Iowa bride-to-be left 'distraught' after wedding dress stolen from her car trunk

Marissa Hurst never imagined that the road to her wedding day would be like this.

The 23-year-old Des Moines bride-to-be and Lincoln High School graduate is in the midst of trying to find a generational dress that was allegedly stolen from her car Monday night in the parking lot of the apartment complex where she lives. 

Hurst said she was "distraught" and "hysterical" Tuesday morning when she told her grandmother and mother about the missing family heirloom. Their words were comforting, acknowledging that it wasn't her fault, Hurst said. 

But she couldn't help but take the blame. 

"It makes me feel that I kind of let them down," Hurst told the Register on Thursday.

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Hurst said she had collected the dress from her mom, Sheryl McKeehan, a few days prior. She wanted to keep it a secret from her fiancé, Nate Friesen, so she stored it the trunk of her car.

On Tuesday, though, when she was about to enter her car parked outside her home at Weston Park Apartments, Hurst noticed some things that were out of place. She discovered that a pair of sunglasses and a phone charger was missing, but then detected that "the backseat was rifled through," Hurst said.

That prompted her to then check the trunk. The dress was nowhere to be found.

Hurst admitted that she usually leaves her car unlocked because "I don't keep anything of value in my car."

"It was just one of those things where I wasn't thinking really," she said.

Karen Phondeth, a leasing agent at Weston Park Apartments, told the Register that the complex currently doesn't have security cameras on site. She said staff there is working with its corporate office downtown to see "if there is anything we can set up" for Hurst.

A message left with the regional manager of BH Management Services in Des Moines was not returned to the Register by noon Thursday.

Hurst said she filed a report Tuesday with the Des Moines Police Department. When Hurst called her mom, McKeehan told the Register that her daughter "couldn't even talk."

"She was devastated," McKeehan said. "She didn't know what to do."

Hurst took to Facebook later that day and wrote a public post about the missing dress. As of noon Thursday, it has more than 11,000 shares and 870 comments coming from across the U.S. 

Many commenters praised the gown as "beautiful" and offered their wishes of its hopeful return.

"It's outrageous," Hurst said of her Facebook post's virality. "It's kind of cool to see the outpouring comments."

There are comments of skepticism, too. Hurst said she has no reason to be lying.

"I'm not gaining anything from this," she said. "This is the family heirloom I was expecting to wear and pass on this tradition.

"People can think what they want to think, but the truth is the truth."

Hurst said her wedding is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 28, 2018.

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