CORTEZ – Authorities said they found pipe bombs, anti-government literature and directions on how to make explosives while searching the homes and a truck belonging to the suspects accused of killing a Cortez police officer and wounding two deputies Friday.

But for the sixth day, the trio eluded the massive manhunt concentrated in the rugged canyons 30 miles northwest of Cortez.

Searchers thought they had two of the suspects surrounded in a camper-trailer just west of Cortez near the city limits Wednesday afternoon when two young children reported seeing two camouflaged men running across a field and into the home. An elite SWAT team was dropped in by helicopter to converge while officials evacuated nearby residents.

But the exercise turned out to be a wild goose chase and the men were not found.

More than 200 law officers from 45 agencies were searching Wednesday night for Alan "Monty" Pilon, 30, of Dove Creek; Robert Mason, 26, of Durango; and Jason McVean, also 26 and from Durango.

Cortez Police Chief Roy Lane said officers exercising search warrants Tuesday in a camper-trailer Pilon had recently been living in at Animas Air Park south of Durango turned up three pipe bombs. Two more pipe bombs were found in a pickup truck owned by Mason parked near the trailer, Lane said.

Lane said "survivalist" magazines, "anti-government" Internet material, and a book, The Anarchist Cookbook – which explains how to make bombs, boobytraps and weapons – was found in Pilon’s room at his parents’ Dove Creek home.

But Lane said investigators still have found no connection between the three suspects and any militia or extremist groups. He said all three do have extensive "survivalist" training and have expressed anti-government views.

Lane also said Wednesday that the only way they could be surviving in the canyons so long is if they had stashes supplies there ahead of time.

"There is no doubt (they stored supplies)," Lane said. "They had to have something to survive."

Montezuma County Sheriff Sherman Kennell said searchers found a "cache" of food and water Monday stashed in Bug Canyon near Dove Creek.

Lane said he believes the three are still in the Cross Canyon area, despite no new evidence to indicate so. And he said despite "serious" drains on police funds, the search will continue longer than expected with the help of state money promised by Gov. Roy Romer.

"I still think they are hunkered down out there in that vast country," he said. "We’re going to continue to search. We think these are dangerous enough people that the only way to keep others from getting killed is to catch them."

Officials thought they had them when two elementary-aged children reported seeing two men wearing camouflage enter a trailer home west of Cortez and south of the main search area.

Lane said one of the trailer’s windows had recently been broken and footprints near the home that resembled ones belonging to the suspects "indicated they (may have been) close."

But dispatch reports said the report was false after dozens of tactical officers searched the area, two helicopters circled overhead, and officers and snipers forming a perimeter around the location found no clue of the two.

"I saw oodles and gobs of police cars and I was like, ‘Oh my God,’" said Steph Sattler, who took cover with her children in her home adjacent to the area where the fugitives were thought to be. "I was talking to my neighbor while it was happening and I was like, ‘It’s a circus out here.’"

Police said they did not know if the three are still together or if one may have gone his own way. They have been baffled that only two sets of tracks have turned up.

The men are accused of fatally shooting Cortez Police Officer Dale Claxton after he stopped a water truck Friday that they allegedly stole from Ignacio a day earlier. Lane said they later fired at officers who chased them with automatic assault rifles, injuring two Montezuma County deputies before fleeing into Cross Canyon.

The men are accused of first-degree murder, assault and aggravated motor vehicle theft.

Lane said the evidence found during the execution of the search warrant, plus other information gathered during the investigation, has made the case against them tight.