A Bedford woman was sentenced Thursday to nine years in federal prison for attempting to facilitate a murder-for-hire plot to kill her boyfriend’s lover, federal officials said.
Michelle Murphy, 58, was sentenced months after pleading guilty to a charge of murder for hire, says a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas. A criminal complaint said that on July 28 Murphy sent about $10,000 in bitcoin on the dark web to have someone killed.
According to the complaint, a Department of Homeland Security agent received information from a source about the payment and also got a possible name and address of the intended victim. The agent did a blockchain analysis and found that, in the two days prior, Murphy had converted cash into bitcoin at a cryptocurrency ATM into a cryptocurrency wallet.
The agent wrote, that on July 28 Murphy used bitcoin traceable to the wallet to pay a person to kill someone. About two weeks later on Aug. 11, the agent spoke with the targeted woman, who said she was in a romantic relationship with a man who lived in Bedford with another girlfriend named Michelle.
The agent found through Murphy’s Facebook page that she was in a relationship with the man and also had several photographs of a dog that is a Mudi breed. According to the complaint, Murphy used a dark web moniker, “LISTMUDI,” when attempting to hire a hitman.
On Sept. 21, agents confronted Murphy and her boyfriend at DFW International Airport. In an interview at a Transportation Security Administration office, Murphy “acknowledged” she found out her boyfriend was seeing another woman and “then admitted she transferred Bitcoin” with the intent to pay a person to kill her, the complaint said.
At the sentencing hearing Thursday, prosecutors and defense attorneys said it appeared the person who accepted funds from Murphy “likely never intended to carry out the murder,” the release said.