{"id":67190,"date":"2026-08-07T10:47:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T10:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/67190\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T10:47:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T10:47:27","slug":"woman-jailed-for-lighting-fire-that-gutted-karrakatta-cemetery-funeral-chapel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/67190\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman jailed for lighting fire that gutted Karrakatta Cemetery funeral chapel"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman who set fire to a chapel in Perth’s main cemetery, causing more than $3 million damage and widespread disruption to mourning families, has been sentenced to five years in prison.<\/p>\n

Tianna Addison Diodato-Day, 30, set the Norfolk Chapel at Karrakatta Cemetery alight in October 2024.<\/p>\n

Diodato-Day concealed her face and smashed her way through the glass door before pouring fuel from a jerry can onto the floor and furniture.<\/p>\n

\"Karrakatta<\/p>\n

The arson attack caused extensive damage to the chapel and led to hundreds of funerals being disrupted. (ABC News: Jack Stevenson)<\/p>\n

After she set the fuel alight, she sent a video to someone named ‘Bunter’ \u2014 though it was not explained who that was.<\/p>\n

“I hope I did you proud,” she messaged.<\/p>\n

“I want to be part of this friend group still.”<\/p>\n

The District Court heard the chapel was closed for 12 months and the cost of repairs exceeded $3.4 million.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Parts of the Norfolk Chapel at Karrakatta Cemetery was destroyed by fire in October 2024. \u00a0 (Supplied: Metropolitan Cemeteries Board)<\/p>\n

Judge Carmel Barbagallo said families were unable to farewell loved ones in a place they had chosen, and there was pressure on facilities and staff.<\/p>\n

She said the cemetery was where 40 per cent of all funerals in WA took place, describing it as a place of “mourning, remembrance and cultural significance”.<\/p>\n

Trail of destruction<\/p>\n

The Karrakatta blaze was the most destructive in a series of fires Diodato-Day was involved in over the course of several days.<\/p>\n

She also accompanied a man named Dennis Dear as he lit fires at Mandurah’s Lakes Lawn Cemetery causing $412,000 damage.<\/p>\n

Diodato-Day also used accelerant to set fire to a grave at another cemetery in Mandurah.<\/p>\n

She then sent a video via Snapchat to ‘Bunter’.<\/p>\n

“She’s burning this one,” she messaged.<\/p>\n

There was no attempt by Diodato-Day or Dear to extinguish any of the fires and they did not alert authorities.<\/p>\n

Judge Barbagallo said Diodato-Day wanted to prove her worth to a friend group by lighting the fires.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

The chapel is one of Perth’s major venues for funerals, with hundreds of services held there every year. (Supplied: Metropolitan Cemeteries Board)<\/p>\n

Dear, 28, was sentenced to three years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to two Lakes Lawn arsons and breaching a conditional imprisonment order. He will be eligible for parole in February.<\/p>\n

Judge Barbagallo refused the City of Mandurah’s application for $133,000 in compensation from Dear after his lawyer told the court he had no capacity to pay.<\/p>\n

The judge said that while the $3.4 million cost of the Norfolk Chapel fire was covered by an insurance policy, the community would ultimately pay through higher insurance premiums.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Norfolk Chapel has since been renovated. (Supplied: Metropolitan Cemeteries Board)<\/p>\n

The CEO of the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board Kathlene Oliver, said on Friday said the crime had caused significant distress to many families.<\/p>\n

“The arson attack on Norfolk Chapel was not just an attack on a cemetery building, it was an attack on the community,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The Norfolk Chapel holds deep significance for generations of Western Australian families who have come together there to honour and remember loved ones.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman who set fire to a chapel in Perth’s main cemetery, causing more than $3 million damage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[85105,85101,85104,85107,85103,85106,85099,85102,85100,335,466,463,465,464],"class_list":["post-67190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-perth","tag-cemetary-arson","tag-cemetary-fire","tag-cemetary-vandalism","tag-chapel-arson","tag-chapel-fire","tag-karrakatta-arson","tag-karrakatta-cemetary","tag-karrakatta-cemetary-chapel","tag-karrakatta-fire","tag-perth","tag-perth-courts","tag-perth-news","tag-wa-courts","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}