Shot by his own front door: man killed after booby-trapping home

Police found several homemade devices to protect the 65-year old US man's home and called in explosive experts

The 65-year old man rigged his front door to a handgun that would shoot at anyone entering. Reuters, file

After rigging his home with booby-traps to keep out intruders, a 65-year old American man in Maine was killed by his own devices.

Ronald Cyr called the police and told them he had been shot but when officers arrived on the scene, they found that the front door rigged to a handgun aimed to shoot anyone who opened it.

Police in Van Buren, near the Canadian border, said they responded to an emergency call on Thanksgiving last Thursday and found a man with a gunshot wound. Cyr later died in hospital.

"Following an extensive investigation that lasted into the early morning... it was determined that Mr Cyr had been shot as the result of the unintentional discharge of one of his homemade devices," the police department said in a Facebook post.

“Officers discovered that the front door of the residence had been outfitted with a device designed to fire a handgun should anyone attempt to enter the door. Other unknown devices were also discovered alarming investigators to contact the Maine State Police Bomb Squad,” the post added.

The statement added that after an extensive investigation, authorities determined that Cyr “had been shot as the result of the unintentional discharge of one of his homemade devices.”

While it is illegal to booby-trap your home in the United States, there are numerous reports every year of injuries and deaths as a result of Jury-rigged defence devices.