Virginia state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath) was stabbed on Tuesday morning at his Bath County home, apparently by his 24-year-old son Gus Deeds, who then shot himself to death, according to law enforcement authorities.
The incident is being investigated as an attempted murder and suicide, Virginia State Police said.

The younger Deeds, who had withdrawn last month as a student at the College of William and Mary, underwent a mental health evaluation on Monday at a local hospital performed under an emergency custody order, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. But the son was released from Bath County Community Hospital because no psychiatric beds were available across a wide area of western Virginia, the paper reported.
“This was preventable,” said Sen. Richard Saslaw (D-Fairfax), adding that a “breakdown in the mental health system” led to a lack of beds and prevented medical authorities from holding the younger Deeds.
The elder Deeds was listed in fair condition Tuesday afternoon at the University of Virginia Health System Hospital..
During news conferences, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said Bath County sheriff’s deputies and state police were called to the senator’s home on Vineyard Drive in the Millboro community around 7:25 a.m. She said the father and son, who lived at the home, had an “altercation,” but did not elaborate. Deeds’ wife Siobhan Deeds was not at the home at the time of the fight, police said.
Police found Gus Deeds suffering from a gunshot wound and the senator stabbed several times in the head and upper torso, said Geller.
Geller declined to say whether Creigh Deeds was in the home at the time of the shooting. After he was stabbed, the senator walked down the hill of his residence to a nearby highway, where he was spotted and picked up by a cousin, police said. The two drove to the cousin’s house, where a 911 call was made, police said. Deeds, who has been alert enough to talk with investigators, was later flown to the hospital, Geller said.
Back at the senator’s home, Gus Deeds could not be revived and died at the scene, police said. Geller said authorities have recovered a firearm.
Dennis Cropper, the executive Director of the Rockbridge County Community Services Board, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that Gus Deeds on Monday had undergone a mental health evaluation performed under an emergency custody order. Cropper told the paper that the younger Deeds was released from Bath County Community Hospital because no psychiatric beds were available across a wide area of western Virginia.
In a statement, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg said Gus Deeds had been enrolled as a student there since 2007 and withdrew last month. Geller said it was not immediately clear whether Gus Deeds lived at his father’s home. It was only known that he lived in Millboro, she said.
Creigh Deeds, 55, is best-known for his unsuccessful bid for governor in 2009. He bested two Democratic rivals – Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe – to win the party nomination, but went on to lose the general election to Robert McDonnell by a 17-point margin.
That marked Deeds’s second loss to McDonnell: The two men also squared off in the 2005 attorney general race, which was so close it went to a recount. McDonnell prevailed in the end by 360 votes.
In the immediate aftermath of Deeds’s wounding, McDonnell released a statement: “In this tough and sad time, our thoughts and prayers are with the Deeds family. The news from this morning is utterly heartbreaking,” McDonnell said. “Creigh Deeds is an exceptional and committed public servant who has always done what he believes is best for Virginia and who gives his all to public service.”
Virginia Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe also said in a statement that he and his wife Dorothy were praying for Deeds and his family: “This is a truly sad day for Virginia and for the many people who know Creigh as the fine public servant and friend he is. We join people across the Commonwealth and country in wishing him a full recovery.”
By Tuesday afternoon, Deeds’s condition had been upgraded to fair, according to a spokeswoman for the University of Virginia medical center.
Deeds has served in the Senate since 2001, moving to that chamber after a decade in the House of Delegates. From 1987 to 1991, he was the commonwealth’s attorney for Bath County.
Fellow Democrats in the state Senate said they were stunned by the news about their low-key colleague.
“My only reaction is prayer,” said state Sen. Donald McEachin (D-Henrico). “I hope that folks who know Creigh, or who don’t know Creigh and are hearing about this, will join us in prayer. This is a horrible thing that has happened in the Deeds house.”
State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) called Deeds “someone you can always rely on to keep his word.”
“This is a terrible tragedy for Creigh’s family and for the commonwealth,” she said.
Virginia’s is a part-time legislature, and Deeds maintains a private law practice in Hot Springs, focused primarily on personal injury and wrongful death cases.
Creigh Deeds was born in Richmond and raised in Bath County, earning a bachelor’s degree from Concord College and a law degree from Wake Forest University. He and his first wife, Pam Deeds, divorced in 2010 after nearly three decades of marriage. Deeds married his current wife, Siobhan, in 2012.
Creigh Deeds also has three daughters — Amanda, Rebecca and Susannah.
Sarah E. King, 27, of Bodega Bay, Calif., has known the Deeds family all of her life. She grew up about 15 minutes from their home and attended William and Mary with Gus Deeds. She is good friends with Rebecca Deeds.
“I can’t even really process it. It’s really ground-shaking, not only for all the Deeds, but the entire community,” King said. “Everyone is just devastated.”
Heather Hannah, who attended elementary and high school with Gus Deeds, saw him two weeks ago at a nearby Pizza Hut. She said the younger Deeds seemed like he was in good spirits.
“I asked him if he was doing all right and he said he was good,” Hannah said.
Hannah described Gus Deeds as intelligent and happy-go-lucky. She said he played in the marching and concert bands at Bath County High School. He played the trombone and harmonica. Hannah remembers Gus Deeds as a talented musician. For talent shows, he performed bluegrass numbers with a group of other students.
It was not immediately clear what prompted the effort to seek the emergency mental health evaluation for Gus Deeds.
In Virginia, mental health authorities can hold individuals for four to six hours after a magistrate judge issues an emergency custody order. After that, a magistrate must issue a Temporary Detention Order to allow an individual to be held for 48 to 72 hours for further evaluation and treatment. But the order cannot be issued unless a facility like an inpatient hospital has a bed available.
In 2012, the Virginia Office of the Inspector General probed how often clinically necessary TDOs are not issued because no facility was available to accept the patient. Over a 90 day period, the IG found that 72 individuals were turned away despite the fact that they met the criteria to be involuntarily held for treatment. In another 273 cases, mental health professionals found a bed for a patient but only after the legally mandated 6-hour time window for converting an emergency hold into a temporary detention order had elapsed.
While representing just a small number of the 5,000 TDOs issue during the time period, the IG still warned about the dangers of turning any individual found in need of immediate detention away for lack of resources.
From his platform as a lawmaker, Creigh Deeds has spoken out about improving the state’s mental health system.
In the wake of the April 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, Deeds said the tragedy had brought a fresh “urgency” to the cause of improving the state’s mental health system.
Deeds has long supported gun rights and was endorsed by the National Rifle Association in his 2005 race for attorney general against McDonnell. But after initially opposing efforts to close the gun show loophole, in 2008 Deeds shifted his position and offered a compromise version of legislation to close the loophole. The effort failed.
“I’ve never voted for legislation like this before, but I think it’s important that in the end, we respond in some fashion to the tragedy at Virginia Tech,” Deeds said at the time.
During the 2009 gubernatorial race, Deeds repeatedly attacked McDonnell’s economic plans by arguing that they would deprive the state budget of revenue and lead to cuts in mental health funding.
On the gubernatorial campaign trail against McDonnell, Creigh Deeds became known for his folksy charm. He’d often tweet the songs he was listening to on the road, including tunes by the Grateful Dead and The Band.
He bragged that he ran up more than 300,000 miles on his old Ford Explorer, even keeping it on the road after hitting a bear near his home, before finally abandoning it in 2009. Deeds’s informal style and occasional public awkwardness marked a stark contrast in that year’s Democratic primary race against McAuliffe, who was known for his flash and high-profile allies.
“I’ve been running uphill all my life,” Deeds said during the campaign.
After his loss in the gubernatorial race, Deeds went through a rough patch. State Sen. John S. Edwards (D-Roanoke) told The Washington Post that Deeds “seemed down in the dumps.”
The day McDonnell was inaugurated, Deeds tweeted that he was listening to the Rolling Stones song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” The following month, his divorce was finalized.
“Things didn’t work out the way I wanted to, but I still got things to do,” Deeds said in an April 2010 interview. “Just because I lost an election doesn’t mean I was wrong about anything. I still have a role to play.”
He added: “Losing’s not fun, but it’s life, man. You have to take chances. Life is not for the weak. Helen Keller wrote, ‘Life is either a daring adventure or it’s nothing.’ ”
Anne Adams, publisher of the Recorder newspaper in nearby Monterey, Va., said the community is stunned by the news.
“He’s an integral part of this community and has been since his growing-up days. He is well known and well loved and well respected by everyone in the area,” said Adams, who has followed Deeds’s career for years.
Adams said Deeds fell into a funk following his 2009 loss in the governor’s race. But she said he had recently seemed to regain his footing. He had gotten remarried and had just returned from a trip to Ireland with his second wife.
“Recently, he’s probably been happier than I’d seen him in a long time,” she said. “He took a hit, as anyone would. But he’s got a great network of friends and family and he loves his work.”
On Tuesday afternoon, three police SUVs — two from the county sheriffs office and one from the conservative police — blocked the steep gravel driveway leading up to Deeds’ home. At about 1:20, one of the SUVs moved out of the way so that a black hearse could leave the home.
Justin Jouvenal, Laura Vozzella, Jenna Johnson and Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.