A Gruesome Triple Murder in Utah Rocks Communities Around Capitol Reef National Park

A series of gruesome murders near Capitol Reef National Park in Utah sparked a manhunt that authorities say came to a close on Thursday, March 5, in Colorado.

On March 4, the Utah Department of Safety said that two women had been found dead on a hiking trail near Torrey, Utah, the gateway community for the picturesque park. According to The New York Times, the two women had been discovered by their husbands, both of whom had driven to the trailhead after their wives failed to return. The Associated Press reported that one woman was in her sixties, the other in her thirties.

Authorities said that one of the women’s vehicles, a 2022 white Subaru Outback, was missing from the parking lot.

Investigators then found a third body, a woman in her eighties, at a home in Lyman, Utah, about ten miles from Torrey.

The discoveries kicked off an investigation that eventually led to a cross-state manhunt. Authorities used license plate readers to follow the car’s path for more than 300 miles through Utah, Northern Arizona, and into Southwestern Colorado, where it stopped later that night.

At 11 P.M., authorities in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, found the car abandoned at Centennial Park near downtown. According to The Pagosa Sun, authorities searched the town with drones, canines, and investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Officials made an arrest at 2:41 A.M. on March 5, and authorities identified the suspect as Ivan Miller, 22, of Blakesburg, Iowa. He was arrested for the possession of a concealed weapon, and authorities later linked him to the Utah murders after interviewing him.

Miller has been charged with aggravated murder in the death of the three women.

According to The New York Times, a brother of Miller’s said he suffered from mental health issues, and that he had left Iowa in February on a cross-country road trip. The Times said that Miller had grown up in an Amish household.

Citing Miller’s official charging records, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that, during his March 5 interview, Miller said that he’d recently been forced to sell his car after colliding with an elk. According to The Tribune, Miller said he’d spent the night in the back shed of a home in Lyman, and that he’d broken into the main house and then shot the occupant, an elderly woman.

He then stole the woman’s car and drove it to the trailhead, where he allegedly murdered the two women. According to the charging records, Miller said he stole their credit cards and car and headed east.

This is a developing story.