Booby Trap With ‘Loaded Improvised Firearm Attached To A Tripwire’ Found On Oregon Trail

Last Thursday a Portland attorney, Mike Colbach, and his wife, Jennifer, took their regular hike in Forest Park along the Oregon Trail with their dog. However, the hike would turn out to by anything but ordinary when they stumbled across a startling find.

According to Oregon Live, the couple was headed down toward the main trail when two men passed them. The couple both noted that the men “were definitely not hikers.” In fact, Mike said they “stuck out like a sore thumb.” After passing the men and just before entering the park, Jennifer noticed a length of parachute cord stretched across the trail. The cord was covering the path so Jennifer told Mike to “watch out” and to step over the cord. However, her dog, Rhonda, stepped on the cord.

At this point, the line went slack and Jennifer noticed something move in the woods off to their left in a copse of alder trees. They didn’t discuss the incident further and completed their walk. However, the incident continued to bug them so they went back to the trail again on Saturday. What they found was shocking and horrifying.

The parachute cord was rigged to a three-quarter-inch-diameter pipe — open at one end, closed at the other — attached to a tree. There appeared to be a firing pin at the closed end. The cord was attached to a beer bottle that was supposed to swing down and strike the firing pin at the back of the device when the cord was tripped. The couple immediately called a family friend who works as a bomb squad technician for the interagency Metropolitan Explosives Disposal Unit.

The bomb technicians confirmed their fears. Someone had set out to intentionally harm someone who was hiking in the area. According to the technicians, the couple was lucky. When the dog stepped on the cord, the gun apparently malfunctioned. The tech believes that the beer bottle possibly missed the firing pin. Either way, the couple was very close to an extremely scary situation.

Crime Stoppers is asking that anyone with information on the Oregon Trail booby trap to come forward. The organization is offering a $1,000 reward to anyone who can provide information that leads to an arrest in the startling case. Officers spoke with some area residents and learned that the device may have been there since Tuesday but was not reported to police until Saturday.

[Image Credit: theintertwine.org]