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Flags across Virginia will fly at half-staff Monday, May 4, in memory of Dr. Cerina Fairfax and other people whose lives have been lost to domestic violence.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger ordered U.S. and Virginia flags lowered at all state and local government buildings and grounds from sunrise to sunset.
“We remember Dr. Cerina Fairfax’s life and her devotion to others, her patients, and most especially, her children,” Spanberger said. “We honor her educational achievements, professional success, service to our Commonwealth, and her deep love for her family.”
Fairfax, a dentist who operated her own Fairfax City practice, was fatally shot by her husband, former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, at their Annandale home early April 16. Police said Justin Fairfax then fatally shot himself in an apparent murder-suicide.
Their two teenage children were inside the house but were not physically injured, according to the Fairfax County Police Department.
The couple married in 2006 and separated during the summer of 2024 after years of reportedly volatile behavior by Justin Fairfax. He served as lieutenant governor from 2018 to 2021, but his political prospects diminished after two women accused him of sexual assault in 2019.
Cerina Fairfax filed for divorce last July. Based on court records cited by multiple news organizations, a Fairfax County judge awarded her sole custody of the children and ordered Justin Fairfax to leave the family home by the end of April. A court hearing was scheduled for April 21.
Police had previously responded to the residence. Police Chief Kevin Davis said Justin Fairfax alleged in January that his wife had assaulted him, but security-camera footage from inside the home showed that claim was false.
A Woodbridge native, Cerina Fairfax founded Fairfax Dentistry and Associates in 2007. Patients, colleagues and friends mourned her as a dedicated dentist and mother, while her obituary remembered her as a pillar of the community.
“We honor Dr. Cerina Fairfax by drawing attention to the reality that women in any community or circumstance may face domestic violence,” Spanberger said, “and we lower the flags in memory of her and all women whose lives have been lost to domestic violence.”
About one in three women and one in four men have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner, according to Fairfax County Domestic and Sexual Violence Services. The agency says a gun’s presence in a domestic violence situation raises the risk of homicide by 500%.
Intimate-partner and family violence accounts for one-third of Virginia’s homicides each year, according to the Virginia Department of Health. Virginia is also among the nation’s 10 leading states for murder-suicide cases, with 173 recorded since 2016. Every one involved a firearm.
Spanberger this year signed two bills sponsored by Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, strengthening Virginia’s red flag law. The law, in effect since 2020, allows courts to temporarily remove firearms from people believed to pose a danger to themselves or others.
The revisions expand the group of people who may request an emergency removal order and create a training program to help law-enforcement agencies use the process and increase public awareness of it.
Anyone experiencing domestic violence can contact Fairfax County’s 24-hour hotline at 703-360-7273. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is available at 1-800-799-7233 or by texting “START” to 88788. The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988.