Dead Run

On a sunny May morning in 1998, in the small town of Cortez, Colorado, three “survivalists” in a stolen truck opened fire on a local policeman, shooting him 29 times as he unbuckled his seatbelt. Police chased the murderers through the searing heat into the remote wilderness canyons of the Four Corners area, thus beginning the largest manhunt in the history of the West. Dead Run is the first in-depth account of this sensational case: then story of the outlaws’ path to sudden violence, their frightening web of anti-government militia and outlaw associates, and the men who led the extraordinary effort to apprehend them. More than a modern crime story,Dead Run is also an examination of the seductive allure of outlaw culture in the West and how it continues to inform latent national attitudes towards guns, authority, and unfettered freedom.