he was most fascinated with the story of pierre and marie curey's discovery of radioactive elements. on his way to becoming an eagle scout he naturally decided to get his atomic energy merit badge. what was required for the atomic energy badge? >> one of the requirements was you could build a model of a nuclear reactor or a nuclear core using straws and matches and stuff like that. >> reporter: which you did. >> yeah. and then there was one time when i thought, you know, what if i belt the same kind of thing that's in this book and used the actual kind of material? >> reporter: david hahn bought hundreds of lantern mantles which used to contain radioactive thorium. he collected old glo in the dark clocks and scraped off the radium. he purchased hundreds upon hundreds of smoke detectors which con tamed a small amount of radioactive material. his goal was to build a breeder nuclear react inner the shed in his backyard. the shed and the radioactive materials are now long gone. when the authorities caught wind of his experiment in 1995, they put his reactor in drums, dismantled the shed