A woman whose love interest married someone else allegedly paid to have his new wife killed, the Daily Beast reports.
Last week, federal prosecutors in Tennessee charged 47-year-old Melody Sasser with one count of murder for hire in connection with the alleged plot. Authorities say Sasser paid nearly $10,000 in Bitcoin to hire a hitman to kill Jennifer Wallace, the new wife of a man she had met on a dating website.
A foreign law enforcement agency notified the Department of Homeland Security in April of the assassination plot, which ultimately led to the charge.
Investigators say a user with the account name “cattree” paid the administrator of the website Online Killers Marketplace $9,750 for the hit and provided specific, accurate details about Wallace’s life. The hitman website, now defunct, was a scam and did not actually carry out assassination plots.
The user provided Wallace’s full name and address for her residence in Prattville, Alabama, along with information like the vehicles she and her husband drive and descriptions of their dogs.
“She recently moved in with her new husband, she works at home and in office in Birmingham,” the user wrote, according to the Daily Beast.
Melody Sasser Criminal Comp… by Leigh Egan
The user also provided instructions for how to kill Wallace: “It needs to seem random or accident, or plant drugs, do not want a long investigation.”
When informed of the alleged plot, Wallace reportedly told investigators immediately about Sasser, whom her husband, David, knew when he lived previously in Knoxville, Tennessee. David relayed to police that he had encountered Sasser on the dating website Match.com and that she had helped him go on a hike one time.
Wallace said that Sasser once showed up at their home in Alabama unannounced. When David told Sasser that he was engaged to Wallace, Sasser allegedly responded that she hoped they would “both fall off a cliff and die,” the Daily Beast reports, citing court records.
The couple then started receiving threatening calls from someone disguising their voice. Sasser also allegedly followed the couple on their hikes using a fitness app and provided this information to the hitman marketplace.
Police determined that Sasser bought Bitcoin using cash at ATMs in Knoxville before sending the payment in January, according to the Daily Mail. Customer data from Coinhub identified Sasser as the owner of the “cattree” account.
Authorities arrested Sasser on May 18 and she remains in custody. Her next court hearing is scheduled for June 8.
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[Feature Photo: Melody Sasser/Facebook]
