True Crime/Paranormal/Conspiracy Stories Part VI

Marvin Heemeyer: The Killdozer Rampage

Marvin John Heemeyer (October 28, 1951 – June 4, 2004) was an American automobile muffler repair shop owner who demolished numerous buildings with a modified bulldozer in Granby, Colorado in 2004.

Heemeyer had various grudges against Granby town officials, neighbors of his muffler shop, the local press, and various other citizens of Granby. Over about eighteen months, Heemeyer had secretly armored a Komatsu D355A bulldozer with layers of steel and concrete.

On Friday, June 4, 2004, Heemeyer used the bulldozer to demolish the Granby town hall, the house of a former mayor, and several other buildings. He killed himself after the bulldozer got stuck in a hardware store he was destroying. No one else was injured or killed, in part due to timely evacuation orders.

Background

Marvin Heemeyer was born on October 28, 1951, on a dairy farm in South Dakota. In 1974, he moved to Colorado because he was stationed at Lowry Air Force Base. In 1989, he moved to Grand Lake, Colorado, about 16 miles (26 km) away from Granby. His friends stated that he had no relatives in the Granby–Grand Lake area.

John Bauldree, a friend of Heemeyer's, said that he was a likable person. Heemeyer's brother Ken stated that he "would bend over backward for anyone". However, while many people described Heemeyer as an affable person, local resident Christie Baker claimed that her husband was threatened by Heemeyer after refusing to pay for a disputed muffler repair. Baker said her husband later paid Heemeyer $124.

Heemeyer enjoyed snowmobiling regularly, doing so with a group of friends. During one trip, a minor avalanche trapped several other sledders, with Heemeyer leading a rescue effort.

Gambling legalization

Heemeyer was strongly in favor of gambling legalization and campaigned for the cause on several occasions. At one point, he began disseminating a newspaper of his own on the issue, as he believed the local newspapers were biased against this cause.

In 1994, a measure was proposed that would have legalized gambling in Grand Lake and Heemeyer was an avid campaigner for it. One reporter, Cece Krewson, said he nearly came to blows with Heemeyer over the matter when discussing it.

Zoning and sewage disputes

In 1992, Heemeyer purchased 2 acres (0.8 ha) of land for $42,000 at auction, to lease to a friend who intended to build an auto repair shop on the site. The land was previously a concrete plant owned by the Docheff family, with Cody Docheff being present at the auction, though he did not intend to purchase the property for himself. Heemeyer later claimed that Cody Docheff had berated him for several minutes afterward out of anger at losing the property, however, no other party present recalled any such interaction.

The property Heemeyer acquired had an inadequate solution to sewage, specifically, putting it in a buried concrete truck barrel, left there by the previous owners. As a result, soon after he acquired the property, Heemeyer contacted the sewer district and asked if he could get a sewage line put into the property. The sewer district agreed to annex the property into the sewer district, but the owner had to put in 100 feet of line and a lift station at their own expense. Paying for the line from the property to the public main line is the standard in the United States. A lift station was required because sewage has to have an open-channel flow. If it does not, the line will become pressurized, leading to overflow. Since the sewage line would run uphill, a lift station is required to prevent the line from becoming pressurized. According to a structural engineer, this would have cost Heemeyer approximately $70,000 to install (excluding electricity costs and maintenance costs). This was nearly twice the cost of Heemeyer's $42,000 purchase of the property to begin with. The sewer district told Heemeyer that putting in a septic tank was a less expensive alternative. He rejected both options and said that the government not paying for the sewage line hookup was "extortion by government fiat". Despite these setbacks, he did not withdraw his annexation request and subsequently became part of the sewer district.