A woman in Utah is behind bars after a bizarre pre-wedding incident that has left her charged with trying to burn down the Kaysville church she was due to be married in the next day.
ABC4 reports that 25-year-old Lenita “Tessa” Moreno has been arrested on a felony charge of aggravated arson and two misdemeanor counts of retail theft and providing false information to police.
As per court documents, the incident took place on July 10, when the Kaysville Fire Department asked police to respond to a fire investigation at a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meetinghouse.
Cop says she takes “drastic steps to hide her lies”
Cops duly arrived at the church, where the fire marshal told them the blaze had begun in suspicious circumstances beneath a stack of chairs in the building’s Relief Room. In the building at the time the alarm went off was a wedding party (the bride, groom, and his family) who were setting up for the next day’s wedding ceremony.
After the fire alarm went off, the people in the church found the fire and put it out with water from wedding decorations and a fire extinguisher, with investigators noting that the blaze appeared to be fuelled by several items, including a tampon.
Suspicion soon fell on the bride, with surveillance camera footage allegedly showing her stealing three lighters from a nearby hardware store, tucking them into her shirt and shoe. She was later pressed on this by investigators, admitting to stealing something but refusing to say what. She also reportedly confessed to giving police a false birthdate.
As the arresting officer wrote, Lenita [Moreno] is from out of state and through the investigation has been found to… continually be deceptive and take drastic steps to hide her lies”, with the cops noting that she’d also lied about obtaining a marriage license necessary for the wedding to take place.
Moreno’s motive for starting the fire is unknown, though the damage she caused will reportedly cost over $108,000 to repair. Moreno is now being held in the Davis County Jail, where she’s being held without bail.
Thankfully, there are no reports that anyone was injured in this blaze. The same couldn’t be said for a strange incident in Wisconsin last month, where a dispute over a wedding guest caught eating meatballs with his bare hands spiralled into senseless violence that saw two people shot and the suspect fleeing the scene.
Published: Jul 28, 2026 10:04 am