GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Suwannee County’s senior forester has been charged with stabbing his wife and daughter to death. 

Paul Grave Williams, 61, was arrested Friday at his home in Gainesville and charged with two counts for first degree murder.

He was also charged with two counts of refusing a crime victim medical care that resulted in death and two counts of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence after authorities said he admitted to stabbing his wife Leslie and daughter, 15-year-old Paige, to death.

According to the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, Williams’ wife Leslie had not been to work for several days at Stephen Foster Elementary School in Gainesville and called the school on Nov. 14 distressed, saying her husband was having medical issues.

On Friday, the suspect told a school employee that they should come over to the house to check on it, according to the ACSO report. Another school employee talked to the Williams’ adult daughter Friday, who said she hadn’t talked with her mother recently either.

Following a wellbeing check request from the school’s resource officer, ACSO deputies went to the house Friday morning and entered through an open back door and observed blood on the floors and the victims in bedrooms with severe trauma and stab wounds, according to the report.

Both victims had been moved postmortem and their bodies staged in the bedrooms, authorities said. 

The suspect, who was not at the house when officers first arrived but later returned to the scene and was taken into custody. 

A report filed by the sheriff’s office says the suspect admitted to stabbing his wife and daughter, saying he stayed in the house with their bodies for at least a day before leaving the residence.

Authorities said during the interview he admitted to stabbing his daughter with a kitchen knife until she was “gone.” 

The report indicates she was stabbed 35 times. 

Authorities reported that the suspect told them he then went to the master bedroom where he stabbed his wife in the back while she laid in bed and continued after she stood up.

The suspect told authorities he knew it was wrong but that he “snapped” and “it was the devil in him.”