Marv's Big Bulldozer of Destruction - Episode 40

In this episode, Ed and Kara have a "pallet cleanser." Instead of massive wars with hundreds of thousands of people dying, in this episode no one dies (thankfully) but some buildings, both personal and city owned, don't get off so easily. Marvin Heemeyer was a relatively unassuming middle aged guy in Granby, Colorado who owned a reputable muffler shop. Overall Marvin was well liked and a talented welder who ran a snowmobile club. However, things changed when a dispute broke out about some auctioned property that Marvin won. Some high ranking members of the community may or may not have tried to stonewall Marvin's ambitions. There was also an issue as to where Marvin was going to store his poop...

Ultimately the entire escapade culminated in Marvin spending 18 months applying armor plating on a massive bulldozer bigger than a WWII German Tiger tank and Marvin sealing himself in it and proceeded to plough down as much of Granby, CO as possible! In a wacky 2.5 hour ordeal that involved nearly every member of law enforcement north of Denver, Marvin took his frustrations out on one building after another with his fortified bulldozer.

For more details be sure to check out our website, www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com. There you'll find pictures of that fateful day and the bulldozer itself in what is quite possible one of the biggest and strangest dumpster fires on Colorado history. 

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Be sure to put "Trashcan Fire" in the subject line followed by the title of the story and whether or not we can use your name.

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Transcript

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Hey, all this is and this is your day as dumpster fire, but its most fantastic failures. Oh, I forgot to press the button. Now it's old school. Just keep doing what it was in the past. For those of us, for those of you listening to the last episode of Napoleon, the Atrocious Dumpster Fire, people would have noticed that our intro music was really, really shorter. It was really, really shorter. I don't know if that's grammatically correct. Really, really short. It's been it's been a shorter fine. Yeah. So we're just trying to, like, update things on the podcast, streamline stuff, make it quicker, get it so that we are talking like more into the task at hand. Uh, it's all about the, the Google clicks and search engine optimization. I've had people say that, Oh, you should make sure that like you specify the mission statement of the podcast in the beginning and all the other fun stuff. So we're going to be changing the formula up a little bit. I don't know if it's going to work, but if we're up there with like Joe Rogan and we're making like, you know, $20 million a year off of this. Okay, Uh. Yes. Yeah. Or use that, um, use that text message thing that you can click on and send us like a text message. We won't be able to respond to it, but we can definitely get it. And it bypasses the whole email thing. It bypasses all that. So it literally does send us like a text message. And then we can give you like a huge shout out on upcoming episodes, Like, for example. CAIN How's it going, bro? Thanks for giving us an idea. He's proposing that we do Titanic. Yeah. Yeah. One thing is that we wanted it to. I feel like Titanic has been really done. Like it is heavily covered. Yeah. No, it's. Yeah, I don't think it really matters either, if you want to do it. I was just thinking, like, how. What kind of twist can we take on it? How can we look at it differently without diving into the really weird conspiracy theories? It wasn't aliens. So, yeah. And your next one is pretty heavy. In which. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is this one is going to be a palate cleanser compared to last one. And, you know, we've brought this up in the past where a you can have a pretty severe major thing go wrong. And if it's far enough in the back, like in the past, it's funny. Right. And so, like, we've talked about all the grave robbers that, you know, they, the Egyptians set up these the valley of the Kings and these tombs are supposed to be impregnable and they're supposed to have guards and and all that stuff. And then it turns out that the people that made the tombs went in and just just broke in and took care of it. Yeah, they just took everything in today. That's comical. But back then, that would have been, you know, heretical. And the same thing with like Napoleon's dumpster fire trying to invade Russia, where, like, we look at it. And he really did think it out. He really did have a pretty solid plan getting in there. But it just turned out that, uh, Russia was going to fight this their way. Napoleon wasn't expecting that. And so we can just sit back and laugh at it. But then when we talk about more recent stuff, stuff that happened within the past 20 years, people die during dumpster fires, but it's too close to really joke about. For example, I've gotten quite a few people that asked me if we could do the the Titans and oh, my goodness, I remember when that whole thing and for the lack of better words went down, when just that was probably one of the most meme ified disasters. Yeah. And, and to be honest, if I was one of those billionaires that was on board and people wanted a meme, if I. Me okay, I guess I'm cool with that. It I mean, yeah, yeah. I mean I put myself in that position, but you know, like when it comes to the more recent stuff, we have to be a little careful. For example, I'm not touching 911. Yeah, 911 would be really heavy. And then, you know, just recent terrorist attacks, school shootings, stuff like that. Because I've had people ask me, like, when were you going to cover, you know, like Sandy Hook and stuff like that? And yes, there's that they would be classified as dumpster fires, but I feel like it would almost be a tarnish on the victims that were there that, you know, that obviously suffered or lost their lives during these events. I feel like just equating it to what they had going on as a dumpster fire is rude and. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why the episode that I have in mind for today is a very, very unique episode because it took place like 20 years ago and it resulted in millions and millions of dollars worth of damage. And it's a palate cleanser, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's a palate cleanser is because nobody died. So. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So most of the people that were around back then during this this crazy incident are still around today. And they're perfectly fine. And, you know, nobody is, uh, been, you know, permanently altered from this. Now, that's not to say that somebody could have died, but we will get into that. And and I don't know how to classify this dumpster fire because, again, we classify a dumpster fire as a you try to plan out everything so nothing could go wrong. And then moments after you implement this plan, it just goes awry. It just flies off the rails. This dumpster fire is a little weird. And when you look at it from the different perspectives, if you look at it from the perspective of the police, uh, this was a dumpster fire because they were grossly unprepared to handle something like this. But if you are from the perspective of Marvin, he Meyer, the guy that, uh, instigated this whole thing and planned it out, he did a pretty good job. So then it didn't really go wrong for him. He kind of clearly delivered the message that he was that he was hoping to deliver. So I say we get into it. This episode, as you will see it, is Marv's big bulldozer of destruction. And it's one of those things where if it happened today, given the political climate and all that kind of stuff, this guy would have been an absolute legend. And he was a bit of a legend back then amongst, you know, weekend warriors, people that like to build crazy things and all that stuff. And unfortunately, I always say nobody died in this case. And I kind of want to just do a trigger warning here. Our main main character here, he does take his own life. So there will be mention of a suicide and all that, but that won't be closer to the end. But just wanted to put that out there and that is the only, uh, loss in all this. So really what I want to dive into is Marvin Haermeyer and what happens when when you think you are on the receiving end of gang stalking and have you ever heard of that term before? So gang stalking is where, uh, sometimes it can be like legitimate, where there are people doing this to another person. But a lot of times it's kind of like self perceived. Basically, gang stalking is where you think instead of one person that's targeting you, it's like an entire community. It's an entire town, It's everybody is plotting against you. And there's there's obviously cases where like something like this has actually happened. Uh, like, for example, you could look at Oppenheimer, the whole thing after World War Two, and just because he dated a communist girl in the past, he literally had, like, Congress coming after him. And, you know, you can make the argument that was gang stalking. And it really did kind of alter his career in this case. Uh, good ol Marvin here. It's really tough to tell what percent of this is perceived as gang stalking versus what part of this is like an actual legitimate the whole entire town is against them. And we'll start off here because if we're going to look at this in terms of gang stalking, you've got to look at it in terms of where he's from and where did he end up. So, Marvin, he Maya or Marv, that's whatever you call them for short was born on October 28th, 1951, on a dairy farm in Castlewood, South Dakota. I tried to look up were Castlewood, South Dakota was, and I think Google had a hard time trying to find it. Let's see here. Castle Wood as the see here. Oh, my goodness. Okay, I did find it. Okay. It is on the eastern side. It's a it looks like it's in the proximity. It's under 29, which probably nobody knows about. It literally is a collection of farms. And it looks like this town has maybe five or six actual roads. It literally has this effect of like, it's got like the stoplight. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's funny because I was looking I'm looking at the schools here. It's castlewood schools. So it's got. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the pre-K through 12 and then it looks like it has a little field off to the side and actually a, it probably isn't a bad place to live. Like, I wouldn't mind retiring in a town like that. Just super small, you know, Everything is. Oh, my gosh, I want to go to this place. All the kids look alike. I want to go. I don't know if you see this on the map is called breeches and buckles. And it's just the house. I'm looking at a picture of. It is literally just a house. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, this guy, man, he is. He's coming from small town America, South Dakota. There's nothing in the Dakotas. My daughter's best friend. I think they're from North Dakota. It's so funny because, like, in Arizona, when it gets cold, it's like 40 or 50 degrees and they're just wearing, like, T-shirts. Whereas in in North Dakota, when it gets cold, it is like 20 below. So South Dakota isn't a whole lot different. So yeah, Castlewood, South Dakota. And I could see why he moved out eventually. But yeah, I know his childhood was typical childhood of anyone living in a dairy farm. In 1970s, 1974, he moved to the Lowry Lowry I think it's Lowry Air Force Base in Colorado, because that's where he was stationed. He was in the Air Force. He had a knack for mechanical things. He was really good with his hands. He was a brilliant welder, as we will see here later on. And I guess he eventually puts together a muffler shop called Marv's Mufflers. And I guess at that time, like you would have to weld like you just in a bolt on a new muffler. You had to cut it, you had to trim it, you had to weld stuff like you just done it. Slap one on. Like back then you had to put a lot of work into it. That's probably still the case today. So yeah, he moved to our Air Force base in Colorado, uh, because he was there. And then 1989, Marv moved to Grand Lake, Colorado, which is about 16 miles outside of Granby, Colorado. Granby is an interesting place that that's where the setting for this story is going to take place. I when I was working in trucking, I had a customer that was based out of Granby, and it he it was a recycler. It was really interesting. There's something about Granby, Colorado, where the people there are hard like they're just tough people. This guy was literally on the phone with me, on his cell phone, standing outside of his house, trying to put together the loan and like, where's it going and all that kind of stuff. While he was hosing down his house that was on fire. So he had a garden hose in one hand. He was on the cell phone, on the other one trying to book a loan. It was actually trying to help out one of our drivers while his house was on fire. And you could hear the fire truck in the background, spring water on his house as well. Yeah. Yeah, that that was absolutely wild. That one is up there. I think when I there was that one incident where there was like a tornado outside of like Dallas, Texas or something like that. And there was a customer there who was trying to book a load with our trucking company. And I could hear the air sirens in the background as there was like a tornado approaching. So like he was literally like, oh, yeah, now let's all pick it up here and we'll deliver over there. You know, it'll be the trailer be filled with this and that. And I'm like, What do I hear? Sirens in the background? It's like, Oh, yeah, we just got a tornado on the way. Well, why are you on the phone with me? Well, I got to get I got to get this picked up like, Oh, okay. Well, here, I'll, I'll get a truck going and you just get out of there and then we'll sort it out later, okay? Yeah. I mean, nothing stops for trucking, but. Yeah, there's something about Grandview that's just intense like that as well. We'll see here in a little bit. Um, so, yeah, 89, he moved to Grantham or he moved to Grand Lake, and then, uh, he eventually moved to Granby, Colorado, and he set up his own muffler shop called Mars Mufflers, and he gained a really good reputation. Marv was really liked and, and, you know, small town America, if you are an outsider moving in, there's a process of people getting to know you like you moved to any small town. Arizona is like this, right You move to like say Alpine which is a beautiful little town. But if you move in there, say, from Phoenix, everybody knows you're an outsider. Uh, like there's families that have been there since the 1800s, and, like, they're not going to be they won't have any animosity towards you, but they're also going to be like, Oh, City Slicker is moving in. And Marv was kind of like that, although I would hardly classify Castlewood South Dakota as a city slicker town. Um, it's more like a village. But he moved there and people really liked him right off the bat. And so he, he fit it in, fit in fat it in fit, fit in. Okay. Yeah. I should really just tear it mANGELS degree. I've completely forgotten how to English. Yeah, I can read good and do other stuff. Good to a tiny little Zealander's own. Yeah, that's the positive assumptions we all look for, so. Oh yeah. So everybody liked him. He was a he was a pretty affable guy. He was really nice, outgoing. Uh, he kind of had a way with women. I want to say he was a womanizer, but he was very charismatic. On Thursdays, he had a club that would meet up at his house, and they. It sort of lobbies or like one or two people. But then over the years, it ballooned to like half of Granby showing up where they would just go snowmobiling like that was his thing. And yeah, he had people participating as young as like 15, going all the way up to like retirement age and yeah, they would, uh, yeah, he would just go, you know, snowmobiling all over the place. Colorado is good for that because during the winter it is Well, we remember remember that 70 during and trucking, uh, during the winter that 70 was uh, um, that got interesting. It, it was, you know, you really want to drive it and your parts are you have to chain up all the time and, and whatnot. So yeah, some days he would have like four dudes show up and then other days would be like 24. And everybody called Marv. Uh, he had, like, a nickname. It was Marv Bumper. Where where he would take stock tubing and custom fit or slash weld it to your snowmobile to reinforce it, make it stronger. So, like, he would basically put, like, a roll cage on your snowmobile that, you know, just in case. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you know, obviously, we know ultimate is going to be all the bulldozer. I just don't think you could really do as much damage as he did with the snowmobile. I could just see him. Just me then back up me. He's, like, trying to take on a Costco. Uh, so, yeah, but, I mean, pipe fitting is a very, very tricky. Welding skill to have. And so that's what he would do, is he would take square tubing, round tubing, box tubing and all that kind of stuff. And he would welded together and he would modify these snowmobiles for people. For the most part, he was a pretty good businessman, especially with this muffler shop. You had a lot of good business. Uh, he was always considered a pretty successful guy, especially in the early nineties. And, yeah, he was just a good old guy. And even if you see a picture of him, you can tell like, Oh, he's like, there was people that when you take a picture of them, like they're smiling. But you know, it's a plastered on smile. Yes. And it can be a good vibe or a bad vibe when you see a picture of Marv here and he's like, I would hang out with him. He's like the kind of guy that you'd have a beer with. Yeah, yep, yep. Doing dude things with mufflers. uh, I want to do a quick note about Granby. It is about 50, 60 miles west of Denver, and it is kind of in the middle. Um, it's more, I would say it's more due west of Boulder, Colorado. So like, yeah, it looks like you go up to 25 and then you turn left on some street that takes you to Boulder. You keep going on that street and you know, about an hour or so later you will hit Granby. So it is the epitome of small town, I guess Guy is from South Dakota. I mean, he knows small town. At the time it only had a population of about 2000 people, which is tiny. Yeah. Yeah, that's, uh, that's, yeah, I don't want to say potent, but that's definitely a again, small town vibes. Um, it was located in the middle of the mountains, so it was surrounded by mountains and it was actually a really good tourist spot, a lot of good snowboarding, snowmobiling, all that kind of stuff. So it would generate a lot of traffic in that regard. And so, yeah, the winters were also a little on the harsh side. Two weeks out of the year, the temperatures wouldn't even give above, get above ten degrees Fahrenheit. So there's always that two week period of the year where water like instantly freezes. And my mom would tell me, you're like whenever they went up to, I think Minnesota, there was a resort. They would go up. They were up there every once in a while. And of course, it would be like ten degrees outside the worse part of the day was sitting on the toilet seat. Yeah. Even even when you had the heat on in your house, it was still butt cheeks on cold ceramic. Oh, no. Uh huh. Yeah. Maybe if you had a sunburn on your butt cheek, it would feel good. But otherwise, I mean, I'm not sure how you get a sunburn on your butt cheek in the middle of winter. Um, I feel like there would have to be. Oh, I. I guess I feel like there would have to be alcohol involved there. to get, like, a good old fashioned cherry lobster red sunburn on your butt in the middle of winter. I feel like there would have to be copious amounts of alcohol involved. And even still. Yeah, you'd wake up the following morning and not even like what is going on with my butt. So. So yeah, Granby is considered like the epitome of small town. Granby is one of these locations where everybody knows everybody. Kind of like what you mentioned about that Castlewood place. The like, say, the board of the governing board of Granby. You know, you have like ten people on all. Ten people know each other. All ten of them went to the same school. All their parents knew each other. They would have a family reunion and their families had had are so interconnected that a family reunion just turns into like a county fair because everybody is related to somebody. Yeah, it's and it's tough to break into that and and it can be intimidating. Um, you know, kind of like our class where we don't have a mega huge class, but they're very, very tight knit group of people and you know, and it can be intimidating trying to break into that. So I don't know how much of that Marv had to deal with, but it is a dynamic to just keep in the back of your mind. All right. The good old boys club, the that one phrase that I know you don't like. Yeah, it. It's one of those things where the good old boys club is just a fact of reality. But if you're not a part of it, it's really hard to be successful. When the good old boys club is the thing that governs everything. So yeah, it's a bit gnarly in that regard. So 1992, a two acre plot of land open up next to Mara's Muffler Shop. So this plot of land were kind of like the imagined road, like a dirt road leading to Marv's muffler shop and this two acre plot of land would have formed, like, just to the south of Marv's little plot for his muffler shop. So it would have gone to the just to the south of it, and then it went to the left or to the west side of his shop or his property. And it crossed that road that would be the only way to get to Marv's shop. So it was this plot of land that came up for sale that if somebody bought it and somebody wanted to basically develop it, they could, in theory, cut Marv off from any way of getting there. From his perspective, I could see how, like Marv would see this land auction being a literally a barrier for him. So, yeah, the two acre plot of land opened up next to Marv's muffler shop that he intended to win. So Marv was at the auction. He wanted to ultimately buy this plot of land, and then he was going to lease it out to one of his friends that were that were intending to build, like a repair shop. Marv won the property for a whopping$42,000. Which. Okay. Yeah, that's. That's a that's a decent price. And he beat out Cody Dough, chef. So the notion of family is the main, probably the most prominent family in, in in Cannery Jamboree, Danbury Grand Meat. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, It's late. Yeah. Late. And words are hard, so ingrained. Be like the notion of family is kind of like, uh, if you read, uh, if you read The Crucible by Arthur Miller, it's the Putnam family. That is the family that that really has the biggest influence. And Cody does, chef, is, is kind of like the patriarch. He was the main head of this prominent family in Granby, and he knew everybody. And all the people that did all the certifications, all the people that did all the code checking to build stuff to code. He knew everybody on the board. I think he had served time on the town's board. And, you know, like, it's just he's just one of those guys where you say Cody and everybody in town knows who you're talking about, even if there's like 25. Cody's like, if you just say, Oh, yeah, I talked to Cody the other day. Like, people just automatically know. So, yeah, he, he also knew a lot of people that sat in the county positions as well. So it wasn't just Granby, it was the whole county that he knew. According to Marv. So we don't have any confirmation on this because nobody else was there. But according to Marv, when he won that little two acre plot of land, Cody approached Marv and proceeded to, like, chew Marv out like a really, really harsh talking to whatever that looks like after you've lost an auction for two acres of land. But I guess according to Marv Cody, you went up to him sort of berating him and he was really, really upset that Marv bought the land from underneath him. Uh, yeah, There was nobody present, but that according to Marv, that is what happened. Which that kind of puts the ball in Cody's yard or the dog yard. As for why this feud started to begin, that it started to begin. Oh, man, I am just firing on all cylinders. Why this feud began. So the plot of land purchased was pretty much. Undeveloped except for a concrete slab and a giant cement mixing drum to contain sewage. So yeah, it's one of these things where Marv's muffler shop and all that stuff really was connected to the sewage lines of the city. And and I can kind of see why it's he's kind of remote and it would have taken some time and a lot of money to connect to it. So he got a cement mixing truck and he buried the cement mixer drum thingy. And that's where all your toilets washed into. He basically turned it into a giant septic tank. I mean, it's I poo. Yeah. Yeah. I had the visualization of the cement truck driving down the road and out of the back. Like, every time it hit the bump, it literally, like, just farts out poo water. Yeah. Yeah, it's. It's been a spring water on it. You know how to keep it cool. So it's just. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want it to solidify on you. Could you imagine calling in an order of concrete and they accidentally mix it up? Like what? I need concrete, but then, like, here comes this cement truck that pulls up, and they put the little guide ramps on it and everything, and they open it up, and it's just sewage coming out for a foundation of a house. But somebody forgot there. Somebody forgot to check a box on the paperwork for that one. But yeah, Marv, he just for simplicity's sake, he took the container drum. I don't know what those things are called, but he he took the working end of a dump survey of a concrete cement truck and proceeded to use that as a septic tank. And then what you do is you have people come out and they. They siphon it out. So I hate man, you know, that's the most American. Yeah, it's the most American way of doing something, especially if it's held in with duct tape. That would be even better. Shortly after winning the land, Marv found himself in front of the city council. Who told Marv that? And it's just so funny because he had his muffler shop for a couple of years. No, nobody said anything about his cement truck septic system. And I do find it kind of strange that, like, radar after Marv won that two acre plot of land that he kind of bought from. You know, you just kind of swept in and got it from Cody or prevented Cody from getting it. All of a sudden, he was in front of the board and he had to answer to why he didn't have sewage pipes laid down that fed into the city. So it's just like, Hey, I won this plot of land and this dealership guys like, hmm, okay, uh, let me make some phone calls to some of my friends. And now here's. Here's Marv. Wait. Yeah, that. That weren't ever a problem before. Yeah, they were like, You got to connect this to the main line, which is 150 yards away, and basically to properly put in a sewage line, it would have cost more than what the property was worth. The chairman of the committee was Ron Thompson, who was the grandson of the original Thompson that had been in Green Bay since the beginning and or since the beginning of the town. And the Thompsons were a very wealthy and influential family in the community. It is really sending out crucible vibes where you've got all these families that have known each other for decades and four generations and they're living in close proximity. And if you're in, you're in. But if you're an outsider and they have a beef with you, there is nothing you can do. So, Ron Thompson was also like best buddies with Cody Douche. If we're going to see that much of the leadership and influential people in the town all grew up together and they were all very close. Like literally every married couple were high school sweethearts, you know, just yeah, yeah, it's everybody knows each other, which is cool, but it's also it has its downsides. Marv ultimately declined to install Seward, install sewage line, install a sewage line, and even refuse to put it in a septic tank because he felt that the sewage lines were supposed to be the purview of the government, even though installing a septic tank, would it be significantly cheaper? So here we start to see Marv kind of go down this path of, uh, you know, this is the job of the government or this is somebody else's responsibility. This is not my thing. And I bet he was coming to that conclusion when he had been operating just fine for a few years now. And nobody said anything until now. In 1997, the Joseph family made plans to expand their concrete batch plant, and they were buying up land around their plot of land, which also so happened to butt up against Marv's property. It was encouraged that the Dosha family offered to buy up Marv's property so that they can expand, but not expand in the direction of the private homes and hotels. So that was the other thing is they wanted to expand their little concrete manufacturing empire, but they couldn't obviously, people didn't want them expanding into residential areas or resort areas. So they had to, like expand in the direction of Marv's muffler shop and as you will see, that will cause problems. At first, Marv asked for $250,000 to for them to buy that property that I think Marv spent like 42,000 for he would have turned a nice little profit there. And then right at the last minute he changed it. He's like, Oh no, I want 350,000. And so then the door shuts like, fine, whatever. And then right after that, he's like, Oh, no, I want 450,000. And eventually the Dorchester, like, Screw this. The plans failed, And Marv was successful in stonewalling the Dodgers out of any progress that could potentially strangle a mars muffler shop. This wasn't going to stop the dealerships from expanding at all costs. And Marv gathered a lot of support to his side. So he he really did have that personality where he could persuade people. And he got a lot of people on his side to testify that the concrete plant would be loud, dirty, otherwise unwelcome to the community. Like, okay, All right. So looks like Marv is you know, he's he's trying to play the game. He's playing the democracy game. The dealerships responded to the concerns by promising to put in proper safeguards as well as other measures to reduce the concerns the surrounding homes had about the new construction. I don't know if you've ever spent any time near a concrete mixing plant. They are kind of loud, you know, there's. Yeah, exac. And there's that phrase or that acronym in some city called NIMBY, which is and I am b Y, which says not in my backyard. Like you could have a beautiful plot of land and a gorgeous house and you've got like a one acre sized, you know, forest or whatever, backyard. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, somebody builds like a coal power plant about a half a mile away, and it's just spewing out black smoke. Yes. Yep. And it's really fast. It's like they plop it down and then courtroom and then next thing you know, there's a coal power plant in your backyard, because that's exactly how some city works for the four people that probably remember playing that game. So the Doors just yeah, they were like, okay, we'll we will put the proper safeguards up. We will make sure that we don't make everything super tall and obnoxious in and all that kind of stuff. And what makes it so loud is that you have to grind up that media, that dust, that actually turns into cement, like you have to grind and mix all that stuff up. So they promised that they were going to do everything in their part to, you know, make it so that it wasn't a huge eyesore. Later, a city clerk wrote a letter to the newspaper saying that Marv had a vendetta against the Dawson family, but constantly having his land appraised and then the values jacked up to make it difficult for the Dodgers to proceed. So this reporter kind of spilled the beans on like, Oh, hey, drama in the dosage of. Marv part of town. And as a result, this little Op-Ed quickly changed the opinion of the crowd. And soon Marv found himself alone and without any support. So, again, like, okay, uh, did this reporter have something against Marv? Did the dog chefs do something like the buddy buddy system and, you know, kind of made Marv's life a bit more difficult? I'm not sure, but I can kind of see how people could draw that conclusion, because it only gets worse from here. By November of 2000, MA filed a lawsuit against Joseph's, trying to block the expansion by claiming that this concrete business would actually essentially block the access to his business. There was another way to get to the muffler shop, but you had to go really far out of route and the roads weren't anywhere near it, you know, kept and all that kind of stuff. So I could kind of see Marv's point. You're like, Hey, if you build this concrete plant here that that's good. Like, they're going to have to kill that road to, like, build a plant. And that's the only road that realistically gets to my my business. I could kind of see, yeah, I can kind of see it. So, yeah, wholeheartedly agree. Now, how you handle that worry, that's. Yes. Which we're getting kind of close to here. So the judge handling the case, a local journalist and people inspecting the aerial photography all said that the expansion wouldn't hurt Marv's business. Again, I looked at a map of it. I'm not exactly sure. I believe their assessment. But then again, we're also talking about a judge who's supposed to be impartial. They're like hunting buddies with Thompsons and the dog chefs and all that stuff. So they're going to say, Oh, yeah, no, it's fine. Even though from our perspective, this could be a, you know, like a noose around his business, his neck. Mm hmm. At this point, Marv believed that everybody was working against him. They were plotting against him. And this is tough. I don't know, 100%. What is true and what's not. I feel like at least organically, things were working against them. But in terms of, like the chefs or the Thompsons or somebody twisting their. Their Machiavelli mustache, you know, with this grand scheme to once and for all do Marvin and ruin him and all that. I don't know if that was really the case. But then again, though, I can see it. I can kind of see where he's coming from. Yeah, I don't think they were having meetings and like, oh, it's the Anti Marv Club this afternoon and everybody's showing up and they're like, So who's going to, like, ruin Marv's truck and who's going to take their turn ruining his business? And who's going to take the turn to burn down his house? Like, I don't think there is anything. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, that, that's I. I completely forgot about that word. So that's that, that's one of those words that really summarizes what is what could go on here. Yeah, I know, I agree. So yeah, I think is right around this part that Marv started to keep like a tape recorder journal and, uh, after everything was said and done, they found all these tapes and, like, you can hear him start off normal. And then over the course of weeks or months and even years, he kind of spirals into, like, this conspiracy theory. And, you know, people are out to get him. And then it eventually goes to like, I'm doing God's will. This plan that I have is an act of providence or a yes. Yeah. And what I think causes that is extreme isolation. And it's not like he was isolated in terms of, you know, he's in the middle of nowhere in a little log cabin. It's more I think this is worse. It's a social isolation where when you are around a large group of people and you feel like you can't connect with anybody and yeah, and you're trying to piece together some sort of reality that would work. And I think what Marv did is he found God like, Oh, you know, God is everywhere. God can be my friend. I will. I will do all of this. And if it happens, then it's through God's will. Kind of like you can make the argument that, um, all right, if there is a God, strike me down with lightning. That doesn't happen. Therefore, there's no God but in reverse. In June of 2001, I was weird. I was a junior in high school in 2001. Okay. And also relates to this was just like three months before 911. Uh, yeah. So yeah, it's just weird how far back this is. But anyways, uh, Joe Doe chef offered a deal to Marv offering to allow Marv Easement. I guess it's a, uh, uh, a realty term for giving Marv the ability to run sewage through the domain of property, which would make my life Marv's life so much easier and cheaper, and basically, instead of having to run the sewage line all over the place, which would cost a huge fortune. Uh, the Dodgers are like Abro. You know, if you drop the lawsuit against us, we will. We will even help you with the cost to run a sewage line under our property to help you get it connected to the rest of the city. Like, I think that's actually a good gesture. I think that is a reasonable gesture, like, hey, drop the lawsuit and we will help you get your sewage line run. And, you know, Yeah, like even the Dodgers needed their mufflers replaced. So they're like, Hey, we work right next to a guy. And of course and typical Marv fashion, uh, at this time, because he's spiraling, Marvin is hung up on Doja cat. After Marv hung up on the offer, he proceeded to use a gasoline pump and pump his sewage into the irrigation ditch that ran behind his property. So he's literally. Yeah, yeah, he's, uh, he's. He's making a lick of diarrhea. Uh, yeah. Then he illegally tried to connect his sewage line to the neighbor's line where he was caught and fined 20 $500. So, yeah, he was caught, like, trying to hook a hose up to his neighbors sewer line. I remember in the old days of cable television, people would open up those telephony boxes and they would put a coaxial splitter in there. And then, like, if you wanted to cable television, all you had to do is open that thing up and you would have the coax cable just sitting there that had cable television with like 100 channels, and you literally just plugged it in to your house number and you had cable that you didn't have to pay for. Not that I ever did anything like that. I just read about it. Yes. A book written by Henry David Thoreau. Yes. Yeah. We don't ask questions, but Thoreau was very progressive when he was living it. Yes. When you set up his little cabin by Walden Pond, he had it set up so that, yeah, he had coaxial cable running to it. So, yeah, using a gasoline pump to pump his poo and sewage into an irrigation ditch behind the property. He then tried to illegally connect. He got caught trying 20 $500. What's all this stuff is adding to his paranoia. That's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly what. What this is. I can only imagine my wife if she was doing this because she deals with, like, solid waste. I can only imagine getting that phone call like, well, who's using a gasoline pump to pump sewage into an irrigation ditch? Find somebody property. Oh. Oh, it's Marv. Got it. Okay. Yeah, I. Yeah, we're good. We know what to do. It's good old Marv doing Marv things. Oh, yeah. Like you said, it's. I see his perspective. I see his frustrations. Uh huh. Yeah. It's one of those things where in you can judge somebody not so much in, like, the problems or challenges that they faced, but more. How did they respond to those challenges? Like and it seems like the DOE chefs were kind of offering their, like, uh, a peace offering and. Mm. Yeah, they're, they're, they're offering up their own, uh, poop shoots, so to speak. Yeah. Yeah. All that. Corn's got to go somewhere. Yeah, we've got literally got a river of sewage being dumped into somebody else's property. Yeah. In November of 2000, one more was found in contempt of court. I'm sorry. Contempt of court. Contempt of town code. And was ordered to remove this cement barrel and fix the connection issues by July of 2003. So now we're we're kind of leaning towards things working against more like actively working against them. And maybe it because you just got busted too many times doing really shady stuff with sewage. But again, now it's like the whole town board is like, No, Marv, you've now have to fix this. Here's your deadline. And oh, by the way, nobody can inhabit your property until this is dealt with. So they basically shut them down and. Yeah, and now we're. Now I'm kind of like, going back to I'm like, okay, that that is like using the code, using the city's laws and regulations to kind of, you know, screw somebody over. Like they weaponized the politics that that was kind of it. And at this point, Marv was staunchly in and the idea that the entire town was out to get him, everyone was colluding to prevent Marv from operating. And at first, Marv agreed to the terms, but then immediately retracted his statement. A lawyer at the judgment here. Judgment heard Marv muttering as he's like walking out of the courtroom like he heard Marv Just Sanders breath. I'm going to bulldozer this whole place to the ground. And it's one of those statements where, you know, you hear that like, Yeah, but. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Looking back at it. Yeah. Sound like he. He really meant it because he had. Yeah. Yeah. He had good integrity in that regard. And if he said it, it's good to do something in the bulldozer. So maybe this is the real dumpster fire. This is. Yeah, but by now, he was firmly in. In the assumption that God is looking out for him and he's going to build this bulldozer that is going to be able to show like put the dough chefs in the Thompsons and everybody in their place. And he's doing it because God wants them to learn a lesson. Great. Cool. Got God backing up. And he also had made a purchase right around this time. And it was a very, very big and expensive purchase. And his idea was that he was going to get he bought a smart suit D 355 a bulldozer. He won it in an auction for $16,000 and this thing was a beast. So on the front of it had the bulldozer thing like the big scoop, and then on the backside he had a it looks kind of like an upside down scorpion tail. And it's this giant hook like thingy that just digs into the ground and you can just tear up anything with it. You can rip out a road. What Marv was originally going to do it this D 355 a bulldozer was that he was going to use that feature and make his own sewage line. He was like, okay, I'm just going to do it myself. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, since it was going to cost a fortune to do all that work or pay somebody else to do it, it's like, okay, fine, I'll just go get this giant bulldozer and I'll yeah, I'll just do it myself. No, this D 35 bulldozer is a flippin beast just on its own. 13 feet tall, 29 feet long. That's like the fuselage of, I think, like a fighter jet. It was ten feet wide. Had a V8 turbocharged diesel engine with 410 horsepower. So this thing was not going to sit in the air land speed records. But at the five miles an hour that it ran, nothing was going to stop. It. Just the amount of torque that he had. It was 49 tons in weight. He added more stuff to it, which we'll get to. And to kind of put it into perspective, uh, I'm going to reference your favorite movie of all Time Fury. Yeah, I know. I know your stance on it was more of a visual thing than. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it just doesn't vibe. And I agree. I mean, you compare a movie like that to, say, like Saving Private Ryan where there's such character development and, like. But I mean. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we, we feel like we've discussed this amongst other things in the past, but I, the only reason I'm bringing this next part up is because when I first read about this, like months ago, I had also just watched Fury. And so I'm like, Wow, that bulldozer and a tiger tank have a lot of similarities. So. The German Tiger tank was the biggest tank in the German arsenal, I think was the biggest tank in all the war. It was nine feet ten inches tall, so not quite 13 feet. It was 20 feet 8.7 inches long. Uh, so it was a little shorter than this. Komatsu, 11 feet eight inches wide, had a V12 petrol engine, so it ran off of gasoline and it was packing a wild 690 horsepower and it weighed 57 tons in weight. So you kind of get an idea that this bulldozer was a tank, this thing was a beast. Like just compared to the biggest tank in World War Two. And later on, after the events of everything, it was eventually called the Killed Dozer. And Netflix has a really good documentary on this whole incident that it's like a movie length long documentary. And it does a really good job explaining, like both sides, like both perspect gives and and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, killed those are, as it was called by the media and then became known as the M.K. take or Marvin kill Those are tank and you're thinking like what what is this bulldozer or what why are they referencing a tank. Well we'll we'll get to that So after the auction, Marv had the bulldozer shipped to his muffler shop where he promptly displayed it in his parking lot right in front of Dow Chef's cement business. So we think that he was sending a message to the DOT chefs, like, keep do what you're doing and just bulldozers come in your way. At the time he did that, though, he put his muffler shop and all of his purchased lands up for auction. So that should be a red flag there. Like homeboy just bought a gigantic bulldozer and now he's selling all of his properties. Mm. Sounds like this guy's looking for, like, a one way ticket. A few things to note about the sale of his property. His land sold instantly sold. In October of 2002, he got over $450,000 for everything, which was ten times the amount of money that he originally spent a decade prior. That's again, not a bad turnaround. Within 24 hours of the property sale, the new owners or the name of this, it sounds like a company that you would have been assigned to in trucking is called the trash company. Like Walt. There is no doubt in anybody's mind exactly what this company does. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, they. Oh, yeah, Maybe it was like a little Cyclops thing with one eye that. Yeah, we can't. I really can't get into that. But yeah. So the trash company, they, they bought it. And what's really funny is that within 24 hours of the property sale, the new owners, the trash company, was able to build a good connection to the sewer main without any issues. So, like, if Marv had just. Just done it, he would have been done in a day. But he was adamant, like big government, big this and that. Like I said, this guy would be an icon today given the political, um, status of our nation. Like the way that this guy thought. There's a lot of really wild conspiracy theories out there that he would have just fit right in with all that. The trash company got the sewage thing figured out within a day. Now, what is even more interesting to note is that Marv did take a small lease. So he sold all his lands, but then he also, like, took a lease on one of his old buildings. So he sold the building and then he's like, Oh, hey, can I rent my old building back? I've got something I need to take care of. And the way he worded it, it's like I've got to finish up some final projects. He did try to put the thing up for sale. So the bulldozers, Brazil, he tried to get rid of it when I guess when everything was kind of falling apart. And he's like, well, I obviously can't lay a sewage line now because the whole town's against me. So he took it off of sale mode, taking it off the market. There we go. And he took it off the market and he leased out like a workshop so he could finish some projects. Meanwhile, the bulldozer never sold. This was probably done on purpose. Marvin discovered that the bulldozer was one inch short of the maximum length of his leased out garage. In other words, from, you know, tip to tail, he had one inch of spare room. Like he. Now, when you think about a wall, I don't think it really matters when we look at the modifications that he made to it, because you put anything greater than an inch on there and then it won't fit. As we will see, Marv figured out a way. Marv took the failed sale of the bulldozer as, like, a sign from God that he needed to go through with his plan. So it's one of those things where it's like, okay, I, I am going to buy a lottery ticket, and if I win it, then I know that is a sign from God that I need to buy a Ferrari. Yeah, it's, it's that that train of thought, which is like, what? Okay, I guess. Yeah. Whatever floats your boat. Yeah. So, yeah, this. This bulldozer barely fit inside of his garage. And for 18 months, Marvin, like Frankenstein, welded away in a leased out shop on a wild plot that would teach his enemies what would happen when someone is pushed too far. So for 18 months, I, I. I don't know about you, but I was thinking of a montage. Like a time lapse. Yeah. Just like the dirt. This all over the place, welding this and that. And then, like, slow down as he lowers a piece of metal in place, and then it picks back up again. Yeah. Yeah. The sun and the moon. Just like, alternate. And so June 4th, 2004, it's a normal summer day in Granby, Colorado. People were going about their business. Um, there was a library that was attached, attached to the town hall, uh, and there was a retail out going on. So all these little kids were in this library and there were some teacher reading out loud to the class, the mountain park's concrete facility. Uh, the DOE chef owned establishment that so wronged Ma. You know, that was like, the bane of his existence. Uh, this concrete plant was producing. Well, concrete. Kody Doe chef was on site managing for the manufacturing of concrete deputies. Jim KRAKER think his KRAKER and Rich Gardener were patrolling their usual routes. State patrollers Dave, Patricia, Jack DeSanto and Mike McGinley were doing whatever it is that state troopers do. Yes. Yep. Like you're pulling people over, giving tickets, you know, checking. Yeah, yeah, whatever. You know, whatever occupies their day and a very, very, very small town. Lieutenant Walt Eldridge and Undersheriff Glen Traynor. We'll hear a lot more from trainer. We're on standby for any miscreants up to no good. Uh, writers for the l love the name of this newspaper. Writers and editors for the Sky High newspaper. We're wrapping up lunch, so, like, middle of the day folks at the Gamble's hardware store, You know, they were just checking out. Buying nuts and bolts and, you know, hardware store stuff. I don't even know what that means. But yeah, people are buying nuts and bolts at a run. 2:20 p.m. 911 Calls started to come in to like the one dispatcher in all of great like you know it's like the librarian the wall you know like the dispatcher is is a librarian volunteering. It's like, Oh, I guess I'll do it Monday in. Yeah. And the whole town does rotate out. Yeah. 911 calls came pouring in and something was happening that had never happened in Granby or anywhere else in the country, for that matter. Undersheriff Glenn Traynor was the first to be notified of a series of strange events taking place near the concrete plant. Deputies Jim KRAKER and Rich Garner responded immediately. I think they were closest, so they immediately headed over to the, uh, the old muffler shop that was no more. And they got there first, followed by three more troopers that Dave Butcher, Jack Assante and Mike McGinley. Upon arrival, KRAKER and Garner saw something out of this world before them. At the Mountain Park's concrete plant was a gigantic bulldozer plowing into the side of the administrative building. Over and over. So it was just crashing into it, backing up, changing angles a little bit, and then it was just full steam ahead and then crashing back into it. But the issue was, is like the bulldozer was yellow, but it didn't look like a bulldozer. It barely resembled a bulldozer. It had the recognizable scoop thingy on the front like you would expect on a bulldozer to have as well as like a tank, like treads and stuff like that. But the top was completely encased in thick steel plates that were perfectly welded together. And they were airtight, like a sarcophagus. Nobody was getting into this thing and nobody was getting out easily. So this whole bulldozer was just completely at least a cockpit area and all that stuff was just completely encased in sheets of cold steel. To complicate matters, the bulldozer had extremely thick locks and portals. So Lexan is the stuff that they make bulletproof glass out of. It's actually a fairly soft plastic, but it disperses bullet energy like crazy. So there were like little portals built into this monstrosity. And those those were like three or four inch thick Lexan plates so you could fire whatever gun you wanted at those things. That wasn't going to do anything. But the thing was, is like there was no viewport, like there was no windshield. And it was a mystery of like, how the heck is this? Whoever was operating this demon dozer, Ooh, that would have been a really good name for the demon dozer. Yeah, I like I like the sound of that. Yeah. Words. So, yeah, like nobody could figure out, like there was no windshield. And yes, there was a, like, some portals, but they were super tiny. The the portals overlooked a series of turrets that were built into this thing. And there were three of them. And these, like, Sam portals, were designed to help aim one of three guns that he had access to. The biggest one, the scariest one was a 50 caliber semi-automatic rifle. So that's like those giants sniper rifles that you see in movies all over the place. Then you had a 30 caliber semi-automatic rifle. I think it may have been like a Ruger M14, but don't quote me on that. Mm hmm. And then for that little cherry on top, that little added punch of power, he had a 22 caliber automatic rifle sticking out of the port. So he had a little 22, just a little plinking pupu, basically. Yeah. So they noticed that the guns in these portals could be taken out and relocated inside pretty quickly. So needless to say, they were really worried about that 50 caliber. Nobody wants to get hit with that for obvious reasons, or the 30 cal, for that matter. Not too many. Yeah, it's not like too many people were lining up to get shot by the 22. Like, it's just don't want to be shot by anybody. But if I had a choice between the 22 or the 50 cal, I will take that 22 any day. But it was still crazy. Was like, how in the world was this guy being able to see? And this was a bit of a mystery. And we will see how the person operating this thing could steer. KRAKER And Garner noticed that Cody, your chef, was in his bulldozer, so he was in his own earth moving equipment, trying to play chicken with the kill dozer. Yeah, and it was like a David and Goliath match. Like there's videos of it. No comparison that Komatsu was going to make very short work of whatever was in front of him. But in this case, David does not end up in here. Or even a legend. The armored tank like Dozer made short work of Downshifts as though it were a VW bug. I'm losing my voice now. The two deputies opened fire with an M14 and AR 15 rifle, so those are basically like those assault style guns. That is all over the news. But they might as well have been throwing rocks at it. Keep in mind, those guns like those assault rifles are shooting a to 23. So it's a hair bigger than a 22. So it's not like a two. 23 is a very big bullet. It's just moving really fast. I think those bullets are moving like at 4000 feet per second. When you think about it in a second and a half, that bullet has already traveled well over a mile. That's moving. The two troopers did nothing to stop the dozer from committing a huge amount of damage to the concrete facility. There was administrative building, thankfully, nobody was hurt. It would have been interesting if you somehow got ran over by this bulldozer because I think his top speed was like four miles an hour. So it's not like, you know, it's not like a giant wall of cold molasses in winter. Right? Yeah. Yeah, that that was one of those if they ever ask us, like, what was the one episode that kind of took us by surprise, but it's going to be that molasses flood. I had no idea that molasses could do something like that. So nobody was getting hurt. Just a ton of damage. The bulldozer stopped bulldozing the concrete plant and then turned its attention to the two deputies firing at it from behind concrete barriers. So, like these two cops are just plinking away at it. And I was thinking of that scene from the first Deadpool movie where Deadpool is writing that Zamboni and there was that guy like crawling away on the ground and you hear Deadpool yelling like, Do think you're going to die by a Zamboni and like 10 minutes just puttering along. So yeah, they had plenty of time to run away. But the dozer just plowed right into the concrete barriers, just took him out. But those troopers, they got out of the way. Although they did say that the the So there's a little bit of debate up there of his exact intentions. Did he actually want to kill people or just make a financial statement? Those cops believed that Marv was trying to kill them. So but we'll never know. It was at this time that all the pieces of the puzzle could be pieced together. Looking at all the damage, it was discovered that the bulldozer had originated out of Niemeyer's or Martin's workshop, a hundred yards away from the concrete plant. And how did he get this thing out of his workshop? Well, you see pictures of it. There is a perfect outline of a bulldozer hole in the side of his workshop, meaning he just went right through the wall. Yeah. And destruction was this thing's middle name. And, uh, but, yeah, it was almost cartoonish. You see it, and it's got, like, almost a perfect silhouette, which is kind of funny. No. I know it's going to get exciting here, so I know. I know it. God, we are so pathetic. Like, I remember being able to stay up to, like, midnight every night. Yeah. Now it's just like. I don't. Yeah, you're getting old. Yeah. Don't get old. It's a trap. So, um. All right, continuing on here now, Trainer. He get. He shows up, and he's trying to figure out what to do here. He piece it together. Remember, Trainer was one of the guys that was kind of like just sitting in the police station, and after he pieces together is like, Oh, my God. Marvin built an armor plated battle tank. Dozer, and he was on a one man mission to teach the town of Granby a huge lesson. A trainer arrives to support two troopers that were there and quickly saw the futility of shooting at it like people were firing their nine millimeter Glocks at it, like, that's going to do something. Hmm. It's like a Yeah, yeah. Something will make its way through and jack it up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bombs. Lots and lots of bombs that'll fix it. Uh, this is kind of a bad deal. Marvin saw trainers 2000 Ford Expedition and proceeded to push it until it tipped over and then ran over the expedition before moving on. Expeditions are big cars, and he was able to just push it to the point where it flipped over, and then he just ran over it, like, holy crap. Not one to give up. Trainer was able to climb onto the 13 foot tall bulldozer and hitch a ride as it was making its way through a grocery store parking lot. So yeah, it's like taking up the curb. There's cars in the way, there's lights in the way. It's just building as it's just plowing everything all over the place. Could you imagine being like the manager on duty at that grocery store and you just see this giant battle tank go through your parking lot? Like, who do you email? Like, deer facilities. There's a 13 foot long battle tank dozer thing in our parking lot, destroying cars. What do I fill out an incident report on? Yeah, it is. It's. It's like Pixar. Did it happen that. What is interesting is that trainer climbed up to this thing, but the whole outside of the bulldozer was covered in lube. So Marvin covered the entire surface area of the dozer in lube and made it super slippery. So if you try to climb up on it, you would just slide off. So a trainer was now riding the Diddy dozer alliteration and I literally was piecing together like 10 seconds ago. I'm like, I got it. Is the duty dozer. Yeah. Yeah. The thousand gallons of it. So, yeah, basically, the trainer is up there now. He's covered in lube and he's trying to figure out like he's walking around on this thing, trying to figure out a weakness somewhere on here. And that's where he noticed. Like, why are there, like, security cameras on on this thing? You thought that was kind of weird? Mm hmm. Trainer saw a metal box, and he just assumed that was the engine's radiator. So he decided to unload his gun into it. He fired into what he thought was the radiator. And the idea was, Hey, you hit the radiator. Coolant leaks out. Yeah, exactly. Uh, but it didn't do anything. And Marv, with a trainer on top, was heading to downtown Granby. It turns out the thing that he was shooting at was actually the bulldozers as a unit. Yeah, it got pretty. Yeah, pretty warm in there. All righty. Now, this is where it starts to get wild. He. No, no, it's not wild until it serves hit and stuff and. His next target was town hall, with the library attached to it, remember? Uh huh. Full of, like, little kids. I know. I, I. I know, man. It's just. Yeah. Library is is. Can't catch a break. But now, thankfully, I don't think this library was, like, the size of Alexandria's library. But, you know, a library is a library. Yeah, it's filled with people reading books. Uh, but, yeah, I know. He was determined that town hall is going to be next, because, well, this thing about, like, that's where a lot of the settings took place for his disputes. But, you know, because that's where the board met. And he had to go before the board and he kind of took his anger out on city hall because that's where he felt like he was getting screwed over the most. And yeah, he just ripped off the whole front of the city hall or the town hall. Everybody was essentially able to walk away from this thing. But it did cause the read aloud to have to stop, unfortunately. And the. Yes. Yeah. And it and I guess it's kind of funny and they were like, okay kids like there is a bulldozer coming this way. We need to get up and walk out in a single file line and like, they're just walking out all nicely and they're still probably walking faster than the bulldozer is moving. They're just walking away from it. So yeah, those poor kids, they didn't get to finish their book. It's very traumatic. Yep. Yep. Trainer tried to fire his gun into the Lexx and portals, but they just absorbed the bullets. He saw a forward looking portal he figured would be the windshield and proceeded to dump 12 bullets into the bulletproof glass. And again it did nothing. But he was like, Hey, at least you know, he can't see out with no bullets or even a screwdriver to take the tank apart with. He jumped off onto the grass and ultimately trainer fired like 37 rounds into the dozer is portals. And an officer threw a flash bang at trainer where he tried dropping it down the exhaust pipe. So the exhaust pipe is actually not even a pipe. It's like a square tube that sticks out the top of it, and it's all reinforced with the steel plates. And he tried dropping a flash bang down the exhaust pipe, hoping to cause enough damage to the engine to make it shut down. Once he. MEIER Marvin was done with the town hall, his next target was 300 yards down the I-40 where he damaged the the garage doors of the mountain parks, electric parking lot, and then swung around and destroyed the front of the building, which was containing the receptionist area. Yeah. Just Tranter later said that he could he could not understand the rhyme or reason for attacking the Mountain Parks Electric Company. But he remembered that two of the Granby board members also work there. So we're starting to see a pattern form here. Marvin was looking to take out the town's board members and potentially, uh, the people who may have wronged him. After the Mountain Park Electric Company got thoroughly wrecked, Marvin proceeded to plow down Maple Street builders and using the plow, essentially scooped up the company's pickup truck and then forced it through the front of the building. So he scooped up their company car and just rammed that company car through the front of the mountain Park Electric? No, not Mountain Park Electric. The Maple Street Builders. So now he's getting creative. He's doing like, Yeah, yeah, he's very capable, like thinking on his feet, I guess you could say by now, it seemed like the entire state of Colorado had been notified of this. Keep in mind, this whole thing only lasted for like two, two and a half hours. This wasn't an all day thing. Sergeant Norm Rimmer, thinking of the Red Dwarf. That funny British comedy show, one of the main characters named Rimmer. He's a bit of a blowhard, but anyway is Norm Rimmer, who was in charge of the ground or the Granite County's Sheriff's eight member SWAT team. Yep. Yep. So my guess is the SWAT team is part of this. They were there was the SWAT team. They were probably also the fire department. They were probably also like the town's baseball team. And they were probably the ones that do like renovations to the school. Like, I feel like it's one of those situations where it's the same eight people that do everything. Um. Yeah. Yeah. Multitask. Yeah. La Grande County Sheriff's eight member SWAT team arrived and began working on a strategy to disable the dozer. So, like, there's videos of this where you can literally see them like, like in a huddle, like talking. Meanwhile, there's this giant bulldozer going down the road like they had the ability to have, like a confab in the middle of all this destruction because they know it's going to take time for him to get to the next location. Mm hmm. Deputy Jim Campbell activated the reverse 911 system. I had no idea this was a thing. So I guess the reverse. 911 system is where, instead of what you and I are calling in to 911 because we're seeing something crazy happen instead. 911 calls us to let us know that there is something crazy going on because now that they get an idea of the pattern, like, okay, took out the concrete company, it took out the electric company, took out town hall, he took out the mountain, this Maple Street builders like he's going after everybody that has a business as well as being on the board. So that's that's the motive here. So yeah, they were starting to notify nine one. One was certain to notify people like, hey, big giant angry bulldozer coming your way and get out. And I think if Marvin was bent on taking lives, this does reverse 911 thing did its job and saved everybody's life. No matter what, though, people were getting phone calls about an angry, rabid bulldozer coming their way. So they had to like, walk away. Meanwhile, deputies Ryan Phillips, Roy Ybarra, Sean Curran, Steve Gilman, Brett Shrout Allen, Roland Dodd, Jacobsen. Now that name Dodd, it's like a misspelled Todd. And then another one that's interesting is bus worm. Okay. Uh, Terry, Mark Banks and Steve Holland, as well as the grand County's sheriff's investigator, Leo Pi Shockey. Sure. They arrived and they were not work. So now we've got SWAT team, we've got police officers, we've got deputy sheriffs, we've got all of these guys that are now here like there is a lot of people and you see videos of it. There are a lot of people all firing whatever they have at this thing. Here am Ira Sorry, Marvin drove around the back of the town hall and flattened the playground. I guess the playground wronged him at some point in time that jerk See saw. I'll teach you a lesson. He took out some trees because, you know trees. Some of these. Yeah, Yeah. And some of these trees were like two or three feet in diameter. And he just ran him over. Yeah, it's just like, holy crap. That's all. Yeah. Old trees and just the amount of power that this thing has after the playground, Marvin decided to hit up the town hall parking garage and destroy some cars before heading back to the town hall to inflict more damage. So now he's like, Well, parking garage has got to go. The main entrance was okay, but the rest of the building was heavily damaged and the roof was starting to cave in the center. So now this thing just wasn't safe, period. And this thing had so much power that it would bulldoze its way into like the middle of a building and then the whole thing would just collapse on it. But he still had enough power to back out. Yeah, bear with me to try and keep from losing my voice. So yeah, I did more damage now to a parking garage and did more damage to the town hall. When Marvin finished up at the town hall, he drove to the town's stoplight where he drove into the front pillars of the Liberty Savings Bank before backing up and taking out the only stoplight. Yeah, well, now, could you imagine what traffic is going to be like after that? It's going to be like Mad Max out there. Just pure chaos without that stoplight as well as the trees. Yeah. And the pillars to the bank. Yeah. Got to have those pillars where he drove into the front pillars of the Liberty Savings Bank before taking out the stoplight while he was heading to, uh, to. And damaging the bank. State troopers tried to shoot up the dozers hydraulics on the underside using shotguns loaded with barricade penetrating rounds, as well as double locked buckshot. And nothing worked. So. Hey, what's that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm right there with you. Yeah. And, like, once they get inside, like, once they crack this thing open and they look inside, it's even more impressive what he was able to do. So a double shot book is a 30 caliber pellet. And usually, like, there's 12 to 14 of these pellets in there. Double up book is absolutely horrendous. Round This is the thing that you would use to stop a bear. It is that powerful. And it was doing nothing like nothing was working on the bulldozer. Now that Marvin was more or less in the center of Granby. He drove into this guy a newspaper building. The editors, Patrick Bauer and Harry Williamson, were inside when they got the notification from the reverse 911 of Marvin trajectory. They're like, Hey, I think they're coming for you guys. Because remember there was that reporter that wrote that op ed about Marvin issues like the realty issues, and that guy wrote that article which then persuaded the entire town instead of supporting Marvin. Now they hated him. So that's the reason why the newspaper building is being taken out. And this is kind of sad because there was Marvin destroyed a majority of that printing press or the building, but he kind of got stuck on the printing press. That was the one thing that he couldn't, like push over because it was anchored into the ground. And it's a printing press. The printing press is the same size as the dozer. Mm hmm. So the only downside is that it took out that printing press, which also supplied the printed newsprint for like six other magazines and newspapers. Yeah. Yeah. And so this was like a very used part of town. And now that was destroyed. But yeah, both men were able to escape, so they ran out the back door and of course they had their cameras and stuff like that. And so they were trying to take pictures of it and they actually got video of big old bulldozer going down the street. What is interesting is that people were in hiding, but they were more worried about being shot up. But Marvin really didn't shoot anybody like he could have, but he did it. Which begs the question, was he trying to be homicidal or not? So, yeah, I got stuck in the process of trying to destroy the printing press as it was anchored to the ground so well that it stops Marvin literally in its tracks. And however damage was done. Six newspapers now or six publications were going to be screwed for a while. Marvin then thought it prudent to exact revenge on the Thompson clan and drove across from Xcel Energy Building and hit the Thompson and Sons Excavating headquarters, which was the family business of former Mayor Dick Thompson and Thompson was good buddies with the DOE chefs, so it made perfect sense. Let's go take out the Thompson business to really drive the point home, so to speak. Marvin ran over Dick's house, so he went to Dick's house and, uh, Dick had died a little prior, and his wife was widowed and old and decrepit in her and her daughter had to run out at the last minute so they didn't get destroyed. Yeah. Again, the jury is out is like, did he really try to kill people or. Or what? Nobody died, but we'll never know. And then he headed over to the family business. Yeah. Destroyed that building. The Grand County's Road and bridge Director Clark Branstetter tried to stop Marvin at the Excel property with a country or a county owned earth mover. But Marvin. Bulldozer made short work of that as well. And this was a big piece of equipment, but nothing compared to that. Komatsu Brett Holcroft, who was an employee at the nearby independent gas company, tried using a £20 propane tank and hose to pump propane into the bulldozer, his air intake. This is a pretty clever idea. The idea was that the engine would rev up because it's pulling in air plus propane, and then it's being burned. And yeah, the idea is that it would cause the engine to basically blow up. That didn't work because that would be too easy. Uh, in a way. Thankfully this didn't work because if it did blow up, Holcroft would have been taken out in the process while in the area independent gas company, Marvin used a 50 caliber rifle to punch holes in the sides of large propane tanks. So you've seen those giant like 32 foot long propane tanks that hold like a billion gallons of propane. He tried taking shots at that to punch holes into it and try to make it explode. Yeah, he did poke holes in the propane tanks. And then right next to it, he tried to shooting at like a power transformer to throw sparks really came to fruition, thankfully, because that would have been like a small nuclear blast in. Uh, yeah, I think the proper term is called a levee or something of that nature. So yeah, it would have been like a mushroom cloud and all sorts of stuff. So thankfully Marvin missed like every time. Frustrated that he couldn't reenact the propane induced nuclear explosion of Trinity in New Mexico, Marvin headed towards the town again. However, it was becoming evident that the dozer was starting to have issues. Giant plumes of black smoke were coming out of the exhaust pipe. That's usually a bad deal. Stuff was leaking out of it left and right because, you know, it's a bulldozer, but it's not designed to be running through buildings left and right, crumbling. Police officer Scott Spade brought out his 50 caliber BMG with armor piercing rounds and fired six shots into the dozer. The rounds was bounced off like what? He's using just good old fashioned steel. But he made a modification that was really effective and and we'll get to that here shortly. At this point, authorities were at a loss. They had no idea what to do. The only thing they could figure out was like, okay, National Guard slash Air Force, send a fighter jet over here and drop a bomb on it. Yes. Yep. So, yeah, they were going to try to blow it up with the bomb, but here's an interesting problem. The National Guard one didn't respond to the messages for like, well, after the whole incident ended. But I guess constitutionally, we a military vehicle cannot open fire on civilians when there is no war going on. So. Yeah. Yeah. Because you don't want the military to start bombing civilians left and right. Yeah. And then I have to imagine that like when it was getting to this point where like call in the Air Force, uh, they I'm sure people were calling into the governor by now, Even though the military couldn't help out, Marvin Escapade was about to come to an end. It was evident now that the bulldozer was struggling to stay running. There was many times where we had to literally turn it off and turn it back on again. And this was all due to one collision after another. Marvin drove past the 7-Eleven and clipped the front of all of this, the copy cat copying business. Yes. And it's spelled k0py space. K a t. Yep. The one place. Yeah, the one place that actually had a, uh, paper copier. However, though, his real target was that hardware store where people were buying hardware. Gamble's was owned by Casey Farrell, who was a former Granby town board member. That Marvin naturally had a beef with. Like all the board members with hydraulic fluid and coolant leaking everywhere, Marvin drove headfirst into gambles with everything the dozer had left. And Marvin essentially destroyed most of the store in is and this attack but forgot one little detail. Gambles was a store that sat over a basement. I'm pretty certain the floors of that hardware store were not reinforced to handle. What is it like 40 tons of weight. So this was almost like one of those false trap or one of those false floor traps that you see in in like Vietnam, where they just have sticks and leaves. And once you step foot on it, you fall in. And they got those little sticks that are pointing up. That's kind of what this was. And basically, the dozer got up there and it just went. And it just fell into this ten foot hole. And at that point, it was done. It couldn't back out. It was too heavily damaged. And that brought the end of the kill dozer, which only lasted even if I factor in like the the concrete plant and everything. It was only like a 2 to 2 and a half hour long thing. So again, this wasn't like a massive lay long No. And that was it. Branstetter was quick to arrive with another large earth mover, and he parked it right up behind Marvin just in case this thing came back to life. They wanted it to block it off. So, you know, that's a sound move. Like, I can I can see that once the dozer died, every authority in the region just descended on, you know, this demon dozer, so to speak. And everybody was coming in. They all wanted a piece of the guy that, like, ruined their entire afternoon. Like, Yes, yes. All the entire town had, like, you know, 4000 people that were really, really pissed right now. And they wanted a piece of this. Norm Rimmer, the you know, the super hardcore tactical SWAT team leader was on the dozer as people were trying to crack it open because when he when Marvin got in, he actually lowered the lid down using like a chain crane and basically sealed inside himself inside during all this, like when they were getting ready to to work on it. They heard one gunshot and everybody stops and they're like, okay, you know, he took his own life. I'm not too sure. Like, this is one of these situations. I'm not too sure what the end game was. Like, when do you actually stop? When there's, like, nothing left of the town or destroy, like, ten buildings and then just be like, okay, I surrender. We don't know. We don't know what his actual end game was. So, yes, they just assumed. But they also were kind of worried for the aftermath. You know, given the amount of work that he put in to creating an armor, firing or arming this bulldozer, the jury was still out on what was potentially inside. They were like, okay, if Marvin put this much work into making it an impregnable rolling fortress, then is there going to be a booby trap inside? Like as soon as somebody takes the lid off of it, is there going to be like £50 of C-4 in there That will go off? That's a valid concern. Mm hmm. The scene quickly resembled what it would look like if a U of O crash landed in the middle of Granby. Every authority in this state seemed to arrive on top of the local authorities. So we have the Grand County sheriff's deputies, the Colorado State Patrol troopers, the SWAT team from Jefferson, SWAT teams from Jefferson, Larimer and Denver's Federal Heights Summit County Sheriff and several deputies, law enforcement officers from the Rocky Mountain National. Yeah. Rocky Mountain National Park and the US Forest Service. So you have the. Yep, yep, yep. You got Ranger Rick out there getting ready to do something and a Colorado Division of Wildlife. So Game and Fish officers are out there. Um, agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. That's like Colorado state form of the FBI. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. So ATF was there? Yes. Yeah, because there's firearms involved. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one big tank that wasn't used for its intended purpose. Grand County EMS is firemen from Granby Fire Department and East Grand Fire Department. And oh, let's not forget Colorado Governor Bill Owens and Granby Mayor Ted Wang. Yes, solid, solid group of people here. Yes. Yeah. Because, you know, Ted Wang is going to really let's just say he's really going to wing it. Uh, yeah. Yeah, That was pretty bad. I'm sorry. Well, you like that joke, so. Okay, cool. All over all that. So at 10:42 p.m., everyone was pulled back another block as a bomb squad attached an explosive to the tracks of the dozer. The idea was we're going to blow the tracks off this thing again, just in case you know, Marvin is alive in there and decides to bring this thing back to life after it had cooled down and just in case he was playing

possum. And then later on 1: 1:54:37

01 a.m., firemen started to cut their way in using all sorts of torches and other mechanism. And and by 2 a.m. they were able to get in and see the body of a very much dead Marvin Niemeyer with a bullet wound to his head via a 357 magnum pistol that he was carrying with him the entire time. A 357 is a very, very unique gun in that it has so much power that it has like a 100% stopping capability, meaning if you get shot with a nine millimeter, you could probably still keep going like pursuing somebody. But if you're hit with a 357 anywhere in the body, you're done. You're not you're not moving much anymore. And if you get hit in the head, you know, it's it's not going to be it's going to be ugly. So now that they got in some mysterious mysteries. Yeah, mysterious mysteries where they got answers, how did he steer well instead of just looking out the Lexan windows or those little portals, he actually put CCTV video cameras around the perimeter of the bulldozer, and he was able to position those cameras so that they could see on a television was going on around him, which that's pretty clever. Like, I'm I'm I'm handing it to the guy. Probably the craziest addition or modification that he made is what you're wondering. Like how in the world did this guy like, make it so that this tank was bulletproof to the extent that it was? Well, the tank addition was a double hole. So he had the normal body of the bulldozer and then he basically welded on a layer of like one inch thick steel plates. And then he put a second shell around it about six inches away. And that left a hollow cavity where he then filled up full of cement. So you had I got a burp just right around the corner trying to prevent throwing up all over in your ear. You had the outer hull, then you had six inches of concrete, and the other hull was made out of one inch thick steel. Then you had the your concrete six inches of concrete, and then you had another inch layer of more steel and then you had the dozers exterior. So he had basically 8 to 9 inches thick of some serious armor plating on this thing. And that's the reason why bullets were bouncing off. So, um, so yeah, concrete doesn't really bite. It's not a very hard substance, but it does. Like when you hit it, it transfers energy over a large surface area, which makes it bulletproof. He Meyer was set up to carry out his rampage for a very, very long time. His 90 minute terror streak seemed like an eternity to those that were present. But in the grand scheme of things, if that engine didn't die on him, the rampage could have lasted a lot longer. They discovered, Oh, yeah, they found that he had like days and days of food in there. So he fortified it and then he had a whole bunch of food inside the cockpit of this thing. Even a bathroom. So, yeah, he, he again, this is like, See where I'm coming from? Like, how is this a dumpster fire? Because he thought it out and he kind of accomplished what he was hoping to do. But then again, no, if you look at it from the perspective of Granby, this is a dumpster fire of all dumpster fires. Huge mess. So they got to the workshop and they found more interesting stuff there. Marvin was apparently living and breathing this project for about 90. What it was, it was 180. Yeah, we'll go with that. His infatuation with the project was confirmed when they found the tapes. So they had all those audio recordings that he made and you can listen to them. They're not like, creepy or anything. They're it's like, Well, I reckon I'm going to go put these plates on. And, you know, people are going to ask me, why did I do this? And it's because I'm doing God's will. And, you know, it wasn't like a Heaven's Gate type of recording, which is really, really creepy. just him just talking into it, into the microphone and just explaining why he's doing what he's doing. So, yeah, so, yeah, he got to the point where so they could listen to the early recordings all the way up to the present. So he got to the point where he felt that he was doing God's will and that what he was planning to do was considered justice and fair under the structure of God. So I'm requesting some questions. Some questions remain, though. Why couldn't Marvin work through these emotional issues? Really, bro, you can't talk to somebody. You cannot see a therapist. Yeah. Like, you know why? Mhm. Yep. It was coming around. It was definitely better in 2000 than it was and say, like the fifties and sixties. But you're right. Exactly. Yes. Why couldn't work through it. What degree is this mental breakdown was attributed to the mental disorder and the machinations of the town? So this kind of goes back to the nature versus nurture thing. How much of this was like biologically programmed into Marvin's brain and how much of this was the nature part of it where you've got the town, whether advertently or inadvertently conspiring against him or they're just trying to make his life difficult and they succeeded was and then the part of the biggest one was Marvin really set out to kill people. That was what was on everybody's mind. No one got hurt during the whole situation, and he had access to multiple guns. So he could have shot a lot of people, but he chose not to. If he was truly going to kill people, I feel like he would have done it like straight up, like gunmen at the Austin, Texas College from I think the seventies, where he got up to that bell tower sort of shooting everybody. I feel like he if he was good at truly kill somebody, he would have done it. So, however, he was in a bulldozer and he was aiming for people. They got away. Who knows what his intentions were there in the end. There are so many questions that we'll never get the answers to. But the lesson we can take away from this ordeal is to never live your life thinking that everyone is out to get you, and also don't live your life in such a way that it makes people forget. Not only everyone is out there to get you, so don't live your life. That makes people forget not everyone is out there to get you. If that logic tracks like don't think people are out to get you and don't live your life in such a way that makes people think that like, okay, everybody's out to get them. Yep. And then ultimately what was happened to the bulldozer? Well, it was removed. I don't know how they moved that thing. Like, how did they get out of the basement? If I was the owner of that property, I'd be like, No, keep the bulldozer there. I want to build like a museum around it. You're like an oddity museum. Here's my tank dozer. It's like, you know, it's like the world's largest ball of yarn. World's largest frying pan. And the little dozer that could. So it was removed, torn down to bits and pieces and melted for scrap. The incident had on the Americans at that time was interesting. Many Americans viewed Marvin as like a bit of a legend. Like, he kind of he came kind of like the poster child of the Republicans. Like a guy that's not afraid to stick it to the man. He was kind of an underdog character. Right. One little guy against this massive machination of a government agency bent on control and destruction of people's free will. And and it seems as though that Marvin could make a comeback in this day and age. Like, if there was another one that took place, I feel like he would be well-received by a great deal of people out there that are kind of conspiratorial. So who knows what the next summer or Marvin will do or what that act will look like or what will be his M.O.. But that's, you know, that's going to be a story for another day when that actually happens and we can add it to the podcast. So I got a bunch of pictures here. We will get these loaded up on the website. I'll quickly go over because I think, Kara, you are like taping your eyes open. Be sure to be sure to check us out on Instagram. Be sure to head to our. Head to our Web site. The day is dumpster fire. NBC.com. We are doing some updating on it, but yeah, go check it out there. You'll see a lot of Kara's work. We have some further descriptions and more background information on our dumpster fires. You can also shoot us an email at the dumpster fire at gmail.com. Be sure to take some time, Do a little homework. Find people who listen to podcasts and get them on to the show. And if you're not sure if you listen to podcasts, then teach them, especially the best people to talk to about like podcasting or people with long commutes. Maybe my brother's brother in law is in town. You know, he's flying all over the country, gone to like seminars and training courses and whatnot. And he's always listening to podcasts. He's the perfect candidate. And he's real big into history and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, don't be afraid to look at your loved ones and be like, you know what? You could probably benefit from this podcast. You could really take a lot out of this, especially if you've got people self-esteem issues, if they're worried that they're going to make one little mistake and then everything is going to fall apart. We have a podcast that really goes into great detail of people that had it way, way worse, right? It's not every day that somebody sinks like half the British Navy in one day like that is a career ending dumpster fire. So go out there, find people that like to listen to podcasts or could benefit from it and yeah, send them our way. So that's all I got. Kara, do you have anything you want to add to my spiel? Yeah, it is. It's like almost midnight right now, which is like 8 hours past your bedtime, so. Yeah. Yep. Hope you guys enjoyed it. And until next time, I say, keep it hot mess.