Photo: Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office
Two missing hikers kicked off a search for a spree killer in Utah this week. Now, the manhunt has ended with a suspect in custody and the discovery of a third body.
The ordeal began Wednesday, when Linda Dewey, 65, and Natalie Graves, 34, failed to return from a hike in central Utah, near Capitol Reef National Park. When their husbands went to the trailhead to look for them, they found both women dead and their car missing.
The ensuing manhunt would go across four states and uncover another body, 86-year-old Margaret Oldroyd. As the New York Times reports, Oldroyd had been killed earlier that day at her home in the town of Lyman, 10 miles away from the trailhead.
In the early morning of Thursday, March 5, a suspect was apprehended in Colorado, identified by a press release from the Wayne County Sheriff’s office as 22-year-old Ivan Miller. After his arrest, Miller told investigators that he had killed the three women in order to take their credit cards and cars in order to get back to Iowa, as the Associated Press reports.
Several days earlier, Miller found himself without a car after hitting an elk and selling his vehicle to a tow company. He then stayed in hotels for a few days, before eventually sleeping in Oldroyd’s shed. He shot her while she was watching TV and stole her Buick, but soon decided that he did not like the car and wanted another one. Miller parked the Buick at the trailhead where Dewey and Graves were getting out of a Subaru, then killed the pair and hid their bodies in a dry creek bed.
According to the Sheriff’s office statement, authorities were able to track Miller down using license plate recognition cameras and other vehicle tracking methods. They followed his path from Utah, through northern Arizona and into Pagosa Springs, Colorado, where he was apprehended. Miller is currently in custody in Colorado, and authorities are working to bring him back to Utah to face murder charges.
