A 22-year-old man was charged at the Joliette courthouse Monday with the first-degree murders of his father and stepmother.

Guillaume Gelinas is accused of stabbing his father Luc, as well as Julie Lemieux, in the Terrebonne home where all three lived.

“Today was the formal appearance of Mr. Guillaume Gelinas. He is faced with first-degree murder charges on the persons of his father and stepmother,” confirmed Crown prosecutor Eric Cote.

The bodies of the murdered couple were found on Thursday morning, on Luc's 52nd birthday. Police spent much of the day trying to find Guillaume before he was located in the Gatineau region and questioned by police.

There is so information about a possible motive.

The suspect is a soldier who served in Afghanistan for eight months in 2010 and 2011.

Gelinas was vice-president in charge of real estate and engineering at the SAQ, while Lemieux, 35, was an account executive at the SAQ. They had been in a relationship for eight years and appeared in Facebook photos to have had an active life that involved the suspect.

In court Monday, Guillaume’s behaviour, though serious, could be described as self-assured and matter-of-fact.

“We received a part of the disclosure of evidence,” said defence lawyer Jonathan Meunier. “We'll have to evaluate all that we received and we'll receive more documents in the (coming) days and weeks.”

Meunier would not comment on his client's state of mind, but spoke of the terrible turmoil affecting the family members of the victims.

“Obviously many families were affected by this event. They're all together, they're trying to live that in private,” he said.

Meunier added that it wastoo early in the case to decide yet whether he will ask that his client receive a psychiatric evaluation.

The next court date is scheduled for March 6, where the courts will discuss the preliminary inquiry.