Ivan Miller, 22, was charged with three counts of aggravated murer, first degree felonies, by the Wayne County Attorney’s Office. 

Charging documents said Miller, who was taken into custody by police in Pagosa Springs, Colorado at 2:45 a.m. Thursday, told police he was in the Wayne County area because he hit an elk in Loa, Utah, a few days ago and sold his truck to a towing company. 

Miller allegedly confessed that he shot and killed an elderly woman inside her Lyman, Utah, home and stole her Buick, then drove the car to the area of Cocks Comb Trailhead, where he saw a younger woman and an older woman get out of a white Subaru. Miller confessed to shooting both of the victims, then stabbing one, then stealing their credit cards and taking their car, according to court documents. 

It “had to be done,” Miller confessed to police, the charging documents said. 

Wayne County first received a report that two women were found dead in the area of Cocks Comb Trailhead, and a ranger with the Bureau of Land Management arrived at the scene at 4:25 p.m. and found the husbands of the two women flagging him from the roadway, the charging documents said.

The documents said the ranger observed three spent .45 shell casings and a spent 20-gauge shotgun shell near the bodies and noted that the bodies appeared to have possibly been dragged to where they were lying in a dried-up creek bed.

It was discovered that a Buick near the scene belonged to the elderly woman, and police conducted a welfare check on the home and found the woman’s body in a cellar under a shed on the property, according to the charging documents.

Police said the husband of one of the victims used an app on his phone to track the location of the key fob for the Subaru and that it was located in Farmington, New Mexico, at around 9:13 p.m. Law enforcement was later advised that the vehicle was located near Durango, Colorado, and Miller was found at a gas station in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, court documents said.