Va. Code § 15.2-1617
If any sheriff dies during his term of office, his chief deputy shall have the same right to remove any deputy from office and to appoint another, that the sheriff himself, if alive, would have had; or any such deputy may be removed by order of the circuit court for the county or city of which his principal was sheriff; but unless so removed, the deputies of such sheriff, in office at the time of his death, shall continue in office until the qualification of any new sheriff, and execute the office in the name of the deceased, in like manner as if the sheriff had continued alive until such qualification. Any default or misfeasance in office of any such deputy shall be as much a breach of the condition of the bond of the sheriff, and of the bond of such deputy, as if the sheriff had continued alive and in the exercise of his office.
Va. Code § 15.2-1617