Melody Sasser, Knoxville, TN woman murder for hire plot for the object of her delusion after man she met on dating site marries his fiancee as she set about harassing man’s fiancee before plotting to kill her before eventual arrest and 8 year plea deal.
A Tennessee woman is to serve 100 months in prison in a plea deal for hiring a hitman to kill the wife of a man she met on an online dating website.
Melody Sasser, 48, of Knoxville forked out nearly $10,000 in Bitcoin to a hitman through the dark website ‘Online Killers Market’ in 2023, according to a Wednesday release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Tennessee.
Sasser met the object of her desire, David Wallace on Match.com, in 2020, a dating website popular with millennials when he and his now-wife lived in Knoxville according to PEOPLE.
‘Hiking friends?’
Sasser and Wallace were ‘hiking friends,’ with the pair having gone on various treks together, 10 News reported.
It remained unclear whether the pair were ever in a romantic relationship.
Trouble began in the fall of 2022, when Wallace moved to Alabama with his wife, who was his fiancée at the time, and told Sasser the two had gotten engaged, the complaint said.
Sasser responded with the following message, ‘I hope you both fall off a cliff and die,’ according to a criminal complaint.
Sasser then traveled to Alabama and arrived at Wallace’s home unannounced, according to the complaint.
Around that time, Wallace’s fiancée told authorities that her vehicle had been keyed and that she had started receiving threatening phone calls, the complaint said.
But there was more to come.
Obsessive delusion
Come January, 2023, Sasser used a dark web-hosted site known as the Online Killers Market to hire a hitman to murder Wallace’s fiancée.
The would be lover 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.
‘In her communications with the site, Sasser provided photographs and location information of the victim,’ the U.S. Attorney’s release said.
Two months passed after the hit job had been assigned, with Sasser growing increasingly 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, [SIC]’ Sasser wrote in a message to the administrator.
‘Remorseful…’
The same website offers services like hacking, kidnapping, extortion, disfigurement by acid attack, and sexual violence, WVLT reported.
What Sasser didn’t know is that the website was a scam, according to the complaint.
Law enforcement uncovered a journal at her 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.
On top of the more than eight-year and four month jail sentence, Sasser will have to pay over $5,389 in restitution.
Sasser’s attorney says his client is remorseful about what she did.
‘She wants [the victim] to be able to move on with her life,’ her attorney Jeff Whitt said according to 10 News.
‘Her actions were the result of a breakdown of massive proportion,’ the lawyer stated.
After Sasser serves her prison sentence, she faces three years on supervised release.
