Mantrap

Summary

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Summary of Criminal – "Mantrap" (May 22, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this episode of Criminal, host Phoebe Judge explores the controversial and tragic history of "mantraps"—booby traps set by frustrated property owners to deter or harm intruders. Examining landmark legal cases, both historical and recent, the episode delves into questions of property rights, the limits of self-defense, and the human cost when "protection" goes too far. Using expert insight and first-person accounts, including interviews with lawyers, professors, and a man who set a fatal trap himself, the story challenges listeners to consider: How far is too far in defending property?

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Briney Farmhouse Case: Setting a Deadly Trap (01:09–09:59)

• In 1957, Ed and Bertha Briney inherited an old, uninhabited farmhouse in rural Iowa, which was repeatedly burglarized for over a decade, despite their best efforts to secure it.
• Frustrated by the lack of police help, Ed Briney rigged a shotgun to go off if the bedroom door was opened. Though originally aimed fatally, Bertha convinced him to lower it to target a burglar’s leg.
• In 1967, Marvin Katko broke into the farmhouse seeking antiques, triggering the trap and suffering severe injuries.
• Despite admitting to the break-in and pleading guilty to larceny, Katko sued the Brineys for malicious intent in setting a deadly trap and won: "He wins not just compensatory damages, but punitive damages designed to punish particularly egregious conduct." — Andrew McClurg, 08:50
• The Brineys had to sell 80 acres of their farm to pay Katko's damages ($30,000), prompting public outrage.

Legal Principles

• Professor Andrew McClurg clarifies the key distinction: Deadly force may be used in defense of life, not property. With no one living in the farmhouse, the law sided with Katko.
• McClurg shares how this divisive case is viewed by law students and the general population:
  • "Almost every single person raises their hands [when asked if they ever entered a structure illegally as a kid]." — Andrew McClurg, 10:07
  • The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the verdict.

Public Reaction

• Many in Eddyville, Iowa, sided with the Brineys. Bertha Briney: "It's sort of a puzzling world in that I didn't feel as if I was in the wrong. I was the one being harassed." — 11:20

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Mantraps in Legal History (14:28–24:43)

• The episode looks at earlier and later cases emphasizing the legal taboo against using indiscriminate traps:

Historical Cases

• Byrd v. Holbrook (England, 1825): Tulip gardener set a tripwire-triggered gun trap; a neighbor’s 19-year-old son was shot in the knee. The gardener lost in court.

  • "One of the problems with booby traps is they're indiscriminate." – Andrew McClurg, 15:08

• 1986 Case: Store owner used an electrified metal grate to defend against repeated robberies; a man was killed, and the owner faced manslaughter charges, but a grand jury did not indict.

The Georgia Vending Machine Tragedy

• In 1974, liquor store owner A.C. Wade, exasperated by theft, rigged a vending machine with dynamite. Two teenage boys attempting to steal coins were caught in the blast; one died.
  • "He set a death trap with dynamite, never testing it...and thus sought to protect his several dollars in the vending machine." — Judge in wrongful death suit, 23:01
• Though criminal charges weren't filed, Wade was found civilly liable and ordered to pay a small settlement.
• Attorney David Rainwater on public sentiment: "They couldn't believe...someone could collect [damages] that was in the process of stealing from you." — 23:38
• Rainwater explains: The wrongful death statute applied even to trespassers if the harm was caused by “willful and wanton” conduct.

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Modern Personal Account: Phil Conahan Sets a Trap (27:05–38:56)

• Phil Conahan, a Denver construction contractor, faced a barrage of break-ins at his warehouse in the late 1980s, losing thousands in tools and equipment. Despite repeated police reports and even charitable help from the public, the thefts continued unabated.
• Feeling abandoned by law enforcement and pushed to the edge, Conahan rigged a shotgun trap:
  • "I remember getting that shotgun and going back to the back room and sitting on that stool and putting it all together and testing it...It was the only thing that I thought would catch him." — Phil Conahan, 32:00
• On Easter, a group of young men broke in; a 19-year-old triggered the shotgun and was killed. Conahan turned himself in and ultimately pleaded guilty to manslaughter, receiving six years' probation, a $2,500 fine, and ordered to pay $7,000 restitution.
  • "You know, the punishment I got was really nothing compared with taking a life...I never thought about killing anybody. I guess maybe I blocked that part out as a way of justifying what I did." — Phil Conahan, 37:41, 38:14
• Public and business-owner reaction was largely sympathetic to Conahan, with other locals posting “booby trap” warnings on their own properties.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “One of the problems with booby traps is they’re indiscriminate. They can’t discern between a dangerous criminal and a 10-year-old doing mischief.” — Andrew McClurg, 15:08
• "But that's not exactly true. And 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 man trap." — David Rainwater, 24:00
• "There are people out there that still believe that property and the right to enjoy it is the highest right you have." — David Rainwater, 24:00
• "You know, the punishment I got was really nothing compared with taking a life." — Phil Conahan, 37:41

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:09–09:59| The Briney farmhouse, the shotgun trap, and Marvin Katko’s injury and lawsuit | | 10:07 | McClurg discusses law students’ empathy with both sides and the public split in opinion | | 14:28–15:21| Legal precedents and the indiscriminate nature of mantraps, Byrd v. Holbrook case | | 16:30–24:43| Dramatic booby trap cases: electrified grate and explosive vending machine (A.C. Wade, Georgia) | | 27:05–38:56| Phil Conahan’s firsthand story of repeated theft, setting a mantrap, and its fatal consequences |

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Tone and Reflections

Phoebe Judge’s narration is as contemplative and empathetic as ever, weaving together legal explanation, moral ambiguity, and human emotion. The guests provide candid reflections on their personal experiences and legal principles. The episode strikes a thought-provoking balance between sympathy for victims of repeated theft and the stark consequences of taking justice (and violence) into one’s own hands.

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Summary

"Mantrap" illuminates the dark edge of American property culture—a place where frustration, fear, and the limits of the law intersect with tragedy. By tracing famous cases and lived experience, Criminal unpacks why the law almost never allows deadly traps to defend mere property and highlights the lasting, societal debates about crime, punishment, and what justice really looks like when boundaries are crossed.

Transcript

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Andrew McClurg]

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[Phil Conahan]

good, the food is just there to

[Andrew McClurg]

get the sauce to your mouth.

[Phoebe Judge]

That rolled quesadilla.

[Andrew McClurg]

Not a rolled quesadilla anymore. Now it's a sauce shovel. Taco Bell's Jalapeno Citrus Salsa.

[Phoebe Judge]

Get it with any item on the

[Andrew McClurg]

Cantina Chicken menu while it's here.

[Phoebe Judge]

The participating U.S. taco Bell locations for a limited time only while supplies last

[Andrew McClurg]

contact store for availability. Well, everyone knew everyone in this very small town called Eddyville, and everyone apparently knew the Brineys.

[Phoebe Judge]

In 1957, a couple named Ed and Bertha Briney inherited an old farmhouse from Bertha's parents in a rural part of

[Andrew McClurg]

Iowa, and they left it unoccupied for 10 years. And it was an uninhabited old farmhouse and out in the middle of nowhere, basically. But they kept items of value apparently in there.

[Phoebe Judge]

Bertha Briney's grandparents and parents had lived in the house after her parents died. Bertha Briney had wanted to keep things as they were, down to the plates and silverware on the kitchen table. Were hearing about the Brineys and their farmhouse from retired law professor Andrew McClurg.

[Andrew McClurg]

People had repeatedly broken into this house,

[Phoebe Judge]

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

[Andrew McClurg]

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.

[Phoebe Judge]

And that's when Ed Briney got out his shotgun

[Andrew McClurg]

because they were fed up, as I think, with Mr. Briney, I think those were his words. They were just fed up with people breaking in.

[Phoebe Judge]

Ed and Bertha attached the shotgun to an iron bed frame and ran a wire from the gun's trigger to the bedroom doorknob so that if someone opened the bedroom door, the trigger would be pulled and the gun would go off.

[Andrew McClurg]

Originally, the barrel was aimed to hit the intruder in the stomach. Ed Briney, the husband, wired it and his wife, Mrs. Briney, that paragon of reasonables that she was, suggested he lower it to just shoot the intruder in the leg.

[Phoebe Judge]

Was there any sign posted outside of the house saying no trespassing or gun on premises, you will be shot if you enter?

[Andrew McClurg]

There were no trust passing signs that they had on the land for several years, just regular no trespass signs. There were no warnings that there was a deadly trap inside.

[Phoebe Judge]

A booby trap.

[Andrew McClurg]

A booby trap.

[Phoebe Judge]

The population of Eddyville was around a thousand people. Its main street was two blocks long and just off of it was a gas station owned by the Catko family. 28 year old Marvin Catco worked there

[Andrew McClurg]

with his father and he had an interest in collecting, apparently jars and bottles that he considered to be valuable antiques. And one day he broke into an abandoned, not abandoned, actually an uninhabited farmhouse out in the country about seven miles away.

[Phoebe Judge]

Edinburgh, Briney'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. The window they'd used to get in the first time had been completely boarded up. So they walked around the house until they found another window that was easier to get into, even though it was boarded up too.

[Andrew McClurg]

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

[Phoebe Judge]

Marvin's friends started looking around the kitchen and Marvin headed for the bedroom.

[Andrew McClurg]

And when he pulled on the bedroom door, the shotgun trap went off and blew away a substantial portion of his leg.

[Phoebe Judge]

What happened next led to a case that's still taught to first year law students more than 50 years later. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal. After Marvin Catcoe 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.

[Andrew McClurg]

What did he do well first, absolutely. He knew, and he admitted he knew it was wrong and criminal. And he was originally charged with a felony, but ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor.

[Phoebe Judge]

Marvin pled guilty to larceny in the nighttime of property valued at less than $20. 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 Bertha Briney. Marvin Catco's lawsuit allegedly that Ed and Bertha Briney had shown, quote, malice and 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 is 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 Bertha Briney lived in the farmhouse and were there that night, but the house was vacant.

[Andrew McClurg]

It's very important principle, 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 own a 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, we would be switching from the defense of property to self defense or if I had a family living there, other people living there, defense of others. So you can use deadly force often to protect yourself or other people, just not property.

[Phoebe Judge]

Ed and Bertha Briney's lawyer argued that the law allows for property to be defended with, quote, all the force necessary. And then he asked who decides what is necessary? Ed Briney said he felt like he was being, quote, 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 Katko won.

[Andrew McClurg]

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.

[Phoebe Judge]

But they, but they did not, they were not charged with any criminal crimes.

[Andrew McClurg]

No, no. Today it would be a crime in most states. Back then it probably was not technically a crime.

[Phoebe Judge]

So what, what were the damages? Will you tell me? That he was rewarded.

[Andrew McClurg]

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 Brineys, and this was partly what really stirs up students. The Brineys had to sell 80 acres of their farm to pay the judgment to the criminal who broke into their house.

[Phoebe Judge]

How do your students, you've been teaching this case for a long time. How do your students to this case?

[Andrew McClurg]

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, draw out people who don't want to come across as cold hearted or cold blooded to start defending the Brineys. But once they get going, they really get going on it. And then somebody, I find somebody who's vociferously sticking up for the brawnies. And then I say, how many people in here? Because law school classes, first year classes are pretty large. There might be 70, 80 people in there. I said, how many people in here ever entered illegally, any kind of structure on somebody else's property when they were a kid? You know, whether it's a shed or a barn or a abandoned house. And almost every single person raises their hands.

[Phoebe Judge]

The Brineys appealed the decision and the case went to the Iowa Supreme Court. But the court agreed with the original ruling finding the Brineys responsible.

[Andrew McClurg]

But a lot of people in the town sided with the Brineys.

[Phoebe Judge]

One paper reported that about 3,000 people had written to offer support to the Brineys. Mrs. Briney was quoted as saying, it's sort of a puzzling world in that I didn't feel as if I was in the wrong. I was the one being harassed. What else was I gonna do Besides get a 24 hour guard? Marvin Catco was quoted saying that some Eddyville residents no longer associated with him. But he said that the average person can see both sides of it. We'll be right back to listen without ads. Join Criminal plus. Thanks to Squarespace for their support. Making a website can be intimidating, especially because it's often the first thing people see about your business. If you want to build a website that makes a great first impression on people, you don't need years of coding experience. You just need Squarespace. It's the all in one website platform made to help you stand out online Squarespace has the tools you need to make your website look exactly how you want it to look, sell your services, and get paid no matter what business you're in. You can choose from a library of templates designed by professionals, or if you don't want to scroll through all the template options. Squarespace's blueprint AI can build a website for you in just a couple of minutes based on a few prompts it'll pull from different templates. To create the website you need, go to squarespace.com criminal for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use the offer code CRIMINAL to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[Phil Conahan]

Foreign.

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Andrew McClurg]

So one of the most notable and earliest cases was a case from England in 1825, so almost 200 years ago called Byrd versus Holbrook and the defendant. Holbrook maintained what were apparently very valuable tulips that he grew about a mile from his house.

[Phoebe Judge]

He set up a booby trap with trip wires running across a few of the paths in the garden. One day a neighbor's peacock flew over the garden wall and a 19 year old climbed over it to help find the bird. He set off the trip wires and was shot in the knee. Then he sued the tulip gardener and won.

[Andrew McClurg]

So one of the problems with booby traps is they're indiscriminate. They can't discern between a dangerous criminal and a 10 year old kid who's just out, you know, doing mischief.

[Phoebe Judge]

A 1986 case involved an electrified booby trap. A store owner whose store had been robbed multiple times installed and electrified metal grate above his front door when a man broke in through the ceiling. The rubber soles 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.

[Andrew McClurg]

You know, and 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 a deadly beast booby trap.

[Phoebe Judge]

In 1974, a man named A.C. wade owned a liquor store in Cordele, Georgia. He also owned a cigarette vending machine just outside of the store.

[David Rainwater]

And 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 where that held the money. And so it was an early type machine, so it was not very sophisticated. So he began to make it sophisticated by he put a third, a 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 thought, I

[Phoebe Judge]

mean, but if you were, if you were to shake the machine so much it would, whatever the charge would be, set off.

[David Rainwater]

That's correct.

[Phoebe Judge]

Attorney David Rainwater.

[David Rainwater]

And this machine was sitting out front of the liquor store so it was exposed to 24 hour use.

[Phoebe Judge]

A.C. wade, the liquor store owner, said his machine had been broken into 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.

[David Rainwater]

He had not attempted to see what the amount of force would be. Would it be a killing force or would it just be a scaring tactic? But I think a third, a stick of dynamite is a significant force. And of course it turned out to be a deadly force.

[Phoebe Judge]

Just after midnight on August 23, 1974, a 16 year old boy named Robert Joel McKenzie 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 McKenzie 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. AC Wade said that he felt terrible and cooperated with police from the start.

[David Rainwater]

He admitted everything. He admitted that it was rigged as a man trap. He didn't boast about it, but he, he actually felt that he had done nothing wrong.

[Phoebe Judge]

He told papers, I gave it lots of consideration. I never activated it until after hours. There was no way an innocent person could get hurt. 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, quote, knows 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 and that Robert Joel McKenzie had died because a piece of the machine had come off and cut his leg and he bled to death.

[David Rainwater]

Nobody was willing to prosecute this man for doing this. And so we then filed a civil suit.

[Phoebe Judge]

David Rainwater represented Robert Joel McKenzie's mother.

[David Rainwater]

One of her relatives insisted that she talked to a lawyer because it wasn't right for her 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 was just quarters.

[Phoebe Judge]

A.C. waite estimated there had been, quote, four or five dollars in the machine. David Rainwater thought Robert Joel McKenzie's mother had a good case.

[David Rainwater]

The wrongful death statute, number one, did not limit it to non criminals. 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, you know, 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 that anytime that your conduct is willful or wanton, intent is inferred.

[Phoebe Judge]

EC Weed was found liable. The judge wrote he had an abandoned and malignant heart. He set a death trap with 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. AC Wade was ordered to pay a small settlement to Robert Joel McKenzie's mother. How did people react in town to the events and the decision?

[David Rainwater]

Very negatively. They couldn't believe you could somebody could collect that was in the process of stealing from you.

[Phoebe Judge]

So they did. They weren't showing outward sympathy for what had happened to this 16 year old?

[David Rainwater]

No, not at all.

[Phoebe Judge]

David says that people in town thought of Robert Joel McKenzie as a thief.

[David Rainwater]

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 it is the highest right you have. But that's not exactly true. And 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 man trap.

[Phoebe Judge]

We'll be right back.

[Phil Conahan]

Foreign.

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Phil Conahan]

Oh my back was against the wall.

[Phoebe Judge]

This is Phil Conahan 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 and tools in a warehouse in a non residential part of town.

[Phil Conahan]

Well, I had 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.

[Phoebe Judge]

So everything you needed to do your job was in that warehouse?

[Phil Conahan]

Absolutely.

[Phoebe Judge]

One day Phil decided to take a road trip into the mountains.

[Phil Conahan]

I had a little MG car. Weather was perfect and top down. It's incredible driving through the mountains in a convertible, 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.

[Phoebe Judge]

When you walked in, what did you see?

[Phil Conahan]

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 can imagine the feeling of it's like, you know, your stomach just falls. It was awful.

[Phoebe Judge]

What did you do when you saw that all of your things were missing?

[Phil Conahan]

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 and looked everything over and took the report. And that was. Wasn't maybe two or three Sundays after that I got there and found out, found the door was smashed in again and more of my equipment was gone.

[Phoebe Judge]

Were you surprised that it happened again?

[Phil Conahan]

Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. I thought, you know, a one time deal, but, you know, it was just the start of many. After about the second or the third, I got used to it, you know, I didn't know what to do. I can't remember how many times they came through that back door until I finally rebuilt the door. And then I put sheet metal there 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 ax or 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.

[Phoebe Judge]

Phil says he'd set up an alarm that would call 911 when it was tripped. But he says whoever was breaking in somehow knew 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.

[Phil Conahan]

The place was so off the beaten path that they just. 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.

[Phoebe Judge]

A columnist at the Denver Post wrote an article about all the robberies. And some readers felt so bad for Phil Conahan that they sent him money and replacement tools. It didn't take long, though, for those donated tools to be stolen, too. Phil Conahan says that he had no idea who was doing this, but he was.

[Phil Conahan]

He was incredible. He was an incredible mechanic at 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 doors and pulled the front of the building down to get in. And then he took everything he wanted that trip. I guess I thought, I can't get any help. Figure it out, Callahan. I remember getting that shotgun and going back to the back room and sitting 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 its job. I didn't. I didn't really plan on it. I just did it, I guess. It was the only thing that. That I thought would catch him.

[Phoebe Judge]

Were you worried about it? Shooting the wrong person and someone who wasn't doing anything wrong might get hurt?

[Phil Conahan]

Never did. There was. He and I were the only ones that ever went back in that room. There wasn't any reason for anybody else to go in there. They couldn't get in there.

[Phoebe Judge]

How did you hear that something had happened?

[Phil Conahan]

It was Easter. Easter morning. And I had. I had worked to put the front of the building back together and I got my little MG and headed for Kansas City and was gonna spend Easter with some friends over there. And we were at my friend's farm and. Telephone rang and they said it was for me. It was my daughter. She told me that she 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 wanted to know if I was Bill Conahan. I said, yep. They said, well, we're at your warehouse and there's been a problem.

[Phoebe Judge]

Did the police tell you anything? What did you learn had happened?

[Phil Conahan]

Well, I kept asking this cop, 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 a homicide. That's. That's when about came undone, because I knew then

[Phoebe Judge]

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 retrieve the body because they were afraid of another booby

[Phil Conahan]

trap going off and they were searching for me. They charged me of first degree murder and I hid 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 while I was in town what I needed to do. And they told me just to come down to police headquarters and turn myself in. That'd be the best thing. So that's what I did.

[Phoebe Judge]

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 trapped too. One of them burned down because firefighters refused to enter it until they could determine that it was safe. Phil pled guilty to manslaughter. He was fined $2,500, placed on probation for six years, and ordered to pay $7,000 to the family of the victim.

[Phil Conahan]

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. And I never thought about killing anybody. I don't know why. I guess maybe I blocked that part out as a way of justifying what I did.

[Phoebe Judge]

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

[Phil Conahan]

Never.

[Phoebe Judge]

Did you never heard from them?

[Phil Conahan]

Nope, Not a word.

[Phoebe Judge]

What would you say to them if you could talk to them?

[Phil Conahan]

Oh, that I'm sorry that I hurt their son. That I killed him.

[Phoebe Judge]

Criminal is created by Lauren Spoor and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sajiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison and Megan Kinane. This episode was originally mixed by Rob Byers. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Special thanks to Matt Spohr. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see [e-mail] and you can sign up for a [e-mail] Newsletter we hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program Criminal. Plus, you can listen to Criminal, this is Love and Phoebe reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus you'll get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co creator Lauren Spohr talking about everything from how we make our episodes to the crime stories that caught our attention that week, to things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to patreon.com criminal we're on Facebook at thisisCriminal and Instagram and TikTok. CriminalPodcast. We're also on YouTube at YouTube.com criminalpodcasts Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast network. Discover more great [e-mail] I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.