Have you ever heard of the man who tried to obliterate an entire town over a minor civil dispute?
Chances are you haven’t, but if you have, you’ll recognize him as ‘Killdozer’.
Marvin Heemeyer led an ordinary life in the small town of Granby, Colorado. He worked as a welder, specializing in the repair of car mufflers at a shop he had constructed himself.
Check out what happened below:
But something pushed him to his breaking point.
To understand this, we need to go back 23 years to 2001 – the same year the original iPod was launched and six years before the iPhone.
Adjacent to his small welding shop, on land he owned, the city had decided to zone the area for a large concrete plant.
This decision greatly upset Heemeyer, as he had been using the land for access to his business.
His frustration was evident, but people likely didn’t grasp just how deep it ran.
He filed a petition to stop this development, but it was dismissed by town hall officials.
So what did he do next?
He built a machine of destruction.
This plan didn’t materialize immediately – it was in 2003 that his resolve hardened.
After harboring resentment for two years, Heemeyer decided to act. He modified a bulldozer he had purchased a few years prior, originally intended to create an alternative route between his home and his shop.
Before unleashing his fury on the town, he fortified his bulldozer with armored plates, making it nearly invincible. He also installed two monitors inside his makeshift cockpit to allow him to navigate the seemingly unstoppable machine.
According to All That’s Interesting, he outfitted the bulldozer with three guns before sealing himself in the driver’s seat, rendering it impossible for him to exit.
This occurred on June 4, 2004, marking the beginning of his rampage.
Heemeyer began by dramatically driving through a wall of his shop and ramming straight into the concrete plant.
After demolishing that, he turned his attention to the town hall, plowing into it, then crashing into a newspaper office, a DIY shop, and several other buildings.
In total, he destroyed 13 buildings and caused nearly $7 million in damage over the span of two hours and seven minutes.
It eventually became clear that his targets were not chosen in a fit of blind rage; they were all related to the zoning committee.
He caused such extensive damage that the National Guard was preparing to intervene when Heemeyer accidentally got the bulldozer stuck in the basement of a hardware store.
At that point, he took his own life.
Amazingly, no one else lost their life during the incident.
Authorities later found multiple notes and tapes in his home that explained his motivations, and the bulldozer was eventually dismantled and sold for scrap.