25 Facts About David Hahn

David Hahn's goal was to build and demonstrate a homemade breeder reactor.

David Hahn attained Eagle Scout rank shortly after his lab was dismantled.

David Hahn was the subject of Silverstein's 2004 book The Radioactive Boy Scout.

David Hahn was treated for mental illness, and his death at age 39 was related to drug and alcohol use.

David Hahn was born on October 30,1976, in Royal Oak, Michigan.

David Hahn's parents divorced when he was nine, and his father gained custody.

David Hahn had a stepmother, Kathy Missig, and a step-sister Kristina after his father remarried.

David Hahn mowed other people's lawns to help fund his experiments.

David Hahn loved to build fireworks and model rockets, which he altered with his own designs.

David Hahn was fascinated by chemistry and spent years conducting amateur chemistry experiments, which sometimes caused small explosions and other mishaps.

David Hahn was inspired in part by reading The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments and tried to collect samples of every element in the periodic table, including the radioactive ones.

David Hahn later received a merit badge in Atomic Energy and became fascinated with the idea of creating a breeder reactor in his home.

David Hahn diligently amassed radioactive material by collecting small amounts from household products, such as Americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from old clocks he had obtained from an antique store, and tritium from gunsights.

David Hahn's "reactor" was a bored-out block of lead, and he used lithium from $1,000 worth of purchased batteries to purify the thorium ash using a Bunsen burner.

David Hahn ultimately hoped to create a breeder reactor, using low-level isotopes to transform samples of thorium and uranium into fissile isotopes.

Unbeknownst to officials, his mother, fearful that she would lose her house if the full extent of the radiation were known, had already collected the majority of the radioactive material David Hahn had hidden in the house and thrown it away in the conventional garbage.

David Hahn enrolled in a metallurgy program there, but frequently skipped classes.

FBI agents then interviewed an individual who stated that David Hahn was using cocaine heavily, was not taking his prescribed medication, was paranoid about people who he claimed "had the ability to 'shock' his genitals with their minds", and had possibly been visited by prostitutes.

The individual stated that he believed that David Hahn was still trying to build a reactor and was collecting radium.

David Hahn stated that he did not believe Hahn had any intentions of hurting anyone but was concerned about his mental state.

David Hahn was sentenced to 90 days in jail for attempted larceny.

Court records stated that his sentence would be delayed by six months while David Hahn underwent medical treatment in the psychiatric unit of Macomb County Jail.

On September 27,2016, at the age of 39, David Hahn died in his hometown of Shelby Charter Township, Michigan.

David Hahn's death was ruled an accidental result of intoxication from the combined effects of alcohol, fentanyl, and diphenhydramine.

David Hahn's experiments inspired others to attempt similar feats, particularly Taylor Wilson, who at age 14 became the youngest person to produce nuclear fusion.