She Met Him on Match.com – Then Used Bitcoin to Hire a Hitman to Have His Wife Killed. Now, She’s Headed to Prison.

A Tennessee woman whose love interest married someone else made arrangements and paid for the murder of the man's new wife. Now she will spend time behind bars for the attempted murder scheme.

Federal prosecutors announced in May 2023 that 48-year-old Melody Sasser was charged with one count of murder for hire after she allegedly paid almost $10,000 in Bitcoin to hire a hitman to kill Jennifer Wallace, the new wife of the man Sasser met on a dating website, the Daily Beast reported.

Officials said the Department of Homeland Security was notified in April 2023 of the assassination plot by a foreign law enforcement agency, which ultimately led to the charge.

During the investigation, detectives found a user with the account name “cattree” who paid the administrator of the website Online Killers Marketplace $9,750 for the murder. The hitman website, which is now defunct, was a scam and did not actually carry out assassination plots.

Investigators said the user provided specific, accurate details about Wallace’s life, like her full name and address for her residence in Prattville, Alabama. The user also provided information about the vehicles Wallace and her husband drove and descriptions of their dogs.

The user wrote, “She recently moved in with her new husband, she works at home and in office in Birmingham,” according to the Daily Beast.

In addition, the user provided the website with instructions on how to kill Wallace: “It needs to seem random or accident, or plant drugs, do not want a long investigation,” according to the Daily Beast.

Wallace was informed about the alleged plot and she immediately told authorities about Sasser, whom her husband, David, knew while he was living in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Never miss a story — sign up for the Front Page Detectives newsletter. Be on the scene the moment news breaks.

David talked with investigators and told them he met Sasser on Match.com and she had helped him go on a hike one time.

Wallace told investigators that Sasser had showed up at their home in Alabama unannounced and when David told her that he was engaged to Wallace, Sasser allegedly replied saying she hoped they would “both fall off a cliff and die,” the Daily Beast reported.

Afterwards, the couple said they started receiving threatening calls from someone disguising their voice. Sasser also allegedly followed the couple on their hikes using a fitness app and gave that information to the hitman website.

According to the Daily Mail, Sasser bought Bitcoin using cash at ATMs in Knoxville before she sent the payment in January 2023. Coinhub used customer data to identify Sasser as the owner of the “cattree” account, officials said.

On Sept. 18, 2024, Sasser pled guilty to using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire and a judge sentenced her to 100 months in prison. In addition, she was ordered to pay $5,389.31 in restitution to the victim in this case.