Romance on the internet can admittedly have some unorthodox turns. But one Tennessee woman has taken the term “offline dating” to an entirely different level. On May 18th, Melody Sasser was arrested for allegedly attempting to hire a hitman to kill the fiancé of a man she had met on a dating site.
As reported by the criminal complaint, Sasser had transferred about $10,000 in bitcoin to a website called the Online Killers Market in exchange for the murder of the woman. All in an attempt to prevent the man she connected with on the popular dating site Match.com from moving out of state.
The details of the plan to commit murder came out after a dark web search connected with the alias “cattree.” The alias was controlled by Sasser. She stalked her target and reportedly found out where the woman lived, worked, and drove along with her route from fitness tracking app Strava. She used the app which connects to Garmin fitness watches and shares location data.
Impatience grew as her target remained alive, which enraged Sasser enough to directly message the administrator of the dark web site, ultimately leading to her arrest.