Anti-Theft Device Backfires Big-Time

trap links to original article

(Hürriyet Newspaper, 31 May 2011)

Musa Göçmez (80), a retired mechanical engineer who lives in
Germany, set up a device using a pump-action rifle to trap would-be
thieves at his summer house in the town of Güre in Edremit district of
Balıkesir province. Göçmez positioned the electrically-based system
on the landing of a staircase in front of the room where his steel case
was located on the top floor of the house. The system was arranged
such that when someone stepped on the doormat at the house's
entrance the rifle would fire at the entrance.

However, Göçmez, who arrived at the summer house for a vacation
the other day with his wife Emmy Elze Göçmez (75), became the victim
of his own trap. When the couple stepped on the doormat the rifle
fired eight bullets, five of them striking Göçmez and three hitting his
wife. Both of them died at the scene.

It was determined that Göçmez had forgotten to shut down the circuit
breakers as necessary to cut off the electricity to the device. It was
learned, as well, that the unlucky couple had argued with their neighbors
about the device.