A Killing Spree in Utah Rattles a Region and Puzzles Officials

Three women were slain in two locations, officials said on Thursday. A frantic manhunt involving four states led to an arrest, but a motive was still unclear.

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 the police in the tourist town of Pagosa Springs, Colo., arrested a 22-year-old Iowa man, Ivan Miller, in connection with the killings, which had happened more than 300 miles away. He was charged with three counts of aggravated murder, a crime that potentially carries the death penalty in Utah. It was unclear on Thursday if he had a lawyer.

Lt. Cameron Roden of the Utah Department of Public Safety said the suspect had no previous ties to the victims and did not appear to have any connection to Utah. According to charging documents, Mr. Miller confessed to the murders, telling investigators “it had to be done.”

Utah officials did not immediately release the victims’ names, saying only that they lived in the area and that it appeared that they had been targeted for their vehicles. Mr. Miller told the authorities that he had killed the older woman first and stolen her car, then killed the two hikers because he wanted a different car, according to court records.

“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, Utah, an alfalfa-farming town, population 200. According to the Utah authorities, the suspect spent a night in a shed at the home of the victim in her 80s after getting into town. On Wednesday, he sneaked into her house and shot her in the head while she was watching television. After moving her body to a cellar beneath the shed, he stole her car, a Buick, and drove to the Cox Comb trailhead near the town of Torrey, where he killed the two hikers.

He ditched the Buick at the trailhead, and then fled the scene of the second killing in a white Subaru that belonged to one of the hikers, Lieutenant Roden said.

The hikers’ husbands were the first to discover the women’s bodies at the trailhead and called 911. A ranger who responded to the scene found three .45 caliber shell casings and a spent 20-gauge shotgun shell near the women’s bodies, according to court records.

Local and federal investigators used license-plate cameras and a tracker on the Subaru’s key fob to trace the suspect 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. on 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. He was carrying bank cards and identification belonging to the victims in his wallet, according to Utah court records.

The records also say investigators found .45 caliber ammunition and 20-gauge shotgun shells in the car that matched the shells found at the trailhead in Utah.

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, but was expected to be returned to face the murder charges in Utah.

A brother of Mr. Miller’s, 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 a 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, wondering aloud why three women had 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 L.D.S. 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 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.

Isabella Kwai contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

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