Two of the women murdered by a crazed Iowa man simply because he wanted their vehicles were related, while the third was just an 86-year-old woman living alone.
The Utah Department of Public Safety says Ivan Miller shot Margaret Oldroyd in the head while she watched television and took her Buick Lesabre, but he didn’t like that car, so he murdered Linda Dewey, 65, and her 34-year-old niece, Natalie Graves, on a hiking trail to take Graves’ Subaru Outback, KUTV reports.
Miller drove that Subaru across central and southern Utah, into Arizona and New Mexico, then back up to Colorado, where he was tracked down and captured, as CrimeOnline reported. He’s been charged with three counts of aggravated murder and told investigators he didn’t like killing the women “but it had to be done” so he could take their cars.
He’d wrecked his own truck days before when he hit an elk.
Investigators said Dewey and Graves’ husbands found their bodies when they went search for them after they didn’t return from their hike on Wednesday. Police found Oldroyd’s Buick abandoned nearby and went to her home in Lyman, where they found her body. She had no connection with Dewey and Graves.
Police in Pagosa Springs, Colorado — some 400 miles from the crime scenes by the circuitous route Miller took — found the killer early Thursday morning and took him into custody.
Miller may have been trying to get back to Iowa, where he was due to appear in court on Friday on charges of theft, burglary, marijuana possession and being ineligible to carry a gun. He is now in jail in Colorado awaiting extradition to Utah.
It’s the second time in recent months that tiny Wayne County, Utah — home to less than 3,000 people — has been the center of national attention for violent crime. In December, the body of 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard was found there after her mother, Ashlee Buzzard, drove from California to Nebraska and returned to California without the girl in October.
Authorities said it appeared as if Melodee had been dead for months, and had likely been killed on October 9, saying she had gunshot wounds to the head. Ashlee Buzzard has been charged with murder and other counts in the girl’s death.
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[Featured image: Natalie Graves, Linda Dewey, and Margaret Oldroyd/Facebook]
