Booby traps may seem like pure Hollywood fantasy, but in reality they’ve turned deadly for the very people who set them. In this roundup, we explore 10 people killed or injured by the booby traps they themselves rigged, proving that sometimes the hunter becomes the hunted.
How 10 People Killed Themselves With Homemade Traps
10 Louis Dethy
In 2002, Belgian authorities answered a call about a possible suicide at a Charleroi residence. The 79‑year‑old victim, Louis Dethy, was initially thought to have taken his own life by shooting himself in the neck, only to bleed out before help could arrive. The truth emerged later: Dethy had fallen prey to a lethal contraption he himself had installed inside his three‑story home.
His motive was as twisted as it was tragic. After a bitter divorce from his wife—who left him with fourteen children and thirty‑seven grandchildren—Dethy’s rage boiled over. The final straw came when his mother bequeathed the land to an estranged daughter, leaving Dethy with a house he technically owned but no claim to the surrounding property.
In a fit of vengeful engineering, Dethy transformed his house into a death‑trap arena, rigging it with an arsenal of shotguns, a towering stack of fragile plates, and even an explosive crate of beer. The goal? To ensure no one could claim his home without paying a deadly price.
When police finally breached the property, a wooden chest triggered one of the hidden shotguns, sending a blast that missed the responding officer by mere centimeters. Military engineers spent three painstaking weeks locating and neutralising a total of nineteen concealed devices. Dethy had hinted at a twentieth trap, but it was never uncovered, leaving the mystery of the missing weapon forever unsolved.
9 Julius Jackson
November 1986 found Houston officers responding to a gunshot incident at a suburban home. Outside the front door they discovered Julius Jackson, a middle‑aged man, with a painful wound to his left leg. Jackson warned the officers not to enter, but the house itself was a maze of hidden firearms, and the wounded homeowner had, unknowingly, become a casualty of his own scheme.
Jackson’s crusade against burglary was born of desperation. Over a five‑year span, his residence had been hit by ten separate robberies, prompting him to install a network of shotgun traps aimed at the knees of any intruder daring enough to cross his threshold.
After being rushed to the hospital in critical condition, a bomb squad was dispatched to disarm the remaining weapons. While officials never disclosed the exact count of traps, Jackson’s ex‑wife confirmed he once boasted about having a shotgun positioned in every single room of the house.
8 Ernest Michelberger
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
In 2015, a gruesome scene unfolded in Savannah, Georgia, when Ernest Gaylord Michelberger was literally split in two by a chainsaw that he had secretly mounted inside his own residence. The incident resembled a horror‑film climax, yet it was an all‑too‑real consequence of his own defensive contraptions.
According to Michelberger’s son, Gunner, his father had fortified his property with two roaring chainsaws and several firearms, fearing that newcomers to the neighborhood might attempt a burglary. Before any thieves could arrive, the older Michelberger inadvertently activated one of the chainsaws, which sliced him cleanly at the waist, leaving a tragic, half‑body tableau.
7 Edwin Smith
October 2018 saw 68‑year‑old Edwin Cleve dialing 911 from his North Carolina home, calmly reporting, “I just blew my arm off,” after a self‑made shotgun trap detonated and wounded his arm. The incident occurred while Smith was feeding squirrels through his back door, a routine that turned fatal.
A man—believed to be a Cleveland County sheriff’s deputy—rushed to Smith’s aid, applying a tourniquet that stopped the bleeding and likely saved his life. In the frantic 911 call, Smith could be heard exclaiming, “F**king squirrels did me in, buddy,” a profanity‑laden lament that highlighted the bizarre chain of events.
6 Daniel Ricketts
In 2013, 50‑year‑old Daniel R. Ricketts met a grisly end on an illegal marijuana farm in Albany County, New York. While riding his quad bike, he crashed into a near‑indestructible piano wire that he himself had strung between two thriving cannabis plants, a security measure meant to slice any would‑be intruder.
Piano wire, though seemingly innocuous, possesses a tensile strength capable of acting like a razor‑sharp sword. Coupled with Ricketts’ probable high speed on the quad, the wire became a lethal guillotine, catching his neck, hurling him from the bike, and nearly severing his head from his body.
Ironically, Ricketts had installed the wire to protect his stash from opportunistic thieves, rival growers, and possibly law‑enforcement officers. The deadly loop, designed to be a deterrent, instead became the instrument of his own demise.
Police reports indicated that Ricketts was intoxicated at the time of the accident. A thorough sweep of the farm also uncovered additional leg traps and barbed‑wire barricades, underscoring the extent of his self‑imposed security network.
5 Ronald Cyr
Thanksgiving 2019 turned tragic for 65‑year‑old Ronald Cyr of Van Buren, Maine. After calling 911, emergency personnel arrived to find Cyr mortally wounded by a gunshot fired from within his own front door.
Investigation revealed that Cyr had affixed a firearm to the door, intending it to discharge upon the approach of any perceived intruder. The Van Buren Police Department shared the grim detail on Facebook, noting that while the trap was meant for outsiders, it ultimately claimed the life of its creator.
4 Langley Collyer
The infamous Collyer brothers—Homer, blind and bedridden, and his younger sibling Langley, his caretaker—inhabited a Harlem loft that became a grotesque labyrinth of booby traps and a staggering twelve‑ton accumulation of junk.
After Homer’s blindness, the brothers retreated from society, with Langley sealing windows and venturing out only under the cover of night to scavenge food and random finds. He hoarded these items inside their home until the space resembled a towering landfill, complete with a maze of traps designed to deter nosy neighbors and new residents.
Langley’s defensive measures extended to feeding his brother a hundred oranges weekly, hoping—naïvely—that the citrus would restore Homer’s sight. He also preserved newspapers, believing that once Homer could see, he would be able to read them.
The tragic climax arrived when a tunnel, rigged with a concealed trap, collapsed while Langley was delivering dinner to Homer. The collapse crushed Langley, and the already weakened Homer later succumbed to starvation, both victims of their own self‑imposed fortress.
Police became aware of the situation in March 1947 after a neighbor complained about a foul odor emanating from the residence. While Homer’s body was located promptly, Langley’s disappearance sparked rumors of flight. A subsequent manhunt turned up nothing until authorities discovered Langley’s half‑decomposed remains ten feet from Homer, trapped within the very tunnel meant to protect them.
3 Unnamed Man
On September 17, 2017, firefighters from the Tubac Fire Department responded to an explosion at an empty house in Amado, Arizona. Inside, they rescued a man who had been injured by the blast and rushed him to a nearby hospital.
Further investigation revealed that the injured individual was the property’s owner, who, together with a friend, had been constructing a pipe bomb intended to safeguard the building. The motive behind the protection remains unclear, but the premature detonation of the device resulted in the man’s injuries.
2 Unnamed Man
In 2018, residents of a Tomball, Texas neighborhood dialed 911 after hearing gunfire emanating from a nearby home. Concerned about a potential barricaded shooter, deputies from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office arrived to find a 73‑year‑old homeowner outside, bleeding from wounds to his right abdomen.
The elderly man warned officers, “There’s danger in the home.” When a deputy attempted entry, a sudden gunshot forced a rapid retreat. Subsequent SWAT deployment uncovered no shooter, only a booby‑trapped explosive system the homeowner had set up to deter burglars.
The trap comprised small metal fragments and shotgun shells, detonating upon activation and creating a lethal spray of shrapnel. The homeowner’s intention was to protect his property, yet he ultimately became the sole victim of his own defensive contraption.
1 Jos Potvin
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
In October 2010, police discovered the lifeless body of 75‑year‑old Jos Lawrence Potvin inside his Levis, Quebec City home. Initially ruled a suicide due to a gunshot wound, the investigation later uncovered a far more bizarre scenario: Potvin had been killed by his own booby‑trap.
Prior to his death, Potvin had expressed concerns to authorities about persistent burglaries targeting his residence, though no concrete evidence of attempted theft ever materialized. Undeterred, he devised a defensive mechanism—a shotgun rigged to fire when a string stretched across his bedroom floor was disturbed.
Tragically, Potvin himself stepped on the trigger string, activating the shotgun and succumbing instantly to the fatal blast. The incident serves as a grim reminder that over‑engineered security can sometimes backfire in the most lethal way.
Police records confirm that the shotgun was fixed to the bedroom door, set to discharge upon tension release. Potvin’s death was ultimately classified as an accidental homicide caused by his own over‑zealous attempt at self‑protection.