Tennessee woman allegedly paid to hire hitman to kill wife of her dating match

(NEW YORK) — A Tennessee woman allegedly paid to hire a hitman to kill the wife of a man she met on a dating site, according to a criminal complaint.

Melody Sasser was arrested May 18 and is being held in custody on probable cause that she allegedly attempted murder for hire. She is accused of transferring about $10,000 in bitcoin to a site named “Online Killers Market” in exchange for the murder of the wife of the man she met on the dating site, federal agents said in the complaint dated May 11.

Sasser and the man she met on Match.com had become hiking friends, according to the complaint. But when Sasser’s match revealed he was moving out of state with the woman he planned to marry, Sasser allegedly turned to the dark web, the complaint said. Under the pseudonym “cattree,” Sasser allegedly posted her hit order on the website, authorities said.

“It needs to seem random or [an] accident. Or plant drugs, do not want a long investigation,” Sasser posted on Jan. 11, authorities alleged in the complaint.

Sasser’s defense attorney, M. Jeffrey Whitt, declined ABC News’ request for comment.

Sasser had showed up unannounced at the couple’s new home in Alabama in the fall of 2022, authorities said. “I hope you both fall off a cliff and die,” Sasser allegedly told the pair, after learning of their plans to wed, according to the complaint.

Around that time, the soon-to-be-wife of the man she had matched with reported that both sides of her car had been “gashed” by an unknown perpetrator, the complaint said. The woman also began receiving threatening calls from untraceable numbers, authorities added.

Sasser allegedly provided a would-be killer with detailed information about her match’s wife, which included where she lived, where she worked and what car she drove, authorities said. She also purportedly passed along specific information about the intended victim’s whereabouts, according to the complaint. Authorities said she found that information from the fitness tracking application Strava, which connects to Garmin fitness watches and shares location data.

“Yesterday she worked from home and went for a 2 mile walk by herself,” Sasser allegedly wrote to the murder-for-hire website in March, according to the complaint. Authorities said they later confirmed, via the hiking app, that the information Sasser provided to “Online Killers Market” was accurate.

ABC News’ has reached out to Strava for comment.

By late March, as her apparent target remained alive, Sasser grew impatient, authorities wrote in the complaint, and she allegedly took to “cattree” again to message the administrator of the dark web site to check on the status of her murder request.

“I have waited for two months and 11 days and the job is not completed… What is the delay. When will it be done,” she allegedly wrote.

On May 18, Sasser was arrested on probable cause that she allegedly attempted to hire a hitman to commit murder.

She is due to appear in federal court on Thursday.

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