The suspicious item found in a Surf City home that was treated as a potentially explosive device and destroyed was a Halloween prop.
After investigating the suspicious item found at a home at 1822 N. New River Drive on Oct. 14, Surf City police determined the item was a prop used at a Halloween party last year; not an explosive device.
Read related story: Device destroyed after bomb threat in Surf City
According to Surf City Police Department Maj. Ron Shanahan, the department received a call at 12:24 p.m. Oct. 14 from a woman who found a suspicious item on the kitchen counter of the New River Drive home. The tenants moved out of the home the first week of October, and the woman who was securing the home on behalf of a local company saw the device and reported it to police.
“The company hired to move the previous owners found the item in a cabinet and placed it on the counter,” Surf City Police Chief Mike Halstead said in a statement released today.
Police evacuated a two-block radius around the home and took what was initially described as an “incendiary device” to a nearby vacant lot where it was destroyed. The device was destroyed by using a “controlled explosive charge,” Shanahan said.
The investigation is closed and no charges will be filed.
