{"id":217185,"date":"2026-04-03T08:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T08:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217185\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T08:04:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T08:04:22","slug":"florida-woman-trying-to-rekindle-marriage-accused-of-torching-husbands-home-affidavit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217185\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida woman trying to rekindle marriage accused of torching husband\u2019s home: Affidavit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HOMOSASSA, Fla. – A Florida<\/a> woman was arrested after deputies say she lit her husband\u2019s home on fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

On Monday morning, the Citrus County<\/a> Sheriff\u2019s Office got a call about a fire at a home on South Powell Point in Homosassa.<\/p>\n

Investigators said the 911 caller reported that a woman, Melissa Dunham, 40, of Orlando, had started the blaze. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Courtesy: Citrus County Fire Rescue <\/p>\n

According to an arrest affidavit, Dunham\u2019s 18-year-old son said that his parents had a contentious marriage for several years and lived apart. However, he added that his mother had been staying with him and his father at the South Powell Point home for about two weeks.<\/p>\n

The son went on to say that his mother had initially gotten together with him and his father to celebrate his birthday, and during their celebratory outing, Dunham and her husband decided to try to rekindle their marriage.<\/p>\n

According to the affidavit, Dunham and her husband began arguing a lot, and the disagreements usually began with Dunham claiming that her husband was too busy for her.<\/p>\n

The son added that his mother would have \u2018outrages\u2019 and fit of violence where she would throw things within the house.<\/p>\n

He also noted that he believed that Dunham had been abusing drugs, even though he didn\u2019t believe she had been actively taking prescriptions for her condition.<\/p>\n

The affidavit stated that deputies made several calls for service at the South Powell Point home the night before for verbal disputes.<\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

The son said that he did not want to be a part of his parents\u2019 \u2018toxic\u2019 relationship, and he planned to leave in the morning.<\/p>\n

He told investigators when he woke up his parents were still fighting and the power had been shut off, presumably for non-payment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The teen\u2019s father, according to the affidavit, was charging his phone in his car when Dunham walked out of the house with several bags filled with her things and two dogs on a leash.<\/p>\n

When she walked by her husband in his car she reportedly said, “Now, we both don\u2019t have s**t.”<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Courtesy: Citrus County Sheriff’s Office <\/p>\n

Moments later, according to the affidavit, the son realized the home was on fire and smoke was billowing out of the windows, according to documents.<\/p>\n

Deputies said Dunham had methamphetamine and marijuana in her purse.<\/p>\n

She was arrested and charged with one count of arson of a dwelling, two counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count of possession of narcotic paraphernalia.<\/p>\n

The Source: This article was written with information from a Citrus County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit and a social media post from Citrus County Fire Rescue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Citrus County<\/a>Fire<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOMOSASSA, Fla. – A Florida woman was arrested after deputies say she lit her husband\u2019s home on fire.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30202,630,855,47,28,30,29,115,628],"class_list":["post-217185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-citrus","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fire","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}