CORTEZ – Saturday will mark one year since three men killed a Cortez police officer in a hail of automatic gunfire before disappearing into the maze of desert canyons along the Colorado-Utah border. Some say they can’t still be out there in one of the most inhospitable environments in the Southwest.

But authorities coordinating the search for the two remaining fugitives said this week that the men, described as survivalists, appear to have spent more than five years stockpiling food and weapons in preparation for an indefinite stay in the wilderness.

One of the fugitives, 27-year-old Jason Wayne McVean of Durango, filled two notebooks containing more than 100 pages of hand-drawn maps, diagrams of bombs, and dozens of lists of supplies, weapons, and food. The notebooks, recovered during a search of McVean’s trailer in Durango, appear to outline his plan for long-term survival against an armed enemy.

For the past year, McVean and Alan "Monte" Pilon, 31, of Dove Creek, appear to have used those plans to elude the largest manhunt in Four Corners history, a search that has included more than 500 officers and some of the most sophisticated military hardware available.

"Surviving is the most important thing for these two people, and they may have done just that," said Dot Graham, the FBI special agent who is coordinating the investigation into the whereabouts of the two fugitives.

Pilon, McVean and a third suspect, Robert Mason, 26, of Durango, are suspected of killing Cortez police officer Dale Claxton and wounding two Montezuma County sheriff’s deputies before disappearing into Cross Canyon on May 29. Mason was found dead of an apparent suicide June 4 beside the San Juan River east of Bluff, Utah.

Authorities believe Mason killed himself after shooting at a Utah social worker and wounding a San Juan County, Utah, sheriff’s deputy. Although gunshot residue tests were not performed on Mason to determine if he fired the 9 mm Glock handgun found at his side, authorities said there were no other tracks around his body and therefore suspect he killed himself.

While McVean’s notebooks indicate that he was preparing for an armed encounter, some list huge stores of beans, rice, and other staple food products, indicating that he was also prepared to simply survive in the desert for many months, if not years. Scattered next to the references of grenades, pipe bombs and ammunition listed in the notebooks are scrawlings of 100 pounds of pinto beans, 75 pounds of flour, 100 pounds of salt and dozens of bottles of brandy and other alcoholic drinks.

Some of the lists have check marks beside them, possibly indicating that the items have been obtained and stashed in the desert. Graham, however, said investigators have not located any caches of supplies believed to be hidden by the suspects.

Inside McVean’s trailer, investigators also found photocopies of dozens of topographical maps for the areas between Hovenweep National Monument, on the Colorado-Utah border, and Lake Powell, Utah. One of the maps focuses on the area between Montezuma Creek, Utah, and Hatch Trading Post, about 20 miles to the north – the area where many of the sightings over the last year have come from.

Cortez Police Chief Roy Lane said in an interview this week that the fugitives were convinced that the world would be plunged into chaos at the end of the millennium and had been stockpiling products in the desert for more than five years in preparation, Lane said. The maps are believed to show areas where the trio hid supplies, although investigators have had difficulty placing those locations onto actual maps, Lane said.

While most of the hand-drawn maps have been deciphered, Graham said investigators are still confused by two detailed maps found in McVean’s notebooks. Graham said she is hoping someone will recognize the area indicated in the map and will call her at the Cortez Command Post at 565-8444.

Lane said that while it is possible that Pilon and McVean are dead, it is more likely that they are holed up in one of the thousands of caves, Indian kivas, abandoned mines or rustic homes scattered throughout the labyrinth canyons and twisted escarpments between Cortez and Lake Powell, Utah.

Lane agrees that the fugitives must be getting help in order to survive in the desert, and said he thinks that help may be coming from someone in Southwest Colorado.

"There are people in the Four Corners, and especially in the northern part of this (Montezuma) county, who think of them as heroes," Lane said. Some suspects are being monitored to see if they make any suspicious trips to the desert, but Lane said he does not have the manpower to monitor all of Pilon and McVean’s friends around-the-clock.

Graham agrees that even the most prepared survivalists need some personal items from the civilized world, so if the suspects are alive, they’re getting help.

"If they’re alive, someone is helping them," Graham said, adding that although anyone helping the fugitives is committing a serious crime, an arrangement may be able to be worked out if anyone were to inform authorities about Pilon and McVean’s whereabouts.

"We have options now on how we proceed with this," Graham said. "I’m sure we could work something out."

During the past year, Graham and a team of three investigators from the Cortez Police Department and the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office have interviewed hundreds of people, tracked down thousands of leads, and investigated dozens of alleged sightings of Pilon and McVean.

While sightings have been reported throughout the country, the majority have come from within the Four Corners area, Graham said.

Graham, who spends about three days every week pursuing the more than 20 leads that come in each month, admits that Pilon and McVean have accomplished quite a feat by avoiding the massive dragnet that once included the National Guard and hundreds of police officers from throughout the country, some of whom came to help out on their vacations.

While the notebooks give investigators an idea of how prepared Pilon, McVean and Mason were for an extended stay in the wilderness, Graham admits she can only guess what the three were planning to do on May 29.

Graham suspects they planned to use the water truck they stole from Ignacio as a getaway vehicle during a robbery of the Ute Mountain Casino in Towaoc. The truck, which could reach speeds of more than 70 mph, was described as "bulletproof from the back," making it an ideal escape vehicle, Graham said.

But Lane believes the three men intended to make a political statement by using the truck to make a bomb and damage a major power plant, possibly the Four Corners Power Plant in Shiprock, N.M. Others have speculated that the three were planning on destroying Glen Canyon Dam.

"Robbing the casino was the first thing that popped into my mind, but the more I think about it, if they were thinking of making a political statement, blowing up a power plant or something would have made more of a political statement than robbing a casino," Lane said.

Lane believes that Pilon and McVean have a mission that they aim to complete, and said he fears the next attempt at completing that mission will prove deadly.

"There’s no doubt in my mind that they’re going to do whatever it was they set out to do," Lane said. "And before it’s all over, I expect there will be more violence."

Lane said that while a year-long investigation has not brought the fugitives to justice, it has answered questions about their past and helped investigators understand their way of thinking. Several local people with militia ties said that Pilon and McVean both completed training exercises with the Four Corners Patriots, a radical underground militia, but were asked to leave the group because their views were too extreme, Lane said.

Despite the year that has passed since Dale Claxton walked the halls of the Cortez Police Department, Lane said the pain of Claxton’s death has not faded.