Wichita ? A prank by three young men who told friends they’d beaten somebody to death during a drug deal had officers digging through trash bins before determining it was all a hoax.

Capt. Sam Houston, of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Department, said the three, one 20 and the other two 17, left messages before dawn Monday on the cell phones of several friends. They claimed that they’d slit a man’s throat after the purported drug deal went bad and left the body in a trash bin somewhere west of Wichita.

After one of the friends called 911, sheriff’s deputies – some called in from being off-duty – and police from Goddard, Clearwater and Bel Aire began a search, hurrying to get the work done before trash companies began their morning rounds.

“We were under a time crunch,” Houston said.

The three young men were picked up for questioning late Monday. Houston said one of them wouldn’t talk, but the other two told detectives a series of stories that left open the possibility that there might be an element of truth in the phone messages.

“It was kind of a cat-and-mouse game for a little while,” Houston said. “They told us several different lies.”

More than 100 trash bins had been searched before the two fessed up to the prank early Tuesday.

He said it would be up to prosecutors to decide on any charges against the three.