Ryan Lewis, a producer with Zero Gravity Management, recently bought the rights to the 2013 book “Dead Run” by Dan Schultz, which tells the tale of one of the biggest manhunts the Four Corners has ever seen, according to the Durango Telegraph.
Three men, two from Durango and one from Dove Creek, led police on a manhunt through Utah deserts after shooting and killing a Cortez police officer when he tried to pull them over in 1998.
Jason McVean, 26, Alan “Monte” Pilon, 30, and Robert Mason, 26, stole a water truck from Ignacio and were later stopped in Cortez by officer Dale Claxton. Before Claxton could even get out of the vehicle, one of the men stepped out of their vehicle and shot the officer 29 times, according to an article from 2007 by Deseret News.
The men fled across the Colorado-Utah border, shooting and injuring two Montezuma County Sheriff’s deputies in the process. A few days later, Mason shot at a Utah state employee from a mile away. San Juan County deputy Kelly Bradford was wounded after responding to that report. Mason then shot and killed himself, surrounded by pipe bombs, according to Deseret News.
More than 500 officials were part of the manhunt at one point or another, and Schultz’s book describes interagency rivalry between local law enforcement, Navajo Police and the FBI, and interviews included in the book insinuate that the manhunt could have gone smoother, according to a 2013 Journal article.
Many theories surround this story, as some believe the three men were planning on building a bomb using the stolen truck, or even overthrowing the government. The plans, though, died with the men, not long after the manhunt began.
In 1999, a group of hunters came upon a backpack, a tent and a gun, which led the group to believe they had stumbled on Pilon and McVean’s lair. They found Pilon’s remains in the area, Deseret News reported.
Authorities at the time reported that he had a broken ankle and a gunshot wound to the head, though they aren’t certain whether the wound was self-inflicted.
Parts of McVean’s remains were found in a wash 2½ miles away from where Pilon was found. Investigators believed coyotes had scattered the body.
Lewis has been working on bringing this story to the big screen, but the writing strike has slowed down production. Lewis and Zero Gravity are “making a strong push,” according to the Durango Telegraph. They are still undecided if the story will be a movie or a television series. However this story is portrayed, there will be lots of ground to cover to include the most important details from Schultz’s book.
The book details several theories about the men’s intentions, spanning from robbing the Ute Mountain Casino’s armored truck to blowing up the Glen Canyon Dam, according to the Journal. The book also suggests that a fourth accomplice might have been involved, based on evidence, but no suspect has been named.
“Its battle lines confounded our allegiance: cops versus outlaws; freedom versus authority; individual versus the system; live-off-the-land survivalists versus high-tech establishment; man against nature,” Schultz said in the Journal article. “It was a crime that was never fully resolved or understood. Its questions still haunt.”
