’s the Virginia Democrat who was accused of sexual assault by two women back in 2019 — allegations he denied but that effectively ended his political career and sank his run for governor. Now his name is back in the national news for the worst possible reason. CBS News laid out the heartbreaking details of how the scene was discovered: Former Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax fatally shot his wife, Cerina Fairfax, then died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound just after midnight in Annandale, Virginia.Fairfax’s son called 911 from the home. The son initially thought his mother had been stabbed.Police arrived to find bullet casings near her body and then discovered Justin Fairfax upstairs with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.Fairfax County Police Captain Chris Cosgriff said: “Preliminarily, it appears that the adult male shot the adult female before shooting himself in a domestic-related incident.” Let that sink in. A child calling 911 because he thought something horrible had happened to his mom — and it turned out to be even worse than he imagined. Local DC station WTOP was one of the first to break the story on the ground: BREAKING: Police say former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax shot and killed his wife before turning the gun on himself inside an Annandale home. This story is developing.https://t.co/TVMn0ArmHf— WTOP (@WTOP) April 16, 2026 But the most disturbing details came later in the morning when Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis held a briefing. WTOP reported on what the chief said happened inside the home: Officers responded to the 8100 block of Guinevere Drive shortly after midnight Thursday. According to police, Justin Fairfax shot his wife Cerina multiple times in the basement, then moved to another part of the home and fatally shot himself with the same firearm.Three children were in the house during the incident: two teenage boys and a younger girl.Police Chief Kevin Davis said, “This has been an ongoing domestic dispute surrounding what seems to be a complicated or messy divorce.”According to Davis, Fairfax had been served paperwork related to an upcoming court proceeding that “apparently led to this incident.”Davis also said Fairfax had previously alleged his wife assaulted him, adding: “we review those cameras, and we corroborated that the alleged assault never occurred.”The chief said there had “certainly been a fall from grace” for the Fairfax family. Three children in the house. Two teenage boys and a little girl. Those kids will never be the same. The reaction online was swift. Commentator Benny Johnson summed up what a lot of Americans were feeling: SHOCKING: Former Democrat Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax dead after killing his wife over divorce filing in sickening murder-suicide.This is horrific. pic.twitter.com/4K02fWtIsV— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 16, 2026 It’s a tragedy no matter how you slice it. Whatever the politics, whatever the history — a woman is dead. A man is dead. And three kids are waking up to a world that will never make sense to them again. Pray for them.