Nevada Woman Sentenced for Hiring Bitcoin Killer to Kill Ex-Husband

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A Nevada woman who tried to pay a dark web hitman with Bitcoin to kill her ex-husband was sentenced to five years in prison on Friday.

Kristy Lynn Felkins, 38, pleaded guilty in March to using interstate commercial facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, according to the US Department of Justice. She faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

In 2016, she sent 12 bitcoins, then worth $5,000, to the administrator of a Tor network site called Besa Mafia, which claimed to offer murder-for-hire services. The bitcoin she sent would today be worth nearly $360,000, according to CoinGecko.

For four months in 2016, Felkins exchanged messages with website administrator Besa Mafia. She provided specific information about how her ex-husband was found, including his home address, vehicle and what time he left for work, according to a criminal complaint filed in 2020.

Felkins wanted her ex-husband’s murder to look like an accident, but did not agree to a $4,000 surcharge. After her payment was sent, the site administrator said a hitman had been assigned and her husband would be gone within a week.

However, no murder took place. Besa Mafia was a scam site, and Felkins was never reimbursed for the Bitcoin she sent to the website, which is no longer operational, the DOJ said in a press release. The Justice Department has not disclosed how it learned of Felkins’ actions.

During his sentencing on Friday, Felkins’ ex-husband, Gabriel Scott, of North Carolina, said he was very, very surprised when he learned of the failed plot to murder her, describing Felkins as a wonderful mother, per The Sacramento Bee.

The divorce had been as amicable as expected, Scott told U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley, who called Scott for his opinion. Still, Scott thought Felkins deserved some sort of punishment.

Felkins told the Besa Mafia administrator in 2016 that she was able to benefit from the death of her ex-husband. I’m standing for his retirement, our house and maybe a big life insurance payout, she said, according to the complaint.

Yet on Friday, Felkins said she was grateful to the person in charge of Besa Mafia for not honoring the agreement they had established.

I’m very glad no harm was done to Gabe, she said. I thank God every day that the person I spoke to was a scammer.

A similar sting led to the arrest and jailing of a Mississippi woman last year when she paid $10,000 in Bitcoin to an alleged hitman who turned out to be a federal law enforcement officer.

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