A scorned environmental compliance specialist who hired a hitman to murder the wife of a man she met on Match.com has met her fate.
Melody Sasser, 48, was sentenced Wednesday to serve more than eight years behind bars after pleading guilty to murder-for-hire charges, the Justice Department announced.
Court documents previously obtained by DailyMail.com detail how Sasser placed an order on the dark website Online Killers Market to hire a hitman to kill Jennifer Wallace, the wife of David Wallace, whom he had met online.
She paid nearly $10,000 in Bitcoin – an untraceable cryptocurrency – for the murder, while describing how she wanted the killing carried out and details about Wallace’s life.
“It has to look random or accidental, or planting drugs, I don’t want a long investigation,” Sasser wrote under the username “cattree” in January 2023, according to the federal complaint.
Melody Sasser, 48, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison after pleading guilty to murder-for-hire charges.
She had ordered a hitman to kill David Wallace’s wife, whom she met on Match.com.
‘She recently moved in with her new husband and works from home and the office in Birmingham.
‘She drives a blue Subaru Outback, her husband drives a brown Jeep Grand Cherokee.
‘Her husband works at Publix part-time, they have three dogs that bark and jump.
According to the affidavit, the information presented about Jennifer Wallace and her husband was verified to be 100% accurate.
Sasser had also uploaded a picture of Jennifer to the site so that the assigned ‘hitman’ could positively identify her.
He then spoke to an administrator at Online Killers Market for two months as the “job” remained unfinished.
“I’ve waited 2 months and 11 days and the job is not done,” Sasser wrote in a message to the administrator. according to Fox 19.
(Two) weeks ago you said that it was being worked on and would be finished in a week. The work is not finished yet. Does it need to be assigned to someone else? Will it be done? What is the delay? When will it be done?
Sasser paid nearly $10,000 to the hitman, whom he instructed to make the killing “appear random or accidental.”
Authorities finally learned of Sasser’s alleged scheme in April 2023, when a foreign law enforcement agency notified the Department of Homeland Security that Jennifer Wallace was the target of an assassination plot.
Investigators eventually managed to follow the money trail in the case and subpoenaed Coinhub, which operates the Bitcoin ATMs that Sasser allegedly used.
The company responded with transaction data and customer information identifying Sasser as “cattree,” according to the complaint.
He had purchased Bitcoin with cash on at least four occasions at Coinhub ATMs in Knoxville.
A subsequent search of Sasser’s home also uncovered a journal listing several other hitmen’s websites, a handwritten account of conversations with Online Killers Market, and a stack of U.S. bills beneath a sticky note listing a Bitcoin address.
David Wallace told officers that Sasser had helped him hike an Appalachian Trail before he moved to Alabama to be with his fiancée Jennifer
When officers later informed the Wallaces about the threat to their lives, Jennifer is said to have immediately told officers about Sasser.
Wallace told police that Sasser and her husband David had been hiking with friends in Knoxville, Tennessee, before David moved to Alabama to be with his fiancée Jennifer.
However, David told police that he had met Sasser on Match.com and that Sasser had helped him hike an Appalachian Trail.
Jennifer Wallace told police that Sasser showed up at her home in Alabama and told them: “I hope you both fall off a cliff and die.”
He also allegedly vandalized Jennifer’s vehicle.
The two say they then began receiving threatening phone calls from a person using a device to disguise their voice.
Prosecutors say Sasser used the fitness app Strava to track the couple on hikes and then passed that information on to the hitman market.
Sasser’s attorney argued in court Wednesday that she had no criminal record and spent hours volunteering.
Sasser was indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge of using facilities of interstate commerce for the commission of murder for hire.
He finally reached a plea deal on Wednesday, with his lawyer arguing for a lenient sentence.
Jeff Whitt noted that Sasser had no criminal record and instead spent hours volunteering to help with public service causes. WBIR reports.
“What he did was the result of a personal breakdown,” Whitt told U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Varlan.
“It was a breakdown of massive proportions,” he said, noting that she had previously suffered mental and emotional problems as a result of the death of her parents and had alcohol abuse issues.
She also said her client was deeply sorry for what she had done and wanted Jennifer to know she would never have to fear Sasser again.
“She wants to be able to move on with her life,” Whitt said, arguing that his client is unlikely to reoffend at her age, as Jennifer sat in the courtroom but did not speak.
But prosecutor Anne-Marie Svolto argued that Sasser’s crime was not an isolated attempt to cause no harm.
Instead, Svolto argued, Sasser worked for months trying to find ways to harass and harm Jennifer, even keeping a journal detailing his plans to kill the woman.
As a result, Jennifer suffered trauma and fear.
She lived away from home for a while, got a gun, and she and her husband repeatedly searched every room in their house to make sure no attacker was lurking there.
In the end, Varlan said it was unique that Sasser pleaded guilty, but noted that the murder-for-hire plan was something she put together after stalking and vandalizing the victim’s vehicle.
He sentenced her to 100 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered Sasser to pay more than $5,000 in restitution.
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