LOA, Utah (KUTV) — The three women killed in a triple homicide in Wayne County have been released after the suspect fled and was discovered in Colorado.
Officials with the Utah Department of Public Safety said two of the women were family members, and the other was unrelated.
They said 86-year-old Margaret Oldroyd, 65-year-old Linda Dewey and 34-year-old Natalie Graves were all found dead on Wednesday afternoon.
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Dewey and Graves, who officials said were aunt and niece, were found dead at a trailhead near Teasedale Road and Cocks Comb south of Torrey, Utah.
The women were discovered by their husbands, who became concerned about their whereabouts.
Investigators responded to the scene and found a vehicle that had been abandoned nearby.
They traced the vehicle to an address in Lyman, where they found Oldroyd dead from a gunshot wound.
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Officials from the Sevier and Wayne County Sheriff’s Offices asked residents to stay in their homes with the doors locks and outside lights on as they worked to determine exactly what happened.
Schools in the Wayne County District were canceled for the rest of the week out of an abundance of caution.
Using license plat readers and GPS tracking on a key fob, investigators were able to track the suspect – later identified as 22-year-old Ivin Miller from Iowa – through Southern Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and then Colorado.
Officials said multiple agencies responded to the vehicle’s location in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, where Miller was taken into custody.
Investigators credited a multi-agency effort made of of law enforcement officers from several states to track and find Miller. Members of the Wayne, Archuleta, Sevier and Kane County Sheriff’s Offices, the Page (Arizona) and Pagosa Springs (Colorado) Police Departments, FBI, and BLM all participated in the search for Miller.
The murders were quite shocking for the small, quiet county with a population of less than 3,000 residents.
it was just months after the community became the center of attention for a multi-state search for 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard, whose mother had driven from California to Nebraska and back again without her daughter.
The girl’s body was found in December in a rural area outside Caineville in Wayne County.
Her mother, Ashlee, was taken into custody.
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Officials with the Utah Department of Public Safety (DPS) said Miller stayed for a few days at the Snuggle Inn in Loa, Utah after he struck an elk with his struck and totaled the vehicle.
According to an indictment released Thursday, Miller admitted to the killings, saying, “it had to be done.”
DPS spokesperson Lt. Cameron Roden said investigators have not discovered a connection between Miller and Wayne County, other than driving through the area.
The probable cause statement said Miller watched Oldroyd leave her house. He entered the home and waited for her to come home. Officials said Miller told them when she returned home, he shot and killed her while she watched television.
Officials said he then dragged her body into a basement cellar before leaving in her car.
After deciding he wanted a different vehicle to drive, court documents said he found a Subraru Outback driven by Dewey and Graves. Officials said he walked up to the women and shot them before dragging their bodies to a dry creek bed.
Miller was indicted on three charges of aggravated murder.
He was expected to make his first court appearance Friday afternoon in Pagosa Springs.
It was not clear if Miller had a criminal history, or what he was doing driving through Wayne County.
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