Navajo police officer says he's closing in on 2 fugitive killers
Clues indicate pair still in area - and getting help

MONTEZUMA CREEK, San Juan County -- Oliver Coho has never met Alan Lamont Pilon or Jason Wayne McVean, but he knows plenty about them.

For the better part of a year, the Navajo policeman has been tracking the two accused killers of a Cortez, Colo., officer through the canyons, creek beds and caves of southeastern Utah.Coho knows Pilon wears military boots -- size 13 wide. He knows both men got new boots last year when they learned they were being tracked. He knows one smokes Marlboro Lights. And he knows McVean drinks too much.

"We haven't seen them, but we know they're still there," Coho says, his face sun-bronzed from his excursions into the wilderness. The clues tell him so.

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Officer Dale Claxton was on routine patrol May 29, 1998, when he stumbled upon three men in a stolen water truck on a bridge southeast of Cortez. They opened fire with automatic weapons, hitting Claxton and his cruiser 26 times before he could even unbuckle his seatbelt.

In the ensuing chase and shootout, two Montezuma County sheriff's deputies were wounded. Suspect Robert Mason was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot days later some 55 miles away near Bluff, Utah, after he wounded a San Juan County, Utah, deputy.

Authorities had almost immediately identified the suspects in Claxton's killing as McVean, Pilon and Mason and learned all three were survivalists. The two surviving suspects eluded a huge search in early June through parts of Colorado and Utah. At the height of the nine-day search, more than 500 searchers from 51 agencies joined the effort, including the FBI, police and sheriff's deputies on horseback and in helicopters.

Searches of the men's homes turned up literature protesting tactics used by the Internal Revenue Service. Police Chief Roy Lane says Cortez, although hundreds of miles from the nearest seat of government, is a haven for anti-government groups -- "people who don't like taxes, who won't put license plates on their cars, who don't believe in drivers' licenses. But we've never had any violence before," he says.

Police also found maps with circles, indicating caves along Montezuma Creek, places to hide out and stash food. Police learned the suspects had been going into the area for two or three years, with only enough food for a week.

"They aren't novices. They know what they're doing," Lane says.

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The memorial on the bridge is simple. "Officer Dale Claxton. Lobo 11 (his police call sign). May 29, 1998."