An environmental compliance specialist pining for a mountain climbing buddy she met on Match.com allegedly tried to have his new spouse snuffed out by a hitman she tried to rent on-line.
“I hope you fall off a cliff and die,” Melody Sasser blurted out when retired Division of Power emergency supervisor and Air Pressure vet David Wallace informed her final fall that he was engaged to a different girl.
Sasser, 47, allegedly stalked Wallace’s spouse utilizing a health app, sending updates on her exact location, together with the dates and instances of her actions, to a bogus murder-for-hire service she discovered on the darkish internet.
That’s in response to a legal criticism unsealed final week in Knoxville, Tennessee federal courtroom and obtained by The Each day Beast. Sasser, who labored for the Pilot Flying J truck cease chain, positioned an order through the “On-line Killers Market,” a now-defunct rip-off web site that purported to offer companies resembling “kidnapping, extortion, disfigurement by acid assault, and sexual violence,” along with straight-forward killing, the criticism states.
“This can be a private matter unrelated in any approach to Pilot Firm’s enterprise,” firm spokeswoman Stephanie Myers stated in an electronic mail. “We’re taking all acceptable measures and cooperating absolutely to help legislation enforcement with this matter. All additional inquiries needs to be directed to the right authorities.”
Sasser is “now not employed” with Pilot Flying J, Myers stated.
Making an attempt to rent a hitman on-line is sort of assured to fail, as previous instances have usually proven. The proprietor of a satirical enterprise referred to as Lease-A-Hitman.com, with a web site that’s clearly a gag, has a direct line to the FBI and experiences all requests that seem like critical threats. It’s unclear if On-line Killers Market can also be meant to be a joke, however it has been described beforehand as a “sham.” Nonetheless, individuals proceed to fall for each.
Authorities had been first made conscious of Sasser’s alleged scheme on April 27, when an unnamed overseas legislation enforcement company notified the Division of Homeland Safety’s investigative arm that Jennifer Wallace was the goal of an assassination plot.
The abroad investigators found messages between a person within the U.S. named “cattree” and the administrator of the On-line Killers Market, in response to the criticism. The primary, dated Jan. 11, 2023, included Jennifer’s full title and deal with in Prattville, Alabama, together with an escrow fee of 0.4179 Bitcoin, or roughly $7,500 on the time.
“It wants to look random or accident. or plant medicine, don’t need a protracted investigation,” cattree allegedly wrote in her request to On-line Killers Market, together with an connected {photograph} of Jennifer. “She not too long ago moved in together with her new husband. she works at house and in [an] workplace in birmingham.”
The message additionally included an outline of the couple’s vehicles, together with their license plate numbers.
“[H]er husband works at publix half time they’ve three canine that bark and soar however good canine,” the message stated.
The couple’s names are redacted in courtroom papers.
Sasser and Wallace met on Match.com, when he and his future spouse additionally lived in Knoxville, in response to the criticism. It doesn’t say if the connection turned romantic, however does say the 2 turned mountain climbing buddies. Social media posts reviewed by The Each day Beast present Wallace and Sasser mountain climbing collectively all through 2020, usually within the Nice Smoky Mountains Nationwide Park. (Sasser is listed on a web site for the “900 Miler Membership,” for individuals who have hiked all 150 trails within the park.) When Wallace hiked the Appalachian path, Sasser “assisted” him by “making reservations at recognized hostels and different relaxation factors and took care of his car,” the criticism states.
However when she confirmed up unannounced within the fall of 2022 at Wallace’s new house in Alabama, he informed her he and Jennifer had been getting ready to marry. Sasser didn’t take the information effectively, responding by wishing dying on the pair, in response to the criticism.
In December, Sasser determined to do one thing about it, the criticism alleges. Nonetheless, Sasser, whom investigators say they ID’d as cattree, turned pissed off with On-line Killers Market after they didn’t homicide Jennifer shortly sufficient, the messages allegedly present. Prosecutors say Sasser messaged the location administrator asking why the hit had not but been carried out.
She allegedly inquired a number of instances in regards to the standing of the job, arguing in a March 22 message that she had been ready “2 months and 11 days and the job isn’t accomplished. 2 weeks in the past you stated it was been labored on and could be finished in every week. the job remains to be not finished. does it must be assigned to another person. will it’s finished. what’s the delay. when will it’s finished.”
An On-line Killers Market consultant wrote again, telling cattree, “Good day, she isn’t conscious. He simply failed as he didn’t tried it but, he felt like is simply too dangerous for him to do it Regards admin.”
Cattree then started sharing location knowledge, messaging the admin, “yesterday she labored from house and went for a 2 mile stroll by herself. assign to a different that may full the job.”
Strava bodily train monitoring app that can be utilized to report mountain climbing routes.
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto through Getty Pictures
In response, the admin provided “two different hitmen that I can assign on the job,” in response to the criticism. One wished 0.49 Bitcoin, whereas the opposite was asking for 0.485 to do the deed. Cattree went with the cheaper possibility, promising so as to add the extra funds to the escrow account.
Investigators dug into Sasser’s actions, and checked automated license plate readers to see the place she had been. On Nov. 9 and 14, 2022, Sasser’s 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe was clocked within the fast neighborhood of Jennifer’s workplace, in response to the criticism.
Federal brokers confronted Jennifer with the information that her life was in peril, and he or she instantly instructed Sasser was possible cattree, in response to the criticism. She stated Sasser and David, her husband, “had been mountain climbing buddies in Knoxville, TN previous to [David] transferring to Alabama,” it goes on. Sasser confirmed up at David’s door final 12 months, unannounced,
and stated she wished dying upon him for marrying Jennifer, the criticism states, noting that Jennifer’s automotive had been broken round that very same time by an “unknown perpetrator [who] gashed the perimeters of her car with what seemed to be a key.”
After her automotive was broken, Jennifer additionally informed investigators that she started receiving “threatening cellphone calls,” apparently from somebody utilizing laptop generated cellphone numbers which are “untraceable,” the criticism states.
Jennifer stated she and her husband tracked their hikes and walks with Strava, a GPS-enabled app that uploads customers’ exercise to the web. The placement info despatched to the purported hitman matched precisely the information in Jennifer and David’s Strava accounts, main them to suspect Sasser was utilizing the accounts to maintain tabs on them.
The native PD was notified, and a patrol automotive was stationed exterior the Wallaces’ house for his or her security.
Investigators additionally adopted the cash, subpoenaing Coinhub, which operates the Bitcoin ATM that cattree used to ship fee to the escrow account. The corporate responded with transaction knowledge and buyer data that recognized Sasser as cattree, in response to the criticism. She had bought Bitcoin with money on at the very least 4 events at Coinhub ATMs in Knoxville, after which she despatched the funds to a digital pockets managed by On-line Killers Market, the criticism states, and the cellphone quantity cattree offered to finish the transactions was Sasser’s.
“The Coinhub ATM captures images of every person throughout every transaction,” the criticism continues. “The images assigned to the 4 transactions match Sasser’s Tennessee driver’s license image and her open-source Fb profile image.”
At one level, the feds tried to lure Sasser right into a sting, with an secret agent contacting her on WhatsApp, however she didn’t reply to the message, the criticism states. In all, Sasser wired a complete of $9,750 to the On-line Killers Marketplace for the hit that by no means occurred, in response to the criticism.
Sasser was lastly arrested on Might 18 and remanded to custody, in response to courtroom filings. She stays detained, pending a courtroom look scheduled for June 8.
Sasser’s lawyer, M. Jeffrey Whitt, informed The Each day Beast, “I’ve been representing residents accused of crimes for 32 years throughout this state, and that is definitely not the primary prosecution I’ve confronted alleging some kind of homicide for rent scheme. Our investigation is in its infancy as I used to be solely retained inside the final week. As such, I discover it untimely to touch upon the info of this case till such time as every of the allegations have been vetted and such future responses are in accordance with our state guidelines limiting public feedback throughout pending prosecutions.”
Reached by textual content message, the Wallaces seen, however didn’t reply to, an interview request.
A search warrant apparently associated to the case, for a USPS Precedence Mail parcel, stays underneath seal.
If convicted on the murder-for-hire cost, Sasser faces as much as 10 years in jail.