A 22-year-old Iowa man is accused of killing three women in Utah last week, leaving a quiet and rugged corner of the state reeling.
Ivan Miller was charged with murdering three women after what police say began as a cross-country road trip. He was arrested early Thursday morning in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, CBS News reported.
Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason described the scope of the tragedy.
"To have multiple homicides on one day is just unprecedented and it just is devastating to the community," Mason said.
Police say Miller's alleged crime spree began when his truck hit an elk. While the truck was being repaired, prosecutors say he traveled to a home in the small community of Lyman, Utah, where he killed 86-year-old Margaret Oldroyd. He then allegedly stole her car and abandoned it several miles away at a trailhead near Capitol Reef National Park.
It was there that he allegedly killed Linda Dewey and her niece, Natalie Graves, and stole one of their cars.
Police were able to track Miller through a key fob and an automated license plate reader system as he allegedly drove the victims' stolen Subaru on an hours-long journey from southern Utah to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, where he was arrested.
Mason said making sense of what unfolded may not even be possible.
"I don't know that we, we do make sense of this. To try to make sense of it is probably not even fair to the victims," Mason said.
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