Posted on 04/26/2012 12:10:43 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
LAS VEGAS - In a case that stunned authorities with its ruthlessness, two Utah men have been arrested in connection with a pair of deadly booby traps along a popular hiking trail outside Provo.
LAS VEGAS - In a case that stunned authorities with its ruthlessness, two Utah men have been arrested in connection with a pair of deadly booby traps along a popular hiking trail outside Provo.
One of the traps featured a tripwire meant to send a 20-pound spiked boulder swinging into an unsuspecting victim. The other was designed to trip a passerby into a bed of sharpened wooden stakes.
The suspects, Benjamin Steven Rutkowski, 19, and Kai Matthew Christensen, 21, were arrested last weekend on suspicion of misdemeanor reckless endangerment and have been released on bail. They told investigators the traps were intended for wildlife.
But authorities discounted that explanation.
“When you look at those things, you just get chills down your spine,” Utah County sheriff's Sgt. Spencer Cannon said. “One sends a rock the size of a football speeding at your head. The other is even more nightmarish. Walk into that trap and either you get the worst headache of your life or a stick through your eye.”
He added: “There's no question these traps were set for humans and that these suspects knew their deadly potential.”
The booby traps were set at entrances to a popular makeshift wooden shelter used by local hikers as a sleepover and campfire site, Cannon said. The traps took time and energy to erect, he said, and involved rope and heavy-duty fishing line along with rocks and sticks.
The traps were discovered earlier this month by James Schoeffler of the U.S. Forest Service, an officer with military training in Iraq and Afghanistan who was patrolling Big Springs Trail in Provo Canyon outside the city of Provo.
He noticed the tripwires not far from a popular trail head and suspected they were designed to catch hikers walking in the dark, Cannon said. “He has experience ... that told him something didn't look right,” he said.
Said Schoeffler in an interview Wednesday: “There was a large children's birthday party that day and there were kids running up and down the trail. ... The possibility of one of them finding the fort (and setting off the trip wires) was a very real possibility.”
Schoeffler disabled the traps after taking photos and video of the site. He said that the traps lacked in sophistication, but were deadly nonetheless: “They were extremely rudimentary, but it works.”
Cannon said investigators received a tip from a local hiker who told authorities the men had posted comments on Facebook.
“This area was popular with families, children, people out to have a good time, and look what awaited them,” Cannon said. “These two suspects tried to convince me that these traps really didn't have risk to people, but I don't buy it.”
Misdemeanor?????
Look at the ear lobes on the long-haired guy.
God!!!
just kill them now, why waste taxpayer dollars on prison space/time for Leopold and (ear)Lobe here..
Thank goodness for stupidity. What's up with elf-boy's ears?
WTH is up with that first guy’s ears?
His cellmate will have a great time holding on to those grip holes in his ears.
It’s those stupid discs that are all the rage among brain-dead idiots like the one pictured - I see them in the high schools all the time, the kids are supposed to graduate to larger and larger discs until their ear lobes are completely stretched out. Unbelievably popular right now.
With that said, I could hardly stand to read this story —I thought maybe it was marijuana growers in the national parks trying to protect their stash, not idiots who think maiming or killing someone is the height of hilarity.
I walk on trails like that all the time with my dogs.
Time to arm myself and be extra careful.
Ears have holes to put hardware in them. Ace is the place!
They do/ did this in Borneo — plates-in-lips, larger and larger, until the lip is totally stretched out. NOT in sophisticated urban areas, needless to say.
“just kill them now, why waste taxpayer dollars on prison space/time for Leopold and (ear)Lobe here..”
Agreed. We are overpopulated in this country alone and let’s start with the liberals, so they may join their beloved Mother Gaia as fertilizer.
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I'm more of the 2 accounts of Attempted Manslaughter. This should easily rise to the level of a Felony.
Bluntly, it's nothing short of terrorism.
I would guess Earth First types
Probably because that is what it is.
Spock is that you? Yes Jim.
While on your vacation, remember how much you’re loved by the locals in the West. ;-)
I hike 5-10 miles a week and have for about twenty years. I used to carry in case I ran into dangerous critters but it’s people I’ve run into that cause me to be glad I’m armed. Once about three miles into a five mile lloop trail I and a buddy encountered a guy in street shoes who looked like he had slept in his clothes for a few days. He made brief eye contact and looked us over but I guess he decided two guys each over six feet tall and 200 lbs might be more than he could handle.
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