US woman sentenced for hiring hitman online to kill wife of the man she met on dating website

A US woman has been sentenced to over 8 years in prison for attempting to hire a hitman through a dark web site to kill an Alabama resident. Sasser reportedly hired an online hitman to kill the wife of a man she met on Match.com in 2023. In an official filing, the US Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of Tennessee claimed that the 48-year-old Melody Sasser from Knoxville admitted to providing the target's personal information and requested to make the murder appear accidental.She paid nearly $10,000 in cryptocurrency for the plot which didn’t come to fruition. Law enforcement uncovered evidence of her intentions during a search of her home.

A report by WVLT8 cited anohter US DOJ filing which included screenshots that showed Sasser, under the username “cattree,” communicated with an administrator on the dark web's "Online Killers Market" to hire a hitman to murder the wife of a man she met on Match.com. The man and the wife were identified as JW and DW, respectively.
Sasser provided detailed information about JW, including photos, addresses, and even tracked her movements using the fitness app Strava. She grew increasingly frustrated over two months as the "job" remained incomplete and questioned the administrator about the delay. DW identified Sasser as a potential suspect due to threatening voicemails left on JW's phone. Sasser, a former Pilot employee, has since been terminated from her position.

In an official statement, the US Attorney's Office noted that Sasser was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 100 months by US District Judge, Thomas A. Varlan. The release also noted: “Following her imprisonment, Sasser will be on supervised release for three years. Sasser was also ordered to pay over $5,389.31 in restitution to the victim in this case.”
US Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent in charge Rana Saoud announced: “According to filed court documents, Sasser admitted to using a dark web-hosted site known as the Online Killers Market to hire a hitman to murder an Alabama resident. In her communications with the site, Sasser provided photographs and location information of the victim. Sasser also requested that the killing appear “to seem random or accident. Or plant drugs, do not want a long investigation.” In exchange for the anticipated murder of the victim, Sasser used the internet to transmit nearly $10,000 in cryptocurrency to the would-be assassins. Ultimately, the plan was unsuccessful. Sasser was arrested, and her home was searched. At her house, law enforcement uncovered a journal listing out several other hitman websites, a handwritten account of communications with the Online Killers Market, and a stack of U.S. currency underneath a sticky note listing a Bitcoin address.”
These charges were the result of an investigation by HSI Knoxville and HSI Birmingham, with the assistance of the Knoxville Police Department and the Prattville, Alabama Police Department.