"All of the cop cars had the whole entire row of Highway 90, all the way from one entrance to the next, completely blocked off," Valerie Winters told Jacksonville TV station WAWS.
Before that, deputies said Maldonado called a friend to say he had killed his wife, 47-year-old Monica Narvaez-Maldonado, and younger son Pedro Jose Maldonado Jr., 17. Both had been shot with what deputies described as a handheld crossbow that fires small darts.
Authorities believe they were killed sometime Monday. After that, they said, Maldonado drove to Tallahassee and rented a motel room. Just after 7 a.m. Tuesday, he apparently attacked his older son, 21-year-old Jose Maldonado, with the crossbow but the dart just grazed the son's ear. Deputies say the father tried to choke the son, but the younger Maldonado managed to escape.
Authorities had responded to the Maldonado home Tuesday with a SWAT team after the man's friend telephoned about his confession to the killings. After finding the bodies, they learned through unspecified means that Maldonado was staying at a motel near Lake City, east of Tallahassee and hundreds of miles north of the original crime scene.
Columbia County Sheriff's Office deputies found Maldonado dead about 2 a.m. Wednesday.
No information was provided about a possible motive for the rampage.
—The Associated Press contributed to this report
