Ronald Cyr was 65 years old and lived alone in Van Buren, a town in Maine right on the border with Canada.
For reasons that were never made clear, he had installed a concealed firearm in the front door of his house, programmed to fire at anyone who entered without permission. On Thanksgiving night in 2019, that door opened and the shot rang out. It was Cyr himself who called 911 to say he had been shot, without knowing—or being able to explain—that the gun was his own.
When Van Buren police arrived, with support from the Border Patrol, they found something that forced them to call the Maine State Police bomb squad: more booby traps were hidden throughout the home. The investigation concluded that Cyr died when he accidentally activated his own defensive mechanism, on the same night his family was probably expecting him at another table.
