Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey, Guthrie police

[DetlefK]

5. Let me tell you a real-life anecdote about a guy who stole Uranium:

At the university where I studied, there was a research-center nearby and both cooperated on lots of projects. The research-center was originally, when it was founded way back, about studying radioactive materials and so it retained a department studying radioactive materials even though the overall interest broadened into other fields as well.

There was this employee.

He was a kleptomanic.

He stole small bits of radioactive material. (For research-purposes, radioactive materials are stored sealed in tiny glass tubes.)

He eventually had a nice collection of different materials... which he stored at home... in a cheap high-rise flat... under his bed... in a metal-sheet box.

He eventually got cancer and when the doctors heard where he worked, they checked him for radiation and guess what they found.

A special team entered his flat and they found that the whole apartment was radioactive.

They didn't even bother trying to decontaminate it. They put metal-sheets over the windows and doors and welded everything shut and that's it.