DISTURBING UPDATE: Authorities confirm that two v!ctims in the Utah s3rial k!lling were widely recognized public figures in the U.S

The Buick belonged to an elderly woman who lived nearby. When sheriff’s deputies went to her home that evening to conduct a wellness check, they allegedly found another trail of blood in her front room. She, too, was discovered dead, according to the charging document, her body seemingly moved by wheelbarrow and dumped in a cellar under a shed on the property.

The grisly killings upended a small community in southern Utah and set off a manhunt through the night that led to the arrest of a 22-year-old suspect in Colorado on Thursday morning. Ivan Miller, of Blakesburg, Iowa, allegedly confessed to killing the three women for money and their cars, court documents say.

Miller was charged Thursday in Wayne County with three counts of aggravated murder. He appeared in a Colorado court Friday, where he also faces charges for carrying a concealed weapon, vehicle theft and homicide, according to jail records. The Colorado public defender’s office, which is representing Miller, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Court records do not list an attorney for Miller in Utah, and efforts to reach family members were unsuccessful.

A few hundred people live in each of the smattering of towns in Wayne County, Utah, around where the killings took place. Visitors come for the hiking and the views of a ridge of red rock cliffs looming over the landscape.

A crime spree, much less a spate of murders, was hard to imagine here. The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office posts court schedules to its Facebook page in an album titled “Nothing happens in Wayne County.”

Linda Dewey, 65, and Natalie Graves, 34, an aunt and niece who lived in the area, had gone to hike Wednesday before they were found dead, according to court documents. Their husbands set out looking for them when they did not return in the afternoon and found them near a trailhead.

Dewey and Graves did not appear to be linked to the third woman killed in her home, 86-year-old Margaret Oldroyd, the Utah Department of Public of Safety said Thursday.

Investigators zeroed in on the suspect by tracking the vehicles he allegedly stole from the women, according to Roden and court documents. As law enforcement traced the Buick found at the scene to Oldroyd, the families of Dewey and Graves reported that the pair had driven to the trailhead in a white Subaru Outback, which was missing.

A family member used an app to track the Subaru’s key fob Wednesday night. It pinged in New Mexico, according to court documents. Investigators also used automated license plate readers to track the vehicle overnight as it wound through Arizona and Colorado, Roden said.

On Wednesday night, fear rippled through Wayne County as news of the killings spread. The sheriff’s office told people to remain home with their doors locked and lights on. The Wayne County School District closed its schools for the rest of the week.

At around 2:45 a.m. Thursday, officers in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, found the Subaru abandoned and apprehended Miller, who fled on foot, court documents say. Miller was allegedly carrying bank and ID cards belonging to the victims, as well as a .45-caliber pistol. Officers also found .45-caliber ammunition and shotgun shells in the Subaru that matched the evidence found in Utah, court documents state.