KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A Knoxville woman who tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill someone she saw as a romantic rival will spend a little more than 8 years in prison.
Melody Sasser was sentenced Wednesday afternoon by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Varlan. The judge imposed a 100-month term, which works out to 8 years and 4 months.
After the 48-year-old Sasser finishes her time in prison she'll face three years on supervised release.
Varlan said the circumstances of her crime -- pleading guilty to murder for hire -- were somewhat unique, but the judge also noted it was a crime she worked up to and repeatedly pursued after first stalking and vandalizing the victim's vehicle.
The judge deemed it also important to send a message to the public at large that such behavior carried consequences.
Starting in September 2022, Sasser targeted a woman who'd been seeing and then wed a man that Sasser formerly had been seeing. They'd hiked together, among other activities before he told her their relationship was off.
Sasser made threatening phone calls, disguising her voice, to the victim. She also drove to Alabama where the woman lived. She vandalized the woman's vehicle, an investigation showed.
That accelerated to her going onto the dark web to find someone she could hire to kill the victim, government prosecutor Anne-Marie Svolto said. She found a website -- "Online Killers Market" -- that she thought would do the job; it proved to be fraudsters but she didn't know that, Wednesday's court hearing showed.
She paid nearly $10,000 in cryptocurrency to finish the job and later persisted in learning how the plot was going to the people she thought would carry it out.
The killing didn't take place. The victim attended Wednesday's sentencing hearing and submitted a letter for Varlan to consider, but she did not speak.
Svolto told Varlan that Sasser's crime wasn't a one-off attempt to do harm. Rather, she worked for months figuring out ways to harass and harm the woman.
She kept a journal that authorities ultimately found detailing her plans to kill the woman, Svolto said.
"It was a hidden rage that she kept secret for months," Svolto told Varlan.
Sasser faced a max of about 10 years for the crime. Svolto said she deserved the upper end of the range.
The victim suffered trauma and fear because of Sasser, the prosecutor said. For a time she lived away from home in a hotel, she got a gun and she and her husband repeatedly searched every room of their home to ensure no attacker lurked there, Wednesday's hearing showed.
Veteran Knoxville attorney Jeff Whitt represented Sasser. About a dozen friends and family members attended Wednesday's hearing.
Whitt said his client was deeply remorseful for what she'd done and wanted the victim to know she would never have to fear from Sasser ever again.
"She wants her to be able to move on with her life," he said.
Sasser cooperated with authorities once her plot was discovered and admitted what she'd done. Up to 2022, she'd led a clean life free of any criminal accusations that included many hours volunteering to help with public service causes, he said.
In fact, he argued, she'd lived an "exemplary" life up to that point.
At her age, there's very little chance she'll reoffend, he argued in seeking a lower-range sentence.
What she did happened as the result of a personal "breakdown," Whitt told Varlan.
"This was a breakdown of massive proportion," he said.
In the past, she'd suffered mental and emotional problems as the result of her parents' deaths. She's also abused alcohol, he said.
"She just wanted to move forward with her life," he said.
Along with her prison sentence, Sasser must pay an agreed upon amount of $5,389 in restitution to the victim.