A woman tried to hire a hitman to kill the new wife of a man she met on a dating website, criminal complaint alleges

• A woman tried to hire a hitman to kill the wife of a man she met on Match.com, a criminal complaint says.
• She used Bitcoin to pay the now-defunct "Online Killers Market" website, The Daily Beast reported.

A woman tried to hire a hitman to assassinate the wife of a man she once met on an online dating website, law enforcement officials say.

Melody Sasser, 47, met Air Force veteran David Wallace on Match.com when they were both living in Knoxville, Tennessee, according to a criminal complaint that was unsealed last week, and which was first reported on by The Daily Beast.

Although it is unclear if the relationship was ever romantic in nature, The Beast said social media posts show that the pair frequently went hiking together throughout 2020.

Then, according to the complaint, Sasser showed up uninvited at Wallace's new home in Prattville, Alabama, during the fall of 2022, where Wallace informed her that he was now engaged to be married.

Sasser reacted badly, per the complaint, telling Wallace: "I hope you fall off a cliff and die."

Officers allege that Sasser then tried to arrange a hit job on Wallace's fiancée, using the now-defunct, dark-web website "Online Killers Market."

Using the pseudonym 'cattree,' they said Sasser made a payment in Bitcoin of approximately $7,500 for the hit, and included the target's full name, address, photo, and details of her vehicle in her request.

"It needs to seem random or accident. or plant drugs, do not want a long investigation," Sasser wrote in a message to the website's administrators, according to the complaint.

At one point, Sasser became impatient with how slowly "Online Killers Market" was operating and exchanged several messages with the website's administrators to find out what the hold-up was, the complaint said.

'Cattree' later provided the website with information on the fiancée's whereabouts, with law enforcement officials saying there is evidence to suggest that Sasser lifted the location data from the fitness-tracking app Strava, which was connected to the couple's Garmin watches.

Federal agents intervened after receiving a tip-off from a foreign law enforcement agency, the complaint said, with Homeland Security Investigations informing local police in Alabama that Wallace's now-wife was in danger.

Wallace's wife named Sasser as a suspect, according to the complaint.

Investigators subpoenaed Coinhub and linked transactions made by 'cattree' on the website to Sasser, with the subpoena showing that she had purchased Bitcoin on four occasions at a Coinhub ATM in Knoxville.

Sasser was arrested on May 18 on probable cause that she attempted to hire a hitman for murder, and she remains in custody pending a court appearance.

Sasser's attorney, M. Jeffrey Whitt, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.