Police said a confrontation tied to a woman known to both men left a 39-year-old victim with life-threatening abdominal wounds.
LADY LAKE, FL — A 42-year-old man was arrested on attempted murder and aggravated battery charges after police said he stabbed another man during a fight near Veterans Memorial Park in The Villages on Saturday night, leaving the victim with injuries serious enough to require surgery in Gainesville.
Authorities said the confrontation unfolded in a parking lot on Paige Place at about 8 p.m. and involved two men and a 37-year-old woman who knew both of them. The case drew attention because it began in one of Central Florida’s golf-cart-heavy communities, crossed county lines during the search for the suspect and ended with a victim airlifted from a local hospital. Police say the suspect, William Tyler Warren, was found in Marion County and jailed while detectives continued sorting out how the fight began, what weapon was used and whether any additional charges could follow.
Lady Lake police said the injured man, 39, had been with the woman near Veterans Memorial Park after the pair spent time around Spanish Springs Town Square. Investigators said Warren, the woman’s current boyfriend, approached them on another golf cart. According to an arrest report described by local television station WESH, Warren threatened the other man before both men got out and began fighting. Police Chief Steve Hunt said detectives later learned the victim suffered major stab wounds to the abdomen. The woman drove him for initial treatment at UF Health Spanish Plaines Hospital in Sumter County, and he was later flown to UF Health Shands in Gainesville for surgery. He survived, authorities said, and police have not publicly released his name.
Detectives did not immediately know where the stabbing had happened because, Hunt said, officers had little information at the start and were trying to determine whether the violence took place near a hotel or somewhere else in the Spanish Springs area. As investigators retraced the couple’s movements, they found physical evidence near the golf-cart path by Veterans Memorial Park, including what one local report described as a broken razor blade lying near blood drops. Police also recovered grainy video that showed the fight, according to WESH. Authorities have not publicly said whether that blade was the weapon used in the stabbing, and no court filing available in the reports reviewed publicly described the full forensic evidence by Monday evening. The woman was later located and, according to police, cooperated with investigators.
The people at the center of the case had all come from Georgia, according to police and local reports. Investigators said Warren, 42, had recently moved with the 37-year-old woman to a home on Turnberry Lane in Orange Blossom Gardens, on the Historic Side of The Villages. The woman told police, according to the arrest report cited by WESH and Villages-News, that she had contacted her former boyfriend in Georgia and asked him to come to Florida because she was trying to leave Warren. Villages-News reported that the man checked into a hotel in the Spanish Springs area before meeting the woman Saturday. Those details point to a conflict that may have been building before the encounter near the park, though police have not publicly released a full timeline covering the hours before the fight or said whether detectives had seen messages or calls between the three.
Lady Lake’s official statement was brief, but it laid out the procedural steps that followed. The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office notified Lady Lake police on March 7 that a stabbing victim with life-threatening injuries was being treated at UF Health Spanish Plaines. Investigators determined the incident had occurred in Lady Lake, and law enforcement agencies worked together to track Warren down in Marion County. Lady Lake detectives later interviewed him at the Marion County Jail, where the town said he admitted his involvement in the incident. Warren is expected to face the charges in Lake County. The 37-year-old woman was arrested on a Georgia warrant unrelated to the stabbing, according to police. As of the police update posted Monday, the investigation remained active.
Hunt said the violence stood out in a town where this kind of case is uncommon. “This was a violent incident that left the victim with serious injuries,” Hunt said in the police department’s statement. In a separate television interview, Hunt said crimes like this do not happen often in Lady Lake, describing the episode as isolated and unusual for the area. That sense of shock was tied in part to the setting. The Villages is widely known for golf-cart travel between neighborhoods, town squares and recreation areas, and the route described by police included a golf-cart bridge and paths near a public memorial park. Even so, detectives said the ordinary setting made the early search harder because officers first had to identify the scene before they could collect evidence.
By Monday night, the victim had survived surgery, the suspect was in custody and detectives were still working through unanswered parts of the case, including the exact sequence of the stabbing and whether more evidence would be presented in court. The next milestone is Warren’s transfer and first appearance in Lake County, where prosecutors will decide how to move the case forward.
Author note: Last updated March 10, 2026.