A homicide inquiry near Capitol Reef quickly expanded into a regional search for a stolen vehicle, say investigators.
WAYNE COUNTY, Utah — The investigation into three killings here moved outward in widening circles Wednesday and Thursday, starting with a trailhead near Capitol Reef, shifting to a home in Lyman and ending in Colorado after officers tracked a stolen vehicle tied to the case.
The importance of the story lies in how quickly investigators connected separate places into one case. Authorities first responded to two bodies near the Cockscomb trail area after worried relatives searched for missing hikers. Within hours, officers had linked a second vehicle left there to a homeowner in Lyman, found a third victim at that address and turned a local homicide response into a regional pursuit. By the next morning, officials had named an out-of-state suspect, Ivan Miller, 22, and said no other suspects were being sought.
The first known public step came about 4:25 p.m. March 4, when emergency dispatchers were told that two women had been found dead near Teasdale Road and Cockscomb. Investigators examining that scene found more than bodies. They also found a vehicle that did not belong there, and that detail redirected the case. The owner was traced to Lyman, a small community roughly 10 miles away. Officers sent to that address found Margaret Oldroyd, 86, dead. In practical terms, that meant detectives were no longer working one remote scene. They were balancing a home, a roadside recreation area, missing property and the possibility that a suspect was still moving.
From there, the investigation became technical as much as geographic. State officials said the stolen white Subaru Outback tied to the hikers was located through automated license plate readers and the car’s own real-time tracking features. The vehicle’s path carried investigators beyond Wayne County and beyond Utah, through southern routes toward Colorado. Around 11:10 p.m., police in Pagosa Springs were alerted that the Subaru was in their area. They found it abandoned in Centennial Park, then searched on foot and with other support before locating Miller hours later. Pagosa Springs police said he was carrying a concealed handgun and a large knife when arrested.
Even before the suspect was found, the layout of the county shaped the response. Wayne County is broad, rural and thinly populated, and the towns near Capitol Reef rely on state highways that can carry both local residents and transient travelers. In a dense city, a double homicide at a trailhead and a second death at a home might still occur inside one police jurisdiction and one compact search area. Here, the distances, open roads and tourist corridors raised the stakes. Residents were told to remain vigilant, and schools in the area were affected while officers worked to understand whether the violence had ended or was still unfolding.
As investigators stabilized the scene map, officials began to fill in the victim and suspect information. The women killed near the trailhead were later identified as Linda Dewey, 65, and Natalie Graves, 34, relatives who had gone hiking. Officials said they had no known connection to Oldroyd. Lt. Cameron Roden said there was no indication the victims were selected because of a prior dispute or relationship, and he described the attacks as killings of convenience. That framing gave the investigation a chilling logic: a suspect moving through the county, using one crime scene to reach another vehicle and then using that vehicle to flee.
The procedural case followed the map investigators had already built. Utah prosecutors filed three counts of aggravated murder, and officials said extradition steps would be needed so the suspect could face those charges in Wayne County. Meanwhile, crime-scene work continued at both Utah locations, where agents and technicians were still collecting evidence and refining the timeline. Court records and media reports later added allegations about gunfire, a knife and items taken from victims, but in the first phase of the case, the essential breakthrough was investigative linkage: one vehicle, then one home, then one fleeing route, then one arrest.
Currently, the case has moved from emergency scene work to prosecution, with the next milestone centered on court proceedings that would bring the suspect from Colorado into the Utah murder case.
Author note: Last updated April 1, 2026.