Law enforcement has released a detailed timeline of the events surrounding a brutal suspected triple homicide in Utah.
Three women, ranging in age from 34 to 86, were found dead in south-central Utah on March 4th, eventually leading the Utah Department of Public Safety and the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office to the chief suspect, Ivan Miller, 22, who was apprehended in Colorado on March 5th.
Investigators provided the public with constant updates on their search for Miller, as the homicides rocked the small Utah county and resulted in police urging residents to take extra safety precautions on March 4th, including keeping their lights on, doors locked, and remaining home or with others in the evening.
“Wayne County Sheriff’s Office would also like to extend our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims,” said WCSO in a Facebook post.
According to the police timeline, Miller’s car was disabled following a collision with an elk in Wayne County on February 28th.
Several days passed until March 4th, when, at 4:35 pm, the husbands of the aunt and niece duo, Linda Dewey, 65, and Natalie Graves, 34, called the Wayne County Emergency Communications Center to report they had found their wives’ bodies near a hiking trailhead.
On the evening of March 4th, investigators reported Dewey and Graves’ Subaru Outback as stolen, and discovered an abandoned vehicle registered to an address in Lyman, Utah.
Police travelled to the house attached to the car’s registration, which is where they discovered a third victim, Margaret Oldroyd, 86, who has no known relationship to the other two victims.
That night, March 4th, investigators used Automated License Plate Readers and other tracking tools to follow Miller’s journey to Colorado.
Early on March 5th, Miller was apprehended by the Pagosa Springs Police Department in Colorado.
According to the PSPD, Miller was located following an extensive manhunt after the car linked to the deaths in Utah was found abandoned in the Pagosa Springs downtown area.
Once uncovered, Miller was arrested on concealed weapons charges as he was in possession of a concealed handgun and a large knife. A subsequent interview linked him to the Utah deaths, and he was placed in Colorado custody awaiting a Utah arrest warrant.
According to court records obtained by NBC, Miller confessed to the killings, saying that he did it for money.
And, according to authorities, Miller said: “‘It had to be done,’ but he did not like to do it.”
Miller is also currently facing unrelated charges in his home state of Iowa of burglary, theft, marijuana possession and unlawfully possessing a weapon.
He missed his scheduled arraignment for these charges due to his detainment in Colorado. He is now facing charges of three counts of aggravated murder, first-degree felonies in Utah, which potentially carry the death penalty in the state.
