Gender Reveal Turns Deadly After 56-Year-Old Grandmother Killed by Homemade Explosive

A grandmother was killed instantly during a gender reveal party gone wrong on Saturday in Knoxville, Iowa. The woman was identified as 56-year-old Pamela Kreimeyer, according to the Marion County Sheriff's Office. Her family was looking for fun ways to announce the gender of her daughter-in-law's child and accidentally created a pipe bomb.

"Members of the Kreimeyer family were experimenting with different types of explosive material on Friday and Saturday," the sheriff's office said in a press statement Monday, reports the Des Moines Register.

Six people, including the expectant mother and Kreimeyer, put gunpowder inside a stand welded to a metal base, officials said. The homemade stand had a hole drilled in the side for a fuse and taped was wrapped over the top. They wanted the gunpowder to blast colored powder to indicate the baby's gender.

When the explosion went off, it sent matel shrapnel launching into the sky. Kreimeyer was standing about 45 feet away, but it was not far enough away to avoid a piece hitting her head. She was killed instantly. Debris was found well over 100 yards away from the site of the explosion, the sheriff's office said.

A source told The Daily Mail the party was being hosted for Kreimeyer's son Brad and his girlfriend, Kirstie Rankin.

"This family got together for what they thought was going to be a happy event with no intent for anyone to get hurt," Sheriff Jason Sandholdt said in a statement. "What ended up happening was that Pamela Kreimeyer, a wife, mother and grandmother, was killed by a piece of metal where a metal stand, gunpowder and colored powder were involved. This is a reminder that anytime someone mixes these things there is a high potential for serious injury or death; please do not take these unnecessary risks. My condolences go out to the family."

The gender reveal party has been a popular trend for years, with celebrities sometimes going to extreme lengths to announce their babies' genders. However, the woman credited with inventing the trend said last summer she now regrets it because it puts so much attention on gender.

Jenna and Kino Karvunidis held a party to announce the gender of their oldest daughter in 2008 after several pregnancy losses. After the couple was profiled in The Bump magazine, they were credited with the gender reveal party idea. In July, she told her followers on Facebook she regrets the idea now.

"I've felt a lot of mixed feelings about my random contribution to the culture. It just exploded into crazy after that. Literally - guns firing, forest fires, more emphasis on gender than has ever been necessary for a baby," she wrote at the time. "Who cares what gender the baby is? I did at the time because we didn't live in 2019 and didn't know what we know now - that assigning focus on gender at birth leaves out so much of their potential and talents that have nothing to do with what's between their legs. PLOT TWIST, the world's first gender-reveal party baby is a girl who wears suits!"

Photo credit: Getty Images