Whether it’s during their first slow dance or when they’re running under sparklers towards a getaway car, while all eyes are on the bride and groom, she goes to work.
From table to table, the 57-year-old uninvited guest slips her hands into people’s purses snatching cash and credit cards from unsuspected wedding attendees.
In a string of heists spanning at least three southern states over at least six years, authorities say Mississippi resident Sandra Lynn Henson crashed weddings, making off with tens of thousands of dollars worth of gifts and property.
Despite being on probation following a prison sentence in Mississippi for some of her crimes, law enforcement said Henson recently struck again with the same modus operandi in her home state.
This week, Henson appeared in Pontotoc County Justice Court in rural northeast Mississippi on misdemeanor charges of petit larceny, trespassing and disturbing the peace after being arrested for crashing a wedding on Sept. 30.
Henson plead guilty to the charges, was ordered to pay a $650 fine and ordered to reappear in court next year for an update on her case.
After learning of her punishment, two of Henson’s latest victims told USA TODAY they are baffled she is not back behind bars.
“It’s unfair,” said Lexi Butler, the 22-year-old bride whose wedding Henson pleaded guilty to crashing this fall. “She has robbed so many people of precious time, memories, and gifts, but she never has to own up to her wrongdoing. I can’t believe no one is taking this seriously.”
“It’s insane,” said 34-year-old Kait Dorrough, who said Henson stole $200 in cash on her wedding night. “She’s been doing this for quite some time and I don’t think she has any intention to stop.”
Tyler Melton, a sergeant with the Florence Police Department in Alabama, whose agency arrested Henson on theft charges in 2019 for allegedly crashing multiple weddings, balked at how a person who moves from jurisdiction to jurisdiction committing crimes continues to get hit with fines and probation.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” said Melton, who has been working with victims in a pending Alabama case. “I’m surprised she hasn’t caught a beat down from an angry bridesmaid because that’s how it goes down here in the South.”
An hour south of home
According to a Pontotoc County Sheriff’s Department police affidavit, Henson’s latest heist took place about an hour south of her Reizi home, at Lilly Creek Farm, a wedding and event venue in Belden, a small unincorporated community in the Tupelo area.
Henson, a short, stocky woman with salt and pepper hair, was arrested after suspicious wedding attendees discovered she stole hundreds of dollars from the wedding planner.
A police affidavit signed by Officer Austin Mask shows she was booked into the jail that night and less than two days later, on Oct. 2, posted a $2,000 bond.
Following her court hearing this week, Henson walked out of the courthouse clutching paperwork after Judge David Hall accepted her guilty plea in the case.
Henson, who appeared in court without an attorney Wednesday, could not immediately be reached and a number listed for her went straight to voicemail.
“Miss Henson has been arrested in Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi for crashing weddings and stealing money and cards from purses,” the Pontotoc County Sheriff’s Office posted on the department’s Facebook page next to her mugshot after announcing her arrest.
Still, she remained free Friday.
The sheriff did not respond to phone calls and emails from USA TODAY.
A cardigan, a navy and blue dress, and a piece of cake
Dorrough, of Guntown, Mississippi, was at Butler’s wedding coordinating the celebratory event, when Henson snuck in and quietly crashed the party.
The uninvited guest wore a navy and white dress with a cardigan over top and carried a phone.
“She was dressed the part, like she was there for a wedding,” Dorrough recalled.
During the reception, when the bride and her new husband, Brady Butler, made their way outside where everyone stood holding sparklers, Henson went to work.
“Almost everyone went outside to the front of the building but I was inside trying to catch my breath,” Dorrough recalled.
But when she and the sister of the bride, Bethany Clark, made their way to the bridal room, they found Henson inside milling around.
“She had a plate with some cake in her hand, and was slowly eating it,” Dorrough said.
When the bride’s sister asked if the woman needed help, Henson mumbled something that sounded like she “wanted liquor.”
When the bride’s sister asked who the stranger was at the wedding for, Henson allegedly responded, “The bride.”
Suspicious, the bride’s sister, asked Henson who she was at the wedding with.
“She gave some random name and said the person had already left,” Dorrough recalled. “That’s when I remembered someone said they were missing a makeup bag and it kind of put her on my radar. I went into my purse and said, ‘I have money missing.'”
The sister’s bride told Dorrough she had “30 seconds to give it back before the law” arrived, Dorrough recalled.
“She reached right in her bra and pulled it out,” Dorrough said.
Clark ran for her brother-in-law, a police officer with the City of Tupelo – who happened to be at wedding and he contacted the sheriff’s office.
When the bride later learned about the incident, she said her first thought was the stranger crashed her wedding because they were hungry or needed money.
“I remember telling my sister if she would come speak to me, I would let her stay and dance with us,” Butler recalled.
But the crash, Dorrough said, was premeditated.
“She had a notebook in her car on the seat with a lists of names,” Dorrough recalled after she and some other people peeked into the window of Henson’s car after her arrest. “A notebook of places where she had already been to, aside from two or three that had not happened yet. Dates, times, venues, even names of the bride and groom.”
Some of the addresses, Dorrough recalled, were for venues as far away as Oxford and South Haven, a city near the Tennessee state line nearly two hours from where Henson lives.
Dorrough said they believe she got the details online on The Knot website.
“I could not believe she chose our wedding as her next hit,” Butler said, adding she was even more baffled when she learned about Henson’s criminal history.
Caught, jailed and released; repeat
Henson was convicted of stealing from a wedding in 2017, after being caught in the act on video at the event, local ABC 24 in Memphis reported. She was placed on probation, the outlet reported, but continued “to crash and steal.”
Two years later, in June 2019, she was again accused of crashing wedding receptions, this time in northwest Alabama, where Lauderdale County prosecutors charged her with two counts of theft – one misdemeanor and one felony
According to an arrest affidavit filed by Florence police Sgt. Josh Hein, Henson was caught on church video walking into a wedding reception where she allegedly stole more than $500 in cash and gift cards from the gift table. That same day, Hein wrote in the affidavit, she crashed another wedding and stole $350 in cash from the newlyweds’ gift table.
When questioned by police, the affidavit says, she admitted to attending three other weddings in the city that same day and taking cards left on gift tables.
She was booked into jail and released on $2,500 bail.
In February 2020, Henson was indicted on the Alabama charges, and was set for trial the following year, but was in prison at the time. Court records show she is set to appear back in court in Lauderdale County Nov. 23 to face the pending cases there.
Melton said one of the newlywed couples in the those cases told him they did not plan on using their monetary gifts for themselves.
“The bride said she let her guests know any cash they got was to go toward a special needs child,” Melton said. “(It) is almost as bad as going to a funeral and stealing from people.”
Shortly after, Melton said more than a dozen people from across the state, as well as Tennessee and Mississippi, contacted Florence police saying they had also seen her at their weddings stealing cash from card tables and purses.
“There are probably couples out there who don’t even know they got gifts,” Dorrough said.
‘It doesn’t look like she plans to stop’
In June 2021, a Marshall County, Mississippi judge convicted Henson of grand larceny and burglary and sentenced her to year in prison, after court records show a judge in Tennessee revoked her probation − also for crashing weddings.
In court, Henson pleaded for leniency due to health problems, Memphis-area ABC24-TV reported at the time, but the judge said if Henson “was healthy enough to go to a wedding and steal, she was healthy enough to go to prison.”
Henson’s most recent victims told USA TODAY they remain concerned Henson will strike again as she has never “truly paid for the hurt she has caused so many.”
“She was out on probation when she hit my wedding, so the mess-up should have sent her right back to prison,” Butler said. “Yet, here she is with another small fine, which is why she continues to do it. If she is never going to get in trouble, I don’t see why she would feel the need to stop.”
Henson, once again on probation, is slated to appear back in court on May 8 for her latest theft case. If she fails to appear or pay her fine, the clerk court clerk confirmed, a warrant will be issued for her arrest.
As for her pending Alabama cases, Melton said if Henson is convicted there, he hopes the judge handling her case is not as lenient.
“She needs to get time. She needs to sit. Obviously this (punishment) isn’t fixing the behavior,” Melton said.
Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X @nataliealund.
