Woman sentenced after she hired a hitman with $10K in Bitcoin to kill wife of man she met on dating site

Monday, September 23, 2024 - A woman accepted a plea deal on Wednesday, September 18, for 100 months in prison for hiring an online hitman to kill the wife of a man she met on a dating website, according to authorities.

Melody Sasser, 48, paid nearly $10,000 in Bitcoin to a hitman through the dark website "Online Killers Market" in 2023, according to court documents.

Sasser registered herself under the username "cattree" and reached out to the website administrator to advertise her request.

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

The target of the hit, identified only by the initials JW, lives in Prattville, Alabama with her husband DW.

Sasser claimed to have met DW on Match.com.

DW said that Sasser had helped him on a hike along the Appalachian Trail before he moved to Alabama and married JW.

Two months passed after the hit job had been assigned, and Sasser grew impatient.

In the meantime, she left threatening voicemails on JW’s phone using an app to disguise her voice, according to court documents.

She also tracked the couple’s locations using an app called Strava, an exercise app where users upload the mileage and routes of their past runs.

She messaged the administrator of the dark website when JW would be on a two-mile walk based on the app info.

"I have waited for 2 months and 11 days and the job is not completed. 2 weeks ago you said it was 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," Sasser wrote in a message to the administrator.

The same website offers services like hacking, kidnapping, extortion, disfigurement by acid attack, and sexual violence, WVLT reported.

Law enforcement uncovered a journal at Sasser's home listing a slew of other hitman websites, a handwritten history of communications with the Online Killers Market, and a stack of US currency with a note attached listing a Bitcoin address.

On June 7, 2023, a federal grand jury indicted Sasser for the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.

Now, she has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison and she will have to pay over $5,000 in restitution.