An environmental compliance specialist allegedly, who met her hiking buddy on Match.com, tried to hire a hitman to kill his wife.
Melody Sasser, 47, is accused of threatening David Wallace and his wife, Jennifer, after tracking her rival using a fitness app to send real-time updates and information to a fake assassination website that eventually tipped off police.
“This needs to appear to be random or accident. Or plant drugs, don’t want a lengthy investigation,” Sasser wrote on the now-defunct “Online Killers Market” site under the username “Cattree.”
According to Knoxville, Tennessee court documents, Sasser, who worked for truck stop company Pilot Flying J, provided the website with about $9,750 worth of bitcoin on January 11, along with information on Jennifer and criteria the hitman must meet to keep the trail cold.
David Wallace and Sasser were matched on the online dating site back in 2020 and although it is not clear on what their relationship was, the two were very close and hiked together I the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Wallace, who works for the US Department of Energy, told police that Sasser even helped him tackle the Appalachian Trail that year.
But their relationship soured in 2022 when Wallace left for Prattville, Alabama, with his then-fiancé, Jennifer.
The couple told authorities that Sasser tracked them down to confront them and David told Sasser that he was getting married to Jennifer.
Sasser replied, ” I hope you fall off a cliff and die.”
Prosecutors claim Sasser became active on the Online Killers Market website, often venting her frustration that no hitman had quickly taken the job. Sasser allegedly became so angry that she eventually took her complaints to the site administrator.
“Waiting for 2 months and 11 days and the work is not done. 2 weeks ago you said that on this The work has been done and will be completed in a week,” the user Cattree wrote on March 22. “The work is still not completed. Does it need to be assigned to someone else. Will it be done. What is the delay, when will it be done.”
When she was told the hitman declined the job because it “was too risky,” Catree began posting Jennifer’s information from the Strava workout app, including her hiking routes and routine.
The Department of Homeland Security was notified on April 27 about the hit placed on Jennifer, with investigators working with the couple to provide protection and track down the person who wanted her dead.
Officials followed the money from Catree’s account and subpoenaed Coinhub, which operates Bitcoin ATM machines and linked back to Sasser, according to court documents.
Police also identified Sasser’s 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe near Jennifer’s office in Birmingham on November 9 and 14, 2022.
Sasser was arrested on May 18, and remains in custody pending a court appearance on Thursday. If convicted of the murder-for-hire charge, she could face up to 10 years in jail.
My dad says that his generation did their own dirty work. He says that young people these days are soft. Probably because of all the years we suffered under Obama.