Woman Took an Uber to Church to Set the Building on Fire. Now, She’s Spending Years in Prison for the ‘Devastating’ Act By Bailey Richards

A Texas native will spend six years behind bars for burning down a church in an act of arson that a judge described as “devastating and dangerous.”

In August 2024, Natasha Marie O’Dell was arrested for setting fire to Seattle Laestadian Lutheran Church — a church in Maltby, a suburb of Seattle — 12 months earlier.

On Thursday, Sept. 4, about two years after the devastating blaze, O’Dell, 38, was sentenced to six years in prison for three federal felonies, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.

The sentencing comes months after O’Dell, a Temple native, pleaded guilty to three charges — arson, damage to religious property and obstruction of persons in the free exercise of religious beliefs — in April.

“This offense was devastating and dangerous,” U.S. District Judge Jamal N. Whitehead said of the blaze at the sentencing. “Ms. O’Dell deliberately set fire to a church causing complete destruction. … The scope of the destruction is staggering.”

“You burned down the spiritual home of a congregation,” Whitehead continued. “The wounds you have inflicted deepen for each day they are away from their home.”

According to the news release, one person — a firefighter — was injured in the blaze in 2023. The Washington church building, however, was “burned beyond repair” after 40 years, the church’s website states. Google now lists the Seattle-area church as “permanently closed.”

“Ms. O’Dell acted with extreme disregard for community safety when she poured more than a gallon of gasoline on the church building and used a lighter to start the blaze,” U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller said in the news release. “This conduct put anyone inside the church, the neighbors around the church, and the firefighters who responded in extreme danger.”

“It is fortunate that only one firefighter suffered injuries,” Miller added.

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Part of the church’s video surveillance system survived the blaze and showed O’Dell “moving around the church with the red gasoline container,” the news release stated.

In the footage, she “empties the container on the exterior walls of the church and items around the church,” before moving out of frame as fire erupted in the areas where she poured the liquid.

In addition to the surveillance footage, O’Dell was also linked to the arson through her cell phone and credit card records, the release stated, citing the plea agreement and federal indictment.

Investigators learned that O’Dell had bought “just over a gallon of gasoline in a container and some lighters” at a service station in the area, according to the news release. She took an Uber to the church to start the fire.

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The Texas native was visiting relatives in Woodinville at the time of the arson, and had told an acquaintance that she “planned to burn a nearby church,” per the release.

As for her motive, O’Dell admitted in her plea agreement that “she told various acquaintances that she was angry about churches” and “specifically” with Seattle Laestadian Lutheran Church, the release states. No further motives were given.

The arson damage was totaled at $3.2 million, plus the costs the church has accumulated while holding services in a nearby middle school, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.

O’Dell will owe restitution, which will be determined during a separate hearing.