Mark Hopkinson had been released from a marijuana possession charge in 1975. He came back to find his father in a dispute over water and land rights with the neighboring Roitz family. Mark and his father even beat up Frank Roitz and his pregnant daughter, but after a prosecutor that was chummy with Mark declined to press charges, the father and daughter turned to Vincent Vehar, an attorney that would become a thorn in the side of the Hopkinson family. Mark devised a plan to eliminate him and the lawsuit against him, as this involved a bomb that leveled the entire house and killed 3 people. Now that the police were closing in on Mark and his crew, the desperation to save his own skin led Mark to take some extreme measures.