A woman from Tennessee was taken into custody after allegedly attempting to hire a contract killer to eliminate the wife of an individual she had met on a dating website.
Melody Sasser, 47 years old, reportedly transferred approximately $10,000 in bitcoin to a clandestine online platform known as "Online Killers Market." She provided explicit instructions to have the wife of the man, whom she had become hiking companions with through Match.com, murdered.
From Newser:
Clearly, there must have been some form of romantic sentiment involved in this situation, even if it may have been unrequited.
It's not clear if the relationship was a romantic one, but at some point, Wallace moved to Alabama and got engaged to his now-wife, Jennifer Wallace—and in the fall of 2022, when Sasser traveled to his Prattville home and he told her of his wedding plans, she didn't take it well, per the complaint. "I hope you both fall off a cliff and die," Sasser allegedly said. Jennifer Wallace also reported that around that time, someone keyed her car, and she began receiving untraceable threatening phone calls. In January, under the name "cattree," Sasser placed an "order" on the Online Killers Market—which the Daily Beast notes is a "now-defunct scam site"—requesting a hit against Jennifer Wallace, per the complaint.
Sasser's request said the murder "needs to seem random or [an] accident," states the complaint, which adds that Sasser kept tabs on both the Wallaces' activities via the GPS-enabled app Strava, which the couple used to track their hikes. Investigators say Sasser wired a total of $9,750 to the site, and that she became increasingly frustrated as the weeks went by with no hit, writing in a March message "what is the delay. when will it be done." Sasser was arrested May 18. Sasser's attorney says in a statement, "I find it premature to comment on the facts of this case until such time as each of the allegations have been vetted." Sasser, who's next due in federal court on Thursday, could see up to 10 years behind bars if convicted of the murder-for-hire charges.
I mean, it's quite unusual to utilize Match.com, a platform primarily designed for romantic connections, to seek out companions for hiking activities.
