Spurned Tennessee Woman Uses Bitcoin to Hire Online Hitman to Have Love Interest's New Wife Killed: 'It Needs to Seem Random'
Melody Sasser will spend time in prison after trying to hire a hitman to kill the wife of a man she met on Match.com.
Sept. 20 2024, Published 2:47 p.m. ET
A Tennessee woman whose love interest married someone else made arrangements and paid for the murder of the man's new wife. Now she will spend time behind bars for the attempted murder scheme, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Federal prosecutors announced in May 2023 that 48-year-old Melody Sasser was charged with one count of murder for hire after she allegedly paid almost $10,000 in Bitcoin to hire a hitman to kill Jennifer Wallace, the new wife of the man Sasser met on a dating website, the Daily Beast reported.
Melody Sasser pleaded guilty to trying to hire a hitman to kill the new wife of her hiking buddy that she met on Match.com.
Officials said the Department of Homeland Security was notified in April 2023 of the assassination plot by a foreign law enforcement agency, which ultimately led to the charge.
During the investigation, detectives found a user with the account name “cattree” who paid the administrator of the website Online Killers Marketplace $9,750 for the murder. The hitman website, which is now defunct, was a scam and did not actually carry out assassination plots.
Sasser even showed up at the home of David and his wife and when she learned they were engaged at the time, and when David told her that he was engaged to Wallace, Sasser said she hoped they would 'both fall off a cliff and die.'
Investigators said the user provided specific, accurate details about Wallace’s life, like her full name and address for her residence in Prattville, Alabama. The user also provided information about the vehicles Wallace and her husband drove and descriptions of their dogs.
The user wrote, “She recently moved in with her new husband, she works at home and in office in Birmingham,” according to the Daily Beast.
Sasser used a fitness app to track Wallace and give the hitman her location.
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In addition, the user provided the website with instructions on how to kill Wallace: “It needs to seem random or accident, or plant drugs, do not want a long investigation,” according to the Daily Beast.
Wallace was informed about the alleged plot and she immediately told authorities about Sasser, whom her husband, David, knew while he was living in Knoxville, Tennessee.
David Wallace initially met Sasser on Match.com and they went on multiple hikes together before he got engaged to another woman and moved away to Alabama.
David talked with investigators and told them he met Sasser on Match.com and she had helped him go on a hike one time.
Wallace told investigators that Sasser had showed up at their home in Alabama unannounced and when David told her that he was engaged to Wallace, Sasser allegedly replied saying she hoped they would “both fall off a cliff and die,” the Daily Beast reported.
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Afterwards, the couple said they started receiving threatening calls from someone disguising their voice. Sasser also allegedly followed the couple on their hikes using a fitness app and gave that information to the hitman website.
According to the Daily Mail, Sasser bought Bitcoin using cash at ATMs in Knoxville before she sent the payment in January 2023. Coinhub used customer data to identify Sasser as the owner of the “cattree” account, officials said.
On Sept. 18, 2024, Sasser pled guilty to using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire and a judge sentenced her to 100 months in prison. In addition, she was ordered to pay $5,389.31 in restitution to the victim in this case.
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