A bride and groom’s home exploded while they were out tying the knot nearby — blown up by one of their guests, who slipped out during the ceremony and was found dead in the rubble.
Tom Davis and Eleni Vrettos were saying their “I do’s” a day after Valentine’s Day when their home in the Chicago suburb of Cicero exploded in a massive burst of flames, displacing the newlyweds — who had no insurance at the time, ABC 7 Chicago reported.
“I ran here in my wedding dress, like down the alley, and was watching from a neighbor’s yard,” the bride told WGNTV, saying she started getting told about the explosion just minutes after saying “I do.”
“Everything was just smoke at that point,” she said.
A body found in the rubble was identified Saturday as Anthony Avila-Puebla, 31 — who was blamed for blowing up the house.
The suspect had been one of the wedding guests — and was in a relationship with someone who lived in the house, police said, without elaborating on who it was.
After initially appearing at the ceremony, Avila-Puebla slipped out and was seen parking his car less than a block from the bride and groom’s home, authorities told the outlet.
He was caught on surveillance video taking at least two jugs of some kind of flammable liquid inside the building — and then never coming back out.
No one else was in the home at the time, except six cats that lived there and are now missing, authorities said.
The fire caused by the explosion also caused the neighboring building to catch fire, displacing 11 families.
A GoFundMe raised nearly $57,000 for the Vrettos family, who had lived in the home for decades.
“The building belonged to my family for almost 40 years. Yeah, I grew up here, so I live, lived here, and I work in the community. And I mean, Cicero is all I really know,” Vrettos told the outlet last month.
The family also noted in the fundraiser that they had been in the process of remodeling and transferring home insurance and had “no coverage to help them recover from this devastating loss.”
“This home was more than just a house — it was where Eleni grew up, where she and Tom had moved in to start their new life together, and where the family had built countless memories over the years,” the fundraiser read.
Cicero police are investigating.
