Tread (2020) - full transcript

911, what is your emergency?

Ask them to help us
get a National Guard unit.

Maybe with a helicopter to us.

Let's get over
to Granby Town Hall!

We need a National Guard
unit and a helicopter.

...through the trees,
he's going up towards the fire hole.

Get him blocked. Stop him!

...or Army National Guard,
need a whole lot of people...

Oh, no!

Hello,
my name is Marvin Heemeyer.

Today is April 13th, 2004.



This tape is about my life
since I came up here in 1991.

I am making this tape...

really didn't think it would make
any difference if I didn't make it,

but a good friend of mine
said I should make it.

Uh, 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,

this is Marv Heemeyer,
serial number 503-68-9471.

I wanna say right now,
God bless me in advance

for the task
that I am about to undertake.

Marv Heemeyer,
he was from South Dakota

and, uh,
he served in the Air Force.

He realized that he had
a knack for welding,

working on engines, and motors.
He was stationed in Colorado

and decided to stay in Colorado
when he got out of the Air Force.



I moved up here
in the Fall in 1991

to kind of take
a six-month vacation.

I decided that, you know,
I probably ought to buy

some property up here
to have something to do,

so I, uh,
looked at this tree lot,

with two little cabins,
where I'm living in here right now.

And had a beautiful view.
The place was really cheap,

so I bought them.

He worked at a muffler shop.

Moved up very quickly
in the business.

At some point he just decided,
"Heck, I can do this myself,"

and he went out and setup
his own muffler shops.

He was able to have income
from businesses that

he had started mostly in
Northern Denver and Boulder area.

You know, if you got a champagne
income with a beer keg,

you're gonna do well.
And that's what I've always had.

Always believed that's
the way it should be.

That's the only way
I could get ahead.

I'm sure he counted pennies in
every endeavor he ever undertook,

and he wanted to run businesses
well so that they succeeded.

And I think he cared
about his craft.

I knew of Marv Heemeyer

because he ran
a muffler shop in Granby.

He did a lot of great work
for people,

ran that muffler shop
for a lot of years.

Uh,
I even had work done at his shop.

He had a reputation as being
the best welder around.

We put this truck together
and the box was bouncing.

I took it down there and said,
"Hey, Marv, what do you think?"

And he said,
"Oh, I can fix that."

And he grabbed his welder and he ju-ju-ju,
you know,

it was done. Never broke, never... I mean,
the guy was a hell of a welder.

He had a great reputation
in the town.

I mean, he was an outdoorsman.
He loved to snowmobile.

I didn't ever meet
anybody who disliked him.

I call it successful.
I think I was

a very poor person
most of my life,

but I... f...
for who I was and th... where I,

what I was,
I think I was a very rich man.

And I am thankful to God
for giving me that life.

I met Marvin in the Lariat
Saloon in Grand Lake.

I was there with a friend.
He came in and he asked me out.

I had not dated in five years,
you know.

My marriage had split up and,
um,

but for some reason um,
I said yes and

we went out and started seeing
each other for several years.

He's old...
he was old school to me.

You know, men aren't... people...
society doesn't allow that anymore.

You know, he's a handshake's
a handshake kind of guy to me.

I mean, he was confident
and I thought he was handsome.

And he was larger than life.
You know, I felt safe with him.

It's kind of personal,

but he was the first man
that I was intimate with

after my marriage.

He was wonderful to me.

He only met my children once,

and he never had children,
as you know.

But we did quite a few road trips
together and never a dull moment.

Marv loved to snowmobile.

Ah, the Thursday group. Every Thursday
they'd take the day off and go ride.

Sometimes you'd have four guys,

sometimes you'd have 24 riders.

Just a great bunch of guys
to go out and ride with.

Little Matty was the youngest.

When I started riding with
Marv and the Thursday crew,

I was 16 years old.

And these guys were 40, 50.
I couldn't drink with them.

I couldn't do any of that stuff. I had to
go home to Mom and answer to Mom still.

Marv was in some respects,
he took me under his wing.

He helped teach me how
to snowmobile,

work on snowmobiles.

He was always a mentor

and always helped, always gave.

He was my best friend.
I looked at him as my bigger brother.

I let Marv lead unless it was
someplace I knew better than him.

That's where
we came from over there.

This is here,
where we're supposed to be,

and that's where Stu went,
way over there!

Marv made glove dryers.

We had a Marv grill.

Marv would take stock steel,
bend it,

custom to every machine.

You weren't a snowmobiler in Grand
Lake unless you had a Marv bumper.

It would take down four-inch trees,
five-inch trees

and you'd just keep going.
That was a Marv bumper.

Yeah, he was the king, yeah.

If he got beat
by anybody on the mountain

that was the last time
he got beat by that person.

He bought me my own Polaris

that he taught me
how to get off trail

and when in doubt, gas it.

It's a kind of a community that
in order for you to get ahead,

you have to keep the neighbor down.
It's not...

you know,
building yourself up on your own merit,

it's tear the other guy down.

Grand County definitely at one
time was the Wild, Wild West.

We've modernized it from,
but it is not uncommon

at all in the wintertime
to have two weeks straight

where the temperature
doesn't get above 10 degrees.

You have to be
a little more independent,

a little more
willing to do without.

You have to like small towns.

You kind of live
in a fishbowl to some extent

because your neighbors kind of
know your business a little more

than they would be in the city.

That can cause conflict.

After a few months
of living here I happen

to cross a piece of property
down there in Granby,

and this was about a month before they
were gonna have this FDIC auction.

Marv originally
bought the property

that he was on
in a public auction.

They were selling
FDIC-foreclosed properties.

Three thousand
square foot building

and it had two
acres of ground.

They had a bid for $35,000

from some guy upfront.

So, finally,
they caught my bid, so I got...

the guy bid for 40.
And this other guy

jumped up on a chair.

I come to find out his name

was Cody Docheff.

Cody Docheff is the owner
of Mountain Park Concrete.

The Docheffs were looking
for land upon which to put

this concrete operation
with an indoor batch plant.

Docheff also showed up
with Gus Harris.

Gus Harris was his buddy there,
sitting beside him.

Gus was sponsoring the whole
financing on this thing,

and Gus wasn't gonna pay
more than 50 grand for it

and I was waiting for him
to bid and he wouldn't bid,

so I got the property.

Marv says that
after he got the property

he was accosted by Cody.

This guy
came back there and

introduced himself to me,
in fact, the rudest,

most arrogant person.

I mean,
this guy's just a fucking asshole.

Come back and just
introduced himself by

giving me a tongue lashing
for about 10 minutes.

I mean, this is the only guy of all
the properties that sold before his,

that was doing any screaming
at anybody during the auction.

What I like about it here
is we're in God's country.

Why live anywhere else?

But I don't like the way
the county's run.

There's a good ol' boys club.

When he bought the property
it had nothing more than just

a concrete mixer tank
that was holding the sewage.

In the summer of '92,

they wanted me to be annexed into
the water and sanitation district,

so I said, "Great."
I just expected it to go through.

Ron Thompson was on the board
for the sewer district.

Ron was pretty outspoken
in the board meetings,

so he may have said things
that upset Marv at that meeting

and taken a leadership role in
making the decisions they made.

Well, as it turns out,
the closest sewer main

was many hundreds of feet
away from Marv's property,

so in order for Marv
to hook onto that,

he would have had to build
a long service line

from his property to the main.

When he learned that to do
all that was gonna cost him

anywhere from 60 to 70,
maybe even 80 thousand dollars,

Marv was upset.

They make you pay
for the installation

of the sewer line
that you don't want,

and then you have to still
hook yourself up.

That's life-changing money.

Marv refused to do that.

I never heard him talk bad
about anybody

but the people that did him bad,

the good ol' boys club.
He did not like 'em.

I never had anybody
sit there and plan

to cut me out of an opportunity
like the Thompsons did

when they denied me access
to their sanitation district.

It doesn't make any sense
other than that

it was the good ol'
boys patting each other on the back.

Had they not done that,
I can assure you

the outcome, the whole thing

would have been
completely different!

The Thompson family was what I'd
call a Granby legacy family,

a wealthy working family
in the Granby area,

making their money off of excavation,
but also living off

the fact that they owned a lot of the land
just because they'd been here forever.

The first Thompson clan that
settled in Granby

actually bought
lodging properties

and in the course
of that they bought

little pieces of property
around town.

The Thompsons formed
their own excavation company.

Dick Thompson was the son
of the first Thompson family.

Dick had several children.

Ron was kind of a,
a leading son in the family.

Larry was kind
of the older son who helped,

and Gary went
right along with him

doing a lot
of the excavation work.

Gus Harris and Cody Docheff

and the powers that be,
the Thompsons,

if they would have left
me alone,

I wouldn't have had
this righteous anger

that I have
towards the Thompsons,

their hierarchy, their attitude

that they have left in that
community for so many years.

And so many people think
like they do,

screw your neighbor.

In Marv's eyes,
the Thompson family

was the epitome
of the Granby establishment

that did everything
they could to thwart Marv.

Well,
I'm making lemonade out of lemons,

you know,
I just kept on about my business

because this is a small community and,
you know,

I need to fit in.

Life was pretty good
and I was making

a real good income
out of there.

And in '98, the town went

and spot-zoned the two acres

directly south of me,
which is illegal in Colorado.

And because no one protested it

within 30 days,
it became law that they could do that.

And this Docheff guy,
he's gonna sign

and buy the property
next door to the west of me,

and has a contract
on it to purchase it.

And they were going to be able
to put this concrete plant

right there
next to all those houses,

downwind of the town.
And Cody's motivation

was to get back at Marv.

Well, I find this out too late

and I be...
I was right in the dust pale

of this whole operation.
And that wasn't gonna work

because I didn't want no frickin'
concrete plant next to me.

There was opposition
to the concrete plant,

and we heard
we had public hearings.

Uh,
I was acting mayor because the mayor

and the mayor pro tem both
had conflicts of interest,

so I presided
over the public hearings.

We allowed the public to come in,
and it was

a packed house.
People spoke for it,

for the service
the concrete would provide.

And there was lots of people
that spoke out against it.

Marv Heemeyer
did a great job of arousing

public sentiment in his favor
against the batch plant.

He felt that the batch plant
would hurt his business.

He claimed
that there would be dust,

that there would be noise,
that there would be excess traffic.

Who knew what they were going
to do to the water supply.

He also made that argument on behalf
of people in the neighborhood.

Marv got a lot of these
people to show up and,

basically, say we don't want it,
we don't like it,

what are you going to do
to our neighborhood?

They voiced a lot of the
concerns that Marv was voicing.

This went on for a series of three,
four, maybe even five meetings.

And there'd be discourse and,
and discussion,

and Cody would jump up
because he was so upset.

He has, he's a fiery guy.

The town ultimately approved

Cody's batch plant down there,

but with a host of,
of conditions,

the typical things
that you see.

I think I read the motion,
the whereas

and the wherefores
and all that stuff

to approve the batch plant.

And it was
at that meeting in '99

where Marv promised
he'd fight 'em

the whole way.

In nature, wolves, coyotes,

they have their territory.

A mother just...
look at the mother,

she will fight
to protect her young.

And a male,
a male will definitely protect

his territory.
If he doesn't, he'll be overrun.

Now, if an animal will do this,

why wouldn't a man?

In the meantime,
the town is cracking down hard on Marv

saying there is a serious issue
with your water and sewer.

He ended up going
to Granby Municipal Court.

Judge Noriyuki was presiding.

She said we find you
in violation.

We're gonna give you a deferred judgment,
however,

and you can't use
the property for anything

until you're hooked
up to water and sewer.

You have to connect,
but 400 feet's a long way.

There could be a piece
of property in the way

and in this case there was:
Cody's.

He needed the easement.
Cody wasn't gonna give him the easement.

The town contacts him and says
we're gonna fine you $100 a day

because you're operating a business
and you're not hooked up to the sewer.

Marv wrote a check to the town,

and he wrote
on the memo line,

"Cowards and Liars
Department."

And to add insult to injury,
they sent it back

and said
the amount is incorrect.

Well, this clearly angered Marv.
He shows up at the town hall.

They kept fining him because
he was an out-of-towner.

He came up here
and small town...

In Marv's mind
this was just another example

of the town
not treating him fairly.

The Docheffs were moving
forward with their proposal.

Suddenly Marv
shows up with an attorney

then he's saying I think that
we've caught you in a mistake.

The town board was stunned.

They called an executive session,
kicked everybody out.

They said, well,
we're gonna put everything on hold

until we can decide
what we're gonna do.

The attorney made
us be very

dot the i's, cross the t's,

so we wanted to make sure
that whatever we did,

we were right on the money with.

They came back and said we're
gonna let them restart

from square one so that
we can do it right this time.

As a last ditch effort,
Marv filed a lawsuit in district court.

But the Docheffs,
they're serious about building

this batch plant
as quickly as possible.

They're moving forward as if
there's not any barrier

to their progress at all.

There's heavy equipment
operating

at the soon-to-be
batch plant site.

Marv is sitting here
watching all this happening,

and I think he is
just stewing about it.

You put yourself in my shoes

and tell me
how you would feel,

realizing that you've wasted
10 years of your life

because of someone's malice.

He's putting out money and he's
getting shut down every corner,

and then it was to nothing.
I don't know how much he spent.

I know one time he had
150 grand into it.

And I said, "Well,
you shouldn't have spent that much money

on these assholes because you
can't fight the government."

Nine months later,
the court made its ruling on the lawsuit.

Judge Doucet dismissed
the lawsuit completely.

Suddenly,
Marv had nobody on his side.

My attorney,
as paid off as he was,

that's all he was doing
was making money on the deal.

He didn't care if I win or lose.
As a matter of fact he said

that he wouldn't appeal it.
I always told him, I says,

"It's good enough
if we lose to appeal it

to a higher court."
He though wouldn't do it.

He would not appeal it.

You know, 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.

You know the... the town council,
I'd pass them in the post office

and they'd snicker at me
after they knew I lost.

On the street, Casey Farrell,
what a barbarian.

He comes across being one
of those good guys.

He's part of the problem.

They knew what they were doing.

They were trying
to run him out of town.

The town had a hard on
for Marv Heemeyer.

They didn't stop a thing!
Marv didn't have any malice towards us.

This is a sign to not do this.

No,
they kept it in their hardened hearts...

and said we'll get him.
They started getting me

in 1992 when they kept me off
the sanitation district.

They started getting me when
Gus Harris sold the property

to Cody Docheff.
They got me when they issued

the building permit
to Cody Docheff

for the concrete plant
and denied

that it was
for the concrete plant.

Are we all stupid?
Come on, they knew!

And when I would ask them
these questions...

but what you won't find
in the minutes,

they would just shut right up,
stonewall you.

They didn't have an answer.

I'd shoot the truth
in their face

and they couldn't deal with it.
And, and I'm sorry,

they are going to have
to deal with it.

I guarantee you I am going
to make them deal with it.

The battle with the town of Granby,
you know,

um we talked about it,
but I didn't get that feeling

that he was so angry.

No one realized how...

how...
God, distorted it was becoming to him.

Marv was feeling defeated,

humiliated, and at his wit's end
about what he was gonna do.

He goes out,
sits in his hot tub with a beer

in his hand,
and has inspiration.

When I was sitting in the hot tub,
and I mean I was, I was weeping.

And a peace came over me

where I knew God
wanted me to do it.

And I didn't understand.

I said,
"Why did you ask me to do this?

Is that why I've never been married,
so I didn't have a family?

Is that why I've always
been successful

so that I would realize my
rewards for doing this task?"

But it has to be done.

And the world
will write stories

about how wrong I am

and without a doubt I wish it
could be done a different way

but there is no way
to make this right.

You picked on the wrong man!

Cody, do you remember the first
time you met Marv at that auction?

There is the difference
of points of view or memory

about what happened
after Marv got it.

Cody Docheff,
I mean this guy's just a fucking asshole.

Come back and just introduced
himself by giving me

a tongue lashing
for about 10 minutes.

The reason I ask is that Marv claims
that you guys talked afterwards.

I talked to this guy
forever it seems like,

and everybody around me,
they couldn't believe this asshole.

And this is the only guy of all
the properties sold before his

that was doing any screaming
at anybody during the auction.

Gus doesn't remember it either.

I uh,
I've been a school bus driver for 50 years.

Cody has been a good friend for many,
many years.

We have gone to auctions
together before on times.

So, Cody went with me but he had
no party in the... in the auction.

Cody and I sat and listened
to another bid or two.

There really wasn't much
of anything happened.

I don't know what Marv did.
I wasn't paying any attention to him really.

And then we just got up and, and, uh, left.
Yeah.

Cody would maybe be interested in
the property at a, at a future time,

but, uh,
there was no agreement or talk between us

of him owning that property.

Cody would have been mad at anybody
who would have bought the property,

anybody, but,
but you gotta go there with enough money.

Otherwise you're the problem.

It's your fault that this happened,
not mine.

Marv in his tapes,
the way he characterizes the town,

me and many other people,
just did not reflect what I thought

was the way those people
really were and really are.

I wasted...

thirteen years of my life
down there

because the Thompsons
were pissed off

that I bought that property.

We lived here all of our life.
We were born and raised here.

Probably gonna die here, so.
Where else you gonna go, but...

No,
our dad started here in business in 1949.

We had our mom, our dad,
then we had another brother

between the two of us that got sick in '02,
and he passed away.

And everybody has their hardships,
so we had more than our fair share.

- A raft of 'em.
- A raft of 'em.

And the popular conception of
the Thompson brothers is that

they are the hardest working
millionaires in the county.

They probably could live well
off of the revenue

from their property
that they have in Granby.

They could probably hire
people but they don't.

They choose to work and I
actually think they like the work.

We got
a whole yard full of stuff.

We don't hire any help.
We just do it ourselves.

It's fun,
so keeps us out of trouble, so...

I spent one day here
in the spring of 2003,

the Thompson brothers were down
below my house here in Grand Lake,

digging a foundation
for a house.

Larry Thompson was standing
out by his truck by himself,

so I drove up to him and had
a few words with him.

Basically what I told him was that,
"You know, Larry,

you know, about in 1992,
your family

financially affected my life
for the rest of my life."

Well, Marv had a beef with our dad
because he was on the town board,

town council for a lot of years. And in the
last years of his life, he was the mayor.

And I says, "You owe me,
I want $300,000 from you."

And he says it'll never happen.

And I says,
"Well, I guarantee you, Larry,

I'm gonna collect."

One day,
we always was friendly to him,

you know,
and he rolled his window down and he says,

"I'm gonna get you guys."
And rolled his windows up and left,

and that's the last time
we ever talked to him.

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 am about five truck
lengths away.

He screamed,
"You can suck my dick!"

Well,
when someone is that frustrated

that they've gotta say
something like that,

you know they know.

It was all politics related, so

I don't think anybody
ever done him wrong on purpose.

You never know
what gets into people.

He's a cowardly bastard.

He's a Catholic, and I think they
are some of the biggest cowards

I have ever met. They believe the
only way that they can stay on top

is to keep their neighbor down.

I think that Marv might have
seen in the Thompson family

an example of what he
may have really aspired to,

which was being a relatively wealthy,
land-owning family

that worked with their hands,
worked with heavy equipment,

that were able to make a living
at it and be successful.

This is
my die-cast toy collection.

I've probably been collecting 15 years now,
maybe a little longer.

And this is kind of my hobby
that I do in the evenings,

mainly in the wintertime.

So I just buy one,
two toys once in a while

as I can afford it.

Is this your favorite truck?

They're all favorite trucks.

They're our toys.

So... But anyway.

I went down to talk to Marv
about his business

and whether he'd like us to do
a new business story,

and would he like to buy
some advertising.

And Marv was only open
at select hours.

Marv ran that business so he could
indulge in his snowmobiling habit.

I must've gone back down
to the muffler shop

three-four times
and Marv was never there.

This newspaper guy,
Patrick Brower,

this guy hated me.

When I first came
up here in uh '91,

he said that
he was gonna come down

and do an article
on my little business.

Well, he never did do it.

You know, he was doing everything he could

to keep me from getting
any additional publicity.

He knows how to abuse
the power of the pen.

And that's a big thing
up here is abuse of power.

When the time came
where I ran into Marv,

he was all upset with me
for never doing his story.

I said, "Marv,
why don't I just give you an ad."

Yeah, I took a photo of Marv
and ran a free ad for him.

It was I think a $200 ad
that he got for nothing.

I know the newspaper guy,
that guy,

he has told so many lies.
It's one thing about lying...

you tell a lie, usually you gotta
tell five more to cover that up.

I came to Granby in '78,
three kids raised here.

Bought the store in '92.

We try to be part
of the community

and support the community
because they support us.

So that's how I got kind
of involved in town board thing.

Casey Farrell,
what a barbarian.

He comes across being
one of those good guys.

He's part of the problem.

Casey and Ronda Farrell
and their family

are the kind of people
you want for neighbors.

He never did anything
with ill intent.

He never did anything
with malice.

The town council,
I'd pass them in the post office

and they'd snicker at me
after they knew I lost.

In that batch plant,
I felt like it was a positive,

and I couldn't see
a downside for Marv.

It was gonna supply concrete
so the community could grow.

The opportunity for jobs.

I mean, he might get a little
dust on his muffler shop,

but it wasn't all that clean
to begin with.

How many times do you have
to try to deal with a man?

Come on, Cody, be reasonable,
but that's what you cannot do

with people in the mountains,
especially in Granby.

Cody Docheff built his concrete
business from the ground up.

He's what I would call a kind of
a salt of the earth businessman

who, uh, is a doer.
He's a hard worker.

Maybe Marv and Cody
had some head butting

just because they are both
alpha personalities

or something of that nature.

I think they're both
pretty good at what they do.

Neither one of 'em
were trust fund babies.

Cody's worked hard
to get where he's at.

Cody's, Cody's Cody.

- It's just his nature.
- It's just his nature.

You know, he's just,
he tells it the way it is.

- If you don't like it...
- He just tells ya.

He tells ya, you know.
He's a good guy, you know.

He'd do anything for ya,
but he's just...

got a little short fuse,
goes off, but he's okay,

- you know.
- Oh, yeah, he has a bit of a temper,

- but he, he's all right.
- He's all right, you know.

He's a little Bulgarian.

He's quite quick.
He's a good man.

He's done all right around here,
works his butt off like everybody else.

- Yeah, he, he's earned it.
- Yeah, he's earned every nickel he made.

- He came here with basically nothing.
- Nothing.

Uh, Marv and Cody

probably could have been
friends.

For years I tried to appease
Cody Docheff's misguided anger.

I bought
every bit of concrete,

which turned out to be shit.

Marv complained about the sewer
board holding him over a barrel,

but that was completely
standard procedure.

It's true that
it can be expensive,

but Cody connected
when he built the batch plant,

and it would not cost much

for Marv to have hooked on.

The Docheffs called up Marv and said,
"Marv,

we'll give you an easement
for your water and sewer

if you drop your lawsuit
against the town and us."

Marv just hung up.
When he was called into the court

because he hadn't connected
his sewer lines,

he's clearly stalling
on resolving this issue.

This is where Marv confronts Deb Hess,
who is a town clerk.

So, Deb,
did you have any dealings with Marv?

He had come in my office, he was accusing me

of going over to the bank
and badmouthing him.

I said, "Mr. Heemeyer,
I wasn't over at the bank

and I wouldn't do that.
I mean, I have no reason to badmouth him.

I just said
I just need a different check.

Actually, he had made a mistake

when he wrote out the amount.

Marv corrects
the verbiage on the check

and then the check clears
and he's paid his fine.

Marv's anger affected
his interpretation of events

with Dietze as well.
He believed Dietze milked him

for money
and abandoned him on appeal.

But if Dietze was really
out to milk Heemeyer

why didn't he go
to the appeal?

It'd be a way to milk
another $55,000 out of him.

And the irony is Cody had been offering
to buy Marv out from the beginning,

and Marv saw an opportunity
to sell that two-acre parcel

that he had bought at that
auction to the Docheffs.

Marv put a price
on his property of $250,000.

That's a pretty good profit,
six times what he paid for it.

Cody had agreed to 250,000.

Immediately,
Marv backed out and said no,

I want 375,000.

Cody said all right,
we'll pay that.

Marv backed out again.

I'm not sure if Marv
was looking for a fight

at that point in time.
He had a way out.

He had a way out
to make some good money

and, and go on about his life,

but he chose that path
for whatever reason.

At the town level,
the people on there are just

everyday people
that want to give back.

And to say that the people
that sit behind us

in this board room do things
for any other reason

than trying to make a difference and trying
to do what's right, they're sadly mistaken.

He was raising hell about
Cody and the batch plant,

Marv...
actually made that better for the town

because he was raising issues that the people
on the board they hadn't thought about.

So he'd come in and he'd say, "well, what
about dust?" or this, or that or whatever,

they'd go, "Well, that makes sense to me.
What do you think, Cody?"

"Oh, yeah, I can fix that,
no big deal."

So we really got
a better deal for the town

because of Marv complaining.

Well, after we approved it, it was,
actually, I... I felt like it was

a pretty damn good deal,
really.

Marv's assumption
that there was this group

of community leaders
that would get together

at the coffee shop
in the morning and

conspire
about how to keep Marv

from moving forward
because he's the new guy...

It's patently untrue.

He was upset.
He wanted to have it his way

and it wasn't gonna go his way.

Marv went to California probably
based on an advertisement

he saw in a Ritchie Bros.
auction site

for this Komatsu
D355 bulldozer.

Marv bid on it
and got it at a great deal.

It's a big dozer,
yeah, big dozer.

He then stuck it on a flatbed,
had it driven

all the way to Granby,
Colorado, from California.

He had it delivered
in July of 2002.

We're sitting eating dinner one
night and this big yellow truck

comes in town with this big dozer on it.
We sat down there and watched them

unload that thing off
the trailer.

But we were working
the next county up,

and it was midnight
or one in the morning

before we got back to our warehouse,
but we took the back way.

And they're unloading
that dozer

that night.
It's just really strange.

That thing, it's a pretty good-sized tractor.
We thought,

"What in the heck is he gonna do
with that goddam thing, you know?"

He ended up parking the
dozer up on the access road

to the muffler property so that the
blade was facing out on this dirt road.

And he had right in the middle of the blade,
a for sale sign.

And it just sat there through
that winter of 2002 to 2003.

He parked Komatsu
outside the muffler shop

just to make Docheff nervous.

That's why he bought it...
for the intimidation factor.

I wanted
these people to learn,

and he knew that I eventually
would get to the point

where I wouldn't put up with what
they were taking away from me,

for what they had denied me.

God knew Marv Heemeyer
very well.

Essentially,
he becomes the victim that is then justified

in reacting against all these
people that have done him wrong.

We know he wants to get out of it.
We know he knows he's screwed.

Let's really screw him,
you know.

That's exactly
what their attitude was.

And, and they did.
I had no choice.

What was I supposed to do?

The allegation is that somehow
the town ruined Marv's business...

the town didn't do anything
to shut him down.

He still had access
to his property.

Marv just on his own decided to
completely shut down his muffler shop

and put it all up to auction.

You know, God has his timing,
his plans made out.

And it looks like
it's going to be

because the one thing
that I have wanted to do

is get caught.
I had hoped that somebody would catch me

and that this whole thing
would stop.

And that would be a good sign
for me not to do it.

So Marv conducted the auction
of all the materials

relating to his shop.
Included in the items

he was gonna auction
was this dozer.

This Komatsu
was in excellent condition.

I was willing at the auction
to take 33,000 for it.

Couldn't get a bid,
so I kept the dozer.

And it also is unique
how I had five things

at the auction
and they sold.

But what two things did I keep?

The Komatsu dozer
and the property.

If they would have bought it
at that auction

of 450,000,
I would have walked away,

but there wasn't one bid.

So stop and think about this:

I wasn't supposed
to walk away from this

because the Komatsu
was still there.

You know I had
quit smoking for nine years

and I'd become this closet smoker,
you know.

I'd sneak them,
which is ridiculous, I know.

And he, uh, he didn't like that

and we got
into an argument about it.

That's when things
went downhill,

and then we quit
seeing each other.

It was maybe easier to,
to break it up, you know.

I don't know the details,
but just him talking about her,

he was very in love with her.
I knew that.

Is it possible that he felt
stronger about you than you did him?

Marv was still perplexed about
what to do with his property.

Travis Busse and his partner
were owners of the trash company.

They had negotiated with Marv
to lease his two acres

as a staging point
for their trucks.

And I was trying to look for an
area where it was more commercial,

than I could actually have a garage that
I could keep my trucks in the winter.

He had the perfect building
right there in town.

What was unique is
I find out that the dozer

is two inches shorter

than 12 feet,

one inch narrower

than the door.

So I said let's put it inside

because then I can build it

to do what I am supposed to do.

The Komatsu just barely fit
through the door.

Why did that particular
dozer fit in the building?

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

So, 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."

At that time,
we were getting bigger

and we needed a place
to where we could call home.

Travis finally
offered Marv $400,000

and Marv agreed
to sell the land to them

for that amount. Sure enough,
I think it was even within 24 hours,

Travis had water and sewer
hooked up to the property.

We bought it all and he
basically back rented from us

the building that he put
the dozer in.

And this will be the first time that
I've ever done something like that

the way they want it to be done,
the way they do it,

to do it in secret,
to do things behind their back,

to lie to you.
I've had to do that.

People'd ask me what am I doing?
Oh, I'm not doin' anything.

I spent 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.

Marv built
a little sleeping area,

complete with cot,
TV, hotplate, water,

so that he could basically
work 24/7 on the dozer.

He ended up bringing in all the
sheets of steel into the shed.

He had torches in the shed.
He had all kinds of tools in the shed.

He built a lift which could lift large,
heavy things, mainly sheets of steel.

It actually lifted 'em up and held
'em in place while he welded 'em in place.

It was 1/2-inch steel.
He had spacers that he put in,

so he had two layers
of steel plate.

And he poured concrete down
in between them.

And then lifted
the outer shell of that dozer.

So that made it
a super fortified gap.

He was working on it at night,
sleeping during the day, so,

but you'd think somebody would've known what
was going on down there. But, evidently...

And he put in surveillance cameras
on the outside of the shed,

hooked up to monitors
he had on inside of the shed.

I think he kind of watched us
and our schedule,

so he knew that basically when
we left at five or six at night

he was free
to work and make noise.

I don't understand.
I guess I'm a dumb, I'm a dumb person.

I'm not as witty as some.
I'm not as sharp as some.

I don't know that that's the
backbone of America though.

I don't know what the backbone
of America is anymore.

I did my buying that property...

you are so mistaken
about the real world.

You know, you can call it revenge...
I don't know.

Maybe what happened here,

maybe you'll remember that.

Marv knew he was gonna be
spending long periods of time

in the shed, and he had in there
a little small video collection

that he could watch.
One of the movies he had in there

was a Vin Diesel film,
called A Man Apart.

The hero of the movie loses his
wife to a gang of criminals.

He takes the law into his own hands,
goes out there,

shoots up the bad guys,
and the movie ends with him alone,

but he has somehow redeemed and
purified the corrupt society.

When we purchased the property,
we had to have insurance on every building,

so we had to actually do a
walkthrough through that building.

Last fall I had
this dozer about half done.

Had the dozer covered up with
these polypropylene tarps,

so these guys come in.
"Oh, wow, what's this?"

I made up this story.
I said this professor

was perfecting a cooling system

which would cool
the air and increase

the performance of the engine.

I had
this whole bullshit story

and they went along with it.
And I couldn't believe it

when they walked out the door.

It was right there
under their nose.

How come they didn't catch me?

Well,
I wasn't supposed to get caught!

God built me to be here
to prove to you

that what you have been doing

for God knows how many years

is wrong.

You picked on the wrong man.

I'm not tough.

I'm not that strong.

What I am going to do
is above me,

and God gave me
that peace years ago

in that hot tub.
I had to do this.

That I could not do it
without God's help

that it was his strength
that would spur me on

at 51 and 52 years old
to get this job done

at the pace that I could do it.

I believe that is why
he gave me last winter off.

He says, "Marv,
you're not gonna get it done,

go take off this winter,
go play."

It was wintertime,
I'm not gonna be here.

Everything's sold.
I don't have a muffler shop anymore.

I'm gonna go snowmobiling.

Marv actually really
did succeed in Granby.

He bought that property
for $42,000.

He was able to sell it
ten years later for $400,000.

And, in fact, that was the very thing
he had been trying to do all along.

Marv says in his own tapes

that his muffler business
was successful.

It gave him an opportunity to
do what he wanted to do in life,

to enjoy his snowmobiling and
still have money so he could live.

But you've got to do this.
You've got to get this done.

And that was my goal
so to speak,

take the winter off, relax,

you know,
maybe something would come up

to change my mind.

In March of 2004,
Marv's father dies.

Marv did go up
to the funeral.

He took photos.

In the photos
you see family members.

You see photos of Marv's
father in the casket.

Included was a selfie
that Marv took

outside the family farm
there in South Dakota.

And it's a mournful,
sad-looking photo.

A look of resignation
is on Marv's face.

It's almost as if he's saying,
"I know what I am gonna do

and I'm not happy about it.
And this is my last look at my home."

But before that,
Marv had given all the proceeds

from the sale of the lot

and of all of his material
and equipment to his father.

You know, it's gone.
Now money means nothing to me.

I've given my house away.

I do not need this cabin
here in Grand Lake.

My snowmobiles,
I've given those away this year.

Everything is gone.

What I own is just gonna
be a pittance

compared to what
I am going to take.

Marv transferred the sale
proceeds from his bank

in $50,000 increments.

Prior to his father's passing,

his father conveyed
those sale proceeds

to Marv's two brothers
and sister.

By giving them to his father
and willing all that

to the other members
of the family,

it was one big step
removed from Marv

so that when the time came
to try to get resources

back from Marv to reimburse
people who had lost,

uh, it was near impossible.

This is Tape 3.
It's about 10:05 on, uh,

the 13th of April 2004.

And I want to say
that I believe

that I am an American patriot.

I believe
in free enterprise system.

I believe in a level playing
field of competition.

If you want to change
that level playing field

of competition to your advantage,
basically,

you give me license
to do that also

when my opportunity comes around

because you are the leaders
of the community.

Through your actions,
you show the community

how things
are supposed to be done.

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 gonna destroy your side
of the playing field.

He wanted everybody to hear what
he felt about what happened to him,

but I won't even listen to 'em,
you know.

I listened a little bit and I said, "Nah,
I don't need to listen to this," you know.

He told me in his roundabout way
through life, you know.

Lonely man.

He would just spend
too much time alone.

That's what I put it onto.

He spent too much time
in hot tub alone.

At the time I went
to work for a dentist

we ended up doing
a crown prep on Marv

and he was to come back
that actual Friday

and seat the permanent crown.

I said, "Marv, you need to get
the hell out of Grand County,"

I remember it vividly. And he gave
me a big hug and he said, "Trish..."

he said, "You are the best thing that
ever happened to me in Grand County."

I just remember that so vividly.

And... you know,
he was gonna do this thing three weeks later.

He already had it planned, you know,
so nuts to think about that.

And I would never have guessed.
You know, he seemed like

it was so great to see him and,
and it was great to have a hug,

you know.

I went snowmobiling with Marv
a month before it happened,

early May on Vail Pass,
just he and I.

We had plans
of going again in June

just to say we did it.

And these are future plans.

He wasn't done.

And he spent a couple of weeks
in Florida with some friends.

He talked about it
on the way to Vail.

He said they're gonna get
what's coming to 'em.

So here we are and I am at peace
with what I am about to do.

People will think, "Why did he do that?
He had such a good life.

He had a better life
than me anyway."

It's not what I deserve.

You meddled in my business

and took what I deserve away.

You took advantage
of my good nature.

Well, I think there's something
you should learn here.

For as good as a man can be,

also can he be as bad.

When you visit evil
upon someone,

be assured it will revisit you.

The Thompsons are guilty.

The Docheffs are guilty.

The Granby Town Board is guilty.

The Granby Planning Commission
is guilty.

It took all of you

ten years to get me.

You got me, no doubt about it.

I got screwed big time.

Enough is enough.

I have been beaten
to a point

where I'm not
gonna take it anymore.

But I don't think that's
what God had planned for me,

and he expects me to do
something to those

who kept me now
from getting what I deserve.

God's will be done through me.

You were cowards in the way
that you dealt with me.

You all along were thinking
that I was the person

that needed
to be taught a lesson.

You were going to show me how
it worked in Granby, Colorado.

How the real world worked.

You people needed
to be taught a lesson.

- 911, what is your emergency?
- This is Sherry at the trash company.

And there is a bulldozer over at Mountain
Park Concrete destroying their building.

It's destroying the building?
Is anyone on it?

Yeah, it's encased in metal

and you can't see
who's driving or anything.

And they can't get it to stop.

911, what's your emergency?

Hi, Sherry at the trash company again.
It is headed

- for their main building now.
- It's headed for the main building, okay.

Cody had grabbed a handgun
from one of his workers.

He takes the gun up and bang,
bang.

Not only is the diesel engine
screaming

as it's pushing the dozer,
but the treads,

they're creaking and scraping
as the roar of the engine,

then there's just the sound
of crash and ruin,

because he's really knocking
all these walls down.

The tracks are probably
the most memorable thing.

Our goal was to get the heaviest
thing we could pack by hand,

because if you can get
tangled up in some steel

you're gonna stop that track.

We got a big piece
of angle iron off

of Cody Docheff's steel rack,

it's probably 1/2-inch diameter,
so it was really heavy.

Our intentions was to try
to lodge that into the tracks

and get it tangled up
so it'd break the track.

That didn't work.

We have an armored, a very armored
situation and it's getting closer.

301, I copy, there's an armored
bulldozer tearing down the building.

There are several deputies
in route.

At the time of the call,

which was about a quarter
after two

in the afternoon,
I was approximately a mile away.

I pulled up
and stopped my car,

and there's a bulldozer
that doesn't completely look

like a bulldozer anymore.
I had grabbed a shotgun and

ran towards the bulldozer.
I'm yelling,

I am ordering it to stop.
It backs away from the building,

and a frontend loader
approaches it.

And I see the frontend loader is
being operated by Cody Docheff.

I told Cody,
"Get the biggest loader you got

and see if you can get underneath
his track to uplift him."

And Cody did.
He backed up with a big loader and hit him.

So he takes his frontend loader
and slams into the side of him.

And all it did was lift the
back of the frontend loader up.

It shook him hard enough that I think that's
when Marv started letting out the rounds.

Marv had a 50-caliber
rifle pointed out the back.

He shot numerous rounds
into Cody's bucket.

We have shots fired.
We have automatic weapons in the bulldozer.

Luckily,
all the rounds hit in the bucket.

Cody figures out where he is
and he's not hit. He's okay.

And he backs up and he thinks,
"What am I gonna do now?"

Shortly after that, Cody realized
that that was too much. He was done.

That's when the officers
started surrounding the place.

And I transitioned from a
shotgun to an M-4 rifle.

And about that time I was joined
by a state trooper, Dave Patera.

At first, Cody speculated that
there's not a human being in there

it's being run
by radio controls.

The dozer's continuing its damage.
It's going in and out of the building,

slamming into this huge
concrete batch plant,

essentially, knocking down all the sidewalls,
just destroying it.

Well, at this point there's
more police on the scene.

Okay,
I'm gonna pull right up behind him...

I'll go back around
over the ditch on foot.

I came in on the west
side of the batch plant,

bailed out of the vehicle,
pulled my rifle out.

And I could hear
the squeaking of the tracks

and the roaring of the engine,
the banging into the building,

but I still didn't see anything.

Once I got close to the
building around skirting

an irrigation ditch,
Marv come around the building

in that bulldozer and that's
when I got my first look of it.

I don't know,
I expected to see a bulldozer.

It looks like a tank.

There's this huge
black monstrosity.

I mean almost like a WWI big boxy,
rumbly tank.

And then the next thing you're thinking is,
"how, how do you attack

something like this?
How do I stop this?"

When I arrived on scene,
I could hear the bulldozer operating.

I walked around my vehicle
and saw this absolute behemoth.

Sergeant Rich Garner
was our designated marksman.

I just started shooting, trying to
aim for what looked like a viewport.

We made the decision to begin
firing at the small portholes

that we could see in the side
of this bulldozer

but they were maybe two inches
by four inches at the very most.

What I didn't know
was that these portholes

were covered with two sheets
of 1/2-inch Lexan,

which had me wondering how he
was actually driving this thing.

Garner stands there and takes
a few shots at the dozer.

Then all of a sudden bang,
bang.

I had two rounds go
right by my head

and I was like, "Oh,
I know what that noise is."

Marv fired his weapons and he
fired at a bunch of cops

that were standing behind
a wall of jersey barriers.

You know
as we started firing

of course,
the rounds were having absolutely no effect

he saw three state troopers
behind

a stack of jersey barriers
that were next to the building.

Watch out. The guy's gonna come
over here with a bulldozer.

Instead of just going by them,
he turned

and drove directly
at those Jersey barriers.

Come over.
Go, run! Come over. Come over.

If those troopers hadn't moved,
he'd have probably killed all three of them.

He started proceeding eastbound
through the parking lot

and the construction area. I had parked my
vehicle on the south side of the building.

At that time, Marv moved back around
to the south side of the building,

and Glenn Trainor's unmarked
vehicle was over there.

He put the blade up against
that and started pushing it.

He kept pushing it sideways, sideways.
Well, then

it caught the rims
on the wheels and actually

stopped it
and started flipping over.

He rolled over the top of it.

As he was heading
towards the highway,

somebody notified me
on the radio that the person

operating the bulldozer
was Marvin Heemeyer.

He was not gonna stop
at just the concrete plant.

I don't think that just knowing
what I am doing is enough.

I think God will bless me.

You get the machine done,
you drive it

to do the stuff that I have
to do up to a point.

Then you're either gonna blow me
right off the fucking streets,

I'm gonna have a heart attack and die,
the machine's gonna break,

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

I've got a lot of fuel in that thing,
let me tell you,

to do what I believe
needs to be done,

what God has inspired me to do.

I am the co-captain in my life.

God is first, I am second.

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
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.

I am not a slave to man.

I am a slave to God.

As he was heading towards
the highway I began sending

notifications having
my deputies and supervisors

go out and begin
evacuating the town.

That's when Glenn decided he was
gonna try to get up on top it.

I got the idea to climb up and see
if I could actually gain entry.

So he's clinging up and we
start running along with him,

trying to cover him.

I was expecting to see,
you know,

something with a handle
that I could pull up

and open.
And there was absolutely nothing.

You know, it was solid sheet
metal from the front to the back.

The only thing
I did see up there

was there was some kind
of a vent

where it looked like there was
like an RV air conditioner.

He takes his pistol out and
starts trying to shoot into

some gaps where the air conditioner was.
Of course, it does no good.

Then, he's up there and he's
just riding along on this thing.

So then we started coming up with
maybe getting some flashbangs.

I brought some flashbangs if
anybody needs 'em, this is 35.

I'm throwing up these
flashbangs and Glenn's pulling

the pin on 'em and dumping
'em down the exhaust.

Of course, they're going off.

Whoo, big cloud of smoke

and everything come out.
No effect.

It moves out of the immediate
little industrial area,

and the next building that it
hits is Mountain Parks Electric.

At the time
of my tenure on the board,

I worked
at Mountain Parks Electric,

so I don't know if there was
some interplay there.

He spent several
minutes just going in,

doing the damage, backing out,
going in, backing out,

the entire time of which I am
sitting up there, watching

this going on,
knowing all along that he was on his way

to the Granby Town Hall.
That was the next place he went.

Let's get
a hold of Granby Town Hall.

Start moving away everything
over that way...

And that the town
hall was upstairs,

but our public library was
downstairs in the same building.

And there were kids and other
people inside the library.

Midday, I had my lunch break.

I did start hearing um,
what I thought...

I mean, it sounded like gunfire.

And then I started
seeing police cars,

like flying by
at high rates of speed.

I started hearing sirens.
I was hearing more gunfire.

And at that point,
I decided to go back to the library.

We issued a directive
to have a reverse 911 call

sent out to the community
to shelter in place.

Because after the first one, we were
just thinking barricade everyone inside,

not knowing
that we were the target,

that there was a bulldozer
heading right there.

And then shortly after
that we got another call,

a 911 reverse call. They were telling
everyone, "Evacuate your building now."

It took me until that moment to
realize that my 11-year-old daughter

was in the basement
of that building in the library.

Okay, he's going east all the way to Napa.

The bulldozer came out onto
the highway and pulled off,

and drove right into the lawn
area of the town hall.

Well, I elected to get off
at that point and did jump down.

Marv works his way up around.
He goes around the back of the town hall,

destroying the children's
playground in the process,

turning all the little jungle
gyms and swing sets

into just curled and twisted
spaghetti in the backyard there.

But we did gather up the kids and then
we drove them all to their houses.

We got there, turned the radio on,
and as soon we turned it on,

within seconds we heard the radio announcer
say that he had just bulldozed town hall.

The dozer methodically
tore apart town hall.

Everybody now, needs to move...
Go for three to three.

From the town hall it went
back out to Main Street.

We had this rolling roadblock
out in front of him,

the patrol units
and then behind him as well.

Somewhere during that time,
Norm Rimmer shows up

and he sees this camera
sticking out the back.

Then we start looking around
and we see another one.

That's when we figured out that's how he
was steering it, was using the cameras.

Marv placed around the outside of the dozer,
five cameras.

He had them mounted to three
monitors inside the tank,

so he had views of the back,
front, and the sides.

He actually thought ahead enough
that there would be debris

and dust,
so he rigged up all these little hoses

to a compressed air tank
that's in the cab,

and he was able to open
the compressed air

to blow dust and debris
in front of his Lexan,

so he could still see
where he was going.

As it's going down the highway,

more and more law enforcement
officers

were showing up,
people coming from home.

I started hearing gunfire
and sirens from my home,

so I got my police radio started
and I listening to the traffic

and I heard officers describing
being shot at

and something about a bulldozer
knocking buildings down.

I thought the best thing to do at
the time was to grab my camcorder,

so I followed him around until he got to,
uh, Sky-Hi News.

This guy may possibly be going
after Patrick Brower.

It was a regular news day. We were
working when one of the sheriff's deputies

tells me, "Get out of here!
You're on the list." I said, "What?"

He then leaves the building.
There's this large kinda gray, dark monolith

driving down the road with two
police cars on either side.

Right when he gets by the front of the
building he just takes a sharp right turn.

The ground starts to shake.
You could hear the creaking of the treads.

And we were
inside the building here.

And blam!
Knocks down the front wall of the building.

Patrick and one of his reporters are
leaving out the back of the building

as Marv is driving through
the front of the building.

The ground is literally
shaking under your feet.

It's 85 tons of it just rolling,
impervious.

Well,
we immediately start running out the back.

Marv continues
to take the dozer back

and smashes into the front of the building.
He works his way around.

He just kept backing up,
knocking cars out of his way

taking a hit at the building and backing
up again, taking another hit at it.

Literally,
the ceiling's caving in all around us.

I ran out the backdoor
with my camera around my neck,

and run up the side
of the building.

There's a sheriff's deputy
with a shotgun.

I snap off a panicked photo,

then I started hearing gunfire.
I hear a few whizzes

over my head and I think, "This is stupid.
I'm getting out of here."

I'm coming.
Get people out of there!

And then finally the entire building
just collapsing around itself.

There was a lot of metal
on metal screeching going on,

especially when he's pushing
cars out of the way.

There was a lot of screeching
noises from the treads

and it was just kind of overwhelming,
you know,

looking at and realizing, you know,
I don't have a way of stopping this.

None of us had
a way of stopping it.

The dozer goes
down to the east end of town.

They knew that we were on the hit list,
so they hurried up up here

and we came across the flats
up here behind the town shop.

And the county cop stopped us.

He says, "You're not going any farther.
We go, "Yeah, we are.

You can get your ass
down here and arrest me at home

if you want to,
but we're going down the hill."

That's the Thompson residence.
The bulldozer's headed there.

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

There's a little house
owned by Thompsons

and their mother lives there.

I called her and she thought

I was joking with her. I said,

"You needed to get in the car,

just drive out of town.
Just get out of it."

Marvin Heemeyer is around Thompsons'
shop.

The chief of Kremmling PD
showed up.

He rolls his window down
and said,

"Hey, Rich,
I got a surprise for you."

In the backseat is this big,
huge 50-cal silhouette gun.

And I picked up the gun
and I let loose with it.

No effect.

It came down the backstreet here,
knocked some trees down.

The dozer ran
right through the house.

It completely leveled the house.

She did get out safely.

My only concern was her.

Thelma Thompson was asleep

in the house
only 30 minutes before Marv

completely destroyed their home.

It started to destroy
a construction yard

that's owned
by Thompson & Sons,

systematically destroying
that area.

And then he turned and came
over to the shop here

we had a lowboy trailer sitting out here,
and he shoved it

through the wall.
Then he went down the street down here

and tipped over
another semitrailer we had.

He flat laid
it over on its side,

full of truck parts.
Then he went around

in front of her house and
shoved the Xcel Energy pickup

through our rental building.

Meanwhile, this whole ridge is up
here was just covered with people,

following him through town,
watching what he was doing like a circus.

Then after that it looked
like a war zone out here.

All the helicopters flying around
and all the news trucks showing up.

And that's when he headed off down the hill,
went down to Independent Gas.

Hey,
would you make a general broadcast all units

should evacuate
at least a thousand feet

back from the propane tanks
at Independent Gas.

I was on top of the hill
looking down on that.

All I saw was rows and rows

of propane tanks
of various sizes.

You know we're not talking
camping propane,

we're talking about, you know,
industrial-size propane tanks.

If you're standing in the farm,
looking up the hill,

you can see a senior citizens'
home,

a trailer park,
private residences.

There were a lot of homes,
a lot of people in a blast area.

Well, Marv was by the propane,
shooting at the tanks.

Move back! He's shooting at the tanks!
Move back!

He was using
incendiary rounds,

so they made kind of a flash
and a puff of smoke.

He's shooting at the propane.

One of those bullets
could easily hit

a propane tank
and ignite it immediately.

There would have been a lot
of damage using these things

flying through the air,
landing on homes.

...he's got a 50-cal,
he's trying to take out the tanks

and transformers...
at Independent Propane at this time.

He had a ripper on the
backend of the bulldozer.

And when he would try to maneuver
it to get the barrel of the gun

pointing
towards the propane tanks,

the ripper was digging into the
ground and not going down far enough

to allow his armor
to get out of the way.

And the 50-caliber
was hitting his own armor.

You can see the shells hitting
the armor and bursting

into a puff of smoke and flame
when they hit his own armor.

While one of his bullets did
penetrate the power transformer,

none of 'em penetrated
the actual propane tanks.

Granby PD also be advised,
Federal Heights is going to be in route

with their Peacekeeper
on its flatbed.

It'll take about two hours,
Summit County is also

- en route with a SWAT team.
- Ask them to help us get

the National Guard
units in here,

maybe with a helicopter
to stop this unit.

You need a National
Guard unit and a helicopter?

Yeah, the uh, the Air National
Guard or Army National Guard,

uh,
either out of Laramie or out of Eagles.

And then that's when the county
scraper tried to stop him.

Yeah, I'm gonna try to bring
the scrapers down Highway 40.

We wanna know
where they need to go.

We had asked
for a bulldozer from

our road and bridge department.
The director

of Grand County Road and Bridge
was Clark Branstetter.

Branstetter on Road and Bridge,
I've got

a scraper inside
of where the A&W used to be

on 40,
where do you want me to put this?

What he did do is bring
in two big earthmovers

or scrapers from the landfill.

Let's get him up here just as fast as we can.

Clark Branstetter actually
tried to stop the bulldozer

at the top of the hill,
going back up onto the highway.

...contact the station,
we have a giant tractor

that is completely armored
with iron running over

all vital components,
including the compartment with only complex.

He can fire out of firing way. The driver
is completely enclosed with no entrance.

Get him back! Stop him!
I can't, he's got a dozer.

The bulldozer just basically moved
the scraper just right out of the way.

...He's going
out towards the highway!

He went back up the hill,
back on to Main Street again.

We're at 4th and Main,
and 4th and Agate now.

Somewhere right in that timeframe it
appears that he loses all his antifreeze.

There's a big white puff of
what would be the antifreeze

hitting hot metal components
from the engine

and there's a lot
of white smoke.

Copy,
vehicle smoking heavily at 4th and Agate.

He damaged copycat printers
a bit while he's positioning

to get his bulldozer facing
towards the Gambles store.

He said, "Oh, he's headed for Gambles".
Oh, I don't remember how the verbiage was.

And I just, my stomach went like,
just like a ball.

Just clinched because I knew my life
was gonna be completely different.

The engine of the bulldozer
began overheating.

I was across the street,
watching as it came up the street,

and then watched as it turned in to
go down the side of the Gambles store.

You can also tell that he's
starting to lose power at this time.

And then it starts methodically just
tearing apart that Gambles store.

Here 33, Ft. Collins is en route with
a SWAT team and an armored vehicle.

All units, Grand, too,
we need you to move back towards the east.

Once again
start blocking traffic.

He begins going down the side of it,
basically,

trying to rip the entire side
of the building off.

The county had gotten
a belly scraper out.

They pulled that in behind
to block his way.

Having worked in the Gambles store I
knew what a lot of people didn't know,

and that's that there was
a basement in there.

So he took a run at Gambles,
not realizing

that the right hand side track
would go into the basement

and that left him stuck,
unable to move.

This is the first time
he's actually stopped,

and the machine shut down.

But we don't
know what he's doing,

so we pulled everybody back.

Can you confirm your location?

Right now
the dozer is at Gambles

or what used to be Gambles.

One of the radio transmissions at the time
is, "Get ready for a gunfight." It was...

where else are we going with this?
It just figures we've gone this far,

now it's, you know,
does somebody pop out of it?

Does it just fire
from its position?

We need a Grand 24...
- We started to pair up

people and get
some tactical advantage.

You need to go down to
Mountain Parks Concrete

and help secure
that bridge down there.

And it was
a short time after that

a gunshot was heard.

A couple of sheriff's deputies
actually got on top of it

and were trying to figure out if
there was something they could do,

some way they could get in.

You know they had the same luck that I had,
which is none.

Some SWAT teams came up
from other jurisdictions

and attempted to breach the
bulldozer with an explosive charge.

And they started blasting
on the dozer.

All that did was put a,
a stain on the side of it.

When they triggered that
explosive device

it rattled the windows
in my house.

It was a tremendous,
tremendous explosion.

It didn't even dent the thing.

When the second blast happened,
they still didn't get in.

They said,
"If he's not already dead he is now."

And they basically
just brought a cutting torch up

and cut off the access point
to this air conditioning unit.

Entry was finally gained some
time in the midmorning of the 5th.

Afterwards,
we learned that he put the 357

into the roof of his mouth
and then pulled the trigger.

All the cars' working perimeters,
everybody is still okay.

No response means
everybody's okay.

We all rode the sleds up

and let his ashes fly away.

Everybody couldn't wait to get
that dozer cut up, scrap it.

I think they made a big mistake by
not making a museum out of the thing.

That'd made this town a ton of money,
a ton of money.

They went
to Blair's Machine Shop.

He torched the thing
into small pieces

and disposed of the scrap steel so that
no one person could get a hold of it

and say,
"Here's my shrine to Marv."

This tape's probably got
a lot of emotion in it,

and, uh, anybody listening to it,
you know, you need to...

uh... realize that.

And just take it from there,
you know.

Anyway, hey, I hope you all
have a great time and good life.

I've had a great life.
And I'm gonna put this tape

and tape recorder
in a plastic bag

for somebody else
to try to figure it out.

Well, see you later.