Man charged in connection with explosion at gender reveal party that rocked nearby towns

KINGSTON, N.H. - A man was charged Monday for an explosive gender reveal party that was heard by nearby residents in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Anthony Spinelli, of Kingston, was charged with disorderly conduct, police said. It wasn't immediately known if he had a lawyer and a phone number couldn't be found for him.

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Police in Kingston, a town not far from the Massachusetts stateline, received reports of a loud explosion the night of April 20. They responded to Torromeo quarry, where they found people who acknowledged holding a gender reveal party with explosives.

The source was Tannerite — 80 pounds (36 kilograms) of it, police said. The family thought the quarry would be the safest spot to blow up the explosive, which is typically sold over the counter as a target for firearms practice, police said.

No injuries were reported, police said.

In recent years, some gender reveal events — where devices eject confetti, balloons or other colored objects to announce a soon-to-be-born child’s sex — have taken a dangerous turn.

In February, a father-to-be was killed in an explosion in upstate New York when he was building a device used for a gender reveal party.

That same month, another man was killed in an explosion that occurred during a baby shower, according to Gaines Township authorities.

A small cannon device that was fired in the back yard of a Michigan home by the homeowner blew up, spraying metal shrapnel that struck an unidentified Hartland man who was standing nearby. The man was taken in serious condition to Hurley Medical Center in Flint, where he later died.

In September, a couple’s plan to reveal their baby’s gender with blue or pink smoke sparked a wildfire that burned thousands of acres in Southern California.

And in 2019, a homemade explosive used to reveal a baby’s gender killed 56-year-old Pamela Kreimeyer in Knoxville, Iowa. The device was meant to spray powder but instead blew up like a pipe bomb.

This story was reported from Los Angeles. The Associated Press contributed.