72. The Killdozer (Marvin Heemeyer)

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This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences.

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The city says you have to go on the water you have to go on the sewer tom was a mountain man for people to tell mps to do something is just on his head all the time

thomas dean leask was a mountain man who lived in the tiny mountain town of alma colorado in 1998 he was 50 years old living in his grandmother's shack and driving a snowplow part-time tom was a loner he was reclusive and unbeknownst to his fellow townsfolk, Tom Liesk was becoming increasingly paranoid and bitter.

Everyone in Alma already knew who he was.

Tom was that odd fella, the former addict, always wearing that gun on his belt and playing his fiddle in front of the general store.

Did he have long, stringy hair?

Was he unshaven?

Yeah, that's Tom, all right.

Mostly harmless, just icks-nay on any government talk.

He has an opinion or two.

That's because back in 1994, Alma's town officials had forced Tom Liesk onto the town's water system, which is not something that Tom Liesk wanted to do.

Tom liked drinking from the spring near his cabin, and he wanted to keep using his outhouse.

He could also not afford to pay the expensive tap fee the town demanded for the hookup.

In the end, Tom Liesk had no choice.

He lost that battle.

The government had trampled over his God-given American rights.

In Tom's mind, they had extorted him, and he stewed about it, for three straight years.

He even sold homemade audio tapes of his voice recordings, espousing anti-government views.

Tom Liesk detested bureaucracy.

That much was clear.

More specifically, Tom detested Willie Morrison, a well-liked local artist who enforced that tap switch during a brief tenure as the town's mayor.

One day there would be revenge, Tom promised himself.

One day, that piece of shit would get what he deserved.

That one day was February 26, 1998, Tom Liesk had had decided.

That evening he went out for a coffee and then rode his bike to the Alma Town Hall.

Inside a small alcoholics anonymous meeting was being conducted by the former mayor.

Leask rudely interrupted by bursting through the doors, carrying a bag of Molotov cocktails he had made at home.

Tom Leisk announced that he was the new master of ceremonies and nudged his gun into Willie Morrison's back.

Leask demanded that Morrison read a passage from the AA handbook, which he did.

Then Lisk quoted the Bible and pulled the trigger.

Willie Morrison was dead.

Thomas Dean Liesk was just getting started.

First, he threw a couple of the Molotovs into the building.

Luckily, the few AA meeting attendees had already fled.

Lisk then hopped aboard the camouflaged front-end loader that the town had purchased for the military surplus.

He proceeded to bulldoze the town hall.

He also punched holes in the town's school building, the post office, the fire department, and the water treatment plant.

Thousands of gallons of water poured into the streets and froze.

The phone lines went down.

There was partial electricity.

He basically wiped out the government here, a Park County Sheriff Sargent later told Colorado Central Magazine.

It only took a couple of hours.

That night, Thomas Gleesk drove the front-end loader back to his property and set fire to his grandmother's house before fleeing into a nearby grove.

He took with him a rifle and a.45 caliber pistol.

His face was painted for war.

But there would be no confrontation.

When the cops arrived, a sympathetic neighbor called out their positions, but there was no escape.

Tom Leisk was surrounded.

He surrendered four and a half hours into his rampage, and he was completely at peace.

Lees told the deputies that he had accomplished what God had asked him to do.

that he had sacrificed his life to bring attention to the state's water diversion projects and the theft of Native American lands.

Leask was adamant about his guilt.

During the interviews, the Sheriff's Department said Tom Lee seemed, quote, alert, very astute, intelligent.

He gave specific answers.

He was fully aware of what he had done.

He had no regrets.

I don't want no lawyers, no trial, no nothing, Leisk reportedly said.

Just put me in the thing and push the button.

Again, big government would get in his way.

Thomas Leask was appointed a public defender and forced to undergo multiple psychiatric evaluations, even though it was never Lisk's intention to plead insanity.

I don't want that, he told a reporter.

I'm not insane.

The results of the evaluations were conflicting, so the proceedings continued.

Thomas Lisk was tired of waiting.

In March 1998, he stabbed himself in the chest with a plastic toothbrush that he'd sharpened against the prison wall.

The suicide attempt was unsuccessful.

Lisk suffered only superficial wounds.

Finally, two years after Tom Leask's spree of murder and destruction, the court allowed him to plead guilty to 13 charges, including first-degree murder, first-degree arson, and criminal mischief.

In June 2000, Tom Leask was sentenced to life in prison, plus 27 years.

I would have liked to have heard an apology, Willie Morrison's brother Andrew told the Denver Post.

When he didn't, I gave him the finger, and he saw me.

It may have been a childish move, but at least I got to say something to him.

This is like any other place in the mountains.

People come up here to get away from government.

Most agree that Thomas Leesk's violent statement was not a reasonable reaction, but the sentiment wasn't completely out of the ordinary for the area.

Many have wondered if the mountains attract those types of people, or are they shaped there?

Such rugged individualists do not like to be told what to do.

Certainly, Thomas Dean Leese could be characterized as such.

A simple water source dispute turned deadly.

But what else is someone so persecuted supposed to do?

Especially with God blessing their every move?

Marvin John Heemeyer was a similar, self-described, reasonable man.

But a decade-long battle with the small-town government pushed him to the brink of madness and beyond.

Out of options, Marv thought it best to tear it all down to level the playing field.

His conversations with God only provided further justification.

Or maybe Marvin Heemeyer was just looking for an excuse.

The skilled welder modifies a bulldozer into an unstoppable machine of destruction to exact revenge upon a community he felt was conspiring against him on this episode of Swindled.

They bribed government officials to find accounting career violations of decades they law earlier in the United Kingdom.

that were wasted.

You pay tens of millions of dollars.

Support for swindled comes from Simply Safe.

For the longest time, I thought home security meant an alarm going off after someone broke in.

But if the alarm is already blaring, it's too too late.

The damage is done.

That's a reactive approach, and it leaves you with that awful feeling of violation, even if the intruder runs away.

That's why I switched to Simply Safe.

They've completely changed the game with Active Guard outdoor protection, designed to stop crime before it starts.

Their smart, AI-powered cameras don't just detect motion.

They can tell you when there's a person lurking on your property.

That instantly alerts SimplySafe's professional monitoring agents in in real time.

And here's the game changer.

The agents can actually intervene while the intruder is still outside.

Talk to them through two-way audio, hit them with a loud siren and spotlight, and call 911 if needed.

It's proactive security, and that's real security.

I trust SimplySafe because there are no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, and a 60-day money-back guarantee.

They've been named best home security systems by U.S.

News and World Report for five years in a row, and I can see why.

Get 50% off your new SimplySafe system at simply safe.com/slash swindled.

That's 50% off your new SimplySafe system by visiting simplysafe.com/slash swindled.

There's no safe like SimplySafe.

Hello,

my name is Marvin Heemeyer.

Today is, uh, let's see here,

April 13th, 2004

I am making this tape I thought I should make it a year ago

made part of it didn't like it

really didn't think it'd make any difference if I did make it but a good friend of mine said I should make it he said I should sit down in front of a videotape machine and do it but

you're just gonna have to take my word that this is Marth He Meyer serial number 503 689471

and

if I'm living in Grand Lake, Colorado.

And this tape is about my life

since I came up here to Grand Lake in 1991.

Marvin John Heemeyer fell in love with Colorado when stationed at the Lowry Air Force Base in the early 70s.

He was enamored with the mountains, the freedom, the fresh air.

Marv knew that it was where he was supposed to be.

After receiving an honorable discharge from the military, the native South Dakotan made his way back to the Centennial State for what was supposed to be a six-month vacation.

Instead, Marv ended up purchasing a piece of property and found work repairing car mufflers in Denver.

His skill was unmatched, reportedly.

A legendary welder.

Marv could change a muffler by himself in 20 minutes, his friend Pete Mitchell told the Associated Press.

That skill served him well.

Throughout the 1980s, Marvin Heemeier expanded his enterprise and opened his own muffler shop in Boulder.

He also bought and sold and leased property in the Greater Denver area.

Despite losing tens of thousands of dollars on a couple of bad real estate deals, Mr.

Heemeyer had done quite well for himself in a brief period of time, but not without learning some tough lessons.

Everybody is looking out for themself.

When it comes to money, you can't trust anyone but yourself.

In 1991, Marvin Heemeyer isolated himself.

He leased out his remaining muffler shop in the city and purchased 27 acres in a cabin in Grand Lake, Colorado, the so-called snowmobiling capital of the world.

Coincidentally, Marv Heemeyer loved to snowmobile.

He loved the mechanics.

He was always tinkering, making things bigger, stronger, faster.

It's what Marvin Heemeyer was born to do, and now he was in the perfect place to do it.

The gateway to the rocky mountains no wife no kids no obligations just 40 year old marv and his books his tolls a hot tub and a snowmobile

like but getting back to me i on the other hand i have had

a perfect life up until 1999 when i found out what the thompsons had done to me in 92.

in 92 marvin heemeyer found an opportunity to open a muffler shop close to his new home.

Up for auction was a two-acre piece of foreclosed land with a 3,000-square-foot building in the nearby town of Granby.

Marv Heemeyer placed the bid.

So finally they caught my bid, so I got a bid for $40,000.

And this other guy, I couldn't believe it.

I didn't know who he was.

He jumped up on his chair.

That's how I knew where he was.

And I was looking back, and of course, he bid $45,000.

And of course, I bid $50,000.

And was waiting for him to bid and he wouldn't bid

and so I got the property for $50,000

and this guy

come to find out his name was Cody Dochev he came back there and introduced himself to me about his about the rudest most arrogant person

I mean this guy's just a fucking asshole come back and just introduced himself kind of by just giving me a tongue-lashing for about 10

Cody Dochev owned Mountain Park Concrete, headquartered next door to the piece of land that Marv Heemeyer had just bought.

According to Sky High News, the Dochevs used to own that lot too, but lost it to the bank after previous business plans for the area fell through.

And now it seemed the Dochevs had lost the plot of land again.

Their plans to build a batch plant on that site were ruined by this outsider.

Cody Dochev was not happy about it, according to Marv.

He claims the short-tempered and short-statured owner of the concrete company confronted him over the purchase.

But Marv didn't feel bad.

If Cody Dochev wanted to win the auction, he should have brought more money.

Simple as that.

I mean, 160 people for 160 properties were sold that day, and this is the only fool that didn't come down there with enough money to buy his property.

I mean, this shows you how daylight and a dollar short this fool is.

Marv Heemeer tried not to take it personally.

It was just business.

And he knew that Cody Dochev had a flair for the dramatic.

Marv had heard that Cody faked his suicide after he went bankrupt by jumping off a windmill.

Marv wasn't falling for the act.

Cody Dochev, on the other hand, has denied that the confrontation with Marvin Heemeyer ever occurred.

Also, Gus Harris, who was at the auction with Cody, confirmed they'd never talked to the man.

Not even a hello.

Perhaps Marv Heemeyer is an unreliable narrator.

In his version of the story, Marv never mentioned that years after the auction, he agreed to sell that same lot of land to the Docefs for $250,000.

When the family accepted the offer, according to the Docefs, Heemeyer promptly changed his mind and raised the price to $375,000.

The Docefs couldn't afford to pay that much, so they offered a trade of land instead.

Marv agreed, but only if they built him a new building upon it, for a total value of more than one million dollars.

I just think he sets things up to the point where you have to say no, Susie Docef, Cody's wife, later told Sky High News.

He probably sets you up to say no just so he could get mad at you.

The Docef family didn't get mad.

They just changed their plans.

Instead of dealing with Marv Heemeier and his unreasonable costs and requests, the Docefs eventually purchased the land adjacent to Heemeier's shop, and in 1999, they propositioned the town of Granby to rezone the area to industrial from residential and light commercial.

The Dochevs would build a Mountain Park concrete batch plant next to Marv's muffler shop if the town agreed.

Marv Heemeier did not like this idea at all.

First of all, he alleged the dust and noise generated by the plant would be unhealthy and unbearable for anyone living or working nearby.

Second, the plant would block access to Marv's business.

People driving by would not even be able to see his shop from the road.

The concrete plant would destroy his livelihood, Marv argued.

The hardened libertarian and outspoken free market capitalist was aghast that someone would inconvenience him to make a buck.

He rallied neighbors, organized a petition, and spoke out in opposition at the Grand B Planning Commission's public hearings.

Marv Heemeyer fought the rezoning every step of the way.

And he lost.

In 2001, Granby's Planning Commission approved the Docef's rezoning request, but Marv Heemeyer wouldn't give up that easily.

The Muffler Man sued the town of Granby, the Dochefs, and the town's board of trustees for improperly approving the concrete plant.

Most of Marv's arguments were based on legal minutiae.

For instance, he claimed that the lack of a mayor's signature on the rezoning plans invalidated the entire project.

That's what he was pinning his hopes on.

And to make things more interesting, as the ever-expensive lawsuit progressed, Marv Heemeyer was involved in a different battle.

Back in 92, just after Marv bought the land at auction, the town of Granby requested that he hook up his new property to the town's sewer and water line and that he pay for it out of pocket.

Unfortunately, the new pipes were 60 feet away from Marv's property.

To build a line from his place to the town's pipes would cost $85,000, so naturally, Marv Heemeyer refused.

However, there was one other way Marv could have connected to the town's sanitation district.

It was a far more affordable option too.

Marv just needed permission from his neighbors, the Dochefs, to build an easement under part of their property.

The Dochefs told Marv Heemeyer that they would allow it if he dropped a lawsuit.

Again, Marv Heemeyer refused.

Instead, Marv decided to pay the fines for every day that his property was not connected.

He wrote a check for $3,351 to the town of Gramby.

On the check's memo line, he addressed it to the Cowards and Liars Department.

To add insult to injury, in April 2002, Marvin Heemeier's lawsuit against the town of Gramby et al.

was dismissed.

Judge Richard Dussette ruled that Granby's Board of Trustees had not acted improperly during the concrete concrete plant approval process.

Marv Heemeyer loses again.

He also lost tens of thousands of dollars pursuing the matter.

Marv claims his lawyer milked him for everything it was worth but refused to appeal.

Marv claims his lawyer told him that he did not want to upset the judge.

That same judge, according to Marv, had fought against the Dochef's concrete plant when it was proposed to be built in his backyard.

Judge Dussett's ruling ensured that the Dochefs would build the plant somewhere else.

After that, it wouldn't be his problem anymore.

This whole thing had been a setup from the beginning, Marv thought.

It was one big, good old boys' club, and he wasn't in it.

He should have known.

It had taken embarrassingly too long to realize.

It all started back in 92, when Mayor Dick Thompson refused to let him connect to the town's sewer line.

He might have harbored hate for that family ever since.

In fact, after Dick Thompson died, Marv asked one of the Thompson sons to compensate him $300,000 of the inheritance.

That's the amount Marv estimated Dick Thompson's decision had cost him over the years.

And he basically confirmed in my mind right there

that he knew what I was talking about and he knew what had been done because he had one thing to say.

He screamed it at me as I'm about five truck lengths away.

He screamed, you can suck my dick.

That's all the the confirmation Marv Heemeyer needed.

This whole thing was an elaborate scheme against him.

Just because the Granby Town elite were pissed off that he bought that plot of land all those years ago, Marv Heemeyer felt that he had done everything he could to accommodate their demands.

He even drove to California to buy a bulldozer to build his own road.

After all these years, Marv Heemeyer couldn't let it go.

He couldn't let it go because they never let it go.

The Board of Commissioners, the Dochefs, the Thompsons, they were all corrupt, Marvad decided.

It seemed like everyone in town was intent on screwing him over.

And guess what?

They did.

They won.

The concrete plant was being built, so congratulations, everybody.

Marvin Heemeier was defeated in the end.

They think that I should have to stay down there in Granby.

I should have kept my muffler shop going.

I should have put up with all the dust, all the the snickers uh you know the the the town council i'd pass them in the post office and they'd snicker at me after they knew i lost

in 2003 marv heemeyer suddenly closed his muffler business in granby and organized an auction of his own everything must go the jet skis the land the bulldozer the backhoe If the people of Granby really wanted to rid themselves of Marvin Heemeyer, here was their chance.

Everything sold.

Everything except the land and the bulldozer.

If they would have bought it at that auction for $450,000, I would have walked away.

But there wasn't one bit.

It was a sign from God, Marv decided.

A sign that maybe he shouldn't just walk away from this.

Maybe he should stick it out in Granby just a little while longer to get even for what had been lost.

Maybe he should give the town of Gramby and everyone in it a taste of their own medicine for once.

There used to be a time when I could withstand these types of losses.

I could never afford them.

You can never afford to lose money.

You can withstand it and you can recover sometimes.

Most of the time I looked at it that way, it was because I was young and I was strong and I could go out and physically do the work

I'm 52 now I can't do it I can't withstand it I can't recover we're talking about losing $300,000

which

along with the sale of the property

would have been my retirement would have let me go on to do other things

to

make more wealth.

But when you take 10 years of my life away and just piss it down the drain and are happy about it and ecstatic about it, no,

I've taken all I can take.

How I react, yes, it's a reaction.

That's how it's supposed to be.

That's how God built me.

You know,

it is not my fault.

What that that one guy say?

Those

who made me your enemies, or enemy, those who made me your enemy, they are the guilty ones.

The Thompsons are guilty.

The Dochevs are guilty.

The Granby Town Board is guilty.

The Granby Planning Commission is guilty.

My neighbors are guilty.

It took all of you

10 years to get me and you got me no doubt about it I got screwed big time

we talked today about it to Dave Patner

he knows I got fucked and he knows that they do it and they get away with it there's nothing you can do about it he says well

I'm gonna do something about it

It may only change people for a generation.

Maybe two.

May not change them at all.

Maybe make them worse.

That's the way it's supposed to be.

And that's the way it will be.

God's will be done.

Through me.

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I mean, I wept at times trying to understand why this was happening to me.

And to do what I had to do to make these people listen, to learn,

was just above me.

And when I realized that one day, when I was sitting in the hot tub, and I mean,

I was weeping,

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.

In the summer of 2003, Marvin Heemeyer had an epiphany while sitting in the hot tub at his home in Grand Lake, 16 miles north of Granby.

Suddenly, everything made sense.

The reason he hadn't ever gotten married, the reason he never had kids, the reason his father had recently died, the reason his girlfriend left him, the reason he found himself alone again.

Why did Marv Heemeyer spend his life acquiring and honing these mechanical skills?

How come no one bought the bulldozer or the land where it sat?

Why had that Komatsu D-335A dozer fit so perfectly into his building?

To Marv, these weren't insignificant coincidences.

It fit through that door so tight you almost had to grease it to get it in there.

Why did that particular dozer fit in the building?

Why had I not bought one of the D9s at that Fresno auction?

It doesn't make any sense.

You know, a D9's got more horsepower.

It's probably more dependable than a Komatsu.

If I'd have bought one of them, I'd have never got it in that building.

Because they were much taller than the Komatsu was.

So I'm thinking, well, this is good.

I get it inside.

Now I can build it.

Must be what I'm supposed to do.

What Marvin Heemeyer was supposed to do, he concluded, was modify his Kamatsu bulldozer into an 85-ton killing machine and then use that machine to repay everyone in Granby that had done him wrong.

I was always willing to be reasonable until I had to be unreasonable, Heemeyer wrote in a note.

Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things.

The Thompsons, the Dochefs, everyone who sat on the Granby Planning Board, the Catholic Church, they were all on Marv Heemeier's handwritten list of targets.

So was Patrick Brower, the editor and publisher at the local paper, the Sky High News.

Marv Heemeyer thought Mr.

Brower was a big, liberal, pothead army brat who had everything in life handed to him.

Ever since they disagreed about the illegalized gambling proposition in the early 90s, Heemeyer felt Brower had it out for him.

The Sky High News had covered the Granby rezoning issue and Heemeyer's opposition to the concrete plant in thorough detail.

Of course, Marv blamed a wider conspiracy for why the newspaper treated his position so unfavorably.

But none of that mattered anymore.

There was no time left for reflection or reconciliation.

God wanted this to be done, so it would be done.

Marvin Heemeier was merely a vessel for his will.

I think God will bless me to get the machine done,

to drive it, to do the stuff that I have to do up to a point.

And then the machine will do one of two or three times.

You're either going to blow me right off the fucking streets,

I'm going to have a heart attack and die because I'm all pumped up.

The machine's going to break.

Or maybe

it'll go all day and I'll run out of fuel.

I don't know.

I got

a lot of fuel in that thing, let me tell you.

For the next year and a half, Marv essentially lived in this shop.

He set up a cot, a television, an air conditioner, a refrigerator, and a stove.

He left his truck in Omaha and rented a van so the neighbors wouldn't recognize his comings and goings.

He slept during the day and worked through the night.

No one had a clue.

Marv used a homemade lift to elevate and weld together sheets of half-inch thick reinforced steel.

Homemade concrete was sandwiched between those plates to create an impenetrable suit of armor.

All the vital mechanisms of the bulldozer were protected.

Marv Heemeyer made sure that nothing short of a missile would be able to stop his homemade tank.

Heemeyer also gutted the inside of the dozer to install storage compartments, fans to keep him cold, and a wooden desk that served as a control center.

Mounted to the desk were a set of video monitors that were connected to four cameras attached to the outside.

Heemeyer planned to use the video feed for visibility, since all the windows and doors would be covered with steel.

The cameras were protected by three-inch shields of bulletproof polycarbonate.

They were also outfitted with compressed air nozzles to blow away any dust, debris, or blood that might obstruct the operator's view.

The final touches of Marv Heemeier's MK tank, as he called it, included three gun ports that housed three rifles, one for the front, one for the back, and one on the right side.

The guns would be used to shoot anything that tried to stop his progress.

It was a shame it had come to this.

Because it's not what Marvin Heemeyer wanted to do.

It's just what he had to do.

It's what they had been doing to him for years.

All the lies, the secrecy.

You never truly know what's going on behind closed doors.

Two can play that game.

People ask me, what am I doing?

Oh, I'm not doing anything.

I spent the whole summer of 2003 in that friggin' building,

lived there without a shower for as much as four days at a time, working on that dozer, getting it prepared to do what I have to do.

If Marvin Heemeyer got caught building the dozer, he would have accepted it.

Things only happen if they are supposed to happen, Marv believed.

In fact, when he sold his shop in the land in November 2003, Marv's plan was nearly discovered.

The new owners and their insurance agent toured the facility, but didn't notice the massive armor-plated bulldozer hidden behind a tarp.

The fact that he wasn't caught only made Marv more steadfast in his plans.

This was supposed to happen.

All systems go.

All signs pointed to the same road.

Main Street, USA, Granby, Colorado.

I couldn't believe it when they walked out the door.

I'm safe.

How come they didn't catch me?

It was right there under their nose.

Well, I wasn't supposed to get caught.

Not yet.

Maybe I will.

Maybe this whole thing will come to stop

early.

That's the way it's supposed to be.

I will accept that.

They took away my life.

They took away my future.

They took away my hope.

They took away any desires that I had.

I cannot operate in a community of people

that

does that to their neighbors.

I wasted

13 years of my life down there

because the Thompsons were pissed off that I bought that property

you put yourself in my shoes and tell me how you would feel at 50 years old realizing that you've wasted 10 years of your life

because of someone's malice,

because of their jealousy, because of their greed, because of their hate.

Marvin Heemeier kept notes of his progress and astonishment that all the figurative planets had aligned to make it possible.

After roughly 18 months, he completed the build.

On April 13th, 2004, Marvin Heemeier spent hours speaking his manifesto into a tape recorder.

Less than 60 days later, the deed would be done.

I am the co-captain of my life.

God is first, I am second.

Okay?

This is where he's taken me.

This is where

you have tried to control my life.

You have tried to be the captain of my life.

You do not run my life.

You do not determine my income.

You did not determine

what I desire, what I want.

what I deserve.

I determine that and my God determines that.

Not you people.

No people do that.

If they do,

then you're a slave to them.

And I am not a slave to man.

I am a slave to God.

And I am a slave to what God tells me I should have.

And that's why we are where we are.

Let's stop here.

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this is tape.

This is tape three.

It's about 10.05 on the 13th of April 2004.

I want to say that I believe that I am an American patriot.

I believe in the free enterprise system.

I believe in the level playing field of competition.

If you want to change that

level playing field of of competition to your advantage, basically you give me license

to do that also when my opportunity comes around.

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.

I'm going to take you on by myself.

It's the only way I know how to do it.

I'll be dead when it's over.

But that's my conviction.

And for the people that are out there that hear this,

that can stand listening to it,

please pray for me

pray for my soul

I believe that

that I'm doing the right thing

I know

I shouldn't have given you the benefit of the doubt

I should have learned that people are ultimately corrupt

I Didn't I guess

I'm gonna have to die with it

because I'm telling you I will not live with it

anyway.

Hey, I hope you all have a great time, a good life.

I've had a great life

and

it's Saturday morning

22nd of May 2004

and I'm gonna put this tape and tape recorder in a plastic bag and somebody else can try to figure it out.

We'll see you later.

On the wet and gray morning of Friday, June 4th, 2003, Marvin Heemeyer stuffed his audio manifesto cassette tape collection into an envelope and mailed it to his brother back in South Dakota.

Then he returned to his shop and climbed aboard the bulldozer.

Once inside, Marv used the homemade lift to lower the carefully crafted armored shell.

There was no way out.

There was no way in.

Regardless of what happened next, the kill dozer would serve as Marvin Heemeier's tomb.

You know, the ignition didn't always work properly.

What if the dozer failed to start?

There Marv would be, stuck in the shop, unable to move, starved to death in a matter of weeks.

They'd probably find him eventually, Marv reckoned.

They would force their way in somehow, and there he would be, surrounded by the empty cans of slim fast he had packed for the trip, sitting in his own feces.

Could this be Marvin Heemeier's destiny?

He turned the key to find out.

He knew it.

This was supposed to happen.

A little after 3 p.m., Marvin Heemeyer crashed his bulldozer through the east side of the shop where he had modified it and headed straight towards his neighbor's property, Mountain Park's Concrete.

Marv rammed the administrative building repeatedly until the roof collapsed in on itself.

Not a second thought was given as to who was inside.

The company's owner, Cody Dochev, reportedly fought back courageously.

He got behind the wheel of a front-end loader and tried to block Marv's path.

But Dochef's machine was no match for He-Meyer's tank, and when Marv started shooting at him through the portholes, Cody aborted mission and watched his business get systematically torn apart.

He-Meyer had moved on to the Mountain Parks concrete batch plant about 200 yards away when Grand County Sheriff's deputies arrived at the scene.

They opened fire on the dozer with high-powered rifles.

The attack was completely ineffective.

This is a tape.

This is when we first arrived on scene, and it looked like officers standing on a hill above this Earth Mover turn tank were firing some pretty heavy arms at him, trying to find a weak spot, trying to find some way to immobilize.

The ricocheting bullets did grab Marv Heemeier's attention, though.

He pointed the killdozer at a concrete barrier where the state troopers shooting at him had taken cover.

Luckily, those troopers were able to escape before He-Meyer plowed through it.

Marv Heemeyer crashed through another concrete barrier en route to Highway 40, and he crushed several police vehicles on his way out for good measure.

Bravely, Grand County Undersheriff Glenn Traynor climbed the 13-foot-tall dozer as it trudged through a grocery store parking lot.

Heemeyer had preemptively covered the armor and grease to prevent something like this from happening, but it didn't work.

Trainer clung to the top of the tank as it slowly made its way towards downtown Gramby.

Atop the tank, Glenn Traynor desperately searched for a way to stop the machine.

He emptied rounds into every piece of exterior equipment that looked important.

He also dropped a flashbang grenade in the dozer's exhaust pipe.

Nothing happened.

The kill dozer continued on its way.

As many as 40 law enforcement officers arrived at the scene.

Some walked alongside the tank, others drove behind it.

Media outlets were set up across the street and in the sky to get a shot of the destructive parade.

what?

It looks like a locomotive.

He's got so much stuff on it.

He's got a stack on the front for the exhaust to come out.

He's got gun turrets.

He's even got the tracks covered up.

I mean, this guy,

like I said, somebody spent months and months and months to make this vehicle to do exactly what he's doing.

It was one of the most high-tech things I've ever seen.

I wasn't expecting to see pretty much a tank driving down the streets of Granby.

When Marv He Meyer reached Granby Town Hall, which housed the Granby Town Library, he did not know that a children's program was in progress behind those walls.

Nor did he care.

Heemeyer tore into the west side of the building and worked his way around the back, destroying everything he touched, including a playground.

At this point, Under Sheriff Trainer had abandoned his position atop the dozer.

The debris falling from Heemeier's carnage proved too dangerous.

The machine was unstoppable.

The county sent out a reverse 911 call to all residents in the area with orders to evacuate.

After completely destroying the town hall, Marv Heemeer returned to the highway with cinder blocks and rubble decorating his dozer's roof.

He made a beeline for the Mountain Parks electric building, where two former town board members worked.

Marv drove the bulldozer through the main entrance just to say hello.

He Meyer proceeded to Agate Avenue, Granby's main street, with slight detours to demolish a builder's office, a bank, and multiple automobiles along the way.

The police tried using armor-piercing ammunition to disable the machine.

No luck.

Next, He Meyer tore through the sky-high news building.

Editor Patrick Brower and a colleague Harry Williamson were still inside.

Fortunately, the two men were able to exit in time through the back door.

They watched from afar as Marvin Heemeier, who had not yet been publicly identified, maneuvered the giant dozer in and out of the newsroom.

There wasn't much left of it when he was done.

303 Thurston.

Would you call 88710?

That's the Thompson residence.

We think the vehicle is the

bulldozer's headed there.

We need to have everybody evacuated out of the Thompson's residence.

Heemeyer's next stop was Thompson and Sons excavating the family business of former Granby Mayor Dick Thompson.

Next door to their shop was the family residence where Dick's 82-year-old widow still lived.

Marvin Heemeyer bulldozed everything they owned.

To this moment, can you give us an idea of the damage that this man has caused so far in the world?

Yeah, it looks like he drove through the cement plant, drove through a concrete form plant completely wiped out town hall and then took out the newspaper office and now he's attacking XL Energy's gas

office

Marv then turned his attention to the XL Energy headquarters nearby while he reorganized the exterior of that building the emergency response team positioned an industrial scraper in front of Marv's only exit to try to block him in.

Marvin Heemeier's monster pushed the piece of equipment aside easily.

Go ahead.

Yeah, we got a scraper at the candy shops, and I got one down here if you want to try to box him in.

Well, I asked room to get him up here two minutes ago.

Let's go.

Okay.

Next, the Grand Lake Fire Chief sprayed propane into the killdozer's air intake.

The hope was that the engine would overheat and blow up, but there was no reaction at all.

Marvin Heemeier then traveled down a dirt service road and descended a hill to position himself in front of the propane tanks at the independent gas facility.

He aimed his 50-caliber rifle through the porthole and pulled the trigger, but missed every shot he took.

1064 O'Grand County cars, you need to evacuate at least a thousand feet back from independent propane tanks.

Time's 1613.

Kimari changed plans and directions and headed back into town, but with a noticeable limp.

Black smoke was now billowing out of the killdozer's exhaust pipe.

It was a welcome sight for the local law enforcement agencies who had just tried to request assistance from the American military.

Hey, if you're just joining us, it's now 5 o'clock.

This is News 45.

This story has been developing since about 3 o'clock.

This is file tape of a man who's got into some bulldozer that he's made into a makeshift armored covered bulldozer, and he's damaged or destroyed half a dozen buildings in Granby, a town of about 1,500, about 50 miles west of Denver in Grand County.

So far, we're hearing no one's been injured, but that has not been confirmed.

The next target on Marvin Heemeier's list was the Gambles hardware store.

The owner of the store said on the Granby town board, Marvin Heemeyer wasn't a fan.

So he crushed into the west west side of the gamble's building, leaving a trail of hydraulic fluid and antifreeze behind.

What Marv Heemeyer didn't realize was that the Gamble store had a basement, in which the kill dozer's treads were now stuck.

Then the engine failed, trying to power it out.

After two hours and 17 minutes, the rampage was over.

Marvin Heemeier reached for his gun and shot himself through the roof of his mouth.

The authorities surrounding the dozer heard the muffled pop, but didn't want to get too close.

Anybody who could pull off this kind of stunt was certainly capable of a booby-trapped encore.

They needed to take precautions.

After hours of waiting, around 10.40 p.m.

that night, a SWAT team attached explosive charges to one of the dozer's tracks.

The goal was to make it immobile, just in case the man inside was still alive.

15 minutes later, another explosive was detonated against the left side of the bulldozer, but it was unable to penetrate the armor.

An hour later, they tried again with no success.

Then finally, at 2 a.m., authorities breached the cabin using a cutting torch.

They found Marvin Heemeier dead inside.

He was wearing a button-up Hawaiian shirt.

From Colorado's News Leader, this is my news Saturday morning.

Officials in Grand County say the man who was behind the wheel in a bulldozer rampage is dead.

Sheriff in Granby says that Marvin Heemeyer was behind the wheel during a 90-minute rampage in that fortified bulldozer.

In the cabin with Heemeyer, police found a back brace, a box of band-aids, and two plastic jugs of water.

There were also paper towels, a pair of pliers, a gas mask, unopened cans of milk, chocolate, slumfast, and a gun on the floor.

A crane was used to remove Marvin Heemeier's body out of his creation at 10:30 a.m.

that morning.

Later that afternoon, the killdozer was loaded onto a trailer and hauled away.

There was a traffic jam of cars trying to get a glimpse.

The machine was eventually dismantled at the Grand County Road and Bridge facility in Frazier, Colorado.

Granby officials wanted to avoid making it a tourist attraction or have parts of it circulated as souvenirs.

Almost immediately defenders of Marv Heemeyer had come out of the woodwork.

Zero people were killed in the incident, which some pointed to as an example of Marvin Heemeier's good intentions.

Ian Daughtry, a bakery owner in Granby, said that Heemeyer, quote, went out of his way not to harm anyone.

He was just trying to teach the town a lesson, and many agreed with his sentiment.

But those in Marv Heemeier's path of destruction knew there was no mercy in his acts.

Heemeyer fired bullets at police officers, at Cody Dochev, at propane tanks in hopes that they would explode.

He demolished houses and buildings without warning.

Marvin Heemeier certainly tried to kill people.

He had just failed to do so.

But in total, 13 buildings had been destroyed.

$7 million in estimated damages.

Property owners chose their words carefully when describing the attack in public.

It was a criminal act, they said, not terrorism.

Otherwise, insurance wouldn't cover the repairs.

Other businesses discovered that they were underinsured.

A few people were now unemployed.

But the town of Granby came together to help out.

A community relief fund generated more than $200,000 from selling t-shirts with the crossed-out illustration of the kill-dozer and from selling calendars featuring local women in the nude.

The state of Colorado also contributed $600,000 to rebuild the town hall and library.

The town's going to come back better and stronger than it was before Heemeyer took his drive, said Granby Mayor Ed Wayne.

That's going to be the sweetest revenge of all.

By the summer of 2006, the town of Granby had rebuilt almost everything destroyed in the rampage.

However, the Gamble's hardware store did not return to its original location until 2017.

Casey Farrell, the owner of the store, said Marvin Heemeier changed the town forever.

People are not as trusting, he told the Boston Globe.

It tended to harden people.

It has also inspired people.

Marvin Heemeier's memory is kept alive by far-right groups who've deemed him a martyr.

To them, Heemeyer is the prime example of a man who stood up for his rights, a true American patriot, goatee and all.

You can buy t-shirts with Marv Heemeer quotes on them.

You can join a dozen different Facebook fan club groups.

The spirit of Marvin Heemeyer is alive and well in the United States of America.

Who knows?

One day it might even arrive at your front door.

It still looks like a tornado tore through Swiggles' Port Angeles neighborhood.

Houses ripped from their foundation, a truck crushed, debris everywhere.

Police say Swiggle aimed his bulldozer at the house of a neighbor while she was still inside, angry over a property line dispute.

Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, aka Deformer, aka Hot Tub Epiphany.

For more information about Swindled, you can visit swindledpodcast.com and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Swindled Podcast.

Or you can send us a postcard at P.O.

Box6044, Austin, Texas, 78762.

But please, no packages.

We do not trust you.

Swindled is a completely independent production, which means no network, no investors, no bosses, no shadowy moneymen, no slim fast.

And we plan to keep it that way.

But we need your support.

Become a valued listener at patreon.com/slash swindled or on Apple Podcasts.

For as little as five bucks a month, you will receive early access to new episodes and exclusive access to bonus episodes that you can't find anywhere else.

And everything is 100% commercial free become a valued listener on patreon.com slash swindled or on apple podcasts or if you want to support the show and need something to wear while riding your snowmobile consider buying something you don't need at swindledpodcast.com slash shop their t-shirts patches hats hoodies posters coffee mugs and more swindledpodcasts.com slash shop and remember to use coupon code capitalism to receive 10% off your order if you don't want anything in return for your support you can always simply donate using the form on the homepage.

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That's it.

Thanks for listening.

My name is Raina from British Columbia, Canada.

My name is Stephanie Amanda from Houston, Texas.

My name is Terry James from Charlotte, North Carolina.

And I'm

in the land value citizens.

Oh my gosh, I messed it up.

Well, I guess I'm just going to have this one on there, but I'm a concerned citizen and a valued listener.

Thanks to Simply Safe for sponsoring the show.

Get 50% off your new SimplySafe system at simplysafe.com slash swindled.

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