By Hal Mansfield
Rewards totaling $162,500 await the person or persons who find Jason Wayne McVean, dead or alive. The FBI wants McVean for the first-degree murder of a peace officer, for first-degree assault, for aggravated motor vehicle theft, for car jacking, and for assault on a federal officer. He has not been seen, according to police records, since May 29, 1998.
Jason McVean’s two “partners” in the crime spree, Robert Matthew Mason and Alan “Monte” Pilon are dead. Mason died from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot on June 4, 1998. Pilon’s skeletal remains were discovered October 31, 1999. Authorities believe that he shot himself or that Mason or McVean shot him. The deer hunters who found Pilon’s remains divided rewards totaling $162,500.
The three, McVean, Pilon and Mason, allegedly stole a water truck about 11:30 in the morning of May 28, 1998, from an oil field service parking lot near Ignacio, Colo. The next morning at 9:24, Cortez (Colorado) police officer Dale Claxton spotted the truck and began following it. The truck, with three men in it, was about 80 miles from where it was stolen. The truck pulled over and stopped, just beyond the Cortez city limits, in Montezuma County.
Before Claxton could get out of his police cruiser, one of the three men got out of the truck, walked toward the police car and fired numerous rounds from an automatic weapon into the cruiser. Claxton died instantly from the hail of 7.62 x 39 bullets.
After murdering Claxton, the three men drove several miles before they abandoned the water truck and commandeered, at gunpoint, a flatbed truck from Paul Ibarra, an employee of Cortez building contractor Bob Williams. Two of the men got into the truck’s cab. The third man got on the truck’s bed, brandishing an automatic weapon. It is not clear who was driving, who was on the passenger side and who got on the back of the truck. The men were dressed alike. Two were similar in build. At least two wore masks during part of the crime spree. And, the individual events took only a few seconds each.
Just before the flatbed truck pulled out of Williams’ driveway onto Montezuma County Road F, a Montezuma County sheriff’s deputy, Jason Bishop, drove by in his cruiser, heading west on Road F. He was looking for the water truck. The flatbed truck pulled out and followed the deputy for a short distance. Then, the man on the back of the truck opened fire.
Bishop was wounded in the back of his head. He lost consciousness and his cruiser crashed. The stolen truck sped toward a bend where Road F meets Montezuma County Road 25. Almost immediately, the men in the truck saw a Colorado State Patrol vehicle coming toward them. The man on the flatbed opened fire. The man on the passenger side may have fired also. Patrolman Steve Keller was not hit by the bullets that were fired by one or more of the men in the flatbed truck; however, his vehicle was put out of action by a flat tire and one or more shattered windows. Seconds later, Cortez Police Sergeant Sue Betts came into view around the corner. Shots fired from the truck hit her cruiser, but she was not injured. The truck sped on.
Up ahead, on Road 25, Deputy Todd Martin pulled off the road onto a church parking lot. He got out of his cruiser, shotgun in hand. Before Martin could take aim with the shotgun, the man on the flatbed and the man on the passenger side opened fire. Martin received serious wounds to his elbow and knee. Shots were directed at, but missed, Cortez officer Jim Bob Wynes and his cruiser. As officer Wynes applied emergency, life-saving first aid to Martin, State Trooper Keller ran up, got in Wynes’s cruiser and pursued the fugitives.
Farther along, where Road 25 and Road G intersect, the truck encountered cruisers driven by Montezuma County sheriff’s officers Lendol Lawrence and Terry Steele and sheriff’s Capt. Joey Chavez. Again, a volley of automatic bullets sprayed the vehicles. Miraculously, none of the lawmen was injured. All of the cruisers were hit, but all were able to continue in the chase. Four cruisers were in hot pursuit.
In just a few action-packed seconds, two deputies lay wounded and seven vehicles were hit with gunfire or otherwise damaged by the heavily armed desperados. Some idea of the level of violence can be seen in the dramatic reenactment of the events that has been shown on both “Unsolved Mysteries” and on “America’s Most Wanted” on cable TV. The retelling provides a realistic overview of the events. As many as 500 rounds of automatic ammunition were fired by the alleged assailants, all in the space of a few minutes. That is a level of firepower normally found in only the most intense actions.
As the truck sped across the U. S. Highway 160 intersection with Road G, more shots came from the truck. At the intersection, one car and a trash dumpster were hit by gunfire. No one was struck. In the traffic tie-up and the confusion at the intersection, the fugitives got away. The four pursuing officers were not sure which direction the fugitives took or whether they were still in the stolen flatbed truck. The truck disappeared up McElmo Canyon on Montezuma County Road G and into Utah.
Montezuma County Sheriff Sherman Kennell drove to the Cortez airport and commandeered a plane and its pilot, Civil Air Patrol Captain Gene Patton. They took off, but a false report took them toward the village of Pleasant View, Colorado, too far to the east. It was the first of many air search frustrations and disappointments.
Far up McElmo Canyon, the fugitives doubled back on Pleasant View Road and headed east toward Hovenweep National Monument. They were still in Utah. About one mile from the monument entrance, they encountered Art Hutchinson, the superintendent of the monument. Hutchinson—who had heard on his police scanner that the fugitives might be heading his way—drove out to close the entrance gate and then out onto Pleasant View Road to warn others about the danger. As he drove west on Pleasant View Road a hail of automatic gunfire came his way, causing the ranger to swerve his vehicle off the road. Only two of the bullets hit the car; none hit Hutchinson. The truck sped away from Pleasant View Road into a remote, nearby area, known as Cross Canyon, in San Juan County, Utah.
Before abandoning the truck in Cross Canyon, the fugitives tried to hide it by cutting brush and putting branches on the truck. The truck’s bright yellow paint made it still visible. The abandoned flatbed truck was discovered around 1 p.m. by San Juan County sheriff’s officers.
San Juan County Sheriff Mike Lacy called in search teams from a number of law enforcement agencies and a massive manhunt followed. Mysteriously, only two sets of human tracks led away from the truck and these soon disappeared in the brushy tangle of the creek bottom. The creek bottom is a wide swath of heavy brush.
Over the next few days, the manhunt involved over 500 searchers from more than 50 law enforcement agencies. Up to 18 helicopters, some equipped with sophisticated sensors, were used. Teams of trackers from the Navajo Nation police participated. Search dogs were brought in to help the teams scour the area.
Colorado’s governor at the time, Roy Romer, declared a state of emergency so units of the Colorado National Guard could be mobilized to join in the manhunt. FBI agents and resources also were involved.
The vegetation surrounding Cross Creek is often so thick that vision is limited to a few feet. Adding to the physical difficulties of mounting an effective search was the certain knowledge that the fugitives were armed and ready to direct heavy firepower at any pursuers. All the members of the many search teams knew they could be walking into fatal traps.
The fugitives were not found.
By June 2, the three fugitives were identified as Robert Matthew Mason and Jason Wayne McVean, both from Durango, Colorado, and Alan “Monte” Pilon, of Dove Creek, Colorado. Mason and McVean had minor police records. All were known to hold radical, anti-government political views. Pilon held extreme racist and religious views and owed money to the IRS. Records indicate that the three had once been members of a “patriot group” but were asked to leave the group because of their violent views and tendencies.
People from all over the Southwest and many of the searchers took time away from the search for the fugitives to bury officer Claxton.
The motive for the theft of the oil field water truck was not discovered among the fugitives’ personal effects. These effects included notebooks, detailed maps, lists of stores of food, tactical plans on how and when to implement chemical warfare, and references to pipe bombs, guns, grenades and ammunition. One theory is that the three intended to fill the truck with explosives to pull off an Oklahoma City-type bombing. Almost certainly, they were thinking about surviving in the backcountry for many months.
On June 4, about 42 miles from where the flatbed truck was abandoned, one of the three men was spotted on the north bank of the San Juan River, near Bluff, Utah. The fugitive shot at—but missed—Steve Wilcox, a social worker who intended to eat his lunch at a small picnic area just east of Bluff. The shady picnic spot is near the Swinging Bridge that spans the San Juan River. Wilcox sped from the area and called 911. A San Juan County deputy sheriff, Kelly Bradford, was nearby and responded to the call.
As Bradford got out of his cruiser and stood on a low bluff looking down toward the picnic area and the Swinging Bridge, he was shot twice by a gunman in hiding on the (opposite) south side of the river. His wounds were serious. A bulletproof vest may have saved his life. Another officer arrived and pulled him to safety.
Then, several search teams arrived and began a series of careful sweeps of the area. The gunman’s location was soon pinpointed. He apparently took his own life as the search teams surrounded him and moved in for the capture. The dead man was later identified as Robert Matthew Mason. A number of pipe bombs were seen near his body. A winch finally moved the body the next morning because it appeared that it might be booby-trapped with the bombs. It wasn’t.
A massive search for the other two fugitives was launched in the Bluff area. Roadblocks were set up in the area and hundreds of cars were stopped and searched at gunpoint. All of Bluff’s 300 residents were evacuated. An intense search of the San Juan River Valley was conducted. No verifiable trace of the fugitives was found, though a number of sightings were called in. It is possible the two were never in that area.
The search for Monte Pilon and Jason McVean continued for several weeks. It gradually slowed because of a lack of clues and due to depleted law enforcement agency budgets. It has been estimated that the manhunt cost over one million dollars in the first few weeks. At one time, rewards for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Pilon and McVean totaled $325,000. The two were put on the FBI’s “wanted list.”
Seventeen months later, on Oct. 31, 1999, a group of 11 Navajo deer hunters found Monte Pilon’s skeleton on Tin Cup Mesa. The remains were 1.42 miles, “as the crow flies,” from the spot in Cross Canyon where the flatbed truck was abandoned on May 29, 1998. The remains rested under a tree not far from where search teams passed countless times during the early phases of the manhunt. The spot where the camouflage-clad body was found commanded views over several nearby roads. The juniper tree his skeleton rested under provided cover. The skeleton was so far back under the tree branches that investigators had to cut the tree down in order to examine the remains.
Laboratory tests did not pin down the exact cause of Pilon’s death. He probably died from a gunshot to the head. The angle of the bullet’s entry into the skull suggested to some investigators that someone else shot him. (McVean or Mason?) Pilon had a fractured ankle. He could have hiked to where his body was found, but only with considerable pain. The ankle injury might explain why his body was there and why only two sets of human tracks were found going away from the truck the fugitives abandoned. The time of death could not be established, but it was clear the body had been under the tree for many months, perhaps since very early in the manhunt.
Theories on McVean’s whereabouts abound. One theory is that he fled the area almost at once. A second theory is that he stayed in the area for some time and that he avoided capture by receiving outside help during the intense phases of the manhunt and afterwards. Many connected with the case believe that McVean died—much like Pilon—early in the manhunt. McVean’s fate may never be known.
Mason’s parents and McVean’s father and stepmother recently contacted a Denver Post reporter. The Post reopened media attention to the case with a front-page story in its Saturday, May 20, 2000, issue. In that story, the parents expressed their deep sorrow over the murder of Claxton, the wounding of the deputies and all the trouble their sons caused. They also voiced frustrations about the lack of cooperation from various law enforcement agencies. They said that they wish nothing more than to have the matter fully resolved, but feel that many questions have not been satisfactorily answered. They told how they recently sent letters of apology to Claxton’s family and to the officers who were wounded.
In the Post’s second article in the series, Officer Claxton’s widow, speaking for herself and her two children, detailed how her husband’s murder shattered the family’s hopes and dreams. She praised the support she and her children have received from the community and, especially, from her late husband’s police department. However, widow Claxton has reservations about the Utah law enforcement and FBI work on the case.
Officer Bishop, who was shot in the back of the head, was released from the Cortez hospital on the day he was wounded. He left police work for reasons other than his injury. Officer Martin, after recuperating from his life-threatening injuries, joined the Colorado State Patrol. His first assignment was to the Silverton, Colorado area. Months after he was wounded, he told a reporter that he still had chronic pain from his wounds. San Juan Country sheriff’s deputy Kelly Bradford recovered from his wounds. He was promoted to sergeant after he recovered from his wounds.
With one of its officer’s dead, the Cortez police department is dedicated to closing the case. The Cortez police department and the Montezuma County and the San Juan County sheriffs’ departments and the FBI still actively follow legitimate leads and hope for the final break that will lead them to McVean, or to his body. The ‘hotline’ number is (970) 565-8441, in Cortez, Colorado.
Many residents of the Four Corners area will not rest easy until McVean is
behind bars, or his skeleton is found. Meanwhile, the $162,500 in reward money
is waiting to be claimed.