Woman Sentenced for Hiring Hitman with $10K in Bitcoin to Kill Man’s Wife from Dating Site

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

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

She used the username “cattree” and contacted the website administrator to post her request.

In her message, Sasser specified, “It needs to seem random or an accident. Or plant drugs; I do not want a long investigation. She recently moved in with her new husband.”

The target of the hit, identified only by the initials JW, resides in Prattville, Alabama, with her husband, DW. Sasser claimed to have met DW on Match.com.

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

After two months of waiting for the hit to be carried out, Sasser grew impatient.

During this time, she left threatening voicemails on JW’s phone, using an app to disguise her voice. She also tracked the couple’s locations using Strava, an exercise app that allows users to upload their running routes and mileage.

Sasser messaged the dark website administrator about JW’s planned two-mile walk, stating, “I have waited for 2 months and 11 days, and the job is not completed. Two weeks ago, you said it was being worked on and would be done in a week. The job is still not done. Does it need to be assigned to someone else? What is the delay?”

The same website also offered services like hacking, kidnapping, extortion, and more, WVLT reported.

Law enforcement later discovered a journal at Sasser’s home that listed various hitman websites, a handwritten record of her communications with Online Killers Market, and a stack of U.S. currency with a note containing a Bitcoin address.

On June 7, 2023, a federal grand jury indicted Sasser for using interstate commerce facilities in a murder-for-hire scheme.

She has now been sentenced to over eight years in prison and ordered to pay more than $5,000 in restitution.