http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne … -trap.htmlA reclusive pensioner who booby-trapped his home with the intention of killing his estranged family, died himself when he inadvertently triggered one of his own devices, Belgian police revealed last week.
Louis Dethy, a retired engineer, had hidden a number of booby-traps in walls, ceilings and household objects throughout his three-storey home in what appeared to be a final revenge on the children and grandchildren he claimed had abandoned him.
At first Belgian police assumed that the 79-year-old had committed suicide and bled to death from a gunshot wound to the neck after finding him at his home near the town of Charlerois.
It was an assumption which nearly cost one detective his life as he searched the house and opened a booby-trapped wooden chest. A shotgun hidden inside went off, missing the policeman by inches.
The detectives beat a hasty retreat and called in military mine-clearance experts who, after unravelling a series of enigmatic clues left in the engineer's scribbled notes, uncovered a total of 19 death traps, among them an apparently harmless but lethal pile of dinner plates, the television and even an exploding crate of beer.
Crazy Belgians.
