Two Women. Two Tragedies. One Preventable Crisis: What Untreated Depression in Black Men Is Costing Us All
- Apr 22
- 10 min read
A Psychoeducational Response to the Tragedies of Dr. Cerina Wanzer Fairfax and Shaneiqua Pugh
By Dr. Alduan Tartt, PhD Licensed Clinical Psychologist
"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." — Psalm 34:18
"Two are better than one... for if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up." — Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
In the span of just three days in April 2026, America witnessed two tragedies that shook our collective conscience and demanded a reckoning long overdue.
On April 16, former Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax shot and killed his wife, Dr. Cerina Wanzer Fairfax — a 49-year-old dentist, mother of two, and woman of extraordinary accomplishment — inside their home in Annandale, Virginia, before taking his own life. Their teenage son placed the 911 call shortly after midnight.
On April 19, 31-year-old Shamar Elkins shot and killed eight children — seven of them his own, ages 3 to 11 — across two homes in the Cedar Grove neighborhood of Shreveport, Louisiana. His wife, Shaneiqua Pugh, was shot in the face and survived. Elkins was killed by police after a chase. The children were shot in their sleep.
Two tragedies. Two Black men. Two women who tried every legal remedy available to protect themselves. Two sets of children who will carry these nights for the rest of their lives.
And in the aftermath of both tragedies, a necessary — and difficult — national conversation began.
The Interview That Started a Conversation
In the days following these events, Roland Martin convened a panel discussion on Roland Martin Unfiltered that included myself — Dr. Alduan Tartt — and Dr. Keith Washington to address what had happened through the lens of Black men's mental health. We spoke about depression, shame, the clinical conditions that precede catastrophic violence, and what the mental health system has failed to do for Black men. That conversation generated both gratitude and critique — and both deserve a response.
A Word About Context and Criticism
Dr. Stacey Patton, a scholar whose advocacy for survivors I genuinely respect, wrote a widely circulated piece expressing concern that the panel centered the perpetrator's psychology at the expense of the victim's humanity. Her commitment to ensuring that women like Dr. Cerina Fairfax are never reduced to footnotes in a story about the men who harmed them is a commitment I share fully — and I take her concern seriously.
What the clip that circulated did not show was that Dr. Cerina Wanzer Fairfax was centered at the opening of the full interview, before I was asked specifically to explain the mental health dynamics at play. I was responding to a direct clinical question in that context. On the question of sequencing — that victims must always be named first, fully, and without qualification before any clinical framework is introduced — Dr. Patton is right, and I affirm that standard without reservation.
Where I respectfully offer a different clinical perspective is on her broader suggestion that discussing untreated male depression in proximity to intimate partner homicide is itself a form of deflection. As a licensed psychologist, I cannot in good conscience agree. Untreated depression is not a peripheral detail in these tragedies — it is documented and causally relevant. Fairfax's court records cited daily alcohol use and no evidence of professional mental health treatment. Elkins expressed suicidal ideation to his mother two weeks before the shooting and posted public prayers about his "dark thoughts" ten days prior. These are not excuses. They are clinical warning signs that, had they been recognized and treated, may have saved the lives of the women and children who died.
Clinical psychoeducation is not designed to exonerate. It is designed to interrupt. Understanding the pathway to violence is how we build the systems — in courts, churches, and communities — that stop the next woman from dying. Naming the disease that preceded these tragedies honors Cerina and Shaneiqua not only by mourning them, but by protecting the women still alive. That is a conversation worth having, and worth having well.
The Disease That Wore a Disguise
Major Depressive Disorder with Suicidal Ideation — what Shamar Elkins himself called "dark thoughts" in a prayer posted publicly ten days before the shooting — is not sadness, weakness, or spiritual failure. It is a neurological condition that physically alters the brain in ways that impair judgment, distort thinking, and narrow available options. When untreated long enough, it culminates in what clinicians call cognitive constriction: the brain's collapse to a single, terrifying point where the only exit the mind can perceive is death.
Three brain regions are central to this process.
The Prefrontal Cortex — the rational, deliberating part of the brain — governs decision-making, impulse control, and the capacity to pause before acting. In chronic, untreated depression, this region literally shrinks. When it goes offline, the brake on catastrophic action disappears.
The Amygdala — the brain's threat-detection alarm — becomes hyperactivated in depression and stuck on permanent high alert. Every stressor is processed as a survival emergency. A court date. A legal paper. A door closing. The brain is no longer accurately reading the environment — it is generating catastrophic threat signals internally, without pause or reset.
The Hippocampus — the brain's context keeper — shrinks under chronic stress. This is the part that says, "This is hard, but I have survived hard things before." When it deteriorates, a man loses access to his own history of resilience. He cannot remember that pain has ever ended. This is the neurological substrate of hopelessness — not a feeling, but a structural reality.
When all three systems collapse simultaneously — the CEO offline, the alarm stuck on maximum, hope structurally inaccessible — what remains is a man in a full neurological emergency. The tragedy of both Shamar Elkins and Justin Fairfax is that neither had ever been given the clinical vocabulary, the cultural permission, or the community pathway to name that emergency and seek help for it.
Shamar Elkins called his mother two weeks before the shooting, crying, saying he had "dark thoughts" and wanted to end his life. His stepfather told him with genuine love — "You can beat it, man." Elkins responded: "Some people don't come back from their demons."
That sentence is not resignation. That is a clinical emergency spoken in the only language an undiagnosed, untreated, isolated man knew how to use. And no one in his circle had the framework to recognize it as the 911 call it was.
When Divorce Becomes a Crisis Trigger
Both Justin Fairfax and Shamar Elkins were in active separation and divorce proceedings when the violence occurred. This is not coincidental — it is one of the most thoroughly documented risk factors in the clinical literature. Research shows that separated men face nearly five times the suicide risk of married men, and that one in five male suicides occurs in the context of intimate partner problems including divorce.
For many men — especially those who have built their entire identity around being a husband, father, and provider — the disintegration of a marriage is not merely the end of a relationship. It is the simultaneous collapse of identity, home, fatherhood, financial stability, and their only emotional support system. Fairfax had lost his political career, his law partnership, custody of his children, and was ordered to vacate his home. He was served legal papers days before the killing. Elkins had lost his marriage, was losing his children through court proceedings, and had expressed suicidal ideation just two weeks earlier. He was due in court the morning after the shooting.
In both cases, the legal proceeding served as an acute trigger — the final signal that everything the man had built his identity around was gone — colliding with a brain already compromised by untreated depression and without the neurological capacity to see any path forward.
This tells us exactly where the intervention window was — and how fatally we missed it. Court systems that process divorce and custody proceedings without mandatory mental health screening for men showing documented signs of depression, suicidal ideation, and firearm access are not merely inefficient. They are dangerous. The research finding that the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500% demands that disarmament become a standard component of separation proceedings where mental health warning signs are present.
Why Black Men Don't Seek Help — And What Must Change
Black Americans are 36% less likely to receive mental health treatment than the general population. Only 25% seek care at all, compared to 40% of white Americans. Only 4% of American psychologists are Black. And men die by suicide at four times the rate of women — because they show fewer warning signs, use more lethal methods, and have been socialized to suffer in silence.
Depression in Black men does not announce itself through tears. It looks like daily drinking. Overworking to avoid the stillness where the pain lives. Explosive anger disproportionate to the trigger. Withdrawal from family. False accusations against partners. Posting prayers about "dark thoughts" on social media while telling no one the true depth of the crisis. That last one is not hypothetical — it is exactly what Shamar Elkins did on April 9, ten days before the shooting: "When depression tries to settle in, when anger rises, when anxiety or panic comes, give me the awareness to recognize what is not from You and the strength to reject it immediately in the name of Jesus."
He was asking God for help. And God answers prayers through people. The clinical professional who could have been that person was nowhere in his pathway.
This is why language matters. "Mental illness" sounds like shame. "Mental strength," "optimization," "getting your mind right" — this language opens doors that clinical terminology closes. The APA's CEO, Dr. Arthur Evans, testified before Congress in 2024 that the current mental health model — which requires a diagnosis before rendering help — ignores 75% of those who need support. He called for meeting people where they already are: the church, the barbershop, the men's ministry, the brotherhood circle.
Proverbs 11:14 says: "In the multitude of counselors there is safety." Therapy is counsel. Going to get it is not weakness. It is wisdom. And for some men, it is the only thing that stands between them and a decision they cannot take back.
What Women Need to Hear
To every woman reading this who is afraid — trust your body. You do not need a bruise to call the hotline. You do not need to have been physically struck to begin safety planning.
The most dangerous period in a domestic violence relationship is when a woman begins the legal process of leaving — when papers are filed, custody is decided, removal from the home is ordered. This is when the risk of lethal violence is highest, because this is when the man's identity loss, legal pressure, and untreated depression converge. Safety planning must begin before separation is announced. It must include safe housing options, important documents in an accessible location, a safety word with trusted people, and knowledge of local shelter resources.
When a man says something like "some people don't come back from their demons" — that is not a metaphor to acknowledge and move past. That is a clinical emergency. Call 988. Connect him to a professional that same day. And if you feel your safety or your children's safety is at risk — call 911.
You cannot love a man out of untreated major depression. The most important thing you can do for yourself and your children is have a plan — and execute it safely.
What Men Need to Hear
To every man reading this who has been carrying something he has not named — who is praying at midnight while bleeding internally, who told someone "I'm fine" today when he was anything but — this is written for you.
Depression is not a character deficiency. It is a brain disease. Your prefrontal cortex is failing under the weight of untreated neurological strain. No amount of prayer, toughness, or willpower sets a broken bone — and no amount of prayer, toughness, or willpower corrects a brain in neurological crisis without clinical support.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." — Proverbs 17:22
Your spirit is being crushed. You were not built to carry this alone. You were built for community, for counsel, for the kind of brotherhood that says: "I see you, brother. Let's get you some help."
The strongest thing a man can do is know when he needs help and go get it. Weak men suffer in silence. Strong men seek solutions.
If you are in crisis right now — call or text 988. Tonight. It is free. It is confidential. It is staffed by people who want you to live and who know how to help.
A Sacred Remembrance
Before this article closes, two women must be honored with their full names and the weight of what their lives represented.
Dr. Cerina Wanzer Fairfax was 49 years old. She was a dentist who poured herself into her patients, her community, and her children. She was recognized by Virginia Commonwealth University as its most outstanding dental alumna of the decade. She was a woman who tried to leave a dangerous situation carefully, legally, and with complete courage. She was murdered in the basement of her home on April 16, 2026. Her name deserves to be spoken with reverence.
Shaneiqua Pugh was a wife and mother who tried to use the courts to protect herself and her children. She was shot in the face by the father of her children and survived. She now carries the incomprehensible weight of knowing her children — including Jayla, age 3; Shayla, age 5; Kayla, age 6; Layla, age 7; and Markaydon, age 10 — are gone. Her name deserves to be spoken with reverence.
"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." — Psalm 147:3
These women are not footnotes in a story about broken men. They are the story. Their lives, their courage, their loss — and in Shaneiqua's case, her survival — are the moral center of every conversation we have about this week, and about every week that came before it.
The Call to Action
We cannot keep burying women and children and calling it a tragedy without changing the conditions that produce it. We cannot keep telling men to be strong while building no systems to catch them when the strength collapses. And we cannot keep having the conversations about mental health and domestic violence in two separate rooms when the research tells us they are the same conversation — connected by the same untreated wound.
The panel discussion conducted by Roland Martin, in which Dr. Keith Washington and I participated, was a necessary beginning. The sequencing going forward is clear: name the victim first, name the violence fully, and then — in service of the next woman still alive — apply clinical knowledge to understand what produced the violence so we can interrupt it before it happens again.
Accountability and understanding are not opponents. They are partners in the work of building a world where Cerina Wanzer Fairfax and Shaneiqua Pugh's stories are not repeated.
That work begins with a phone call. For some men, it begins tonight.
Resources
If you are in crisis or know someone who is:
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — Call or text 988 (24/7, free, confidential)
National Domestic Violence Hotline — 1-800-799-7233 | Text START to 88788 | thehotline.org
Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline — 1-800-422-4453
Veterans Crisis Line — Call 988, press 1 | Text 838255
SAMHSA National Helpline — 1-800-662-4357 (substance use + mental health)
Therapy for Black Men — therapyforblackmen.org
Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation — borislhensonfoundation.org
Crisis Text Line — Text HOME to 741741
Find a local shelter — thehotline.org/get-help/domestic-violence-local-resources
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