Ol' Dirty Basement: True Crime and Vintage Movie Reviews
Join Dave, Matt and Zap every week as they cover a true crime or compelling story as well as Vintage Cinema and Album Review where they break down some of the best movies and music from the past.
Ol' Dirty Basement: True Crime and Vintage Movie Reviews
The Killdozer Legend: Greed, Grievances, and Granby's Dark Day
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What drives a man to turn a bulldozer into a weapon of mass destruction? In this gripping episode of the Ol' Dirty Basement, we explore the complex and tragic tale of Marvin Heemeyer, whose infamous "Killdozer" left a swath of destruction in Granby, Colorado. We navigate the monetary conflicts and personal vendettas that fueled Heemeyer's rampage, contemplating whether it was divine inspiration or sheer greed that led him to such lengths. As we recount Heemeyer's tumultuous journey, we also touch on how his actions were overshadowed by the death of Ronald Reagan the following day, providing a broader context to this extraordinary true crime tale.
Get to know Marvin Heemeyer, a former Air Force serviceman turned local craftsman, whose life took a dark turn following a series of bitter land disputes in Granby. We delve into the escalating conflict between Heemeyer and the Docheff family, exploring how small-town dynamics and uncompromising personalities led to a tragic conclusion. From Heemeyer's refusal to connect his property to the town's sewage system to his firm stance against the Docheffs' concrete plant, we paint a picture of a man pushed to his limits by a combination of bureaucracy and personal vendettas.
Experience the meticulous planning and sheer chaos of the "Killdozer" rampage, as we detail how Heemeyer liquidated his assets to build and fortify his Komatsu D355A bulldozer. Hear about the calculated steps he took to prevent posthumous asset claims, and the nearly unstoppable machine that baffled law enforcement and the National Guard. Despite causing millions in damages, Heemeyer's actions resulted in no loss of life other than his own. Join us as we unpack every twist and turn of this harrowing story, while also sharing a humorous myth about outsmarting the police that adds a touch of levity to this intense narrative.
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Thanks for tuning in to the old dirty basement on this week's episode. We're covering killdozer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, old Marvin Heemeyer, was he driven by God, or was he driven?
Speaker 3:by greed. No, greed, that's a. That's a good one, but I don't think so Because, like, 42,000 could have been 375,000 and then it just turned into a rampage.
Speaker 1:This guy just didn't know when to stop. We hope you're enjoying the podcast. If you are, leave that five-star rating on Spotify. On Apple, you can leave us a written review and sit back, relax and enjoy Killdozer.
Speaker 4:This is the old dirty basement Home to debauchery, madness, murder and mayhem. A terror-filled train ride deep into the depths of the devil's den. With a little bit of humor, history and copious consciousness. I'm your announcer, shallow Throat. Your hosts are Dave, matt and Zap. I love you, Matthew McConaughey.
Speaker 3:All right, all right, all right. Hey, this is Dave, Matt and Zap, and welcome to the Old Dirty Basement when every week we cover a true crime murder or compelling story. So sit back, relax and comprehend. Hello, hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to another exciting edition of the old, dirty basement. I am Matt, with me, always is.
Speaker 2:Dave and zap. How are you doing guys? Hey, how you going? I'm glad you mentioned another exciting episode. I am specifically. I'm glad you mentioned another exciting episode.
Speaker 3:I am specifically excited to do this episode. I mean, the name itself is Dave. You found this right.
Speaker 1:Well, actually listener.
Speaker 3:Listener, listener, sean Snowman. He told me about this.
Speaker 1:In a text we were texting about something and he mentioned Killdozer. And I forget what we were talking about in the text and I'm like what's Killdozer? I looked it up and I was like, oh my God, this is like an insane story.
Speaker 3:I like that A text. It shows like the old, dirty basement is like a family, like we're that close.
Speaker 2:That's right. We're getting texts. We reach out and engage with our fans Touch someone, well, we do every day we.
Speaker 1:The funny part about this is like the people that I've approached and asked them about Killdozer. I haven't had one person go. Oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 3:I've never heard of it until I've heard of it from you.
Speaker 1:Right, but people that I've went up to and go hey, we're looking to do this. One Never heard of it?
Speaker 3:How about you Zipper Anything on this before the day that you had to research?
Speaker 2:Sadly when this happened.
Speaker 1:It was overshadowed the next day by the death of ronald reagan. Yeah, that was actually. Uh, I had that down as a fun fact.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's a fun fact. This, yeah, this thing for damn sure made national news because I mean, this shit doesn't happen ever. And then the next day, old ronald reagan died, the gipper. Yeah god, we could use a man like ronald Ronald Reagan right now.
Speaker 3:He was a great guy, loved him. A little hard on the middle class, but a good president.
Speaker 1:There's a movie coming out about him. I saw with Dennis Quaid.
Speaker 2:I'm going to pay full price and go every day.
Speaker 1:There you go. Well, Nance, but yeah. So my buddy Sean shout out to Sean for this. This is a good one. He was telling me. There's another one too that happened out in California with a tank Similar type story and I don't know if it was before this or after, and I don't know with that one.
Speaker 3:I don't remember the tank. I do remember in California there was a group I think it was two gentlemen that had on like complete flat outfits. Remember they stopped on the freeway and got out of their cars and I know like there was thousands of rounds shot at them but they had on like complete Kevlar.
Speaker 1:No, I don't know you guys never heard of that, like the matrix or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but they were in like complete Kevlar vest, kevlar helmets, and the cops were just constantly shooting at them and nothing.
Speaker 2:Like it was like a whole like hour or so. Are you talking about one of the podcasts we did?
Speaker 3:did?
Speaker 2:we do that we sure did, god damn it dan.
Speaker 3:You just talked about that, yeah we did that.
Speaker 2:The guy, the, the one that was left, the left.
Speaker 3:Dave don't even know. No, I don't remember the last the last of the two guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they went on this rampage and they were using uh armor piercing bullets, so they they had stronger ammunition than the cops and they were firing through uh vehicles and all kinds of shit that were and literally killing the cops. But uh, the the guy. There were two of them. The one guy died, the the last one that was left. He knelt down to cock his gun and when he did that he didn't cock. His one arm was jacked up or two. Both of his hands were otherwise occupied, so he tried to do it between his knees and as he cocked the gun, he didn't cock it back far enough for it to stick in in place it just. But it did cock back far enough that when it recoiled it activated the bullet and in the face.
Speaker 2:He shot himself in the face. But what story. I don't recall that at all. So are you really? I can promise you we, I can promise you we did the story.
Speaker 1:I can't weird science, remember the name but I promise you we did the story. It's a movie or actual, true no, it is a true crime.
Speaker 3:It actually happened. It was a true as hell thing. Yeah, I have no recollection, uh well, episode seven yeah, series six we we for sure did that yeah oh my god, I can't, I wow well because I just remembered that when I was reading about this story I was like, oh, there was that thing in la, the reason you remember is because we did a goddamn podcast on it, man.
Speaker 2:Well, we've done a lot, so we're so old that's fine, it's fine, you know, you got early onset yeah, that's early on dementia it must be man, but this one here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this was uh 2004. This went down correct. So, uh, just past the 20-year anniversary. I think it was in june. Yeah, yeah, this one's uh pretty wild, so why don't we get into it?
Speaker 2:let's get into it. And while we, uh, affectionately refer to it as killdozer, the story is about mr Marvin Heemeyer. Not to be confused with Lane Meyer, marvin Heemeyer was an all-American dude Born in Castlewood, south Dakota, in 1951. Castlewood, up to no good, grew up learning the trade of welding, which later became his livelihood.
Speaker 3:Actually I went to school for welding. I don't know if you guys knew that.
Speaker 1:I did not know that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I went to a. It was a hack class. I went to school for welding. I don't know if you guys knew that. I did not know that. Yeah, I went to a. It was a hack class. I went there for a year actually. So I'm a certified welder. Well, I'm not certified anymore because you have to go back for your certificates, yep.
Speaker 1:You got to keep up with the trade. Yeah, I'm pretty good at that, pretty good welder. Underwater welding.
Speaker 2:No bells and stuff. That's. That's some crazy shit. This cat joined the air force right out of high school, moved to colorado in 1974, just outside of denver, and then to grand lake, colorado in 1989. Go broncos, okay. Marvin, in fact, was well known for his sociable nature and skilled craftsmanship. He settled into the community fairly well, frequently lending a hand to neighbors, fostering friendships with several townspeople, involving himself in various local activities and becoming a prominent figure in the town.
Speaker 1:So this is just some dude, he's a regular guy, regular dude yeah and this is a Grand Lake Colorado. Kind of reminds me like South Park. Like I can dig that. Yeah, for sure, for sure. It just some dude, he's a regular guy, regular dude. Yeah, yeah, and it's uh grand lake colorado. Uh, kind of reminds me of like south park like I can dig that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, for sure it looks very rural.
Speaker 1:I've never been to colorado was he married?
Speaker 3:no, no no, okay, no he was never married, never had kids, so this is a little mcdomery maybe I don't know he was in the service service yeah, serviceman, just you know just regular guy self-made dude.
Speaker 2:He was good at welding just he actually moved out to colorado in uh 74 because he was stationed there, as you know, part of his air force duty okay, I do know a very important thing that'll come on later.
Speaker 1:His mother was very big on like god kind of directing you in your life, as to your purpose and what you're going to do in life. So that was instilled in him from a young age to look for signs of like God's pushing you in this direction, to pursue this or that. So that's very important. That'll come up later.
Speaker 2:There's a good buddy of mine that if and when the topic ever comes up, he'll, he'll be the first one to tell you look, it's God first, first, then family. That that's how it works. And if you, you know, you, just keep it in that order, everything else falls into place right, all right god family god, family.
Speaker 2:So god bless you. In 1992, marvin purchased two acres of land at auction for 42 000. Land was located on the outskirts of Granby, colorado, which was a little more than 16 miles away from his home Now. He purchased this with the intent to lease the property to an auto mechanic. The leasing deal fell through not long after, however, as there was an issue with the existing sewage system on the property, an issue on which he, meyer, just wouldn't budge. The existing sewage system, if you want to call it that, consisted of a buried cement mixer, that is to say, the barrel of the cement mixer and that's where the waste would go correct.
Speaker 2:So think of a truck, the cement mixing truck pens he supply, draw. You see them driving by all the time. They got those big spinning drums or barrels on the back of right mixing that concrete as they're driving, doing whatever, just prepping it for when they get to the job site. This septic tank, the the equivalent of a septic tank, was basically somebody dug a hole, removed one of those big ass drums from those trucks and put it in there and put it in there, so it didn't spin or anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's just the dirt.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay so all american marvin's like buying this land. He's like, hey, this is my land. And then people are like, well, hey, we got to do something with that well, indeed.
Speaker 2:So in order to bring the property up to standards, according to the town, he meyer needed to either have a septic system installed or link to the town's existing sewage system, which was sadly 400 feet away from his property. And what would that have cost him? Anywhere from 60 to $80,000. That's big money. Now that was, yeah. So he paid 42 large, but he would have to pay 60 to 80 large more just to link to the. To be clear, the town's sewage system, a septic tank, was an option. A septic tank is always an option, right Like nobody's forcing you to link to public.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the man's forcing you.
Speaker 2:Well, in this case it was he. Meyer paid his taxes like every other resident, so he believed that the cost of linking his property to the existing sewage system should be bore by the town now this stuff still goes on every day.
Speaker 3:You see it in the news like there's walmart's going in or like a chick-fil-a or something. The townspeople are like, hey man, like if you do this, this causes like this problem and this problem, and that was our land there, and and they're sitting in like those towns meetings and usually like the money talks. So right the town usually tells you what you have to do.
Speaker 2:You usually have to like step in line well, I mean, in this case, the dude just bought some piece of shit dirt in an extremely, extremely industrial section of town, like prior to him getting there. Let's, let's take a step back really quick. Colorado didn't come around until 1876 1876, that's a year, a hundred years after the revolutionary war, and essentially a hundred years and changed before, like right now it's, it's no pennsylvania no, in terms of, of oldness it was some wild wild west shit out there and people over the course of would just do whatever they wanted to do.
Speaker 2:So again, in a now established state, people were just dumping oil, dumping shit, dumping whatever onto this vast, vast landscape. So there was not only the fact that this guy had this thing in this dirt, this piece of shit who cares? Cement mixing drum from a truck, but there was also environmental remediations that needed to be done on that dirt to bring it up to code.
Speaker 3:so but he was just thinking, yeah, I'm buying this land. It's out in the middle of of you know nothing. I, I have this land and then, all of a sudden, people are telling me what I need to do with it, correct?
Speaker 1:so that kind of gets on your nerve, shit, yeah, yeah there was a structure there and when he bought it actually's a gentleman who'll come up later in the story two gentlemen that were there at auction in Denver and they were thinking. These two individuals were there thinking, oh, we're going to get this for cheap because it's out in the middle of nowhere and nobody's going to want it. Not knowing this guy's there, heemeyer moved to town. Well, he bid it up to $42,000. They wanted to get it for $ 42,000. They wanted to get it for 38 was their max price. Now, story goes, they approached him after at this auction and gave him hell, kind of like well, you know what are you doing? That was my. They owned the property property previously and it was foreclosed on.
Speaker 2:Indeed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, um, just to keep that in mind, when this went down, that's kind of what happened. So right off the bat he moved to this town and he's kind of making enemies. But yeah, there was a property there, but there was an issue with the property.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it'll come up later. It will, in fact, in short order here. Indeed, by now Heemeyer had opened a muffler repair shop on the two acre parcel and he was still using that buried cement mixer barrel as his sewage solution Poopy. Beginning in 1997, a local prominent family, the Docheffs, began plans to expand their concrete business. Little by little, just like Disney, the family purchased lots that were adjacent to their existing plant. One of the lots on their radar was Hemeier's lot. Interestingly, in fact, dave was mentioning this the Docheffs were a previous owner of Hemeier's lot. They had sold it years ago. The subsequent owner let it go to auction. Hemeier purchased it and now the Docheffs wanted it back. They asked Himeyer to name his price. Believing this opportunity too good to be true, himeyer asked for an enormous sum $250,000.
Speaker 3:He paid $42,000, correct.
Speaker 2:He paid $42,000. They said name your price. Well, he says $250,000. The Docheffs accepted. He immediately retracted his offer and then asked for 375 000, after paying 42 again. Oh my gosh, once again the dough chefs accepted. He balked yet again and now asked for 450 000. This timecheffs declined and instead bought an available parcel next to Hemeyer's. Unfortunately for Hemeyer, the parcel next to his, now owned by the Docheffs, included the only access road to his muffler shop.
Speaker 1:Back to that initial auction where he got it for $42,000. He wanted to kind of make it work out with those guys and he said look, I can't sell it to you for $38,000. I think the number was like $66,000. He said if you give me $66,000, it's yours. And they were like no, I'm not paying that.
Speaker 2:So at that point, at that first auction, if the Docheffs I think his name was Cody, the first guy, correct and it's one, it's cody, but I mean he's got. It's a family business, like him and his sons and his. There's other people involved for the dochefs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cody is the. Yeah, cody is the main dude. He's the patriarch of the dochef, cody d right. So if they would have initially, you know, which would have been almost double what they initially wanted to pay, it could have. Could have ended there. But he also could have, uh, hemeyer could have ended it at the 275 or the 350 and made a hell of 375 375 and made a hell of a profit hemeyer could have made a hell of a profit.
Speaker 2:This is only five years later. He bought the he in 92. He bought it for 42. Five years later they're offering him 375. I'm sorry, he's asking for 375 and they offered.
Speaker 3:They said yes but i'm'm saying the guy you can tell is a little off right now, because anybody in their right mind yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll take that money. Yes, I will take the 375.
Speaker 3:I'll move out of town and build my own luxury house and 25 acres.
Speaker 2:Or I could take it and I could move to a much more populous area. I could do all kinds of shit.
Speaker 1:So right there he seems a little off. And these people in small towns, from what I hear they don't look too kindly on like outsiders coming in and bidding up properties and buying real estate and vacationing there and kind of driving up values. Yep, so they usually have a bad taste in their mouth right off the bat. Of course, right away he's making enemies, but yeah, he sure is. Have either of you been to Colorado?
Speaker 2:Yes, I've been to Denver a few times, matt.
Speaker 3:No, I've never been. Well, I've been into the tip of Colorado from New Mexico, but I've never been into Denver. Not old Mexico, but new Mexico, yes, the newer of the two Mexicas.
Speaker 1:The shinier Mexico, trouble breathing or anything? No, honestly, mile high yeah, they say that.
Speaker 2:My honestly mile high. So my wife and I at one point went out to Colorado for a work trip of mine and while out there we went, uh, hiking in the old, you know, rocky's national park and whatever all of that shit.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So you're. The elevation we were up at, I think, was 10,000, if not 12,000 feet above sea level. Like dude, that is some thin oxygen. Yeah, you can feel that. You can absolutely feel that. I mean so I'm a smoker, sure, I felt it, but at the same time, but at the same time. So my wife is not Even. She was, you know, gasping a little bit. Yeah, dude, it's, the air is thin.
Speaker 3:That's what when a lot of people fly out to play Denver at mile high, which is 5 280 feet look at that.
Speaker 1:That's a fun fact. That is a fun fact.
Speaker 2:Look at that is nowhere with the fun fact why they call it mile high stadium, that's mathematics that's math, that's mathematics mathematics.
Speaker 3:Or if we were in england, we would be doing our maths yeah, new mexico like that too.
Speaker 1:Is that high yeah?
Speaker 3:mexico got pretty, pretty good elevation and it isn't the same like um. I was out there with my son a couple of years back, where we were just there recently but we went hiking and he was still a little younger but he was like he's like ah, like sweating. We were only like 25 minutes into the hike and you could tell from the the altitude adjustment it was it was yeah, the air is like thin but it's.
Speaker 2:In addition to never fixing his sewage issues, hemeier also hadn't taken the time to install a proper road to his muffler shop. Now, licking his wounds and realizing the consequences of his attempts to gouge the prominent Docheff family, hemeier approached the Docheffs and offered a land swap that is his lot for the lot they'd purchased next to his. They initially accepted until Hemeier insisted they build a brand new muffler shop for him on that parcel. Well, no way was that happening. Furious Hemeier employed a different tactic. He began a public campaign to stop the town's zoning and construction approvals needed for the Docheffs to expand their concrete business. Though initially successful at garnering local reinforcement for his cause, support soon waned and the Docheffs were ultimately granted all of the necessary approvals, as the Docheffs were very well connected within that small town.
Speaker 2:That harkens back to what you had said, dave. I mean, dude, this is small town stuff. If you're the guy with the money in the small town, dude, it's like rad. It's like rad. It was my favorite Martian guy from rad. He was the moneymaker. He brought the BMXers to town. He sponsored all of it. He was the guy.
Speaker 1:I think I heard a number that they said if he would, if they would have built him a property on the land that they were talking about swapping with, it would have been nearly a million dollars. They would have had invested in this guy's new muffler shop and it was along a busy road. That would have been better, better for business. Correct this, this place where he's at now, I mean, I guess it's not like a place where you need a lot of traffic in and out. They're going to find you.
Speaker 2:It's not like a restaurant or something where you're trying to I was looking at population and so if this guy, this guy came up in or, I'm sorry, in 89, he moved to grand Lake. So the population of grand Lake at this time was a few hundred people. That's grand Lake Now. Granby at this time had less than 2 000 people that's not very big, no less than 2 000 people.
Speaker 2:Come on, that's mcdevitt. Yeah, so that was the population of the town where this muffler shop was, but he was just in the industrial section in a shit piece of shit piece of dirt, but the docheff seemed like they were willing to work with him as much as possible he's the one that always would like say something like yeah, that sounds good, and then like like renege on the whole deal like no no I'm uh, no, no, I want this, I want this in the beginning.
Speaker 3:That absolutely happened he's moving the finish yeah, yeah yeah, he's moving the goalposts like this sounds great, let's, let's do this and uh, no, no, I want this.
Speaker 2:I want this then. But it's equally like Dave had said so at the day of the auction when he bought it. He bought it for $42,000. He said look, man, I'll walk away from this right now if you give me $66,000. Well, all right. They said fuck you then. But then they came back five years later and said but the Docheffs really wanted all of that property to truly expand that concrete business into what it needed to be, so they wouldn't have to sub out to this guy or that guy or the other guy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, subleasing sucks.
Speaker 2:Well, no, I'm saying sub to other suppliers and providers to make batches, or to quarry the dirt or, i'm'm sorry, quarry the stone, or to mix, or to do whatever, like they could do it all on site, ultimately saving money Easier on everybody.
Speaker 3:Heemeyer could have done his own thing with that money.
Speaker 1:he could have built his own muffler shop anywhere he wanted to, or he could have just retired probably.
Speaker 2:Anywhere, anywhere. Well, in late 2000, hemeier filed a lawsuit to block the Docheff's expansion project. By the middle of 2001, now months after all zoning and construction approvals had been granted, the Docheffs offered Hemeier a free connection to their soon-to-be-built concrete plant if he dropped the lawsuit. Of course, heemeyer refused. Fun fact, not only did he refuse, they called him and made the offer, and as soon as he heard the offer, he hung the phone up.
Speaker 3:Jeez, he does that.
Speaker 2:He loathed the Dochefs and everything they represented. He resented their wealth and prominence in the community and he hated the generations-deep relationships they'd built with the town's authorities. But Heemeyer was now stuck between a rock and a hard place. After nine years of occupancy, the buried cement mixer drum in his shop had since filled up with sewage, Can't you?
Speaker 1:pump that though, or no.
Speaker 3:Yeah, once you have a company, come, and Frantic Heemeyer tried everything he could to solve his sewage. Can't you pump that though, or no?
Speaker 2:Yeah, wouldn't you have a company come and Frantic Heemeyer tried everything he could to solve his sewage problem. He attempted to illegally connect to a neighbor's sewer line but he was caught. Okay, how does one do that? Hold on Like stealing cable? Yeah, he pumped the sewage out of the buried cement mixer and into an irrigation ditch that ran along the property and again he was caught because it smelled like shit. Yeah right, he meyers muffler shop, along with his ongoing disputes, had become literally full of shit.
Speaker 3:Full of shit, yeah yes, so, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you can look people do that with electric or have done that with electric cable on it. With cable, I mean you can do it with with sewage too, especially if you're doing it at night when you know people are sleeping like you can. This guy was a heavy equipment knowing guy, he knows how to do this.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, I did a ditch. Or he just like put a hose in and a probably fairly sized hold, a pump, you know, motor started it up.
Speaker 1:He's out there pumping it out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, his cousin eddie hat cousin eddie hat correct, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2:And some shit stompers, yeah, dude he just dug a trench long enough in the, in the middle of the night or whenever he was doing it, and then you know, you just finally got to the point where he finally gets to the point to, I'm sorry to uh connect to their, to their pipe and, as you said, zap, this guy has a know-how of of equipment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's like oh, I got a. I got a pump in a big hose in my garage.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go hook that up and get rid of that shit. Yeah, big hose. I only got thin hose in my garage.
Speaker 3:All right, isn't it the way you handle the hose? Or what's the saying? It's not the motion of the hose, but I don't know Something like that.
Speaker 1:Size of the boat? Yeah, the size of the boat, something like that.
Speaker 2:Now, nine years after having purchased the property and being told to either install a septic tank or link to the existing sewage system, Hemeyer was ultimately fined and forced to cease his business on the property. Additionally, enforcement began that now required sewage remediation before he could occupy the property again, along with removing that buried cement mixer barrel within 18 months. Begrudgingly, he paid his fines. Fun fact, within the memo section of the check he cut, he added the phrase cowards and liars department as a description.
Speaker 3:Another red flag.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people don't like that. Yeah, they don't like that. He, meyer, felt betrayed. In his opinion He'd been treated unfairly. The system was rigged against a small businessman just trying to earn his way, and local authorities were in bed with the dough chefs. The lawsuit he'd filed in late 2000 to block the dough chefs expansion project was dismissed in 2002.
Speaker 3:Construction of the concrete plant commenced he just completely forgot about the 375, just dude. He didn't even think about that this.
Speaker 2:You gotta, you gotta wonder what's running through this guy's head at this point right. So you know he's all you gotta be, he's gotta be looking back and just thinking god damn, I should have taken that 375 well, I wonder if there was a number that he would have settled on, you know how crazy he would have.
Speaker 3:I don't think he would. That's the whole point.
Speaker 1:He asked 450.
Speaker 2:They said that's way too much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if they would have did the 450, you think he would have moved it again and just to keep screwing with him.
Speaker 3:If they came with a check for 450, he would have kept moving the goalposts.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, yeah, he absolutely would have kept moving the goalposts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's no way. After all this guy, you can start seeing the cycle going around on this guy.
Speaker 2:So this guy, what a jerk. In the memo section of his check I'm saying would you write so that he's writing a check to the town, so for the, you know, the town sewage department or whatever. So in the memo section, instead of writing his account number or his location or whatever, he instead writes, you know, to the cowards and liars department dude, but you can't lie like.
Speaker 3:Everybody's been to that point where they're pissed off about paying money for something they feel that they don't have to pay money for. I get that. We've all been there where it's like shit.
Speaker 2:when you start writing shit like that on a check that's now a legal conveyance of money You're looking at essentially, you could be hit with possible threats, like charged with making threats or shit like that. When you write stuff like that, yeah, man.
Speaker 2:Oh, ps, just a little PSA out there. If you ever have to cut, or when you have to cut a check to the IRS to pay your bill, leave that memo section reserved for your Social Security number and the year for which your taxes are due. Do not write crazy shit. Like you know, the cowards and liars tax collectors Wait, you have to pay taxes.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, You'll have those agents like in the Matrix showing up, yeah, showing up, yeah, right, yeah, indeed Indeed. This guy's off though he's definitely uh. Well, I know a little backstory on on like what was going on in his life at this time while he's there. He had a girlfriend.
Speaker 1:Okay, that maybe we'll talk about later on, we can, we can talk about it now well, he had this girlfriend that he was dating and there was a good documentary called tread and I got to watch a little bit. She was being interviewed on there and, uh, she was married previously and had kids.
Speaker 3:He that was the one on pluto right.
Speaker 1:He was on pluto tv and also like the roku channel. But he had a group of guys that he hung out with. They would ride snowmobiles, yeah and uh he actually made uh bumpers yeah, he would do like reinforced steel bumpers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he would outfit the snowmobile with this ring of a bumper that they could run over trees and shit with.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they could just barrel through stuff, so he was skilled.
Speaker 1:So he would hang with guys, you know, but he didn't really have any like really really I don't know, he didn't really have good friends that he would hang out. He was kind of a loner at this point, I think, where he was kind of like losing touch with some of those people he was a loner dotty I know the girl, the girlfriend, ended up.
Speaker 1:They ended up splitting up at some point, uh, when all this was going down. But yeah, I mean, something obviously changed in him, like there was many times here where he could have just bailed himself out and been done with it.
Speaker 2:You know, as we go through this, there are definitely like there are a couple of times, a few, a few, that dude get out. Okay, you missed that opportunity get out.
Speaker 1:Get out now while you're.
Speaker 2:Oh, you missed that one dude last chance, get the fuck out uh, cut your losses and move on and at this point it wouldn't even be cutting losses, he would still have, I mean the. The last offer was dude, keep your shop, whatever. We'll let you hook up for free to the to our line after we build our concrete plant.
Speaker 1:It's like parlay betting you just can't stop. You get ahead, I guess, did he communicate with.
Speaker 3:Like was his parents? Did he have brothers or sisters?
Speaker 1:Yes, he did, he did, he had family, family, and that'll come up a little later.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Marvin pressed on, his business had to carry on. In July of 2002, hemeyer traveled to California and purchased a Komatsu D355A bulldozer for $16,000 at auction. Some say he purchased it with plans to use it to construct a proper road to his shop. Others say he purchased it for what he'd hoped would be a quick flip to make some money. With or without a bulldozer or an access road to his own shop, he still had that pesky sewage issue to resolve in order to legally get back to work and he just couldn't come to grips with conforming to what he felt was government overreach and ongoing harassment.
Speaker 2:Defeated, heemeyer announced in October of 2002 that his muffler business would be closing. He liquidated his inventory and equipment and put his shop up for sale. A year later, in October 2003, the two-acre property sold for $ hundred thousand dollars. Good on you, nearly 10 times what he mired paid for it. The new owners connected the building to the town sewer and water system the day after the purchase fantastic I wonder if that was like written into the contract or something like you got to get it done.
Speaker 2:I think those guys just wanted to get in there and get to work and just get moving. Yeah, so that was, uh, I think, a trash company that had purchased it. Is that what it was? Yeah, it was a. It was a local trash or you know, you are the junk guys or whatever the hell but a growing and thriving trash business. They loved the building. They loved the location. It's in a shit part of town, a very industrial section of town.
Speaker 1:I'm most shocked that you can get a bulldozer for the price of a Honda Civic. You use Honda Civic or something.
Speaker 2:I think he just happened to be the only one in the market for it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you'd think it'd be a little more expensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it doesn't seem like much for heavy equipment. No, that's a ridiculous price.
Speaker 2:That's a good deal. Hell, yeah, it was a good deal, and so now all's well that ends well. This dude look, instead of getting the 350 from a x number of years ago, it's now up to 400 grand 10 times what he paid for that shot. Not bad, he's got the money. Take the money and run.
Speaker 3:This is great again going back to the internal issues with uh, with marvin, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Look, you give me 400 grand for something I only paid 42?.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but my internal issues all go away. He's feeling that 400 is rotten. Do you know what I mean? The 400 isn't settling with him.
Speaker 2:Well, that's true. This is after years of, maybe a result of his poor choices, maybe a mix of the town, the wealthier townsfolk trying to bring down the man.
Speaker 3:He just sold his business too, so that money's getting back. He probably enjoyed having his own business. Now you're just getting money for something that you put most of your life into. Sure.
Speaker 2:Although that's a thing People do that all the time. People will build businesses with the intent of selling them. In this case though, matt, I can pick up what you're putting down to the extent of. This was this guy's livelihood. It was his everything. Now he sold it. Now what is he going to do?
Speaker 3:What's he got left? He feels he lost something that was part of him.
Speaker 1:I think in the next part we'll get into the you know kind of what they were going to do for him as far as like a payback type thing, um, or like a leasing option, that he doing this he was actually going to be making more money than he was by working and running the shop or as much. Yeah, almost where it was a wash, like well, I'm not working and my income is about the same that's right, and at this point he's in his early 50s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we're almost there if somebody told me like hey, we'll pay you exactly what you're making right now. You don't got to work. Who wouldn't do that?
Speaker 3:You know what?
Speaker 1:I mean Especially that, but you got to find something to do, and this guy's mind seems to be.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the thing. It's like you said, man, this guy was a loner, he's a rebel daddy.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:He's just living alone in his hot tub.
Speaker 3:Yeah, over there Enjoying his four hondo yeah.
Speaker 2:In Great Lakes or Breakneck or whatever the name of the town is. He lives 16 miles away in Grand.
Speaker 1:Lake Grand Lake. I wonder if he'll find things to do now that he doesn't have to work.
Speaker 2:Well, with all this time on his hands, I wonder if he has a new cause. He does. Man knows how to weld. Yeah, yeah, he. Meyer had made an agreement with the new owners to lease a portion of his former building in order to finish some work that had accumulated while his shop had been closed by now what?
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was in reverse. Yeah, I was thinking the other way, that they were paying him to rent it.
Speaker 2:Fuck. No, they had already paid him.
Speaker 1:What am I going to do? Pay you to use space? No, yeah, it's the other way around. They had paid him the money, obviously for the whole property, and then he leased back a little portion of it. Correct, I got you.
Speaker 3:He had a little garage area right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, essentially yeah. If you've got a 2,000 square foot building, he's renting out 500 square feet.
Speaker 3:Give me his little piece here. I got some stuff to finish up. They seem cool about it too, though they were like, yeah, sure man, just give me a little something. Nobody puts Marvin in the corner.
Speaker 2:By now he'd liquidated his entire muffler business. Everything had sold, Everything except the bulldozer.
Speaker 1:Good choice.
Speaker 2:Heemeyer took that as a sign In his mind. God wanted him to keep that bulldozer. God wanted him to put his talents to work and go to work. He did.
Speaker 3:I said either God or the devil.
Speaker 2:Yeah, better God than the devil it's.
Speaker 3:Either one of the two is telling you something to do.
Speaker 2:I guess the results gonna be the same yeah yeah he, Meyer, erected a wall between his least portion of the shop and the remainder of the building. Over the course of several months, Heemeyer worked tirelessly on his bulldozer, going so far as to even sleep at the shop and remain there for days on end in order to devote more time to his project. And his project Turned that bulldozer into an indestructible equivalent of a tank For armor. Hemeier clad the entire bulldozer in two sheets of half-inch thick steel plates, separated with spacers with concrete and bonded Plexiglas sandwiched between the two plates. For visibility, Hemeier installed five cameras on the vehicle, each protected by three-inch thick bulletproof plastic and connected to three monitors inside.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that bulletproof plastic. That's no joke, that stuff's for real man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'll come into play later For armament Hemeier constructed turrets and gun ports within the vehicle and installed a 22 caliber semi-automatic rifle at the front, a 22 caliber semi-automatic rifle on the right and a 50 caliber semi-automatic rifle at the rear real.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to say real quick, god damn it. I'm trying not to say that, but if anybody would go right now if they don't know what a 50 cal is, if you look at your pen, that's about the size of a bullet. That's a real big one. Yeah, that's like a 50 cal. Jeez, that will jack your world up.
Speaker 1:I think they showed him on the documentary holding up two bullets, and I bet you the one was a 50 cal.
Speaker 3:It's like look at a pen and think about it like as thick as a um no man, it's bigger than that A 50 Cal's.
Speaker 2:Like your thumb, bro, Like thick as thick as your thumb. But it's about length wise, length wise, like a pen with the right propeller.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, like think of, think of your thumb, like that length and and that reminds me of something. Yeah.
Speaker 2:All of this occurred in his small little walled off section of the shop and no one was the wiser. So that's where that's the part that gets me. But maybe it doesn't, no, ok. So this guy says look, I'm selling you this building, but I'm going to lease back a little corner of it. Cool man, no problem.
Speaker 2:Now, the day he starts his lease, he goes in there and he he erects a cinder block wall all around his spot, takes it all the way to the ceiling so nobody can see what he's doing. Then the access door to the to the outside only to his space he changes the lock so the landlord doesn't have the keys to this, to his little walled off area. Okay, number one. Number two this guy is doing all this shit under the cover of night. So when I say that, which is absolutely true this guy was sleeping there. He slept there during the day while the, while the trash guys were doing their work in the rest of the shop, and then, when they would leave for the day, he'd wake up and do his bulldoze modifications at night. One other thing that was assigned to him wake up and do his bulldoze modifications at night.
Speaker 1:One other thing that was assigned to him was when he pulled that bulldozer in, it literally cleared it by like an image and he said, like if god didn't want this to happen, I would have bought, ended up buying the next size of bulldozer or whatever to fit through the door. Thank you, god and and also, like zap was saying he was living in there. Basically he had like had like a TV VCR, like mini fridge like all kinds. He made it like his own little apartment Space heater, did you hear? Sorry, go ahead, matt.
Speaker 3:No, I was just going to say, like how Zap said he was doing this, like I disagree with them, even knowing, because people do shit all the time. You know what I mean and you have no idea. You don't really pay attention to what your neighbors are.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying they were responsible. No, no they should be responsible for having known what's going on. But there would certainly, for God damn sure, be a red flag to start Like why are you blocked in when the tenant one builds this wall with no windows in his own little corner of the building that I, as the landlord, can't see? Number one Number two.
Speaker 3:So apparently, as the landlord can't see number one, number two. So apparently then the landlord wasn't really involved in the whole situation.
Speaker 2:That guy was sitting at home just getting his his money maybe yeah, and number two, the door to his little walled off area, which included a door and a garage door. He changed the goddamn locks there was.
Speaker 1:Somebody came in though, and I forget what excuse he gave, because he had it covered, the dozer, like covered with like god where did he get this cover from?
Speaker 1:I don't know, but he kind of came up with some story. Hey, I'm trying to create this thing. I forget even what he said, but he kind of threw them off. They didn't even ask to look under it because they were actually in there like looking around. And one other thing that they said on the documentary when he was in there one there, one of the movies that he watched, which I've never seen. This movie I don't know if you guys have, was it the? The japanese?
Speaker 1:one it's called a man apart with vin diesel. I guess the storyline was all about like revenge and redemption and and um, they were talking about this movie, that he would watch it on repeat and that maybe he was like using as inspiration for what he was trying to do get revenge on sure people.
Speaker 3:so wait um. Earlier when we started the podcast, dave was saying about the tank in LA right, yeah, there was some story. Yeah, I think it was a national guardsman or something that stole that tank and drove it down the freeway.
Speaker 1:Maybe yeah. He was telling me about that one as well. Okay.
Speaker 2:Which is different from two guys walking around town with cop killing bullets.
Speaker 3:And I still don't know what that one is yeah, apparently we did a podcast on it. I have no idea either. We for damn sure did a podcast on it.
Speaker 1:I got to look through, you got to see which one it is.
Speaker 3:Episode seven.
Speaker 2:We for damn sure did so. Dave, you had especially mentioned, or I should say, specifically mentioned at one point, the idea liquidating all of his shit and building this, built this uh bulldozer, killdozer. He uh, his dad died and I think for him, once his dad died, that was the, that was the final trigger.
Speaker 3:Now the straw that that's.
Speaker 2:That is not to say in the meantime that he had been, he had been absolutely working on this killdozer and he was definitely doing it, but I think, like what his dad died, I think I want to say three months or so before he finished his, his killdozer. I I think that was like the last sign. It was like okay, I got nobody, nobody left to report to. I'm good. He also had two brothers, I think.
Speaker 1:Around that time he had made out a will or he had transferred money Correct, yeah To to like the father, and then, when the father died, the money transferred to the to the brothers the brothers.
Speaker 3:So now this is he got nothing.
Speaker 1:He made sure all his fine.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:All the money that anything that was in his name was gone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, all his fine. Oh okay, all the money that anything that was in his name was gone. Yeah, I think it was like 500 000. Yeah, by the time, by the time, uh, by the time he finished his killdozer, by the time he.
Speaker 3:It was done with it. He had nothing left to his name, nothing so he knew this was all.
Speaker 2:He was all processing this whole.
Speaker 3:Oh for sure thing for yeah much like the fedex hijacking.
Speaker 1:That guy went and took out yep you out all that right before he knew what he was going to do.
Speaker 2:It's interesting, dave, we'll get to that. We're going to end up as just one of Matt's favorite words. It's part of the denouement. We're going to talk about the result of one giving their money away like that.
Speaker 3:Okay, do you get taxed on that, or is that?
Speaker 2:We'll that okay.
Speaker 3:Oh, do you get taxed on that, or is that we'll get there okay? On june 4th I was about to give you guys some money. Oh nice, thanks, man making a crazy motorcycle in my garage yeah.
Speaker 2:On june 4th 2004, after having made a series of audio recordings detailing his grievances over time and leaving notes that hinted at his plans, heemeyer exacted his revenge, departing the shop by driving straight through one of its walls. He drove directly to the Docheff's concrete plant and began to systematically destroy the batch plant building. Employees and the owner himself attempted to stop marvin, with no success. Police swiftly arrived, but had no means to stop him really.
Speaker 1:yeah, the, the guy cody, that the next door neighbor, the concrete plant, actually brought out a um, a little earth remover himself, yeah, and was like ramming him and this thing was so, so heavy. I think they said 64 tons, so it's like 120.
Speaker 3:There was another dozer-ish that was trying to remember he got in that dozer fight. Trying to pick him up, yeah, and he said there's no way You're talking concrete armor.
Speaker 2:What Dave's talking about. This earth mover that's trying to stop this thing came at it from behind and when he tried to the try to get like under the tracks correct and he's trying to lift the bucket up, all of the wheels just start coming off the ground.
Speaker 1:He couldn't do it. To put it in like, uh, like a football analogy, imagine derrick henry breaking through to the secondary and a defensive back trying to take him down.
Speaker 3:175 versus 250, whatever full speed, whatever full speed.
Speaker 1:It's just weight-wise and size-wise. You're just going to get bulldozed over.
Speaker 2:It's not without its irony that his first target was that neighbor, the Docheffs. Oh yeah, he's going that way, right across the lot. The Docheffs were the bane of his existence, this whole concrete plant. Then their desire to buy this dirt, build this plant, build this batch plant, that was the impetus, I think, for everything that ended up happening terrible to this guy.
Speaker 1:There was a 911 call that they well, the actual 911 call that came in and the girl was like you know, there's a dozer taking down this building and initially they thought it was like a runaway dozer that wasn't even manned and, you know, they didn't know what to expect yeah, which?
Speaker 2:oh, so that's that's true. They, they had thought, in fact, um remote control. Yeah, cody, I was reading that cody docheff had thought that this was a remote control device, because who in the hell, who in their right mind is good, could possibly be in something like that? There's no windshield. How could he possibly see?
Speaker 3:like the thought of somebody being in there hadn't even crossed their minds at this point that the um, the engineering he put into this also, like you said, with uh, you know they don't see anybody driving, it's all covered in. Like this concrete like to mention where he had um portals for, like the weapons, where he had the camera set up like he had. It was his own little like it was like a batmobile, yeah yeah, you know, that's a very good analogy.
Speaker 3:His own little apartment inside this freaking thing it is bananas what he had to.
Speaker 2:He had cooling fans. He had everything.
Speaker 3:Yes, we didn't get too hot air conditioning air condition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was pretty decent. Uh, the? So the police show up. This is after the locals, the people that were working there, and again, you're just moving a bulldozer right, a bulldozer is. It can't get any plainer than that definition. So everyone has seen Tonka trucks and earth movers and you know what a bucket looks like on the front of a truck. This is essentially a flat planed bucket, or the flattest, the most shallow possible bucket. You can imagine that. It is just meant to like the insists bulldoze, just push, push, you're not scooping, you're not scooping.
Speaker 3:This is not meant for scooping just knocking shit out of the way. That's whatever in the way of correct absolutely correct.
Speaker 2:So I mean, this guy's taking this thing and just ramming it into this brand new building, back and forth, back and forth it does sound fun, though the whole thing sounds amazingly awesome yeah so the police show up and they're obviously these. These guys can't stop this. I mean he's able to run over their vehicles for Christ.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was around there.
Speaker 1:She's out of the way.
Speaker 2:They're like Godzilla something ping, ping, ping. Yeah, he almost killed some cops like. These cops were standing behind a bunch of Jersey rails yeah, I saw that that were there as a some meager means of defense. He just rushed him in this bulldozer and they just, at the last second, jump out of the way as he just blasts through these jersey rails.
Speaker 3:You're saying miraculously through this whole thing. I don't know if this comes up or too early to mention now, but nobody was killed. No, the whole. Thing was crazy well, wasn't there we'll get there Okay.
Speaker 2:In fact. Let's get there. Marvin then made his way into town, targeting buildings associated with those he believed had wronged him. The first building in town to feel Heemeyer's wrath was Mountain Park Electric, where he repeatedly rammed his killdozer into the building, destroying the front and nearly collapsing it. Next in line was the town hall, which was evacuated only moments before Heemeyer arrived. He methodically destroyed the building, nearly leveling it. After the town hall was all but destroyed, he made his way to the Liberty Savings Bank, where he took out the corner of the building as he passed.
Speaker 3:Swiped it. Nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2:He just swiped it, so working backwards the corner of that bank. He again just swiped it, so working backwards, he, the corner of that bank. He, he again just swiped it as he turned the corner. In that corner that was actually the corner office of a woman who also served on the town council, but he just wanted to take her out oh, you think he knew she was in there yeah, I mean he sure, he for damn sure it's a. Again, it's a town of less than two thousand I get the town hall.
Speaker 3:That's in every story. Everybody wants to get the town hall.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of a story at work. This guy we had radios and driving for a living and stuff Next town and he comes over to the radio and goes, hey, I ran into a bank and the dispatcher's like, well, just back out of it.
Speaker 3:He's like no, no, that kind of has money in it. Oh, a bank, yeah nice, because you're driving all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just think you backed into a bank, yeah, like he's like no, that kind of has money in it.
Speaker 2:They're like okay so the town hall that he leveled, or all but leveled, was the, the, all the meeting rooms and the administrative stuff that was on the second floor. The first floor was the public library, and that day happened to be like I don't know local kids read to a kid day. So this library is full of all the local kids that are that are there for school, doing whatever call it a field trip, and this just happens to be the day that this dude decides that he wants to knock this building over well, there was.
Speaker 3:There was an apb put out like right, wasn't there Like? They were trying to alert the whole town Because it wasn't. And there were sirens Like everybody was like alert, like what the hell? And they're like get out.
Speaker 2:They were doing reverse 911 calls, which this was the first time I ever heard of a reverse 911 call.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where they call the people. Where 911 like why is 911?
Speaker 3:calling me? Yeah, because apparently what from what I hear, 911 is a joke.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I heard that in my town I called nine I called 911 a long time ago. Yeah, don't you see how late they react.
Speaker 1:But um, I would have just dropped like a big sheet over him, he couldn't see. Oh, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I don't think they were thinking that because they're like they can't shoot it, they that well, do we? The national guard also was alerted. They didn't know what. I guess the, the mayor or whatever was kind of like nah not sure it's.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's interesting to say, though, to get up there to drop a sheet over top of it. Uh, when he was at the, the first place, at the concrete place, people some of the workers in, in fact, same with Cody Docheff they tried to get on top of it. It was all slippery. He coated it with axle grease. He coated the whole goddamn thing with axle grease so people couldn't climb on top of it. Genius, they were just slipping off.
Speaker 1:Slip and slide. One dude did make it up there, though, one of the cops. The cops did yep.
Speaker 3:Sure did, and the beginning too, they were trying to do, or?
Speaker 1:break that up. Put a like a yeah. They try to put like a pole oh, yeah, a metal rod that would go in those tracks.
Speaker 2:They did that at the. They attempted that at the concrete john, the initial one, yeah, and it just tore right through it yeah, those things are tons.
Speaker 2:They just couldn't get in there, All right. Next in his path of destruction was the local news station. In this instance, Heemeyer drove his tank directly through the front wall of the building, just as reporters and administrative personnel were escaping through the rear. He ultimately destroyed the entire building, collapsing it in on itself. He next made his way to the east end of town, to the home of the Thompson family's matriarch, Thelma and Louise. Yeah, Thelma and Louise. Thelma was the widow of the Thompson family's matriarch.
Speaker 1:Thelma and Louise. Yeah, Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 2:Thelma was the widow of the town's former mayor, dick Thompson, whom Hemeyer believed had persecuted him. Thelma escaped and Hemeyer proceeded to destroy the house. Immediately thereafter he made his way to the adjacent Thompson family construction business and proceeded to destroy everything in his sight. Next in his sights was the local propane supplier, which housed in excess of 30,000 gallons of propane. Those big ones, those big propane tanks. Yeah, bruh, it looks like little airplane tubes.
Speaker 3:Yes, those ones would be like weapons. They always say, if you knock, the end off. But that doesn't really happen. No, no.
Speaker 2:No, that's all fake. In this instance, he didn't attempt to destroy anything with the bulldozer. Instead, he opened fire on the industrial-sized tanks. Thankfully and fortunately, this failed.
Speaker 3:They're saying he released a lot of rounds too from there, but they said he missed pretty much everything. I guess it's kind of hard to steer a bulldozer and shoot.
Speaker 1:Go ahead. He didn't have the little cameras or the little ports. The two-inch, three-inch ports that he's looking out weren't aligned with the guns.
Speaker 2:I guess he was trying to fire out of the rear of the vehicle and when he was doing that at the rear of the vehicle, we he was doing that at the rear of the vehicle was call it like the, the spare seat, a jump seat or whatever, but it's. It's these metal plates that are like. It's basically like a a sheet goes out from the back of the bulldozer, then this other sheet of metal sticks up. This dumbass had put the way that he had parked his vehicle.
Speaker 2:He was hitting his own vehicle he was shooting, he was shooting he was shooting some exterior piece that was attached to it and he kept hitting it over and over and over again. He was wondering why none of these tanks were exploding, because the bullets never left the goddamn vehicle he never did it before either, so he probably didn't have first time, first time, first time doing it he was also shooting at a transformer
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm trying to blow it up, not bumblebee no, not bumblebee, but trying to make sparks that maybe the propane would go off, bumblebee what's my transformer sound?
Speaker 2:this dude ran over the dead mayor's wife's house. Yeah, the dead mayor's house, dude, I mean, that's a vendetta they showed on that documentary.
Speaker 1:There was like a lot of police vehicles there. Obviously one of them was a ford, so we all know how big those are. Sure that's like a full. I mean, that's bigger than an Explorer and all that. He had it flattened when it was done, yeah. It was like two and a half feet. They said yeah.
Speaker 3:That was on that tread, that was left. Yes on that documentary, On the documentary, yeah so.
Speaker 1:So I mean that gives you perspective of how heavy and big this thing is is destroying shit.
Speaker 3:Like Zapp was saying, it just pushes earth. It's not meant to pick nothing up.
Speaker 2:No, just run over.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it just pushes it to where it needs to be. Yeah Tons.
Speaker 2:And there's not tires on this, it's treads.
Speaker 3:Like a tank.
Speaker 2:Tank treads, it is absolutely tank treads, and it's ridonkulous, the and it's redonkulous. The next business to suffer his wrath was gambles General Store I thought he said gimbals, hey, gimbals the owner of which had opposed him during the hearings relating to the construction of the concrete plant. Over and over again, he, meyer, rammed the building and tore away at its walls. Now we talked about this before Somebody brought it up, but it should be noted that Marvin's upgrade to his bulldozer added 12 tons to an already 49-ton vehicle. Damn, yeah. So this is now. What was 49 is now 61 tons. He'd been pushing the bulldozer to its limits and the engine began to give out. That's a lot of torque on the engine there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unbeknownst to marvin, gamble's general store had a basement. The right tread of the bulldozer became stuck in the open space.
Speaker 3:He, meyer, was now immobilized, so yeah, he's not going anywhere just fell right in there an old, dirty basement maybe it was after he ran it over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway. But this guy thought out a lot of stuff, though. He had put in air compressors to blow off debris, because as he's taking down these buildings, debris is loading on top you can see it in a documentary and he used these air compressors to blow all the debris off.
Speaker 3:Well, you think about it.
Speaker 2:To clear the screen so he could see what is going on.
Speaker 3:In think about it, and to clear the clear the screen so he could see what he's going on cameras in his little garage. All he had was was time and money, so he's thinking of these things and him being, you know, having the knowledge to end up in data, yeah, and. And he's just thinking like, oh, you know, it'd be cool if I had this, and he would make it sure that's the cool thing about having skills and and stuff like that you know make stuff yeah, when you can make things.
Speaker 3:He was just like, oh, this would be cool if I had this, or this would be cool if I had that.
Speaker 2:He was making them it's awesome I got so fucking funny that that's the cool thing about having skills, skills and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it's funny.
Speaker 3:He said that because I was thinking about, like, if I got irritated like that not that I would ever do anything why do we say like that, you're right zap, no, no, like that it was just money.
Speaker 2:It was just money. Here it's cool to have skills, skills like that's from um sounds like napoleon dynamite.
Speaker 1:Yeah he got skills but like, like, what could I do to get back to you like I couldn't build something like that, like I could make like a kick-ass car stereo and like annoy people that it's super loud, like rattle their windows, like drive through the you know what I mean. Like I was just trying to think what skills I have that I could like get back at people like that we talked about the uh, not the coast guard national guard showing up and helping, lending a hand, because these guys for this, for this, for these guys oh yeah, these guys were.
Speaker 2:They were throwing everything they could. They were throwing grenades. They were throwing all kinds of bullets, anything they ever could at this thing. They were ramming it with everything they could. They were throwing grenades. They were throwing all kinds of bullets, anything they ever could at this thing. They were ramming it with everything they possibly could. They could not stop this thing. They were bringing in larger vehicles trying to stop it Would not stop it. It's amazing to me that the National Guard wasn't called in. But the reason for that? The mayor and the town, the council. They were worried more about the collateral damage.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they didn't want to explode, like uh, like they needed to launch, like a hell, some sort of missile. Well, they were looking in a missile, yeah, like a missile, to hit this thing and that's exactly it.
Speaker 2:The only thing that could have otherwise destroyed this thing while it's moving would have destroyed the town and you're talking a big missile, a big bomb in defense of the national guard.
Speaker 3:They're really not. They don't do that that often either, so they were kind of like hmm, like do we really trust guys that go there, like you know, once, once a week, a year or whatever, like those rambo guys would be shooting, shooting back backwards.
Speaker 1:That's a good, that's a very good point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like we need to launch like a tank buster type thing on this, and we don't know exactly how to do it. So I think we're gonna hold off yeah damn this guy was obsessed.
Speaker 2:Swat team members had surrounded the bulldozer by now. A single shot was heard from within the vehicle's cab. A cutting torch was brought in to cut through the steel plates. After explosive efforts proved useless. Inside, police found hemeyer dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound through his mouth with a 357 magnum. All told, the estimated damage hemeyer inflicted in the short two-hour period amounted to seven million dollars.
Speaker 3:That was a lot more than a $62,000 he paid for the land.
Speaker 2:We were talking about the.
Speaker 3:Or $40,000, whatever it was $42,000. $42,000. I'll get you.
Speaker 2:If you're not paying me, if you're not giving me money or giving me what I want, I'll just make you all pay somebody else.
Speaker 3:See, I don't even think he did this right. I just would have bulldozed, just kept going through like the small things first and see where I was at the guy wanted to make sure that he got everybody that had wronged him. Yeah, the dough chefs would have been first, but then I would have like, went through town, like maybe took out a mcdonald's like burger king we were talking about why he had, uh, given his money away.
Speaker 2:So this was when all this destruction at what was done they didn't want or I sorry, he didn't want the authorities or insurance people coming back to, let's say, his father or whomever to get that money, or let's say, his brother. So instead of giving the money directly to his brothers, he had to create that trail that gets things caught up in like probate court or a state court or anything like that, where it takes so long for that shit to settle and to truly follow the money that by the time it had gotten to that third party, like if party party one is the giver, party two is his father and then party three is the sons.
Speaker 2:It's like the uh, left turns when a cop by the time, right what you never heard, that no. But by the time it got to the sons, his brothers, it doesn't matter, they couldn't have claimed it because they they had gotten it free and clear. Now, what's this cop thing? You never heard.
Speaker 1:We'll have to ask officer vince about this, or you know, or one of our police friends. But um, supposedly I've heard that if you get say like um, a cop clocks you speeding, yeah, or you know running a stop sign or something like that, and you make, make like two left turns, they say that you're free and clear, that's a lie, Like if you're on. Market Street. Let's say what the fuck? I remember back in the day somebody saying that.
Speaker 3:What a cop doesn't want to make a left turn.
Speaker 1:No, like if they clock you speeding and you make a left and then another left before they catch up to you you're free and clear.
Speaker 3:You never heard that, oh, not that they, not that they let you go rather that they don't want to go left turns.
Speaker 2:You've, you've. If you can pull off two left turns and you're no longer being followed, that means that you've ditched the cops. Maybe that's what it was.
Speaker 1:I just remember back in the day somebody said that that's amazing this is back before the internet, when you can lie, make stuff up, oh, at the bar, yeah so I, somebody, I think we were like high schoolers when somebody told me that Like, oh yeah, if you ever see like a cop just make two left turns and like you'll be good, you'll be out. Like they can't, they're not going to follow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but obviously that's probably not true. You will have, you will construction, ironically, no one was killed or injured, except him, thank God. But God was the one that told him to do it. So I'm confused. Maybe God wanted him to kill?
Speaker 3:himself. Yeah, oh, if you just did that at first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we talked about his girlfriend. They had broken up in the midst of all this, but she had told the story on that documentary that three weeks before this went down she was working at a as a dental assistant, I think, think and he stopped in to get his teeth cleaned or some dental work done and she talked to him and he was telling her like you're the best thing that happened to me in this town, and but other than that she said he seemed to be okay, like nothing. Sure, this is three weeks before this went down. That, uh, she didn't notice anything. They hugged and you know that was it and she didn't know was he a hugger?
Speaker 2:he was a hugger, so I hope he had taken a shower before he went to the go to the went to the dentist's office just because he would spend the entire week at that, or at least just constantly. Four and five days at his shop, where there was no shower.
Speaker 3:I think it was kind of a stinky dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean this guy would just sleep and live in his own little pestilence and then once in a while make his way back to his house just to maybe shower up he's probably shat in a bucket.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in a little shop there we talked about to that uh police officer that made his way on the roof. He couldn't find any place to get into this.
Speaker 1:They and he found like a little vent and they were throwing flash bangs down in there and nothing was no avail, yeah so finally, when they did, when the tank or, uh sorry, dozer was immobilized and they heard the gunshot, it took them to 2 am to get into that thing and they actually had to like, bring in some kind of uh like laser cutter or something so they brought in an oxy acetylene torch.
Speaker 2:Is that what it was like? A torch cutter?
Speaker 1:yep and they got in and what he did is he actually had it sealed from the inside and bolted, so they were never getting in from the outside Correct, other than like cutting in and stuff like that. But he had a thing they said he had in there. I think they were like Slim Fast shakes.
Speaker 3:He loved those. Yeah, he had enough supplies they said to last over a week for this guy.
Speaker 1:I think it was Slim Fast, One of those like. The chocolate like that if it wasn't a slim fast do they have slim fast anymore?
Speaker 3:is that even a thing? Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure, okay, sure, I don't know that yeah, but uh, yeah, this one was crazy.
Speaker 1:Uh, like, zap said seven million dollars in damage, seven million, and that guy that, uh, that, what was it called gambles?
Speaker 1:the hardware store, whatever it was gambles, gambler yeah, well, actually harkening back to that, earlier in the story, I don't think we talked about it, but there was like an article that was written in another. Like he had riffs with all these people in town over one thing or another and one of the things was they were trying to bring legal gambling to this area, correct? And he was like that they wrote an article about how it's going to be bad for the area and he was like no, I think it's going to be good. And like he got into a big thing with the uh, the local paper, and he was writing up his own pamphlets and handing them out like how this is going to be a good thing.
Speaker 3:So they had a rift, but uh, he was very against the grain for a lot of things.
Speaker 1:He just seemed like he would get into it with people over everything but that gambles general store. Yeah, that guy wasn't insured enough.
Speaker 2:I guess they said I read that too so he was under insured. I think so. I think the total damage to his building was, I don't know, maybe 700 grand, but he was only insured up or no. It was a couple of million that he was in. No, it was 700. He was in, 700 was damaged, but he was way, way, way underinsured.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he didn't have enough. I think they said it took seven years that they get back on Correct Correct A lot of sevens in it.
Speaker 3:Seven. Yeah, that's lucky. Seven, seven, seven, seven seven seven, seven, seven, seven seven seven Dude.
Speaker 2:Thank you for bringing this one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sean the snowman. Yeah, thanks, snowman.
Speaker 2:This was awesome, snowman, thank you.
Speaker 3:Wait, why do they call snowman snowman again? Is there a story behind the snowman?
Speaker 1:His job. He works on vehicles. One of the jobs, One of the things he does he works on vehicles, Does he plow snow in the winter? No, but he's very good at getting the air conditioning, where A lot of compressors go out, oh nice. And it can get hot in those vehicles and he's the man He'll get it going. Snowman, he's making it snow in there and it gets nice and cold. That's awesome I like that.
Speaker 1:He always comes up with some cool ones, man. He's the one who he called in for the DC Sniper as well. But, yeah, I appreciate that, and all of you listeners out there if If you got a story you want us to cover, reach out, man, we're always looking for ideas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's hard to come up with stuff on our own all the time. Hey guys, can you wrap it up? Oh yes, ma'am man, I'm glad we got that in. Yeah, um, that was yeah, thanks again. I like that.
Speaker 1:Definitely enjoyable. Uh, we hope you're enjoying the podcast. If you are, our rating on Spotify and Apple. Leave us a written review. Find us on our social media at old dirty basement, on Facebook and Instagram, at old dirty basement podcast, on Tik TOK, and we're actually on Twitter X as well. Old dirty basement at old dirty basement. And I guess that's it for now, so we'll catch you where on the flip side if we don't see you sooner, we'll see you later.
Speaker 2:Peace.
Speaker 3:Thanks for hanging out in the old dirty basement. If you dig our theme music, like we do, check out the Tsunami Experiment Find them on Facebook. Their music is available streaming on Spotify and Apple and where great music is available.
Speaker 1:You can find us at Old Dirty Basement on Facebook and Instagram and at Old Dirty Basement Podcast on TikTok. Peace, we outie 5,000.