TRAGEDY

Deeds’s Son Rejected From Hospital

One day before stabbing father and shooting self.

Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds’s 24-year-old son, Austin “Gus” Deeds, was turned away from a psychiatric hospital because of a lack of beds on Monday—one day before he stabbed his father during an argument and then fatally shot himself. Gus Deeds, once a campaign volunteer for his father, had dropped out of college last month, and a magistrate had issued an emergency custody order Monday after he had been evaluated by officials at the Rockbridge County Community Services Board. Investigators are still trying to piece together what happened between the two men early Tuesday morning, before Creigh Deeds was spotted on his driveway in Bath County, bleeding from the head and chest.