Dead Run: The Murder of a Lawman and the Greatest Manhunt of the Modern American West

On a May morning in 1998 in Cortez, Colorado, three survivalists in a stolen truck shot a town police officer twenty times, then escaped into 10,000 square miles of Colorado wilderness. The outlaws evaded pursuit by more than seventy-five local, state, and federal police agencies, dozens of SWAT teams, U.S. Army Special Forces, and over five hundred officers from across the country, despite advanced law enforcement technology. Dan Schultz provides the first in-depth account of this case, documenting the manhunt across harsh terrain where the fugitives' survival skills gave them an advantage. The narrative includes local sheriffs, Native American trackers, mounted posses, and allegations of vigilante justice and police cover-ups, alongside the challenges faced by law enforcement pursuing suspects into wilderness where only the outlaws could survive.