US woman tries hiring hitman on dark web to kill wife of man she met; gets 100 months in jail

Melody Sasser, a 48-year old Tennessee woman, who hired a hitman to murder the wife of a man she met on an online dating app, was sentenced to 100 months in prison, Fox News reported.

She met David Wallace on Match.com and became obsessed after he revealed that he was engaged.

The woman reportedly paid nearly $10,000, in Bitcoin, for planning the murder plot, seeking a hitman on the dark website "Online Killers Market" in 2023, as per the court documents, however things didn't go as per the plan.

In the advertisement, Sasser’s username on the website was "cattree" and she expressed the need for a contractual killer to murder a woman in Alabama's Prattville. She also sought that it should look like a "random" or "accident" killing.

The report stated that as per the documents the website offers hitmen to provide "services" like "hacking, kidnapping, extortion, disfigurement by acid attack, and sexual violence."

Sasser wrote to the administrator, "It needs to seem random or accident, or plant drugs, do not want a long investigation. She recently moved in with her new husband."

To help the killer identify and locate the woman, Sasser shared the lady's work and home addresses as well as her car's licence plate number.

Sasser also used a fitness app to regularly track the couple’s locations, thereby passing on the same information on the dark web to the contract killers.

The court documents also revealed that upon noticing that her request was unnoticed for two months, she grew impatient. On the website she wrote, "I have waited for two months and 11 days and the job is not completed. 2 weeks ago you said it has been worked on and would be done in a week. The job is still not done. Does it need to be assigned to someone else? Will it be done? What is the delay? When will it be done."

Her plan however remained unsuccessful. The law enforcement during their search found evidence, which included a journal detailing multiple hitman websites along with a handwritten account of her communications with the "Online Killers Market". A stash of cash hidden beneath a sticky note bearing a Bitcoin address was also found by the investigators.

On Wednesday, Sasser entered a plea deal wherein she was sentenced to 100 months in prison and was told to pay more than $5,300 in restitution to the victim.