Mystery Unsolved Inc True Crime

Killdozer

"Kel Dozovic was average everyday American living in Granby, Colorado. He worked hard as a welder at his muffler repair shop so that he could put food on the table and live a good life. His friends all described him as a very likable person and his own brother said that he was the type of guy who would bend over backwards to help people out."

"In 1992, Kel purchased two acres of land for forty-two thousand dollars so that he could build his muffler shop, which he did. He was then approached by a family who wanted to buy his land from him so that they could build a concrete plant, and they offered them two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the land. Dozovic went back and forth with the family, and Dozovic kept increasing the price to try and see if he could get more money, until eventually the deal completely fell through so the family sought to have the land around Kel's muffler shop rezoned so that they could build a concrete plant. Kel was included in the rezoning discussion at the very start of the process so that he could make sure his interests were protected, but regardless of anything that Kel said, the rezoning application was granted anyway. What Kel didn't know is that the piece of land that got chosen to build the concrete plant was a piece of land just adjacent to has muffler shop that he and his customers actually used to access the shop. Kel petition to the Zoning Commission again, so that the concrete plant couldn't be built there. However, despite several petitions, all of them were rejected and construction of the concrete plant went ahead anyway, essentially blocking off access to Kel's shop."

"Kel then decided that he would use another bit of land next to his shop to build a road so that people could actually access his shop, so he went about buying all the materials that he would need such as asphalt, concrete, shovels, tools, materials, and a bulldozer."

"Once Kel had got all the materials they needed to construct the road, he then petition to the city for permission to build the road, so that people could actually access his shop. The city refused his request, meaning there was no easy way for customers or even himself to access his shop, so his business was now at risk. To make matters even worse, Kel's water and sewer lines were actually running under the piece of land that the concrete plant was being built on, so during construction of the concrete plant, Kel's sewer lines and water lines were cut off, so his muffler shop doesn't have any running water or sewage connection for months. Kel was then fined one thousand and five hundred dollars for not being connected to the sewer line, even though it wasn't his fault."

"Kel then tried to fix this by petitioning to have his old sewer line connected again because it was still there, under the ground. The only problem was it was under the ground on the concrete plant's property and they refused to give Kel permission to connect his own sewer line."

"Despite all of Kel's activism, the signatures he collected, the letters he wrote, the meetings he attended, all the government bodies that he contacted, the council, the Zoning Commission, and the concrete plant, all just stopped listening to him and replying to him completely and just abandoned him to his unfair fate."

"Kel felt the entire world was against him and it would really seem so because some of the stuff that happened to him was so extreme that a lot of people, to this day, believed that there was a lot of shady dealings going on between the concrete plant and the city council, and Kel even seemed to believe this himself. So Kel decided to start working on a new project, he took the old bulldozer that he bought to build that road, he gathered up all of his welding skills, and he got to work."

"His plan was to turn the bulldozer into an unstoppable and impenetrable fortress with all of the bells and whistles some serious planning went and in this contraption."

"What Kel set out to do first was create an almost sarcophagus that would cover the cabin, the engine, and part of the tracks. This was made out of composite armor that was made by pouring concrete in between thick metal plates, and in some places this armor was twelve inches thick. So that Kel could actually see where he was going, he mounted several cameras on the outside of the armor and each of these cameras was protected with three inches of bulletproof plastic and all of the cameras were rigged up to two monitors that Kel had installed in the dashboard of the bulldozer. Kel even thought so far ahead as to install compressed air nozzles next to the cameras so that they could blow away any dust and debris that would fall on to the cameras to make sure his vision was never blocked. Kel even installed onboard fans and an air conditioner to make sure that the cabin would stay nice and cool. He also installed three gun ports, one of them was for a 50 Cal rifle, another was for a 308 semi-automatic rifle, and the other one was for a 22lr rifle. And each of these gun ports was protected by one and a half inch thick steel plates. Kel documented the construction of the bulldozer by making audio recordings throughout the entire process."

"The way Kel had constructed the armored sarcophagus was so that it could be lowered down onto the bulldozer by a crane that he had also built himself inside his shop, but he constructed it in such a way that once the sarcophagus was placed over and the crane was disengaged, that was it. There was absolutely no way for Kel to get out, but, it also meant there was no way for anybody else to get in."

"It took him around a year and a half to build it, but it was never noticed. And Kel never got caught, despite the fact that people had actually visited his shop and seen the machine and all the materials that he was using to build it."

"Kel apparently believed that God clouded their judgment to protect him, Kel during this period was still trying to get the council and other people to listen to him, but none of them would. And 2004 was shaping up to be an awful year for Kel, his business was in ruins so he sold his land to a trash company and he was given six months to vacate, his father passed away, and he broke off his engagement because he caught his woman banging another man. Kel had quite simply had enough, and so on the 4th of June 2004, Kel wrote down a list of names of all of the people in the town who had wronged him. He hopped in his bulldozer, lowered the sarcophagus, disengaged the crane, and fired up the engine."

"And so began the Killdozer rampage, Kel just smashed through the wall of his own shop to get outside and then started driving around Granby destroying the businesses and properties of everyone who had ever wronged him. The main places he destroyed well the concrete plant, obviously, the town hall, a utility center, the offices of a newspaper that had lied about him, and the hardware store as well as several other properties that belong to people that had been against him. To cause further damage, Kel also used the guns that he'd installed in the Killdozer to shoot at propane tanks and electrical transformers. During the rampage, the family that owned the concrete plant tried to faced Kel head-on in a tractor scraper but Kel and his Killdozer just simply push him out the way. Naturally the cops turned up and they were completely armed to the teeth and they were just opening fire on the Killdozer but the Killdozer was completely impervious to small arms fire, so the cops' guns did absolutely nothing. A SWAT team followed closely behind the Killdozer, firing at anything that they thought could possibly be an opening to the inside. At one point they even managed to throw a flashbang grenade down the exhaust port of the Killdozer, but this had absolutely no effect. The sheriff then managed to climb on top of the Killdozer while it was moving to try and find an opening so that he could fire a bullet inside, but he ended up having a jump off for his own safety because he was at risk of being hit with rubble and debris. The situation was looking pretty bleak, nothing the cops did could slow this thing down. So the governor actually considered contacting the National Guard to get them to fly in with an Apache helicopter to take out the Killdozer with Hellfire missiles or at the very least take it out with a javelin anti-tank missile. These plans were abandoned because it was decided that using military-grade heavy weaponry in a small Colorado town was probably bad optics. However, it all came to an end. When Kel was destroying a hardware store, the track on one side of the Killdozer actually broke through the floor and in the basement, and the Killdozer got stuck. The radiator was also heavily damaged and leaking fluid and the whole machine was starting to break down. So Kel was stuck, and the SWAT team surrounded the Kildozer. The SWAT team then said that they held a single gunshot coming from and saved the Killdozer, because Kel realizing that he was stuck and that there was no way, reached for a handgun that he had with him inside the Killdozer and took the easy way out. So it finally came to an end after Kel and his Killdozer caused seven million dollars worth of damage."

"The cops tried to get inside the Killdozer also using explosives but after the third failed attempt, they decided to finally cut through using an oxy acetylene torch, and eventually after many many hours, they managed to get inside the Killdozer and retrieve Kel's body. In 2005 the Town Council announced that it was going to scrap the Killdozer but all of the parts were going to be sent to various scrap yards all the way around the US to prevent people from stealing them as souvenirs. After that rampage, a lot of people vilified Kel and branded him as a lunatic, but other people ended up revering him, saying that he was a man that fought back against the state who had completely screwed him over, because despite the extent of the Killdozer rampage, no one died. Now whether it's a case of Kel was going out of his way to make sure he didn't kill anyone or if it was just blind luck that no one got killed, who knows."

"But that's just goes to show that anyone, even someone like Kel, has a breaking point. And it seemed that the government found out the hard way what happens when you mess with someone too much."