A tip about a possible cache of supplies near Bluff, Utah, sent authorities from three regional law enforcement agencies back to the Utah desert to search for two suspected cop-killers last week, but two days of searching turned up nothing.

Montezuma County Sheriff Sherman Kennell said Friday that 22 searchers from the Cortez Police Department, the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office and the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office in Utah converged on two canyons about 30 miles northwest of Bluff after a person reported a cache of food and equipment in that area.

Kennell said that despite one of the most thorough searches he’s seen so far in the five-month-old manhunt, searchers found no food, equipment or human traces.

"We looked under every rock, every bush, in every canyon," Kennell said. "And we didn’t find a thing."

Kennell said he had hoped last week’s tip was the break which authorities have been waiting for in the manhunt for Alan "Monte" Pilon, 31, of Dove Creek, and Jason Wayne McVean, 27, of Durango. The two have eluded authorities for 155 days since allegedly killing Cortez Police Officer Dale Claxton and wounding two sheriff’s deputies on May 29 in Cortez.

A third suspect, Robert Mason, 26, of Durango, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound June 6 near Bluff, Utah.

A deputy wounded by three suspected cop-killers will return to work Wednesday, Montezuma County Sheriff Sherman Kennell said Friday.

Todd Martin, a sheriff’s detective sergeant with the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office, will return to work at the same rank and the same pay rate he held when he was wounded on May 29, Kennell said.

Martin was shot in the knee and arm while pursuing Alan "Monte" Pilon, 31, of Dove Creek, Jason Wayne McVean, 27, of Durango, and Robert Mason, 26, of Durango. Pilon and McVean remain on the loose. Mason was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound June 4 near Bluff, Utah.

Martin was wounded on his last day of duty with the sheriff’s office, having resigned in order to enroll at the Colorado State Patrol’s academy. He was unable to attend the academy due to his injuries.

Martin publicly criticized the sheriff’s department in September after he was told that Kalvin Boggs had been promoted to detective sergeant while Martin was recuperating. Although Boggs was promoted, he was not given a pay raise because the sheriff’s office budget did not allow it, Kennell said.