Woman sought hitman on dark web to kill her lover’s wife and his daughter, feds say
A woman tried hiring a hitman to kill the wife and daughter of a man she was having an affair with — offering thousands of dollars and sexual favors in exchange for their killings, according to federal prosecutors.
Yue Zhou, 42, sought hitman-for-hire services on the dark web using an alias after prosecutors said she grew “emotionally invested in the relationship,” court documents say.
But the website she used in 2019 was fake, resulting in her arrest on June 5, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Zhou, a Chinese citizen living in Queens, New York, pleaded not guilty to murder-for-hire at an arraignment on July 8 in Brooklyn federal court following her indictment, court records show. She has been living in the U.S. without permanent legal status, according to prosecutors.
Zhou’s public defender declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on July 9.
“Her depraved plan was only thwarted because the web site she used to set up the murder-for-hire was a scam,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a July 8 news release.
Zhou put in an order to kill her lover’s wife for $5,000 under the username “BIGTREE” in 2019, prosecutors said.
She provided the wife’s home address, work schedule and the “best times to target” her, in part, because she wanted the woman’s husband to “have an alibi for the murder,” according to court documents.
Zhou paid $5,000 in Bitcoin to the site after being accused of working with a Ukraine-based exchange service and also gave $5,000 to a “middleman” in Brooklyn to ensure the payment went through, according to prosecutors.
The man’s daughter is targeted
Zhou also unsuccessfully tried to hire someone over the website to kill the man’s daughter from another marriage, and once directly threatened her with violence, court documents say.
“Warning: I will cut your body into hundred pieces if you guys still don’t take responsibilities. (sic) I know where you live. I watch you all time,” Zhou is accused of writing to the man’s daughter in December 2019.
By February 2021, Zhou still wanted the daughter dead and reached out her neighbor, according to prosecutors.
In a text message, she tried hiring the neighbor to kill the daughter and get rid of her body in exchange for $10,000 and sex, prosecutors said.
“Throw her body into the lake. I really don’t want to see her again,” Zhou texted the neighbor, according to a letter supporting Zhou’s pretrial detention.
After Zhou is accused of sending the text, her phone was traced to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where Zhou worked at a spa in 2020 and 2021 that was raided by authorities in connection with prostitution, prosecutors wrote in the filing.
“For the past several years, (Zhou) has worked for short periods of time at multiple spas around the country that are connected to illicit sex work,” the filing says.
‘Danger to the community’
When Zhou no longer believed the dark web hitman site was real, she “sent several disturbing threats” to the site’s administrator, “threatening physical and sexual violence against the administrator and his family,” prosecutors wrote.
Zhou’s messages to the administrator about arranging for the deaths of her former partner’s wife and daughter show that Zhou stalked both women, according to prosecutors.
On June 5, Zhou was arrested at a spa in Virginia on a warrant related to the murder-for-hire plot, according to prosecutors.
“Based on her concerted and painstaking efforts to kill numerous people, (Zhou) would (be) a clear danger to the community if released,” prosecutors said.
Zhou was ordered to be detained ahead of trial on July 8, court records show.
This story was originally published July 9, 2024 at 11:06 AM with the headline "Woman sought hitman on dark web to kill her lover’s wife and his daughter, feds say."
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