







Grand Lake, Colorado





In 1992, Colorado resident Marvin Heemeyer was living out a pleasant and successful life as a business man and civic activist. He had leased his 4 car muffler repair shops in Boulder, Colorado to other operators and opened Mountain View Muffler in Granby, approximately 16 miles from where he lived.





In 1994, Heemeyer became actively involved in the fight to bring legalized gambling to Grand Lake. The first publicly noticeable signs of this man being neurologically unhinged was revealed when he almost physically assaulted a reporter for the Grand Lake newspaper (which was editorially against legalized gambling).









He also got involved in a zoning dispute with the town over two acres of land that he had purchased for $42,000. He had agreed to sell the land for $250,000 to the Docheff family, who planned to turn it into a concrete batch plant. Heemeyer later changed his mind (after the deal had already been completed) and raised the price to $375,000. He then decided to renege on the deal even further by raising the price to almost $1 million dollars.





Name the price it will take for you to walk out of here thinking I am a insolent jerk.









Then in 2000, the Docheff family decided that dealing with the local city government would be much less of a headache than dealing with Heemeyer. They petitioned the city to rezone a piece of land adjacent to Heemeyer's property so that they could construct the concrete plant there.





Despite Heemeyer's claim that the plant would block access and visibility to his muffler shop, the Docheff family won the rezoning decision in 2001 and built the plant.









As Heeymeyer's business began to fail, he leased it to a trash company and sold the property all together a few months later. The new owner's gave Heemeyer six months to vacate the premises, which was more than enough time for a revenge/ultimate weapon building montage to take place.









Kind of like this scene from Dawn of the Dead , but without any friends.









Heemeyer was still the proud of owner of a 61.5 ton Komatsu D355A bulldozer . Inside a storage area on his soon to be relinquished property, he began making major modifications to the vehicle. These included reinforced steel plating around the cabin, cameras on the exterior of the vehicle that were covered by shatter resistant plastic, and three gun ports which were most likely not intended to simply fire warning shots.





The completed modified bulldozer









One of the modified bulldozer's gun ports





After months of building, Heemeyer had constructed a machine that would later become known as " Killdozer ." According to the many notes and tapes Heemeyer left, he believed that he had no choice but to build this machine to exact revenge on those that had wronged him, even stating that he believed God had "built him for this job."





June 4, 2004





At approximately 2:00 PM, Marvin Heyemeyer bolted himself into the "Killdozer" , cranked the engine, and smashed through the wall of the garage he had been working out of for the last few months.









Heemeyer then set his sights on the rest of the town. After completely crushing police officer's Ford Expedition, he attacked and destroyed buildings that housed a local electric company and construction office. These businesses were His first target was right next door: Docheff's concrete plant. Heemeyer easily plowed through his nemesis' business and fired one of his semi automatic rifles at a fleeing Cody Docheff (who was able to escape).Heemeyer then set his sights on the rest of the town. After completely crushing police officer's Ford Expedition, he attacked and destroyed buildings that housed a local electric company and construction office. These businesses were apparently connected to people that had opposed Heemeyer during his zoning dispute.









Heemeyer then ratcheted up the revenge craziness a few more notches by demolishing the former (and deceased) mayor's home and attempting to fire his .50-caliber rifle at the Independent Gas Company's massive storage of propane tanks. Fortunately for the town and anyone within a half mile radius, Heemeyer was unable to aim properly and decided to abandon his quest at creating his own mushroom cloud.





By this point, news helicopters had finally arrived (we were still a few years short of everyone walking around with a cell phone camera) and were able to shoot footage of Killdozer's last stand at Gambles Hardware.













