It may happen more often than we know—that a journalist investigating a story uncovers a crime. In this true-crime case, three journalists were investigating a murder-for-hire website on the dark web. They found communication between the website administrator and an unidentified person in the market to have someone killed.
All three journalists saw chilling messages like,
The target needs to be killed; he is a white male, 5’5”, dark brown short hair, blue eyes, weighs 165lbs…
The unidentified person disclosed what the person drove, where the person worked, their cell phone number, along with photos.
In response, the website administrator asked for proof of payment in the form of bitcoin (cryptocurrency). The unidentified person shared a screenshot of their bitcoin wallet and the ‘funds’ were transferred.
The FBI National Threat Operations Center received a complaint with the information the journalists had found. An analyst with the FBI identified the IP address used to transfer the bitcoin.
Local FBI Field Office agents served a search warrant on a 38-year-old mother. Later, they arrested her on murder-for-hire charges.
She and her ex-husband were in a custody battle. She felt strongly that he’d been mentally and physically abusing their children for years and that it was her divine right as a mother to protect them. In the divorce documents, a judge warned the woman to stop making false claims against her ex-husband.
After her arrest, she pleaded guilty to using the Internet with the intent that a murder be committed. A federal judge sentenced her to six years in federal prison. #murderforhire #darkweb
Be sure to email me if you hear of a true-crime you think would be good in a book. I’ll research it, share it and possibly use it in one of my novels.
And if you are an author interested in this true-crime as inspiration for a plot, email me. I’m happy to share more information about this case.
Source: U.S. District Court, Wisconsin State Journal, Oxygen True Crime