Mantrap

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And they left it unoccupied for 10 years, and it was not inhabited old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, basically.

But they kept items of value apparently in there. Bertha Briny's grandparents and parents had lived in the house. After her parents died, Bertha Briny had wanted to keep things as they were down to the plates and silverware on the kitchen table. We're hearing about the brines and their farmhouse from retired ball professor Andrew McCleurck. People have repeatedly broken into this house.

According to the brines, in the decades since they inherited the house, it had been broken into 50 times. Ed Briny later said he'd nailed doors and windows shut, posted seven no trespassing signs around the property, and complained to sheriff's in two different counties over and over. But nothing seemed to work.

So they basically boarded up the windows and tin put tin over the windows to try to keep people from breaking in, but that was unsuccessful.

And that's when Ed Briny got out of shotgun.

“Because they were fed up as I think Mr. Briny, I think those were his words. They were just fed up with people breaking in.”

Ed and Bertha attached the shotgun to an iron bed frame and ran a wire from the gun's trigger to the bedroom door knob. So that if someone opened the bedroom door, the trigger would be pulled and the gun would go off. Originally, the barrel was aimed to hit the intruder in the stomach. Ed Briny, the husband, wired it in his wife. Mrs. Briny, that pyrogon of reasonable and they said she was suggested he lower it to just should then treat her in the leg. Was there any sign posted outside of the house saying no trespassing or gun on premises, you will be shot if you enter?

There were no trespassing signs that they had on the land for several years. Just regular no trespassing signs. There were no warnings that there was deadly trap inside. A booby trap. A booby trap. The population of Ed evil was around 1,000 people.

Its main street was two blocks long, and just off of it was a gas station owned by the Catco family. 28-year-old Marvin Catco worked there with his father. And he had an interest in collecting apparently jars and bottles that he considered to be valuable in teaks. And one day he broke into an abandoned, not abandoned, actually none inhabited farmhouse out in the country about seven miles away. Ed and birth the briny's farmhouse. Marvin had noticed the house over the years when he went hunting in the area.

It was surrounded by tall weeds. And some of the smaller buildings around the property were falling apart. According to court documents, Marvin had broken in once before with a friend to collect bottles. And they had decided to come back to see if there was anything they missed.

So they walked around the house until they found another window that was easier to get into. Even though it was boarded up too.

“So he removed a board or piece of tin and entered the house.”

Marvin's friends started looking around the kitchen, and Marvin headed for the bedroom. And when he pulled on the bedroom door, the shockman trapped went off and blew away a substantial portion of his leg.

What happened next led to a case that still taught to first-year law students, more than 50 years later.

I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal. After Marvin Catco was shot in the leg, the friend he'd broken into the farmhouse with helped him to the hospital. He spent 40 days there. He had to wear a cast for about a year. A brace for another year, and he lost two and a half inches of his leg. His doctor said he had seriously considered amputation.

When Marvin Catco recovered, while he was in the hospital, he was admitting that he had broken into another person's premises. What did he do?

Well, first absolutely he knew, and he knew it was wrong and criminal.

He was originally charged with a felony, but ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. Marvin pled guilty to larceny in the night time of property valued at less than 20 dollars. He was fined $50, and given a 60 day suspended sentence. And then, he filed a lawsuit against the owners of the house he'd broken into. Ed and birth a briny.

Marvin Catco's lawsuit alleged that Ed and birth a briny had shown "malice" an intent to harm by rigging the shotgun, that they meant for someone to get seriously hurt. Marvin Catco's lawyer told newspapers that he based his case on the theory that there was a big difference

between protecting your life and home, where you live, and protecting property,

and that you cannot use excessive force to protect property. Andrew McClurg says the case might have been very different if Ed and birth a briny lived in the farmhouse, and were there that night. But the house was vacant.

“It's very important, I think, because this is where people get it wrong.”

So the fact is, is that if this had been an occupied house, if somebody breaks into my house, I don't know the gun, but if I did, and somebody broke into my house, there's a very good likelihood that, especially at night, I could legally shoot them, because then I would be switching from the defense of property to self-defense, or if I had a family living there or the people living there defensive others.

So you can use deadly force often to protect yourself or other people, just not property. Ed and birth the briny's lawyer argued that the wallhouse for property to be defended, with quote, "All the force necessary." And then he asked, "Who decides what is necessary?" Ed briny said he felt like he was being "tormented" by being robbed over and over again.

During the trial, his lawyer attempted to demonstrate how bad it feels to have your things taken by reaching into the jury box and grabbing the purse of one of the women on the jury. But in the end, Marvin Capco won. And not only does he win, he wins not just compensatory damages to compensate him for his injuries and medical expenses, but punitive damages, which are an add-on type of damage that is quite rare actually,

and designed to punish particularly egregious conduct. But they did not. They were not charged with any criminal crime. No. Today, it would be a crime in most states. Back then, it probably was not technically a crime.

“So what were the damages? Were you telling me that he was rewarded?”

They were $20,000 in actual compensatory damages and $10,000 in punitive damages, but it would actually be substantially more in today's dollars. And as a result, the brinies, and this was partly what really stirs up students, the brinies had to sell 80 acres of their farm to pay the judgment to the criminal

How do you're students? You've been teaching this case for a long time.

“How do your students react to this case?”

So what usually happens is people will usually speak up in favor of the court's decision that is, in favor of Marvin Catco winning, that you shouldn't be able to use deadly booby traps. So I have to kind of play along with it and get, you know, grow out the people who don't want to come across as cold hearted or cold blood to start defending the brinies, but once they get going,

they really get going on it. And then somebody, I find somebody who is justiferously sticking up for the brinies.

And then I say, "How many people in here, because law school classes, first year classes

are pretty large, it might be 70, 80 people there." I say, "How many people in here have ever entered illegally, any kind of structure on somebody else's property when they were a kid,

“whether it's a shed or a barn or a band in the house,”

and almost every single person raises their hands." The brinies appealed the decision, and the case went to the IOS Supreme Court, but the court agreed with the original ruling, finding the brinies responsible. "But a lot of people in the town cited with the brinies." One paper reported that about 3,000 people had written to offer support to the brinies.

Mrs. Brinie was quoted as saying, "It's sort of a puzzling world, and that I didn't feel as if I was in the wrong. I was the one being harassed. What else was I going to do besides get a 24 hour guard?" Marvin Katko was quoted saying that some Eddieville residents no longer associated with him, but he said that the average person can see both sides of it.

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Up front payment of $45 for three month five gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full price plans options available. Taxes and fees extra. Seat mint mobile for details. Court have been hearing cases about people setting off what's called the spring gut and trap. A booby trap or sometimes a man trap for a long time.

So one of the most notable and earliest cases was a case from England in 1825. So almost 200 years ago called Bird versus Holbrook and the defendant Holbrook maintained. But we're apparently very valuable toolups that he grew about a mile from his house. He set up a booby trap with trip wires running across a few of the paths in the garden.

He set off the trip wires and was shot in the knee, then he sued the tulip gardener and one.

“So one of the problems with booby traps is their indiscriminate.”

They can't discern between a dangerous criminal and a 10 year old kid who's just out doing mischief. A 1986 case involved an electrified booby trap. A store owner who's stored been robbed multiple times, installed an electrified metal grate above his front door. When a man broke in through the ceiling, the rubber souls of his sneakers protected him.

But he touched the metal grate as he tried to climb out and was killed. The store owner was arrested and charged with manslaughter. He said, "I didn't mean for anyone to be killed. I just wanted to shock him and warn him."

“His store had been robbed six times in the past month alone and he said that the police hadn't done much about it.”

He said, "The police come by and fill out a report and put down that fingerprint dust,

and you'll be cleaning it up for two days after that, but they'll never even call you."

A grand jury voted to release him. "In these are all cases involving people who are fed up with people breaking into their property, so it's not like that was their first idea to set up deadly booby trap." In 1974, a man named AC Wade owned a liquor store in Cordiel, Georgia. He also owned a cigarette vending machine just outside of the store.

Apparently he had had trouble with people coming and rattling his machine and it would sling out either cigarette, packages or money or change out of the cup that held the money. It was an early type of machine, so it was not very sophisticated.

So he began to make it sophisticated by he put a third of stick of dynamite connected to a micro switch,

so that if it was disturbed in any significant manner, it would ignite the dynamite stick. So it's quite a crude fault. But if you were to shake the machine so much it would whatever the charge would be set off. "That's correct." Attorney David Rainwater

And this machine was sitting out front of the liquor store, so it was exposed to 24-hour use. AC Wade, the liquor store owner, said his machine had been broken in two five times, and that he'd put in the dynamite to try to scare off potential thieves. He said the solution was to sacrifice the machine.

“It was the only thing I could come up with.”

He had not attempted to see what the amount of force would be, but it'd be a killing force or would it just be a scaring tactic. But I think the third stick of dynamite is a significant force, and of course they turned out to be a deadly force. Just after midnight on August 23, 1974, a 16-year-old boy named Robert Joel McKinsey and his 15-year-old friend reportedly tried to pry open the machine with the tire tool.

The dynamite went off and the machine exploded. Both of the boys were hurt. Papers reported that the 15-year-old left the scene to seek medical help, leaving his friend behind. He was eventually questioned by police, and brought the deputies back to the liquor store. Robert Joel McKinsey was still at the scene very badly injured.

His leg had been hit by a piece of metal from the machine during the explosion, and an artery in his thigh was severed. He died shortly after he was taken to the hospital. A.C. Wade said that he felt terrible and cooperated with police from the start. He admitted everything.

He admitted that it was rigged as a mantra. He didn't boast about it, but he actually felt that he had done nothing wrong. He told papers, "I gave it lots of consideration.

I never activated it until after hours.

He had to be breaking in.

“I figured it would knock them down on the pavement."”

He said, "You just never think of everything.

And that some people had been sympathetic to his position. But he said, "In lots of people's minds, I'm a villain." The county sheriff said he wasn't planning to file charges, because he said he, "nose of nothing illegal." A.C. Wade had done.

The sheriff said the death was accidental. He said the dynamite itself wasn't powerful enough to kill someone. In that Robert Joel McKinsey had died, because a piece of the machine had come off and cut his leg. And he bled to death.

Nobody was willing to. Prosecutes this man for doing this. And so we then filed a civil suit. David Rainwater represented Robert Joel McKinsey's mother. One of her relatives insisted that she talked to a lawyer

to the one right for her.

The son to be killed over stealing quarters, which is basically what it was.

“You might remember back then the machines were not sophisticated enough”

to take dollar bills. So it's just quarters. A.C. Wade estimated there had been, quote, four or five dollars in the machine. David Rainwater thought Robert Joel McKinsey's mother had a good case.

The wrongful death statute number one did not limit it to noncriminals. It applied to everybody. It didn't matter what your conduct was. Even if you were a trespasser,

even if you were a criminal, you still could use the wrongful death statute to collect damages from somebody that had a willful and wanton intent. He knew he expected the trespasser to come back.

He laid a trap for him. You know, and at least in Georgia, you don't owe a trespasser any duty. Except not to leave a man trap for him. That's the way our law is written.

The defense kept saying, "Well, we had no intent to kill him.

“We were just trying to protect our property,”

trying to scare him and whatever, but that wasn't good enough, because the law held at any time that your conduct is willful or wanton intent is inferred."

A.C. Wade was found liable. The judge wrote, "He hadn't abandoned and malignant heart. He said a death trap would dynamite,

never testing it to determine

how many innocent persons might be killed if within 100 to 200 yards of it. And thus sought to protect his several dollars in the vending machine. He had a conscious indifference to consequences.

A.C. Wade was ordered to pay a small settlement to Robert Joel McKinsey's mother. How did people react in town to the events and the decision? Very negatively.

They couldn't believe you could... somebody could collect. It was in the process of stealing from you. So they did. They weren't showing outward sympathy

for what had happened to the 16-year-old. No. Not at all. David says that people in town thought of Robert Joel McKinsey as a thief. He was a criminal.

What happened to him was, you know, irrelevant. He was in the process of committing a crime. And there are people out there that still believe that property

and the right to enjoy is the highest right you have. But that's not exactly true. In this case, really illustrated that even a criminal in the state of Georgia

can recover for damages if he was injured or killed as a result of a mantra. We'll be right back.

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“So much more wisdom and you get so much more experience”

that you actually feel like you're beginning again. Check out pretty tough new episodes on Wednesdays you can watch it on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app. Oh my back was a good soul.

This is Phil Kahnahan. In the late '80s, he was living in Denver, Colorado. He had a construction firm and did building repairs for a living. And he stored all of his equipment in tools in a warehouse

in a non-residential part of town. Well, I had, I kept my snow plow in there and my service truck that had all my carpenter tools in it and it had all my concrete tools in it

and my roofing equipment in it and all my hand tools, my mechanic tools that I repaired all my equipment.

“I've done mechanical work most of my life.”

So everything you needed to do your job was in that warehouse. Absolutely. One day, Phil decided to take a road trip into the mountains.

I had a little MJ car whether it was perfect

and top down it's incredible driving

through the mountains in a convertible, a little convertible. And I stopped by the warehouse just to have a look it was a Sunday and I saw that my back door had been broken into

and that's when it started. When you walked in, what did you see? I saw that I was doing a welding job and I had it all laid out, had all my equipment there and every piece of my welding equipment

was gone. That job just came to a halt. And you kind of imagine the feeling of, you know, your stomach just falls. It was awful.

What did you do when you saw that all of your things are missing? Well, I called the police and I repaired the door. I reinforced it as best I could.

And I just built a new padlock system for it. And that was the best I could do. And cops got there. Looked everything over and took the report.

That was it. It wasn't maybe two or three Sundays after that. I got there and found out that the founder door was smashed in again.

More of my equipment was gone. Were you surprised that it happened again? Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. I thought, you know, one time deal. But, you know, it was just a start of many.

After about the second or the third, I got used to it.

I didn't know what to do. I can't remember how many times it came through that back door. Until I finally rebuilt the door

and then I backed it up with more wood.

And the next time I got there to work,

“he had taken a hatchet or an axe or a claw hammer”

or something and tried to break in and he absolutely just shattered the wooden door until he came to that piece of metal. And he didn't have any way to get through that metal. Phil says he'd set up an alarm

that would call 911 when it was tripped. But he says whoever was breaking in somehow new to turn off the electricity. He says that each time he saw that there had been a break in,

he called the police and made a report.

Eventually he was calling them so much that they asked him to just mail them a list of the items that were stolen. The place was so off the beaten path that

“they just couldn't seem to get a patrol car”

to go down in there and check the place. They were too busy where there was business and people and cars and so forth, you know? A columnist at the Denver Post wrote an article about all the robberies.

And some readers felt so bad for Phil Khanahan that they sent him money and replacement tools. It didn't take long though for those donated tools to be stolen too. Phil Khanahan says that he had no idea who was doing this. But he was incredible.

He was an incredible mechanic getting into things.

He, the final, the thing that broke my back was the fact that I had rebuilt the back door to where he couldn't get in that way anymore. And so he tied his vehicle to my front door and pulled the front of the building down

to get in. And then he took everything he wanted at trip, I guess. I thought, "I can't get any help." I figured out Conan. I remember getting that shotgun

and going that back to the back room and setting on that stool and putting it all together and testing it, make sure that it was going to work. And I ran a trip wire about foot off the floor and then loading it and getting it ready to do his job.

I didn't really plan on it. I just did it.

“I guess it was the only thing that I thought would catch him.”

Were you worried about it shooting the wrong person and someone who wasn't doing anything wrong might get hurt? Never did. He and I were the only one to ever went back in that room. But one day it reasoned for anybody else to go in there.

They couldn't get in there. How did you hear that something had happened? It was Easter. Easter morning. And I had worked to put the front of the building back together.

And I got my little empty and headed for Kansas City and was going to spend Easter with some friends over there. And we were friends farm and telephone rang and they said it was for me. It was my daughter.

She told me that he was with the police and they wanted to talk to me. And I don't know if you've ever had dry mouth but I almost died of dry mouth that day. It was awful.

And police got on the phone and one of I was filled kind of hand. I said, "Yeah." They said, "Well, work your warehouse and it's been a problem." To the police tell you anything, what did you learn it happened?

You know, what division are you with?

And he'd say Denver Police Department. And I said, "No, you know what? What division are you with?" And he finally said, he said, "I'm with homicide."

That's when I became undone. Because I knew then. Four people had broken into the warehouse the night before. One of them, a 19-year-old, set off the shotgun and was killed. His three companions ran away.

Police waited until the morning to go inside the building and retrieved the body because they were afraid of another booby trap going off.

And they were searching for me. They charged me a first-degree murder.

And I hit out several places in Kansas. And finally, I realized I was going to have to face up to what was going on over there. As soon as I got back, I called the police and told them, told them I was in town, what I needed to do.

And they told me just to come down to police headquarters

“and turn myself in and that'd be the best thing.”

So that's what I did. The owner of a restaurant near Phil's warehouse told reporters that the victim had terrorized the area and that he was a skinhead with a visible tattoo that said, "White Pride." The restaurant owner said,

"If I would have faced a situation where I asked and asked and couldn't get help, I would have done the same thing to protect my property." Business owners in the area started putting up signs, saying their buildings were booby trap too. One of them burned down because firefighters refused enter it

until they could determine that it was safe. Phil pled guilty to manslaughter. He was fine $2,500 placed on probation for six years in order to pay $7,000 to the family of the victim. You know, the punishment I got was really nothing compared

with taking a life, you know, I realized that. I just did it to put a stop to it.

I never thought about killing anybody.

I don't know why. I guess maybe I'd blocked that part out as a way of justifying what I did.

“Did you ever see the family of the person who was killed?”

Never did. You never heard from them. Nope, not a word. What would you say to them if you could talk to them? Oh, they're not sorry.

I hurt their son. I killed him. [music] Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me. Nina Wilson is our senior producer.

Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sedgico, Lily Clark, Lena Selson, and Megan Kineen. This episode was originally mixed by Rob Byers.

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