Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
June 4th, 2004 was a quiet summer afternoon in the summer mountain town of Granby, Colorado. None of the town's 1,100 residents had any reason to suspect that day was about to become the most memorable in the town's history.
Unbeknownst to them, 52-year-old Marvin Heemeyer had been nursing a grudge against certain prominent town members. Over time, this resentment spread out to cover Granby as a whole. For years, he'd been plotting his revenge, and finally the day had come when his enemies would pay the price. You have given me license, through your example, to do what I need to do. When I do this...
That levels the playing field in my favor. So now we've got a lopsided playing field because when I come back at you, I'm going to destroy your side of the playing field. I'm going to destroy you.
Suddenly, this quiet afternoon was shattered by the sound of steel on steel as a massive bulldozer crashed right through the steel walls of the garage that had been holding it. The same garage where Hemeier had spent a year and a half painstakingly modifying the bulldozer, covering it with a custom armor made of concrete and steel. Hemeier modified the machine for a single purpose, vigilante justice. His first target was easy since it was right next door, Cody Dochev's concrete plant.
Heemeyer steered the bulldozer straight for a smaller building on the property. People working nearby watched in shock as he plowed right into the building. He backed up and rammed into the building over and over again until the heavy concrete roof collapsed. It was just completely reduced to rubble. But Heemeyer's revenge wasn't complete. He was just getting started. This is Vigilante, an original podcast by Podcast One.
You're listening to a story told in one episode called Marvin Heemeyer, the Killdozer. I'm Sarah James McLaughlin. Heemeyer was an industrious and individualistic mountain man who terrorized a small town of Granby, Colorado with an armored bulldozer in June 2004.
We're going to talk about this series of unfortunate events that led Hemeyer to believe that he had to take this devastating course of action that led to this destruction on that fateful day. Marvin Hemeyer first moved to Grand Lake, Colorado in 1991. This was another small town about 15 miles up the road from Granby. Granby is a resort rural town located at 8,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains.
about two hours northwest of Denver. It's a combination of tourist slash agricultural town. It's a beautiful place. You know, there's mountains all around. There's lakes, forests. We are located very close to the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.
Now, 15 miles might not seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but in these small towns, that meant a lot. That combined with the fact that Hemeyer moved from South Dakota made him a bit of an outsider, or at least Hemeyer felt that way. But that feeling didn't stop him from buying a cabin in Grand Lake and putting down roots. He loved snowmobiling, and in the winter months, the rugged terrain in Grand County was perfect for it.
Hemeier even made friends and became the de facto leader of a group that went snowmobiling on Thursdays. Hemeier was a talented welder and made a living running a muffler shop. He also used his welding skills to modify his snowmobiles with custom fuel injection systems and steel bumpers. He even made these custom bumpers for his friends so that they could more easily knock down small trees and other obstacles that got in their way.
And as much as Heemeyer enjoyed snowmobiling, it also caused him some strife. At one point, he bought a new ski-do of his preferred brand, but when he tried it out, he felt that it didn't live up to its marketing. In fact, he found the situation so unacceptable that he took the snowmobile manufacturer to court for a refund plus damages. Now, unfortunately for Heemeyer, the case was dismissed.
Furious, Hemeier switched away from his once favorite brand and proceeded to badmouth them to his Ski-Doo friends. You could say that Hemeier had very strong feelings about right and wrong. Here's Patrick Brower, a local journalist who butted heads with Hemeier. He also wrote the book, "Killdozer: The True Story of the Colorado Bulldozer Rampage." - It could be, you know, a little intimidating when it came to dealing with financial matters.
You know, people would go there and kind of have a muffler put in their car and then they complain about it and then he'd get upset and say, well, you know, sue me if you want or I'll sue you for saying it's not right. Hemeyer never wanted to feel like someone made a fool of him or got one over. And these exacting standards also applied to his personal life.
In the late 90s, Hemeyer got involved with a local woman, Trisha McDonald. For years, they seemed to be happy, but ultimately they split up, mostly because of Hemeyer's ridiculous standards. They had a fight when Hemeyer caught her sneaking cigarettes. He lectured her about how this was unacceptable behavior. But here's the thing, Hemeyer was a closet smoker himself.
Okay, now that you have a sense of who Marvin Hemeyer was, let's go back to the summer of 1992 when our story begins. Surprisingly, the event that kicked off Hemeyer's violent vendetta against the town of Granby was a property auction in a drab hotel ballroom in Denver. Hemeyer was there to secure a property where he could start a muffler shop. There was one lot in particular that seemed to suit his needs. It had an office building, a parking lot, and a two-bay garage where he could work.
Plus, with a starting bid of $20,000, it could be a steal. But there was another interested party, Cody Docheff. He and Hemeier went back and forth in the bidding. Docheff countered with $25,000 and Hemeier went up to $30,000, $35,000, $37,000, $38,000. Finally, Hemeier upped the ante to $42,000.
That was too much for Docheff, so Hemeier won the auction. But later, Docheff approached Hemeier and gave him a piece of his mind. To hear Hemeier say it, Docheff was... About the rudest, most arrogant person. I mean, this guy's just a fucking asshole. Come back and just introduce himself, kinda, by just giving me a tongue-lashing for about 10 minutes about, you know, who I thought I was and what I was gonna do with the property and...
For his part, Docheff didn't recall speaking to Hemeier at the auction, and another Granby businessman that was attending didn't remember any kind of verbal confrontation either. But from Hemeier's perspective, this altercation was the beginning of a contentious relationship with a man who, as fate would have it, would later become his next-door neighbor.
The next step down the path leading to this eventual rampage took place later that same summer of 1992 at a board meeting for the Granby Sanitation District. At the meeting, Kiemmeier learned that if he wanted to legally run a business out of his new property, he would have to join the sanitation district and hook on to the nearest sewer main. But because the property was about 100 feet downhill from the closest line, it involved constructing a lift station and serious excavation to install a service line.
He suggested that he could do this project himself to save on costs, but one of the board members poked holes in that idea. There was still the cost of the materials and his work would have to pass inspection. The board member who spoke up was Ron Thompson, and his family just happened to run an excavation company. By his estimate, hooking into the sewer line could cost an additional $70,000 to $80,000. Heemeyer probably didn't like the sound of that.
It might have felt like he was over a barrel because all of a sudden the property he thought he was getting for a steal at $42,000 was now going to cost almost three times as much. Humeyer was frustrated to say the least, so much so that he stormed out of the meeting. In his absence, the board went ahead and voted to annex his property into the district, which meant that he would have to comply with the rules.
Eventually. And while his woes with the sanitation district were brewing, Hemar also butted heads with other locals. At that time, in the late summer of 1992, Granby was embroiled in a debate about whether or not to legalize gambling in the town. Some residents were adamantly against the idea as they didn't want to see big casinos go up in the mostly rugged rural area.
Patrick Brower, who at that time was an editor and publisher for the local Sky High News, was firmly on the anti-gambling side, but Heemeyer was firmly opposed. Here's Brower speaking about that time. Initially, he advocated strongly for legalized gambling in Grand Lake, which is a resort small town up north of here. He felt that the town was dead financially and was...
in desperate need of some sort of financial help. And he thought that by legalizing gambling there, it would boost the economy. And so he campaigned strongly on that and was visible in the public in his advocacy for that cause. - However, that November, the town voted against legalizing gambling, which probably felt like another blow to Heemeyer. But he didn't let this unfavorable outcome stop him. He went ahead and opened up his muffler business on the land that he'd bought.
Keep in mind, he still wasn't in compliance with the sanitation district, but he made do with a small sewage tank that was already on the property. To help drum up business, Hemeier reached out to Brouwer, the local newspaper editor, in July of 1993. Hemeier wanted Brouwer to write a profile on his shop for the newspaper, so they agreed on a date and time. Brouwer came by, but the shop was closed and Hemeier wasn't there, so they rescheduled. Again, Brouwer showed up, but Hemeier didn't.
Since it seemed like Brouwer couldn't get a hold of Hemeier for an interview, he kind of gave up on the idea. This of course angered Hemeier, even though Brouwer gave him a free ad in the paper to make up for them missing each other. Hemeier accepted the gift and ran his ad, but from his perspective, not getting the profile he wanted was another instance of the town locking him out.
He was convinced that they were trying to hold him down, never mind the fact that he was the one who had missed two appointments at his own property and the fact that he did get publicity in the paper for free. Tensions like that continued to simmer for several years. Then in 1997, Cody Docheff's son Joe approached Heemeyer with a deal that had the potential to make everyone happy.
The Docheffs wanted to buy Hemeier's land to build a concrete plant, but Hemeier wasn't going to make it cheap for them. He asked for $250,000, a quarter of a million, for land that he bought for just $42,000 five years earlier. Joe took the number to his family and came back with an answer. It was steep, but they'd pay it. Done deal, right? Wrong.
When Joe came back to Hemeier's shop to settle the deal, Hemeier threw him for a loop. He said he'd had the property appraised and that it was worth $375,000 and he wouldn't accept a cent less. Quite the negotiation tactic. But still, the Docheffs tried to deal with Hemeier in good faith. They took a couple of months to come up with some cash.
Finally, they came back to Hemeier with a counteroffer, $350,000. That would be a tidy profit for Hemeier of over $300,000. But no, Hemeier wouldn't accept it. Now he wanted $450,000. At that point, the Docheffs had to walk away. But they didn't walk too far. They settled for a slightly less desirable property right next door to Hemeier's shop.
A few years later, they petitioned to rezone the lot so that they could build their concrete plant there. But Hemeier objected to this proposal, vehemently. Like with the gambling debate years earlier, Hemeier threw himself into a fierce public opinion blitz.
But while before he was on the side of industry, now he was against development. He argued that the plant would be bad for the environment, that it would be loud and dusty. He went door to door collecting signatures for a petition to stop the concrete plant. He even filed a lawsuit against the town to stop it from rezoning the lot next door in the Docheffs' favor. The Docheffs heard the feedback from the community and modified their proposal to take the concerns into account.
By the end of the year, they had addressed virtually everyone's issues. It was only Hemeier and his lawyer standing in the way. In January 2001, the rezoning for the concrete plant got preliminary approval. It seemed like the final approval was only a matter of time. For some, this would have just been a banal bit of local politics, but for Hemeier, it was a major turning point. This loss cemented his belief that he was never going to get a fair shake in Granby.
Foiled and frustrated, Hemeier was desperate for some way to even the score. And he started to think about how to get the justice he felt he was owed in a very dramatic way. Coming up, Hemeier plans and prepares for his devastating rampage. Now back to the story. In January 2001, 49-year-old Marvin Hemeier found himself at a crossroads.
According to the audio tapes he left behind, Heemeyer sat in his hot tub with a beer and looked out at Grand Lake, the town just north of Granby, where he'd lived the past 10 years. He'd bought a property for cheap and started a successful muffler business. He had time to go snowmobiling with his friends in the gorgeous mountains of Grand County. Maybe he reflected on his time there with a sense of peace, triumph even. But in his own words, he was weeping.
Because from his perspective, he had faced discrimination at every turn for being an outsider. The town had gone against his desires by voting not to legalize gambling. They tried to force him to pony up $80,000 to make his property compliant with the sanitation district, which, by the way, he still hadn't paid.
And then there was the most recent slap in the face. The town had given the Docheffs, who he had a beef with, preliminary approval to build a concrete plant right next to his own property. The way he saw it, more established citizens had formed a network of good old boys to thwart him at every turn, and he'd had about enough of it. So as Hemeyer sat in his hot tub, he made a decision, one that would have life-changing consequences for the people of Granby.
Hemeier decided he had to do something drastic to make the people of Granby realize how wrong they had been to go against him. He had to take something back from that town that, in his view, had taken so much from him. He had to fight for what he saw as justice. People will say that, why did he do that? He had such a good life. He had a better life than me anyway. Well, I can understand that to a point. It's not what I deserve.
You meddled in my business and took what I deserved away.
Apparently, Hiemeyer believed that he deserved to stop the Docheffs from building their plant. That he deserved to win. And because he didn't get what he deserved, he decided he was going to make the whole town pay. It's unclear if the specifics of his plot were already taking form, but whatever Hiemeyer was thinking, it was on a grand scale. Biblical even. See, he believed his issues went beyond right or wrong in the eyes of the law. He believed that God was on his side.
He Meyer again. A peace came over me that has only come over me a few times before in my life, where I knew that what I was doing was tough, but it was the right thing and that it was above me. It wasn't me. I was doing this because God wanted me to do it.
While Hemeier channeled the will of God, down in Granby, human affairs continued to march along. Four months later, in May 2001, the town board officially approved the proposal for the Docheffs concrete plant. By June, the Docheffs began construction right across the street from Hemeier, even though technically his lawsuit against the town was still pending. The Docheffs were aware of Hemeier's opposition and reached out an olive branch.
They would give him an easement to let him connect to the sewer main through their property free of charge. This would solve Heemeyer's long-standing issue with the sanitation district and their only condition was that Heemeyer drop the lawsuit. But Heemeyer didn't even consider their offer. He hung up without another word. If Heemeyer had known all the trouble he would have had with the sanitation district, he might have taken the Docheffs up on their proposal. Or actually, he might not have.
In any case, a few months later, Granby Town Manager Tom Hale officially informed Hemeier that he was violating sanitation district laws and needed to connect to the town's mainline immediately.
But Hemeier didn't know such thing. In fact, instead of connecting, he rigged a system to pump his raw sewage into a nearby irrigation ditch. Now this is the same man who objected to a concrete plant for environmental reasons. But apparently the environment only mattered for Hemeier if it helped him get his way.
But things were decidedly not going his way. In April of 2002, Heemeyer was dealt another blow when his lawsuit against the town was dismissed. To add insult to injury, the judge disagreed with him on each and every count. Heemeyer was not one to take a loss laying down. He wrote his lawyer requesting a refund of about $50,000 in legal fees.
Like the incident with the snowmobile, he went back to his old playbook. When something didn't work out the way he wanted, he made himself out to be the victim and demanded someone else make things right. Then, if he didn't get a refund or win a lawsuit, he could tell himself that he was being taken advantage of and deserved revenge. This was the final straw for Hemeier. He wanted nothing more to do with the town of Granby, and he said as much. To that effect, he closed down his Mountain View muffler business. This gave him more time to focus on his revenge plot.
and to attend more auctions. He always did love a deal. In July of 2002, Heemeyer went to an equipment auction in Central California. There, he paid $16,000 for a Komatsu D3-55A bulldozer. This 50-ton machine was so massive that a trailer had to be specially made just to transport it back to Granby.
The wheels of Heemeyer's plan were starting to turn in earnest. Then in August 2002, a year after getting an official warning from the town, and 10 years after buying the property, Heemeyer received the first fine for being in contempt of town code. He was told the property couldn't be used for human occupancy until it was connected to the town's water and sewer system. If he broke the rules, he'd be fined $100 per day.
As Hemeier left the courtroom after hearing the town's judgment, his lawyer, Ben McClellan, heard him make a chilling threat. Quote, I'm just going to bulldozer this whole place to the ground. Now, keep in mind that at this point, Hemeier had already purchased a massive Komatsu bulldozer, seemingly for this very purpose. But a couple of months later, in October of 2002, he put his recently acquired dozer up for auction along with his property.
Heemeyer auctioned off his vehicles and a lot of his gear, but there were no takers for his property or for the bulldozer. So he held onto those things and took it as a sign that he was meant to carry out his plan. But still, Heemeyer didn't begin to prepare in earnest. Throughout the winter of 2002, the dozer just sat outside on his property, its massive blade facing the town with a for sale sign on it.
After months with no bites, Himeyer took the sign down and moved the Komatsu into his garage. The dozer was so huge, it was almost too tight to fit. Front to back, there were only two inches of clearance. Himeyer took that as yet another sign that everything was working out as it was meant to be. With the Komatsu safely hidden away, Himeyer finally got to work making his dreadful plan a reality.
Hemeier put his welding skills to use, fortifying the bulldozer to suit his dark purposes. He worked relentlessly. Eventually, he realized he was wasting too much time driving the 15 miles back and forth between Granby and his home in Grand Lake. So to be more efficient, he bought a cot, a sleeping bag, and just moved into his garage. Now, he still didn't have a water or sewage connection, so he just used a bucket and dumped his sewage in that handy irrigation ditch.
Hemeyer also brought in a small TV and a DVD player to entertain himself during the little time he had when he wasn't working on The Bulldozer. Among the movies in his collection was the 2003 Vin Diesel film, A Man Apart. In this movie, Diesel plays a DEA agent who turns vigilante and hunts down the drug lord who killed his wife. One of the taglines for the movie was, Nothing left to live for, everything to fight for.
Well, this sentiment might have resonated with Hemeier. And maybe he saw himself as a Vin Diesel type out for righteous justice, no matter the cost. Except instead of going after a murderous drug lord, he was going after a corrupt town board. Hemeier certainly armed himself, though, as if he were starring in an action movie. He drove all the way from Colorado to South Dakota to buy a .50 Cal Barrett semi-automatic rifle.
More like a cannon than a gun, it was designed to attack aircraft and concrete bunkers. Back in Granby, after several months of modifying his Komatsu bulldozer, Kumaier finally got an offer to buy the property he had tried to auction off.
In October 2003, Bob Martin and Travis Buss bought it for about $400,000. That was nearly as much as Hemeier had tried to get from the Docheff six years before. And by the way, they had their property connected to the sewer lines within days. So this kind of put a little wrinkle in Hemeier's plan. After all, he was nowhere near done turning the Komatsu into his own personal tank. So he proposed to lease the garage back from his buyers until June of 2004.
Hemeier told them that he still had some things to store and work to finish up. But of course, he didn't say what he was actually up to in there. Later that fall, Martin and Buss came by to inspect their new property. When they got to the garage, Hemeier hung a tarp over the massive dozer and incredibly, neither man said anything about it. Hemeier may have taken this as yet another sign that he was meant to carry out his plan.
By February 2004, he was tempting fate, almost daring someone to stop him. One night, Hemare was out at a bar when he said, quote, those good old boys have been conspiring to ruin me, the newcomer, the newspaper, the Thompsons, the dough chefs, the town, all of them. I will get them, that's what, unquote.
Now, by this point, the people of Granby had grown used to Heemeyer bellyaching about how he'd been wronged. But this time, there was something different about his tone, just something darker. He kept going. Quote, By God, I am going to bulldozer those businesses and all the businesses of the people who have done this to me. Unquote. An awkward silence fell over the table, and no one knew what to say to that.
According to Brower's book, 30 minutes later, Hemeier seemed to be back to his old self, even buying his friends a round of beers. They must have thought he was just joking. They must have thought he wasn't seriously planning to tear their town to the ground. But they were wrong. Up next, we'll cover how Martin Hemeier carried out his catastrophic killdozer rampage. Now, back to the story. In April 2004, 52-year-old Marvin Hemeier probably felt his back was up against the wall.
After enduring a decade of perceived failures and frustrations, he was nearly a year and a half into modifying a bulldozer into an armored vehicle. His plan? To use it to raze the town of Granby to the ground. But he was running out of time. He'd sold his property and was leasing out his old garage until the end of May, so he only had a few weeks left to complete his project. Transforming the dozer into his own personal tank was a long and arduous process.
Hiemeyer started by using his welding tools and expertise to attach two thick layers of steel panels around the cab of the bulldozer. Then he filled in the space between the layers with solid concrete, creating a powerful shield. After that, Hiemeyer cut a few small triangular openings into the concrete. These were so he could mount guns and shoot them from inside the cab.
Heemeyer also cut three small rectangular openings to use as windows, but he made sure to protect these potential weak spots with three layers of bulletproof glass. And he also rigged a system of cameras and monitors so that he could see what was going on outside the dozer. In April 2004, just as Heemeyer was finishing this stage of the process, he received some life-changing news. His father had died. He took time off from his project to drive home to South Dakota and pay his respects.
But this was also an opportunity for him to see his family one last time. This somber occasion didn't soften his resolve at all. It didn't put things into perspective or make him reconsider what was really important in life. If anything, Hemeyer doubled down. He deposited almost all of the money he had to his name into his father's estate so that it would be distributed to his family. And it was a considerable sum, nearly half a million dollars. Hemeyer could have lived well on that money.
Could have had the retirement he so badly wanted and felt he deserved. But this was evidence that he didn't plan to be able to spend it. Heemeyer had a lot to think about on the 18-hour drive back to Grand County from South Dakota. So who knows what kind of mood he was in when he came across Larry and Gary Thompson.
The brothers were on the side of the road working on an excavation project. Heemeyer pulled over to talk to them. Well, more like antagonize them. He started by addressing Larry as Ron, and this was incredibly insensitive because the Thompsons' brother, Ron, had died of leukemia just six months earlier. You would think that since he was just fresh from his father's funeral, Heemeyer might have shown a bit more compassion, but
But no, he proceeded to accuse Ron and the Thompsons of costing him more than $300,000, by his estimate, due to all the bad luck with the sanitation district of which Ron Thompson had been a board member. Here's he, Meyer. And I says, you owe me. And I says, I want $300,000 from you. And he says, it'll never happen. And I says, well, I says, I guarantee you, Larry, I'm going to collect.
On April 13th, 2004, not too long after his run-in with the Thompsons, Heemeyer sat down to record a little manifesto. Maybe to explain his reasoning in case he wasn't around to explain it himself in the aftermath. In the end, he made over two and a half hours of recordings. By this point, Heemeyer was in the homestretch and things were reaching a fever pitch.
As he went through the laborious, monotonous process of mixing and pouring batch after batch of concrete, he also worked himself into a frenzy, writing a list of various grievances. A long list of perceived slights going back 12 years. Finally, after a year and a half of preparation, Heemeyer was ready to carry out his plan. He sealed himself into his modified bulldozer and drove it straight through the doors of his garage.
From there, he immediately turned his attention to Cody Docheff's concrete plant, a construction he had fought so hard against for years. Heemeyer crashed into the concrete plant over and over again. A few brave onlookers tried to stop the dozer by sticking long pieces of pipe into the threads, but this had no effect. Docheff himself was on site and desperate to save his business.
He'd already put together that Hemeier was in the cab when he fired two shots at the bulldozer with a .357 Magnum. But this didn't even dent the thick concrete armor. Dochef then hopped into the cab of a heavy-duty front loader that he had on site, trying to do battle with the modified Komatsu. But for all his trouble, he only managed to crash into the dozer so hard that he knocked himself out.
While Docheff was unconscious, Heemeyer opened fire on his front loader, shooting 10 to 12 rounds, some of which pierced the industrial steel. Thankfully, none hit Docheff. Now at this point, some backup has arrived in the form of State Patrol Trooper Jack DeSanti, Lieutenant Walt Eldridge, Under Sheriff Glenn Traynor, and Sergeant Rich Garner of the Granby Police Department.
The situation escalated quickly with the police shooting at the Dozer and Hiemeyer opening fire right back. Around 2:50 p.m., this is 40 minutes into the rampage, a reverse 911 call went out to the people of Granby telling them to evacuate immediately. When their guns were proving to be ineffective against the concrete armor, undersheriff Traynor made a bold move. He climbed on top of the Komatsu, searching for some kind of weak point to exploit.
He fired multiple rounds into the cooling unit. Mahimaier's tank was just as impregnable from the top as it was from the sides. Meanwhile, the dozer just keeps going towards its next target, which is the Mountain Park's electric building. When the electric company employees saw this massive dozer headed their way, they all fled. Trainor dropped a flashbang into one of the Komatsu's exhaust stacks. Still nothing. The bulldozer continued down the town's central drag.
Here's Brower, the journalist Hemeier had a gripe with, describing what it looked like. I actually went out on the highway and looked and there I could see what was a bulldozer, but it looked like something from a 1950s science fiction movie. It was like a tank with this very square looking, very dark, ominous gray looking cover on it that had no windows.
trudging down the road sort of with impunity. You know, it looked like a Darth Vader helmet, you know, plopped on top of a big bulldozer trudging down the road. And you could actually feel the vibrations of the dozer. Because remember, it weighed about, at that time, it weighed about 85 tons. At that point, law enforcement called for more backup. A SWAT team. Anyone else who could help.
When Traynor realized Hemeier's next target, he shouted at the policemen on the ground to evacuate the building. Hemeier was going after Town Hall, where so many of his public failures and frustrations happened. But the building wasn't just home to Town Hall. Gramby's library was in the basement. And this being a Friday afternoon in the summer, it was time for children's story hour. So there could be innocent kids in that line of fire.
Granby Town Clerk Cindy Cedar made it her mission to see that the library was safely evacuated. Just as the last child had been let out of the building, Heemeyer's gigantic bulldozer came around the corner. And as the dozer pulled up into the lawn in front of Town Hall, Under Sheriff Traynor took the opportunity to jump down into the soft grass. Heemeyer continued his demolition, doing particular damage to the office of one town manager, Tom Hale.
a man with the thankless task of collecting Hemeyer's fees for refusing to hook onto the city's water and sewer lines. Light fixtures, bricks, and cinder blocks all tumbled down into the library's reading area where just minutes before, children had been enjoying a story. Hemeyer methodically moved the tank around town hall, completely destroying the children's playground behind it. He then smashed another large hole in the building.
this time into the town's meeting room, where Hiemeyer pleaded his case on many occasions. His arguments may have fallen on deaf ears then, but people were certainly paying attention now. By this point, the rampage had been going on for over an hour, and panic was setting in. Frightened townspeople fled downtown in every direction, and Hiemeyer was nowhere near finished.
Around 3:30 p.m., he charged the Komatsu into Liberty Savings Bank, a structure that had only been completed a couple of years before in 2002. That brought the count to five structures destroyed in just over an hour. From there, Hemeier tried to take down another recent addition, its one and only traffic light, which was kind of a symbol of the growing downtown area. But despite several attempts, the pole supporting the lights would not fall.
Finally, Hemeyer moved on, clipping a fire hydrant and flooding the intersection. As Hemeyer continued his rampage, he took a detour to knock down some aspen trees. Keith Klingbeil, a friend of Hemeyer's and owner of the Blue Spruce Motel, had petitioned the town board to remove the trees. He argued that they cost him business because they blocked the view of his sign from the freeway. But the town board refused. Hemeyer's dozer cut through that red tape and made quick work of those aspens.
Probably a favor to his friend. By 3.45 p.m., the local radio station was broadcasting live about the destruction. He mired as continued his slow but steady drive through the town's main street. He had more scores to settle. And up next was the Sky High News building, where Patrick Brower was working. Well, it was a work day and I was working in the office and our offices were located on Main Street and Granby.
And at some point we got a phone call that was basically ordering everybody to evacuate the building. And we then said, so what's going on? And then somebody said, well, there's some guy, crazy guy in a bulldozer is shooting up the town. And then sure enough, soon enough, the dozer was heading up the highway toward our office, Highway 40.
And we thought it would just drive right by our office on the highway to go wherever it was going. And we were standing right in the front there watching. And then all of a sudden, the dozer took a sharp right turn and just slammed right into our building. And of course, we were freaked out by that and immediately turned to run and get out of there. I still tell people if I had tripped, I probably would have been killed because it was right behind us.
Browler and the rest of the staff quickly evacuated as Hemeyer repeated his pattern of battering buildings over and over, taking chunks out of them until they collapsed. Within minutes of the onslaught, the roof had caved in on itself. He wasted no time turning to the next names on the hit list, the Thompsons.
With their family going back several generations in Granby and owning buildings, property, and a lucrative excavation business, they represented the powerful good old boys club that he felt so much resentment towards. Conveniently for Hemeier, the Thompsons lived in a home adjacent to the building that housed their excavation company. He started by taking a chunk out of the back of the Thompson house, knocking over trees, and tossing trailers through the air to cause even more damage.
Larry Thompson watched, helpless, as Heemeyer's machine destroyed his family home, where his 82-year-old mother, Thelma, had just been sleeping 30 minutes ago. Even now, almost two hours into the onslaught, the people of Granby still hadn't given up trying to stop the Komatsu. Sergeant Rich Garner arrived on the scene with a 49-pound bolt-action rifle. Even this massive gun didn't affect the homemade tank's armor.
Clark Brandstetter, head of the Grand County Road and Bridge Department, made a bold attempt to stop the dozer. He commandeered one of the county's heavy-duty 40-ton scraper machines and tried to block the dozer's path as it proceeded to take down the town's Excel Energy Building. These two massive machines tussled for a moment, but ultimately the Komatsu pushed the scraper aside and popped one of the tires, leaving the scraper immobilized.
After so many failed attempts to stop him, Heemeyer may have been feeling emboldened. And this is when things escalated even more. News helicopters had arrived and circled the town as Heemeyer made his most destructive attempt yet. Heemeyer started shooting at a propane plant with a combined 75,000 gallons of highly explosive gas on the site. It seemed like he was trying to blow the whole town sky high.
And making matters worse, there was a senior home nearby and the Granby sawmill with a stockpile of timber to completely feed a fire. Heemeyer opened fire on the tanks, but he had a problem. His own steel armor was blocking his bullets. So he switched tactics and tried to shoot the propane plant's electrical transformers. If he hit them and they sparked, it could be enough to ignite the propane. But he was struggling to get a clear shot.
He had put so much thought and effort into making his dozer impregnable that, ironically, it was almost impossible for him to shoot out of. Maybe he was feeling a little sheepish, maybe a little frustrated. He left the propane plant behind and just continued on. According to Patrick Brower, at this point, there's an air of resignation that seems to settle over the assembled groups of law enforcement.
So there was a sort of feeling of inevitability that it was going to just keep going and we sort of watch it in slow motion while it tears up the town. So it went from sort of this stark fear to sort of this feeling of sort of helplessness. It seemed like the rampage would continue until Hemeyer decided it was over or the dozer ran out of fuel. And that could take as long as 10 hours. So with no one to stop him, Hemeyer headed back toward Gransby's main drag. Here's a news clip from that day.
"He is just headed westbound again. This is taped. He is just again headed westbound into the downtown area. Right there may have taken out a radiator. He doesn't stop for light poles. He doesn't stop for buildings. He takes out the corner of the copycat store. Again, this is right in downtown Granby. And then the Gamble store next to this became another prime target." Gamble's was an appliance hardware store, partly owned by Casey Farrell, who had been a member of the Granby Town Board during the contentious concrete plant hearings.
Farrell and his wife Rhonda had already evacuated the store and locked up. As the dozer closed in, something unexpected happened. A white plume of smoke and steam was pouring out from underneath the dozer. For the first time since the carnage began, there seemed to be some kind of malfunction. But the dozer still plowed forward, even though it's leaking water and antifreeze as it closes in on Gambles. And even though it appeared to be in mechanical distress,
The dozer still could inflict serious damage. Hemeier crashed into the building over and over and over until it collapsed. Hemeier continued to destroy the storage building behind the Granville store. But this time, something was different. As Hemeier drove the tank into the small steel building, suddenly it stopped moving, still leaking steam. The dozer was stuck. And its downfall? A little-known half-basement use for storage.
One of the dozer treads got caught on this underground space, unable to get any traction. And on top of that, the dozer overheated, so the 25 extra tons of shielding that Heemeyer had added were just too much for the machine to take. And this was causing the radiator hose to break, which was releasing clouds of smoke and steam. After two hours and seven minutes, the rampage was finally over.
Law enforcement approached to investigate, but they had to be really careful because they didn't know if Heemeyer still had something up his sleeve. The engine finally stopped, and it probably just felt like an echoing silence. Then there was a loud plop from within the dozer.
It took authorities hours to cut through the concrete and steel of the dozer, and when they did, they found the remains of Marvin Hemeier. He had a hole in the back of his skull and a .357 handgun on the floor between his feet. Rather than face the consequences of his rampage for justice, Hemeier had taken his own life. That night, the story of Marvin Hemeier's rampage through Granby was all over the news, not just in Colorado, but across the nation and even internationally.
As the story was retold, the modified Komatsu eventually got the catchy nickname, the Killdozer. That name might have been inspired by a 1974 TV movie of the same name, in which a bulldozer runs amok after being possessed by alien spirits. Heemeyer left behind a complex and contradictory legacy. He saw himself as a victim, a man trampled by the powerful system of local authorities. And some people who have heard this story come away with the same understanding.
In the face of his dramatic rampage on Granby, many people filled in the void, assuming that the town must have done something truly heinous to warrant that kind of revenge. He was made out to be an anti-establishment hero, looking out for the little guy. In the early days of the internet and social media, Heemeyer also found a loyal fanbase online, and even to this day, he has a cult following.
But in his book, Patrick Brower argues staunchly against this portrayal. Here's what he had to say on our interview. Basically, Marv was inspired by his own conspiracy theory that the town and that his neighbors were out to get him. And he became obsessed with that conspiracy. And since that conspiracy has gotten out in the public realm, many other people believe the elements of that conspiracy are
And all I can say is he's an unreliable narrator. Yeah, Marv did not get his way with the town, but man, the town wasn't out to get him. And I think he was more out to get the town. In a way, he's a sympathetic figure because he deluded himself into taking this extreme action, believing somehow that government was out to get him, that his neighbors were out to get him. At the end of the day, Heemeyer just didn't like how his business dealings with the town worked out.
And I couldn't bear the disappointment, the feeling that he hadn't gotten exactly what he wanted. But just think, what would the world be like if every time someone didn't get their way, they built an armored bulldozer and leveled their town? Thank you for tuning in to Vigilante. We'll be back next week with a new story about people taking justice into their own hands. For more information on this rampage, among the many sources we used, we found Killdozer, the story of the Colorado Bulldozer Rampage by Patrick Brower, extremely helpful.
See you next time.