A woman living in Florida is accused of allegedly hiring a hitman on the dark web to kill her former spouse’s partner.
A criminal complaint from the feds accuses DeAnna Marie Stinson, 50, of soliciting a crime of violence and murder for hire. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida says that, Stinson paid $12,000 in Bitcoin to hire a hitman on the dark web.
According to Patch.com, Stinson is a “church leader.”
Stinson is the director of finance for Bible-Based Fellowship Church at 4811 Erlich Road in Carrollwood. In addition to her work at the church, Stinson is the founder of Woman of Excellence Consulting in New Tampa. According to Woman of Excellence website, Stinson founded the organization in 2002 to help small, minority-owned businesses who can’t afford administrative, organizational or accounting services.
patch.com
The federal criminal complaint says Stinson created an account on a murder for hire site on the dark web on June 24, 2021. Indicating that law enforcement could have access to the site. In most murder for hire cases, independent researchers have provided law enforcement agencies with hacked information. This time, it appears one inside source is actually a law enforcement officer operating in an undercover capacity.
Hiring the Hitman
She created the account on June 24, 2021, the next day after creating the account, Stinson is alleged to have submitted an order on the site and requested a “quick hit in southern Florida.” Stinson identified the target as the romantic partner of her former spouse. She provided the dark web site with the name of the victim, the address, and a picture of the victim.
She sent more than $12,000 in Bitcoin to the site between June and July 2021.
On July 31, 2021, she told the administrators to “reassign the job to someone who has a history of getting jobs done” because she “need[ed] th[e] job done ASAP.” Federal investigators conducted basic blockchain analysis and identified Stinson as the source of the Bitcoin payments. After examing records provided by the cryptocurrency exchange she was identified as the source of the payments. She paid the murder for hire site using a wallet that was associated with the exchange.
A law enforcement officer acted in an undercover capacity as the hitman for the darkweb site. Posing as the Hitman he contacted Stinson by phone. Stinson told the agent posing as a hitman that she wanted him to kill her former spouse’s romantic partner. Stinson agreed to send the undercover agent $350 in Bitcoin to purchase a revolver with which the agent would murder the target.
