CHESTER, Calif. -- A couple bound for a prom were slain over the weekend, and the young woman's ex-boyfriend is accused of the killings, police said.

Jennifer Carrigan and Steven Daniel Furtado, both 18, were found dead Sunday by Carrigan's mother at a house in Chester.

Deputies arrested 18-year-old Reyes Carrillo Garcia in the deaths of the two teens, said Plumas County Sheriff's Patrol Cmdr. Gerry Hendrick.

He said Garcia previously dated Carrigan.

Officials said Garcia is the only suspect in the case.

It was not immediately clear how Jennifer Carrigan, a senior at Chester High School, and her prom date died.

Neighbors told KCRA 3 that they were the victims of a brutal stabbing.

Furtado was set to graduate June 6 from Willows High School.

Two rural towns were reeling Monday after the discovery. Chester has a population of about 2,000, and there are about 6,000 people living in the Glenn County town of Willows.

When told of his sister's death, 20-year-old Billy Carrigan headed home from Berkeley.

But shortly before 7 p.m. Sunday, just before he reached Chester, Billy Carrigan crashed his Toyota Tacoma pickup truck into a stand of pine trees along Highway 36.

A spokeswoman at Enloe Medical Center in Chico said he was in critical condition Monday.

The Glenn County Sheriff's Department said Furtado had traveled from Willows, where he was a high school senior, to Chester to take Carrigan to her senior prom.

Officials delivered the news of Furtado's death to his family on Sunday evening as relatives were in the process of having a Mother's Day celebration at home.

Counseling was offered to students at Willows High School in the wake of Furtado's death.

Autopsies were scheduled for Tuesday at the Washoe County Medical Examiner's Office in Nevada.

Garcia will be arraigned in court Tuesday on two counts of murder, officials said.