Woman Sentenced to 9 Years in Dark Web Murder-for-Hire Plot

A Bedford woman who attempted to hire a hitman to kill her boyfriend's lover was sentenced today to nine years in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton.

Michelle Murphy, 58, was charged via criminal complaint in September 2023 and pleaded guilty in December 2023 to one count of murder-for-hire. She was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman.

According to court documents, Ms. Murphy used the dark web to attempt to pay a hitman $10,510 in Bitcoin to murder her boyfriend's lover.

Blockchain analysis showed that Ms. Murphy used an ATM to convert cash into cryptocurrency on at least three occasions. On July 27, 2023, she transferred approximately 0.358 BTC ($10,510) to a Bitcoin wallet she believed belonged to the murder-for-hire recipient.

Agents subsequently confronted Ms. Murphy and the boyfriend in question. After being read her Miranda rights, Ms. Murphy admitted that when she found out her boyfriend was seeing another woman, she attempted to hire a hit man to kill the woman.

At Thursday's sentencing hearing, prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed that it appeared the "hitman" who accepted funds from Ms. Murphy likely never intended to carry out the murder.

Homeland Security Investigations conducted the investigation with the assistance of the Bedford, Euless, Grapevine, and Hurst Police Departments. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Weybrecht prosecuted the case.