'Cattree' Woman Met Man on Match.com, Posts Hitman Ad to Kill His Wife: Investigators Say

Jun 14, 2023

A woman has been accused of attempting to hire a hitman, via the dark web, to murder the wife of a man she reportedly met on Match.com, according to court docs.

Melody Sasser, of Tennessee, was tracking the husband and wife's whereabouts in Alabama through a fitness app the couple used while she was in the process of securing an assassin, investigators believe.

The target of the alleged murder plot told investigators that Sasser was a hiking buddy of her husband's before he moved to Alabama.

In the recently unsealed court docs the husband, identified simply as D.W., said Sasser became upset when he told her he was getting married.

"I hope you both fall off a cliff and die," Sasser told D.W., according to a May 11 affidavit, reports NBC News.

Per the affidavit, a Homeland Security Investigations unit in Birmingham, Alabama had received a tip about the alleged plot back in April.

Messages between an online user named "cattree" and the admin of a dark website, Online Killers Market, were given to investigators, court docs reveal. Online Killers Market, as its name implies, is a hitmen for hire website; however it's widely known that such websites are almost guaranteed to backfire on those attempting to actually hire an assassin, and Online Killers Market has previously been accused of being a sham.

Investigators claim screenshots showed that "cattree" had ordered a murder for hire in early January.

"Cattree" had shared the name of the victim, identified in court docs as J.W., her address and roughly $10k in Bitcoin, investigators say.

The murder for hire description reportedly said: "It needs to seem random or accident. Or plant drugs, do not want a long investigation. She recently moved in with her new husband."

A photo of J.W. was also reportedly uploaded to the website.

Investigators alerted local law enforcement in Prattville, Alabama, where J.W. lived and sent police to her home.

The victim immediately named "Sasser as a suspect" when she was notified of the alleged threat. J.W. told police Sasser was a hiking friend of her husband's before he moved to Alabama.

While her husband, D.W., told investigators he had met Sasser on dating website Match.com; he said the suspect had assisted him with a hike on the Appalachian Trail, the affidavit says.

Court docs claim, Sasser allegedly traveled to the couple's Alabama residence after learning they had become engaged last fall.

According to J.W., her car seemed to have been keyed and she had been the recipient of "unpleasant phone calls" from an unknown person using an electronic voice disguise. Court docs describe the calls as "threatening" but were untraceable.

The suspect has also been accused of tracking the couple through fitness app Strava, via their Garmin smartwatches.

Investigators say Sasser, under the name "cattree", had placed several messages on Online Killers Market over the course of months.

On March 22, the criminal complaint alleges, "cattree" posted a message, "I have waited for 2 months and 11 days and the job is not completed."

"2 weeks ago you said it was been worked on and would be done in a week. The job is still not done. Does it need to be assigned to someone else. Will it be done. What is the delay. When will it be done," the criminal complaint says she added.

Ultimately, investigators say, "cattree" agreed to pay more for the murder.

Sasser was arrested on May 18 and remains in jail. She has been charged with murder for hire in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Tennessee, if convicted she could face up to 10 years in prison.

Sasser's attorney, M. Jeffrey Whitt, gave a statement to The Daily Beast, "I have been representing citizens accused of crimes for 32 years across this state, and this is certainly not the first prosecution I've faced alleging some type of murder for hire scheme. Our investigation is in its infancy as I was only retained within the last week. As such, I find it premature to comment on the facts of this case until such time as each of the allegations have been vetted and such future responses are in accordance with our state rules restricting public comments during pending prosecutions."

Sasser has a court appearance on Thursday.