A U.S. Forest Service Officer on foot patrol along a popular trail in Utah made a shocking discovery last week. A couple of crazy men rigged the entrances to a rudimentary shelter with booby traps. People could have died.


According to the Utah Country Sheriff's Office:

On April 16, 2012, U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer James Schoeffler was on foot patrol in this area when he came across one of these shelters. This particular shelter is known locally as "The Fort". Because of his time in the military Officer Schoeffler has extensive experience with identifying booby trap devices. As he investigated the shelter he noticed what appeared to be a trip wire near the ground at an entrance. Upon further investigation he discovered that the trip wire led to a booby trap device which was made with a large rock, sticks sharpened at both ends, and was held together with rope. This device was situated in such a way that when contact was made with the trip wire it would swing toward an unsuspecting hiker or camper. It was hung where it would most likely swing to and hit the head or face of the hiker or camper. In a second entrance to the shelter Officer Schoeffler found a second trip wire. This wire was configured so as to trip a person, possibly causing them to fall forward onto sharpened sticks placed in the ground.


Using Facebook, Officer Shoeffler and the Utah Country Sherrif's Office were able to identify Benjamin Steven Rutkowski, 19, and Kai Matthew Christensen, 21, as the guys behind the traps. Based on the evidence discovered, it looks like they weren't even done rigging traps. They had plans to do way more.

We'll ignore the fact that in Utah it's not weird to discover rudimentary, survivalist forts while wandering around in the woods, and cut right to the chase here. These two men were clearly trying to really screw up someone's day the next time they visited The Fort. Maybe they had a grudge against someone or something, but according to reports, little kids and families frequent the area. Imagine a little kid getting nailed by that spiked ball. Horrible. These guys are batshit. [Fox 13 via NY Daily News]

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Images courtesy of the Utah Country Sheriff's Office

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