An interesting development in the Granby bulldozer case, from the Omaha World Herald:

June 19th, 2004 -- In the eight days before he tore through a Colorado mountain town's buildings and trees in an armored bulldozer, Marvin Heemeyer parked his truck at Omaha's Eppley Airfield and rented a van.

The connection to Omaha and the contents of Heemeyer's truck came to light Friday in an interview and court documents obtained by The World-Herald. Authorities in Colorado couldn't be reached for comment. Omaha police detectives searching Heemeyer's truck last week also found pages torn from a phone book and a hand-written note, according to court records.The connection to Omaha was made through a rental car with Nebraska license plates that authorities found at Heemeyer's business after the rampage, said Eppley Police Chief Gary Shillito. Omaha police became involved in the investigation on June 9. In Colorado, a Grand County Sheriff's Office deputy contacted a detective in the Omaha Police Department's homicide unit about Heemeyer's truck being found at Eppley.

Items seized by Omaha police include a disposable camera, a checkbook, a hand-written note, four pages from a phone book, Colorado vehicle registration card, one .22-caliber revolver, magazine for a .45-caliber handgun, one .50-caliber bullet, two bags of bullets, [and] five LC53 bullets.

He said Heemeyer had parked his 2002 GMC Sierra at the airport, then rented another vehicle to return to Colorado. According to a man interviewed by the Denver Post who worked in Heemeyer's building, Heemeyer may have used the rental van to move around town without being recognized. The deputy asked the Omaha detective to impound Heemeyer's truck for safekeeping and search it. It isn't known why Heemeyer chose Omaha or why he left his truck here with a wood-handled revolver, ammunition and a disposable camera inside, according to court documents.

So, why would Heemeyer end up leaving those items in the truck? Considering how meticulous he was in Colorado, it's odd he'd be so careless in Nebraska with traceable evidence like a checkbook, vehicle registration and a camera [not known if any exposed shots]. Is it possible he had a less-careful accomplice or friend? Curiouser and curiouser...

Records showed the pickup had been in Omaha since May 27, eight days before the rampage. "I don't know what his connection to Omaha is at all, unless he thought he was going to somehow get out of it, or he had someone going to take him there," Granby Town Manager Tom Hale told The Associated Press late Friday. "It gets stranger all the time," he said.

And, what happened to Heemeyer's body? Last we heard, the weekend of June 5-6 it was taken to Grand County for final autopsy, and the local coroner told news reporters no family members had come forward at that point to claim his remains. I can't find any reference to a funeral or burial, but I suspect it may have taken place in South Dakota, where Heemeyer was born and where some of the his relatives live.

On a related domestic-terror-meets-free-speech note, the Rocky Mountain News reports that Jefferson County, CO newspaper cartoonist/gadfly Mike Zinna received a surprise visit from "two FBI agents and a bomb-sniffing dog" after publishing a cartoon depicting a bulldozer tearing down a county building:

...[h]e thought the request was odd, but knowing he had nothing to hide, Michael Zinna told the [FBI] agent OK. He just wanted his lawyer to be present. The agent agreed. "Two agents show up! Five hours early!" Michael Zinna rages. "Trying to sandbag me! They say they've got more bad guys to catch, that they've got a bomb-sniffing dog on board, that they'll be in and out!" Bombs?

"I write a column!" Michael Zinna shouted at them. "You want to send in a dog on my a--? I thought this was America!"

The agents ultimately relented, and waited for the man's lawyer. They and the dog swept the place and found nothing. It has been reported that Jeffco officials contacted the FBI after receiving complaints about the cartoon. Michael Zinna says he filed an open-records request for the complaints, and that there were none. "They totally made it up," he says.

Shh. Nobody say a word.

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