They Were Hiking Friends. Then She Ordered the Hit.

[0:00] Hi, it's Steve. Before we get into this case, I want to share something. [0:05] This story has been rattling around in my head for weeks, not because of what happened. We cover plenty of dark material on this show, but it's because I genuinely cannot wrap my mind around the why. Our predator today did something monstrous, no doubt. But by every account from court documents, from the people who knew her, she was also genuinely wonderful, friendly, and generous. The kind of person you'd be happy to see at work or on a hiking trail. So which was she? Did something break inside of her? Did she snap? Or was the smiling face always a mask hiding something darker. I don't know. And after spending weeks with these case files, I'm not sure anyone does. Here's what keeps me up at night. How would you ever know? [1:08] The person in the next cubicle could be the monster, the friendly neighbor who waves every morning. They could be wonderful, or they could be a murder-for-hire customer. You wouldn't know, would you? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this show. If you're on the email list, just reply to any email. I read every response. [1:34] Now, let's get into it. [1:42] On January 11th, 2023, it was a mild Wednesday evening in Knoxville, the temperature hovering around 50 degrees, and a woman sat alone in her apartment, her laptop glowing in the darkness. She had just uploaded a photograph of another woman to a website called Online Killers Market. That's a pretty ominous name for a website, wouldn't you agree? In the order description, she typed these words. It needs to seem random or accident or plant drugs. Do not want a long investigation. Then she paid $9,750 in Bitcoin. [2:35] The target was jennifer wallace a woman whose only crime was falling in love with a man who had once been a hiking partner to the woman placing the order the woman placing the order was melody sasser an environmental compliance specialist an avid hiker a smiling friendly face a great co-worker and someone who had walked 900 miles of trails in the great smoky mountains, And now, according to federal prosecutors, a would-be murderer. Hey, before I go further, if you want the court documents and case files behind stories like this one, be sure you're subscribed on the email list. Go to truecrimeunheard.com. That's truecrimeunheard.com. And if you want to go right to the subscription form, go to truecrimeunheard.com slash subscribe. [3:44] This is a story about how rejection can curdle into obsession. About how a scammy murder-for-hire website and foreign intelligence agencies accidentally kept a woman alive. I'm Steve Rode, and for 30 years I worked as an investigative writer, chasing financial criminals, from Ponzi schemers to corporate fraudsters. I've also spent years in emergency services, two years as a police dispatcher, taking emergency calls, surveillance photography, with local law enforcement and chief pilot for public safety operations, flying search and rescue missions for police, fire, and state departments. Now, this case comes from court documents filed in the Eastern District of Tennessee, the Department of Justice press releases, and Homeland Security investigation records. Every fact is attributed to these sources. Where I'm speculating or reconstructing, I'll tell you. The story begins not with a crime, but with a connection. The kind you find on dating apps, and the kind that sometimes leads to love, and sometimes leads to somewhere much, much darker. [5:10] According to court documents and published interviews, Melody Sasser was the daughter of a physician from Hamilton, Alabama, a small town of about 6,800 people near the Mississippi border. By the time she reached her 20s, both her parents were dead. Her father from heart complications related to diabetes during her high school years, and her mother sadly from bone cancer around 2000. A death Melody watched unfold day by day while serving as her mother's primary caretaker. She and her sister had nursed their mother through her final months, and a friend would later say that Melody was her mother's heartbeat. [6:01] Imagine being 20-something years old, no parents. A grief so heavy, you don't know how to carry it. After college at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Sasser built a quiet, methodical life. She earned a degree in environmental science. You know, the kind of degree that leads to steady, anonymous work. She got a job as an environmental compliance specialist at Pilot Flying J. The truck stop company headquartered in Knoxville. And working from their corporate campus on Lonus Drive in West Knoxville, she drove to work in her Hyundai Santa Fe, kept Pekingese dogs for company, and got married, and then divorced, the details of which have never been made public. [6:52] Now here's something important to understand about who Melody Sasser was before all of this. According to court records, she had no criminal history, not as much as a traffic ticket, no restraining orders, no harassment complaints, no documented pattern of obsessive behavior towards anyone. The friends and hiking partners who would later be interviewed described her as a friendly and upbeat, sunshiny woman who volunteered at assisted living facilities and worked with the United Way. According to her friends, evenings often meant a small apartment, two dogs, and the glow of a laptop screen. Now, it's not hard to imagine that for Melody, The mountains felt more like home than anywhere with four walls. [7:50] And somewhere in the middle of all that loss, all that quiet survival, she found the mountains. And that was her happy place. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has over 900 miles of trails, 150 official routes winding through some of the most visited wilderness in America. According to hiking club records and social media posts, Melody Sasser walked every single one of them. In July 2022, she achieved something most hikers never attempt. Membership in the 900-Miler Club. The recognition goes to those who complete all 150 trails in the park. And her social media is filled with photographs of mountain vistas and waterfalls. And fellow hikers described her as friendly and upbeat. But the mountains gave her something else. Something she hadn't had since her mother died. [8:58] Community. And in 2020, on a dating app called Match.com, she found what looked like something more. [9:14] According to the federal criminal complaint, Melody Sasser matched with David Wallace on Match.com around 2020. He was a retired Department of Energy emergency manager, someone who had spent his career preparing for disasters and responding to crises. An Air Force veteran and, like Melody, an avid hiker who saw the Smokies not as a weekend recreation, but as something closer to a calling. According to court documents, they became hiking buddies. The specifics of their early relationship aren't detailed, but what is clear is that they spent time together. Time that Melody apparently understood as something more significant than David did. [10:06] The criminal complaint describes what happened next in clinical terms. Quote, their relationship was brief and did not turn romantic, unquote. But brief and non-romantic to David Wallace didn't mean the same thing to Melody Sasser. No. According to prosecutors, Sasser believed she was being strung along, that Wallace made promises or suggestions that he didn't keep. The details of what she believed he said to her have never been made public, but what's clear from the court documents is that when Wallace moved on, Sasser did not. [10:55] And then Wallace met someone else. He met Jennifer. According to court records, David Wallace began a relationship with Jennifer, and eventually they got engaged. [11:08] What Melody Sasser did next would escalate from obsession to something far, far darker. [11:20] In the fall of 2022, according to court documents, Melody Sasser got in her Hyundai Santa Fe and drove five hours on the interstate west on I-40 through the Tennessee River Corridor, past Chattanooga. You know that winding stretch where the highway cuts between the river and the bluffs? Where 18-wheelers crowd the lanes? And then south on I-59 into Alabama through the rolling red clay hills and pine forest. And then through Birmingham's sprawl. Past the iron skeletons of old furnaces, then south on I-65 through gentle farmland until exit 181. 320 miles from Knoxville to Prattville, Alabama. [12:12] Prattville is a place worth visiting. They call it the Fountain City, not for decorative fountains, but for the artesian wells that bubble up throughout the town. They're fresh water drawing crowds who fill plastic jugs at tin-roofed well sheds. It's a New England-style mill town transplanted to the deep south and founded in 1839 by a cotton gin industrialist from New Hampshire who built his factory along the creek. Population, about 38,000. 14 miles northwest of Montgomery, quiet residential suburbs surrounding a historic downtown of converted cotton warehouses and brick storefronts. Quite honestly, it's the kind of place where people wave at strangers and where neighbors notice unfamiliar cars. One day, unannounced, Sasser appeared at the Wallace home, confronted David, and according to the criminal complaint, the conversation was not cordial, no. The details of that confrontation aren't fully documented, but here's what happened afterwards. [13:29] It wasn't just one trip according to court documents traffic cameras photographed sasser's vehicle making multiple trips to prattville 320 miles each way again and again, according to the criminal complaint jennifer wallace's car was keyed not a little scratch, but deep gashes running deliberately down both sides of the vehicle the kind of damage that takes effort and is expensive to repair. And it communicates something far beyond just irritation and idle anger. Then came the phone calls. According to court documents, Jennifer began receiving threatening calls from disguised voices. Calls made through the internet rather than a phone line. the kind that don't show a real number and are almost impossible to trace. According to one published account, a voicemail left this message. Quote, You know what would make the world a better place? You not in it. [14:49] Jennifer Wallace wasn't going to be passive, no sir. She wasn't going to wait for someone else to protect her, uh-uh. Because according to published reports, she contacted her cell phone provider to block internet-based calls, the untraceable type of calls, that Sasser was apparently using to hide her identity. She installed a home security system, motion sensors, and cameras. And she purchased a firearm and learned how to use it. You see, Jennifer Wallace was preparing for war, but Melody Sasser, according to prosecutors, had already moved beyond irritating phone calls. [15:33] She was looking for a more permanent solution and the answer, she thought, waited on a part of the internet most people will never see. [15:50] The dark web. Maybe you've heard about it, but most people never see it. But somehow Melody Sasser found her way there. According to the federal affidavit filed by Homeland Security investigators, Special Agent Gregory Martin, Sasser accessed a dark web platform called Online Killers Market, or OKM. The site, according to the affidavit, purported to offer hit men for hire services, along with other random associated crimes like hijacking, kidnapping, extortion, disfigurement, and sexual violence. It claimed to have over 12,000 registered members from countries around the world. [16:41] Users could create accounts, submit orders with target details, receive price quotes, and communicate with alleged hitmen through an internal messaging system. Payment was accepted in cryptocurrency. On December 31, 2022, on New Year's Eve with overcast skies and temperatures in the low 50s, Melody Sasser pulled into a small parking lot in North Knoxville. According to cryptocurrency records subpoenaed from CoinHub, the Bitcoin ATM was located in the 37918 zip code, North Broadway, in the Fountain City area, a place called Time Out Deli and Market. [17:29] It's the kind of place you've driven by a hundred times. I know I have. Red awning over the entrance, neon open sign glowing in the window. One of those small asphalt lots with the faded yellow parking stripes. The smell of grilled sandwiches and hot coffee drifting from the counter inside. And also inside, past the shelves of snacks and hair care products, was a Bitcoin ATM standing next to a regular bank machine. It's a tall black kiosk with a glowing screen. Looks kind of anonymous and unremarkable. It's honestly the kind of thing that most customers walk right past on their way to buy lottery tickets or grab some snack or lunch. [18:19] Melody deposited $1,000 in cash. After fees, approximately $750 in Bitcoin was sent to a digital wallet, one that prosecutors would later trace to online killer's market. It was the first of four payments, the beginning of what federal prosecutors would call a murder-for-hire conspiracy. [18:47] And somewhere between the holiday shoppers and the New Year's Eve preparations, between the customers ordering Philly cheesesteaks at the counter, and teenagers grabbing energy drinks from the cooler, a woman in her late 40s fed cash into a machine to pay for a stranger's death. [19:12] According to screenshots preserved by foreign law enforcement and detailed in the federal affidavit, on January 11, 2023, a user named Cat Tree placed an order on Online Killers Market. The order contained Jennifer Wallace's full name and home address in Prattville, Alabama. Her office address in Birmingham, the make and color of her car, a blue Subaru Outback, and her Alabama license plate number. Oh, and also her husband's vehicle, a maroon Jeep Grand Cherokee. And instructions. According to court documents, Sasser wrote, quote, It needs to seem random or accident. Or plant drugs. Do not want a long investigation. Unquote. She noted that Jennifer worked from home some days and from her Birmingham office on others. And that when she worked in the office, she worked late. [20:22] And then this detail. according to the federal affidavit. They have three dogs that bark and jump, but they're nice dogs. She was giving the hitman advice on how to approach the house. The price? $9,750 in Bitcoin. It was approximately 0.42 Bitcoin at the time. She should have saved her money. Payment was submitted. The order was confirmed. And then Melody Sasser waited. [21:04] Let me stop here for a moment, because there's a question you've probably been asking. What makes someone do this? I've looked into criminals for 30 years. I've chased embezzlers and fraudsters. I've watched people make choices that destroyed families, including their own. And I can tell you, the answer here just isn't simple, because this case doesn't fit the usual patterns. I mean, here's what's missing from Melody Sasser's history. Everything you'd expect to find. No prior arrests, no restraining orders, no documented obsessive behavior towards previous partners. Her ex-husband, whoever he is, never filed complaints. David Wallace apparently saw no warning signs during two years of hiking together. Remember, her friends described her as sunshiny, and her employer kept her for a decade. So what the hell happened? [22:09] According to her defense attorney, Melody Sasser suffered from unrecovered grief, both parents dead before she turned 30, a divorce, and then the loss of what she believed was a relationship, even though, according to court documents, David Wallace just never saw it that way. Psychologists have a term for this. Limerence. It's an involuntary obsessive attachment to someone. The highs and lows of perceived reciprocation become overwhelming And when rejection comes, it doesn't feel like disappointment It feels like annihilation, But here's what makes this case so unsettling Research on murder-for-hire solicitors Shows they're typically driven by anger and entitlement A belief that they deserve to get what they want No matter what the cost to others, They use psychological distancing Hiring someone else lets them avoid feeling responsible So, which was Melody Sasser? Was she a predator who hid her true nature for 47 years? Or a victim of her own undiagnosed psychology Which drifted into something monstrous? [23:33] The prosecutor, Anne-Marie Savolto, said something that stuck with me. After the guilty plea, after the confession, after everything, she told reporters, I don't think Sasser knows why she wanted her dead either. That's not a statement you hear often in criminal cases. And it suggests that even now, the answer just isn't clear. [24:02] According to court documents, after placing her order, Melody Sasser didn't just wait passively. She monitored her target. The Wallaces used fitness tracking apps connected to Garmin watches. Their workouts were visible on Strava, a social platform for athletes. And according to the federal affidavit, Sasser tracked Jennifer's movements through this data. She knew when Jennifer worked from home. She knew when Jennifer went for walks and how far. She knew the patterns of Jennifer Wallace's life with an intimacy that should have belonged only to her family. [24:46] And when weeks passed without word from online killers market, Sasser grew impatient. [24:54] On March 23, 2023, two months and 11 days after the initial order, Sasser messaged the site administrators. According to the affidavit, she wrote, quote, I have waited for two months and 11 days and the job is not completed. Two weeks ago, you said it had 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? Unquote. [25:33] The administrator responded that the assigned hitman had failed to act. He said, quote, He felt like it was too risky for him to do it, unquote. On March 28th, according to court documents, Sasser sent a message that would become key evidence. She provided real-time intelligence on her target. She said, quote, Yesterday she worked from home and went for a two-mile walk by herself. Assigned to another that can complete the job, unquote. And here's what makes this case so damn difficult to understand. During this same period, March and April 2023, while the murder order was active, while she was tracking Jennifer Wallace's movements, while she was complaining about delays, Melody Sasser was still living her happy public life And her Facebook profile tells the story. [26:40] In April 2023, she posted a photo of herself Standing on a beautiful mountain overlook The blue hazed ridges of the Smokies Stretching to the horizon behind her, She's wearing hiking gear She's smiling I mean, not a posed smile, but what looks like to be a totally genuine and happy one. The kind of smile that reaches your eyes and you just know that's legit. [27:14] On April 19th, 2023, eight days before foreign law enforcement tipped off Homeland Security about the murder plot, she posted another photo. She's sitting at a community volunteer event wearing a purple Pilot Gives Back t-shirt from her employer's charity program. The same warm smile. The same apparent happiness. [27:40] You look at those photos as I have looked at them. and you see a woman who appears genuinely content. Not someone performing happiness, not someone masking inner turmoil, someone who looks by every visible measure like she's living a good life. And yet, while those photos were being taken and posted, a murder contract was active. Jennifer Wallace's address and photographs were sitting on a dark web server and Sasser was checking her Strava. She was waiting for news that this woman was dead. How do you reconcile those two realities? How does a person smile like that? I mean, really, smile from the heart while waiting for a murder to be completed? [28:35] I don't honestly know. But that uncertainty is what makes this case stay with you. [28:47] According to the federal affidavit, the site administrator offered two new hitmen at higher prices. One wanted 0.49 Bitcoin and the other wanted 0.485 Bitcoin. On March 29th, Sasser messaged back, Assigned to 0.485, I will add BTC. [29:14] That same day, according to CoinHub Records, Sasser returned to the Bitcoin ATM at Timeout Deli and Market. The same small asphalt parking lot, the same red awning, the same neon sign, and the same anonymous kiosk standing quietly next to the shelves while customers ordered sandwiches at the counter. She deposited $2,000 in cash. After fees, approximately $1,579 was converted to Bitcoin and sent to online killer's market. Four days later, on April 2nd, she made another payment, $510 in cash, roughly $402 after fees. According to prosecutors, her total payment succeeded $10,000. But here's what Melody Sasser didn't know. what she couldn't have known. Online Killer's Market wasn't a murder-for-hire service. It was a scam. [30:21] And someone was watching. [30:29] I need to pause here because this part of the story reveals something most people don't know about the dark web. And it's important. So listen carefully and lean in. According to researchers who study these things, virtually every dark web hitman site is just an outright scam. The same researchers found that in one 18-month period, over 100 people tried to buy murders through these platforms, not realizing that the operators had no intention of killing anyone. They just wanted the money. In fact, some of the most notorious hitmen sites were exposed as pure frauds. Sites like Bessa Mafia took in hundreds of thousands of dollars from would-be customers before being revealed as elaborate cons run by scammers who simply collected payments and made excuses. And here's the darkest irony. The scam saved lives. [31:36] A Connecticut nurse paid $60,000 to have three people killed, including a colleague who had filed a complaint. None of the murders were ever attempted. The site that was used was a scam. All three of the intended victims are alive today. Now, I actually covered a case in a separate episode. If you haven't heard it, search for Ashley Grayson, who tried to hire someone to kill someone she was disagreeing with. But while these scams accidentally protect targets, they don't protect the customers because someone is always watching. In this case, according to the federal affidavit, a foreign law enforcement agency had access to online killers' markets, internal records. They were monitoring users, collecting screenshots, and building files. And when they identified a credible threat against a U.S. Citizen, Jennifer Wallace, they did something that absolutely saved her life. They picked up the phone and called Homeland Security. [32:55] On April 27, 2023, according to the federal affidavit, Homeland Security investigators received a tip from a foreign law enforcement agency. The message was stark. A woman in Tennessee had paid money to have a woman in Alabama killed. The order was active, and the target's name was Jennifer Wallace. [33:21] Special Agent Gregory Martin worked out of the Knoxville office And he began an investigation. The foreign agency provided everything they had. Screenshots of the order, cryptocurrency transaction records, the target's details, and the buyer's username. Remember CatTree? Now came the work of connecting a dark web alias to a real person. According to the affidavit, investigators subpoenaed records from the Bitcoin ATM. The record showed everything. Four transactions between December 31, 2022 and April 2, 2023. Cash deposits totaling over $10,000 and identification documents scanned at the machine. Driver's license photographs, a face and a name. Melody A. Sasser Date of birth, November 1975 Address, Knoxville, Tennessee The same person who had hiked 900 miles of trails in the Great Smoky Mountains The same person who posted smiling photographs on Facebook And the same person who colleagues described as friendly and helpful. [34:48] Homeland Security had their suspect and now they needed to move before the target was harmed. [34:57] Hey, if you're finding value in this episode, take 10 seconds to leave a rating or review wherever you're listening. Apple Podcasts could use another five-star review, please. It helps other people find these stories. And if you want the case files behind future episodes, the court documents, the source materials, well, be sure to become an email subscriber at truecrimeunheard.com. [35:33] On May 18th, 2023, a Thursday, a comfortable day, mid-70s, the kind of pleasant late spring morning when azaleas bloom across Knoxville, federal agents arrived at Melody Sasser's apartment. According to the federal affidavit, Sasser admitted to accessing online killers' market, communicating with individuals on the platform, making the Bitcoin payments, and submitting the order containing Jennifer Wallace's personal information. She confessed. According to court records, she told investigators that she was angry at Jennifer Wallace because Jennifer had married the ma'am she was supposed to be with. She admitted she had been communicating with the site for months. She acknowledged providing surveillance information and the target's movements. [36:33] Investigators seized Sasser's laptop, her cell phone, financial records that would later confirm every payment, every message, and every piece of the puzzle. This was no longer a mystery. According to the Homeland Security affidavit, Sasser said something else during that interview. something that suggests even she didn't fully understand what she had done, She said she didn't think they would actually do it. [37:10] Pilot Flying J, the truck stop company where Sasser had worked for a decade, learned about the arrest almost immediately. And according to published reports, the company launched an internal review. The review found no evidence that Sasser had conducted any of her criminal activity using the company resources. No accessing dark websites on work computers, no using company phones for cryptocurrency transactions. And by all accounts, she had kept her work life and her alleged crimes completely separate. And according to company statements, Sasser's employment was terminated following the arrest. The company cooperated fully with federal investigators. Here's what strikes me about this detail. For 10 years, Melody Sasser sat in meetings filled with compliance reports, participated in company volunteer events, the ones she posted photos from on Facebook. Her colleagues saw her every day, and they apparently liked her. And yet none of them knew the secret. [38:25] According to court records from the Eastern District of Tennessee, Melody Sasser was initially arrested on a federal criminal complaint. A grand jury later returned a formal indictment, charging her with one count of use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder for hire. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. And according to published reports, Sasser's defense team argued that she suffered from psychological trauma, the accumulated weight of losing both parents young, a failed marriage, and what they described as unrecovered grief. They portrayed her as someone who had been pushed beyond their psychological limit. But the prosecution had the messages. The surveillance data, the Bitcoin transactions, and most damning of all, Sasser's own confession. [39:27] On January 4th, 2024, according to court records, Melody Sasser pleaded guilty. In her plea agreement, she admitted to everything. Accessing online killers market, providing Jennifer Wallace's personal information, making the payments, conducting surveillance through the app, expressing frustration when the murder wasn't completed. [39:51] She was 48 years old. She had no prior criminal record. And she just confessed to trying to have another woman killed. [40:04] Jennifer Wallace survived. According to published reports, she never stopped living her life during the months when a murder contract was active against her. I mean, think about that for a moment. From January to May 2023, Jennifer Wallace went to work, walked her dogs. You know, the three dogs that bark and jump, but they're nice. She wore her fitness tracker. She went for two-mile walks that Melody Sasser was monitoring from 300 miles away. She knew something was wrong. She had received the threats. She had the security cameras, and she had the gun. But she didn't hide. According to court documents, Jennifer Wallace provided a victim impact statement for sentencing The contents of that statement have not been made public But prosecutors noted that the experience caused significant psychological harm Being hunted, even by a hitman who was never real, Leaves marks that don't show. [41:20] On September 18, 2024. According to Department of Justice records, Melody Sasser appeared for sentencing before the United States District Court, of the Eastern District of Tennessee. Federal prosecutors asked for the maximum, 120 months, 10 years, and they argued that Sasser's conduct was calculated, sustained over months, and showed no genuine remorse. The defense asked for mercy. They pointed to her lack of criminal history, her psychological struggles, and what they characterized as genuine regret. According to court documents, Sasser made a statement at sentencing. She said she was sorry. She said she didn't fully understand why she had done what she did. And she expressed what her attorneys described as remorse. The judge sentenced Melody Sasser to 100 months in federal prison. Eight years and four months, just under the maximum. She was also ordered to pay about $5,400 in restitution. According to the Bureau of Prison Records, Sasser is currently incarcerated at FCI Tallahassee, a low-security federal prison in Florida, and her projected release date is February 19, 2030. [42:50] This case reveals something uncomfortable about a dark web murder for hire ecosystem. According to researchers who study these platforms, the scam nature of these sites creates a strange paradox. The targets are protected because no one is actually trying to kill them. But the would-be buyers are still fully committed. They still provided real names, real addresses, real surveillance data. They still transferred real money with the genuine belief that they were paying for murder. [43:27] And that belief? That intent? Well, that's enough for federal prosecution. The foreign law enforcement agency that tipped off Homeland Security may have saved Jennifer Wallace's life, even though the murder was never really going to happen. Because what if online killers market had been real? What if the next site Sasser actually tried to reach had connections to people willing to kill? The scam caught her before she could find someone who would do the job. [44:10] So there's a question this case doesn't answer. I mean, probably several questions, really. What would Melody Sasser have done if the hitman she hired had been real? According to court documents, she paid over $10,000. She provided detailed surveillance. She expressed frustration at delays. She agreed to pay more money to a second hitman when the first one failed. Every action points in one direction But Melody Sasser never had to confront that final moment The news that Jennifer Wallace was dead, The crossing of a line that can never be uncrossed, And there's another question, maybe a harder one Was Melody Sasser always capable of this? Did 47 years of friendly and upbeat hide something darker? A predator waiting for the right trigger? Or was she genuinely the person her hiking partners believed her to be? Until grief and rejection and isolation corroded something essential inside her. [45:31] Remember, the prosecutor said she doesn't think Sasser herself knows the answer, which means you and I never will either. [45:41] The scam saved Jennifer Wallace's life. It might have saved Melody Sasser from becoming something worse than she already was. Or maybe not. No one can ever know. [46:00] Melody Sasser is 48 years old. She'll be in her mid-50s when she's released from federal prison. The trails in the Great Smoky Mountains will still be there. The 900 miles she walked before, all of this happened. And the photographs on social media of a woman who looked happy, who looked at peace, and who looked like someone you might pass on a switchback with a smile. [46:27] 230 miles to the southwest Jennifer Wallace is living the life Melody Sasser tried to end She's walking her own trails She's coming home to her husband Melody, Believed Should have been hers, I keep coming back to those April 2023 photographs The hiking photo on the mountain And the volunteer event in a purple company shirt The genuine smiles in both, Those photos weren't taken by someone pretending to be happy They were taken by someone who appeared to actually be happy, While a murder contract sat active on a dark web server While Jennifer Wallace went about her life not knowing someone was tracking her every walk And waiting for news of her death, This case is a reminder that the people who try to buy murder aren't always the one you'd expect. [47:26] They're environmental compliance specialists. They're members of hiking clubs. They're people who lost too much too young and never learned how to carry the weight. [47:38] Or maybe there's something else entirely. Maybe the sunshiny woman was always a mask. And maybe some people are better at hiding what they are than others are at seeing it. Or maybe, and this is the possibility, the hardest to sit with. Maybe both things were true at once. Maybe she was really happy on that mountain. And maybe she really did enjoy volunteering at the community event and maybe at the same time she was capable of coldly orchestrating a stranger's death. [48:23] It doesn't excuse what she did. It doesn't diminish the terror Jennifer Wallace experienced. But it leaves us with a question that has no comfortable answer. How does a person hold those two realities inside themselves at the same time? How do you smile, I mean really smile, while waiting impatiently for a murder? The prosecutor said she doesn't think Sasser herself knows why she wanted Jennifer dead. And maybe she doesn't know the answer to this question either. And so, maybe none of us can. If you want to receive detailed case files for future episodes, court documents, and source materials, be sure to subscribe at truecrimeunheard.com. You can also find me on Facebook, Substack, Instagram, and YouTube. Just search True Crime Unheard. And if this episode hit you the way it hit me, take 10 seconds and leave a rating or review wherever you're listening right now. It helps other people find these stories. Until next time, stay safe, stay curious, and stay subscribed. I'm Steve Rode, and this has been True Crime Cases You Haven't Heard.