Suspect in Utah killings of 3 women was free on Iowa burglary and other charges

A man accused of killing three women in Utah and stealing their cars and credit cards was already known to police in Iowa: He was arrested there on suspicion of breaking into a cabin about two months prior, court documents show.

Officials released Ivan Miller, 22, without bail back in January on the charges in Iowa, and he vowed to appear for the next court appearance.

But Miller missed the arraignment Friday because he was in jail in southern Colorado after authorities tracked him there in one of the stolen vehicles.

A public defender representing Miller in the Colorado case, Scott Van Zandt, said Friday during a court hearing that his client does not want to speak to police or media.

Meanwhile, out in southern Utah’s starkly beautiful desert country, friends and relatives of the women killed struggled to comprehend what authorities called a crime of “convenience.”

Miller told investigators he stole the cars and credit cards because he needed to get back to Iowa, according to interviews outlined in court documents.

The husbands of two victims found their wives dead Wednesday near a trailhead after they didn’t return from a desert hike. The body of the third victim — a church-going woman who loved yardwork and kept a tidy yard — was found near her home.

There was no sign that Miller had any connection to the three, said Lt. Cameron Roden of the Utah Highway Patrol.

Miller had been on the move often in recent days if not months. A few days before the killings, Miller hit an elk in the town of Loa.

He sold his pickup truck to the tow company, leaving him without a vehicle. After staying in hotels for a few days, Miller slept in a shed on 86-year-old Margaret Oldroyd's property in Lyman, Utah, without her knowledge, according to investigators who interviewed Miller.

Oldroyd’s Buick was found Wednesday at a trailhead outside Capitol Reef National Park, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from her house in the rural area of farms and ranches. There, authorities said Miller told them he saw two women get out of a Subaru and killed them before taking their car.

Linda Dewey, 65, and her niece Natalie Graves, 34, were killed and found in a dry creek bed. Their husbands called 911 and waved down a ranger.

“Our family is dealing with the shock of the devastating loss of two members of our family who were bonding over the beauty of a hike in one of their favorite places on earth -- cherished by them and the community, considered to be a safe sanctuary,” the family of Dewey and Graves said in a statement. “They were murdered. We cannot comprehend why this happened.”

The family said Dewey was a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter and sister who had extended family and friends worldwide.

“She was loved deeply and loved her family deeply. She was the heart of our family,” their statement said.

The family described Graves, a wife, daughter and sister, as “joy, sunshine and beauty embodied.”

Police linked the Buick to its owner, Oldroyd, whose body they found in a cellar under the shed on her property.

Next-door neighbor Randy Jones said he was shocked by the death of “the sweetest woman you'd ever meet." She kept her flowers and lawn watered and neatly manicured, he said.

Oldroyd used to work at a local grocery store stocking shelves, Jones said. And when Jones helped rid her yard of skunks, she would bring him a cake as a thank you.

“Out here in rural counties, we all take care of each other,” Jones said.

Jones said Oldroyd didn't leave home much in recent years except to attend religious services and get groceries. Now and then, she would visit him and his horses.

Miller stole Oldroyd's car after shooting her while she watched TV in her home, Wayne County prosecutors allege.

After finding the bodies, police searched the greater Four Corners region for Miller.

He drove hundreds of miles through Arizona and New Mexico before they caught up with him using license plate readers and vehicle trackers in Pagosa Springs, a Colorado tourist town known for hot spring resorts lining the San Juan River.

Miller told investigators he killed the two hikers because he didn't like the Buick and wanted a different vehicle, according to court documents.

Miller appeared briefly in court in Colorado for the first time Friday but didn’t speak except to say and spell his name. His lawyer, Van Zandt, said he would fight his client being sent to Utah, where he could face the death penalty.

Wayne County, Utah, Attorney Michael Winn declined to comment Friday on Miller’s plan to fight extradition.

Miller had an arraignment scheduled Friday in Iowa on charges including felony second-degree burglary and misdemeanor theft, marijuana possession and gun possession. Court documents in that case say Miller also faced a related case charging him with illegally hunting on a game refuge, but that case was not found in a statewide search of Iowa online court records. According to a court order dated Jan. 13, he was released without bail on a promise to appear on the charges.

Miller had been arrested after rangers entered a cabin at Lake Wapello State Park in Iowa on Dec. 31 to prepare for an upcoming reservation.

They found the front door unlocked, food on the counter, a pan with bacon grease in it on the stove, a container with several marijuana joints and loaded guns, including a bolt-action rifle with a bayonet and an AR-10 with a scope and bipod, according to the arrest affidavit.

The person staying there also brought in a television, Xbox game console and Starlink internet device, suggesting “intent to stay for a long period of time” the affidavit states.

Miller showed up while the rangers were there, knocked softly and soon admitted to breaking into the cabin three days earlier seeking a warm place to stay, according to the affidavit.

The county attorney’s office prosecuting Miller on his Iowa charges declined Friday to answer any questions on the case, including whether Iowa prosecutors would allow Utah officials to first pursue the more serious charges against Miller. The Associated Press left a voicemail Friday for his public defender in the Iowa case.

This story has been corrected to show that Miller was due in an Iowa court Friday on burglary, theft and other counts and that court documents show he faced a related case accusing him of illegally hunting on a game refuge.

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Slevin reported from Denver, Beck from Omaha, Nebraska, and Gruver from Fort Collins, Colorado. Associated Press writers Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland, and Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona, contributed to this report.

A woman hangs a pink ribbon on a pole Thursday, March 5, 2026, in Lyman, Utah, in honor of a woman that was killed a day earlier. (AP Photo/George Frey)

Police and investigators conduct an investigation at Cocks Comb trailhead where two woman were killed Wednesday, on Thursday, March 5, 2026, outside Teasdale, Utah. (AP Photo/George Frey)

Authorities conduct an investigation Thursday, March 5, 2026, into the deaths of two women a day earlier on a trail just west of Capitol Reef National Park near Teasdale, Utah. (AP Photo/George Frey)

A pink ribbon hangs on a tree outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Thursday, March 5, 2026, in Lyman, Utah, in honor of a woman that was killed a day earlier. (AP Photo/George Frey)

Police and investigators conduct an investigation at Cocks Comb trailhead where two woman were killed Wednesday, on Thursday, March 5, 2026, outside Teasdale, Utah. (AP Photo/George Frey)

A pink ribbons hangs on a pole Thursday, March 5, 2026, in Lyman, Utah, in front of the house of a woman that was killed a day earlier. (AP Photo/George Frey)

Powerful storms ripped across Michigan on Friday, tearing the roof off a home improvement store and parts of a storage building, and knocking down trees as tornado warnings were issued across the southern part of the state.

In Edwardsburg, Michigan, area, near the Indiana border, officials reported downed trees and several homes that had been heavily damaged, and warned residents to avoid the area.

In St. Joseph County, about 34 miles (54.7 kilometers) northeast of Edwardsburg, the sheriff's office told residents to “seek shelter immediately” following reports of an unconfirmed tornado, a severe thunderstorm watch and possible winds more than 60 mph (96.6 kph).

“Citizens should anticipate power outages, closed roadways and/or neighborhoods and cellular/internet interruptions,” the office said on Facebook.

Powerful storms were forming Friday afternoon in Michigan and all the way to North Texas. There were no immediate confirmed reports of a tornado on the ground, but many videos posted online showed violent, rotating columns of air in Michigan.

In an eerie scene captured on video Thursday, a first responder drove straight at a storm near the western Oklahoma town of Fairview, where flashes of lightning illuminated a giant funnel that appeared to reach the ground. That storm, among the first outbreaks of severe weather on the verge of the spring storm season, was filmed by a camera mounted on the deputy's car.

Nearby, a 47-year-old woman and her 13-year-old daughter from Fairview were found dead in a vehicle near an intersection of a highway and a county road at about 10 p.m. Thursday, authorities said. The crash “appears to be tornado related,” Sarah Stewart, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, said in a statement.

“Severe weather struck Major County last night and tragically claimed the lives of a mother and daughter," Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a statement Friday. "I am praying for the family as they grieve this tragic loss, as well as all those impacted by the storms.”

The National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma, planned to send out a damage survey crew Friday to see whether Thursday night’s storms were confirmed tornadoes, meteorologist Ryan Bunker said. “As of right now, we’re still investigating that.”

More than 7 million Americans were at the highest risk of severe weather Friday in an area that includes the metropolitan areas of Kansas City, Missouri; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Omaha, Nebraska, according to the national Storm Prediction Center. Nearly 25 million people were at a slightly lesser risk in a zone that includes Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Severe, scattered thunderstorms are expected Friday evening from areas of the Plains states to the Ozarks and Midwest, the National Weather Service said.

“The greatest potential for a few strong tornadoes and very large hail should exist across eastern portions of Oklahoma/Kansas/Nebraska into western Arkansas/Missouri and southern Iowa,” it said.

The general setup for the strong storms is a clash between warm air streaming north from the Gulf Coast and cooler Canadian air behind cold fronts, according to meteorologists with the private forecasting service AccuWeather.

“This is probably our first real event this season where people are really starting to pay attention getting into the spring storm season,” said Melissa Mayes, deputy director of the Washington County Emergency Management Agency in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, north of Tulsa.

The spring storms in the forecast come near the start of what many call tornado season, which generally begins at different times in different parts of the U.S. Experts recommend a few simple safety steps to take before tornadoes hit, including having a weather radio and a plan for where to take shelter.

Meanwhile, parts of the Northeast were under winter weather advisories as rain, snow and slush made for a messy morning commute from Pennsylvania to Maine on Friday. Several vehicle slide-offs were also reported on the Maine Turnpike as drivers contended with sleet and snow.

Some schools canceled or delayed classes in states including New Hampshire and Maine.

The weather began to ease at midmorning in some areas, but Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut remained under weather advisories. In Ohio, flood warnings were issued in the southern part of the state.

In parts of the southern U.S., the weather pattern is also expected to usher in extremely warm temperatures for this time of year by the weekend.

“Temperatures will be 20-30 degrees above average, with 80s reaching as far north as parts of the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic,” federal forecasters wrote in their long-range forecast discussion. “Daily records could become widespread.”

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McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire, and Martin reported from Atlanta. Associated Press Writer Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, contributed.

FILE - This photo shows the National Weather Service monitoring station in Brownville, Texas, May 23, 2014. (David Pike/Valley Morning Star via AP, File)

This image taken from video provided by the Fairview, Okla., Emergency Management shows a severe weather system west of Fairview, Okla., late Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Danny Giager/ Fairview Emergency Management via AP)