A Killing Spree in Utah Rattles a Region and Baffles Officials

When two women failed to return from a hike through the red-rock desert of central Utah on Wednesday, their husbands headed to the trailhead to investigate. They came upon a scene of baffling horror: Both women were dead, and one of their cars was missing, the authorities said.

Investigators racing to unravel the killings soon discovered a third body, of a woman in her 80s who had been slain earlier in the day at her home in the tiny farm town of Lyman, about 10 miles from the trailhead.

The apparently random murders of three women in a quiet, remote corner of rural Utah at the doorstep of Capitol Reef National Park touched off a frantic manhunt that sprawled across four states and prompted frightened residents to grab guns and stay up all night as lookouts for their families.

The hunt for the suspect ended early on Thursday morning, when police in the tourist town of Pagosa Springs, Colo., arrested a 22-year-old Iowa man in connection with the killings that had happened more than 300 miles away.

Lt. Cameron Roden of the Utah Department of Public Safety said the suspect, Ivan Miller, had no previous ties to the victims and did not appear to have any connection to Utah. Authorities said it appeared the victims had been targeted for their vehicles. It was unclear on Thursday if the suspect had a lawyer.

“The community has been nervous, has been scared,” Lieutenant Roden said in an interview on Thursday. “When this happens to your community members, it hits really close to home.”

The killing spree began in Lyman, an alfalfa-farming town, population 200. According to Utah authorities, the suspect killed the woman in her 80s just outside her home, and then stole her car and drove to the trailhead where he killed the two hikers.

He ditched the first victim’s car at the trailhead, and then fled the scene of the second killing in a vehicle that belonged to one of the hikers, Lieutenant Roden said.

Local and federal investigators used license-plate cameras and other tracking programs to trace the suspect’s flight from Utah to Arizona to New Mexico and, finally, into Colorado, where they said he abandoned the vehicle in a park in Pagosa Springs. He was arrested at 2:40 a.m. Thursday as officers searched the area with drones and dogs.

Officials did not say how the women had been killed, but the police in Pagosa Springs said the suspect had been carrying a handgun and “large knife” when he was arrested. Utah authorities said there were no additional suspects.

Utah officials did not immediately release the victims’ names, saying only that they lived in the area and had no connection to the suspect.

The authorities did not provide a motive for the killings, but the police in Pagosa Springs said that an interview with Mr. Miller established a link to the killings in Utah. Mr. Miller was being held in Colorado on weapons charges on Thursday and was expected to face murder charges in Utah.

A brother of Mr. Miller, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified by name, said that Mr. Miller had left Iowa about two and a half weeks ago and taken his truck on a solo cross-country road trip — a departure that concerned him.

In an phone interview, the brother said that Mr. Miller had serious mental health issues but that he had no idea his brother could be suspected of something like this.

Mr. Miller and his brother stayed in touch while Mr. Miller was out West. Mr. Miller mentioned he had wrecked his truck after hitting an elk, and the brother was uncertain how Mr. Miller was getting around the rural West. The brother offered to bring him back to Iowa but said that Mr. Miller had declined.

The brother said he tried to call Mr. Miller several times on Wednesday, the day of the killings, but that Mr. Miller declined every call. Eventually, the two texted at about 10:30 p.m. — hours after the killings had occurred, according to a timeline from Utah authorities.

The brother said he had asked Mr. Miller if he needed to be picked up and Mr. Miller had told him he was on his way back to Iowa.

The brother said that he and Mr. Miller had grown up Amish, and that their parents were still members of the Amish community. A Facebook page that appears to belong to Mr. Miller describes him as “Not Amish” but is otherwise entirely blank. The brother said that Mr. Miller had worked in construction.

Mr. Miller’s brother said he had not yet spoken with law enforcement. He described his brother as a habitual liar with outlandish thoughts and said Mr. Miller had turned down mental-health treatment in the past.

The brother said he could not fathom that Mr. Miller had been arrested on suspicion of killing three total strangers.

“I’m so confused,” he said. “Why would three women have to die?”

Many people in Wayne County, Utah, home to a mix of adventurous, desert-loving newcomers as well as tightly interwoven families rooted in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were grappling with that question as well.

The county of fewer than 3,000 residents is a dramatic landscape of red and white sandstone buttes and hay trucks that rumble down the skinny highways. March is usually a quiet time before tourists arrive with the warmer weather, and on Thursday some of the resort hotels and shops were still closed for the season.

Random murders, residents said, are nearly unheard of. So when Shaun Peterson, 46, learned that the victim in her 80s appeared to be one of his neighbors (as well as a distant relative), he rushed to protect himself.

“I got my guns out and ready,” Mr. Peterson said. “It didn’t seem real.”

He described the woman killed in Lyman as “the sweetest old lady.” She had worked at a local grocery store for years and was active in the LDS church. Mr. Peterson said that he had chopped wood to help heat her house during the winters.

Residents raced to protect their families as news spread of the triple homicide. Some sat sentry on their front porches. Others kept vigil from their living rooms, trading texts and phone calls about whether the suspect was still on the loose. Some slept with guns by their beds.

“I told people, lock your doors and know where your ammunition is,” said John Lee, 60, who has lived in the area for 20 years.

The investigation prompted officials in Wayne County to close its schools on Thursday and Friday, saying that they had done so “out of an abundance of caution and concern for student and public safety.” On Thursday afternoon, two women in the town of Torrey walked along the highway, tying pink memorial ribbons to every tree and sign post.

Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

Jack Healy is based in Colorado and covers the west and southwest.

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