Man ‘ashamed’ after trying to kill someone with forklift, officials say

MOHAVE VALLEY, Ariz. (Arizona’s Family/Gray News) — A man is in critical condition after he was pinned underneath a forklift weighing thousands of pounds in Arizona.

Officials said he was found because the suspect who allegedly put him there brought deputies to the scene of the crime.

It happened Thursday night in Mohave Valley in western Arizona. According to the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, deputies met with a man at a business shortly after 10 p.m. He reportedly looked distressed and then told deputies he had done something wrong and was ashamed of it.

He explained to deputies that he had lowered a forklift onto a man and that he wasn’t sure if he was dead.

They said he agreed to take deputies to the home, where they found a man pinned. Emergency crews pulled the machinery off of him, and he was flown to a Las Vegas hospital where he was listed in critical but stable condition Friday morning.

The suspect, identified as 36-year-old Erwin Colato of California City, California, told detectives he first attacked the man in a travel trailer inside the home’s garage. They said he admitted to dragging the man onto the garage floor and lowering the forklift on top of him.

He reportedly told detectives his plan was to kill the other man.

Colato was booked into jail where he’s facing one count of felony attempted homicide. The victim’s identity has not been released.