Cottage Grove, Minnesota, was the kind of quiet town where crime seemed like something that happened anywhere else. But in 2016, a chilling case unfolded—one that involved the dark web, an attempted hitman-for-hire, and a husband hiding a double life.

At the center of it all was Amy Allwine, a beloved dog trainer, devoted mother, and active member of her church. When she started receiving anonymous death threats, she turned to law enforcement for help.

The messages warned that someone had been hired to kill her—and worse, that if she didn’t take her own life first, her family would be harmed. The threats were detailed, persistent, and terrifying. They said things like “Commit suicide. If you do not, then you will slowly see things taken away from you, and each time you will know that you could have stopped it, which will eat you apart from the inside.”

Amy did the right thing—she reported them to the FBI. Investigators discovered that the threats were linked to a site on the dark web called Besa Mafia, a fake murder-for-hire scam that charged exorbitant amounts of money for assassinations that would never take place. Someone had paid thousands in Bitcoin to have Amy killed. But, like all the other Besa Mafia “hits”, the plot never materialized, and the investigation stalled. Amy tried to move on, but she couldn’t shake the fear that someone wanted her dead. She was right.

On November 13, 2016, Stephen Allwine made a frantic 911 call. His voice trembled as he told dispatchers he had found Amy dead in their bedroom. According to Stephen, Amy had shot herself in the head while he was out running errands with their son. A 9mm pistol was found near her body, and Stephen insisted it was suicide—perhaps brought on by the threats she had been receiving.

Investigators knew something was off right away. The crime scene didn’t make sense. There was no gunpowder residue on Amy’s hands, meaning she hadn’t pulled the trigger. The placement of the gun was unnatural, and there were no signs of depression or distress in Amy’s recent behavior.

As investigators looked closer, all roads led back to Stephen Allwine. FBI forensic analysts found Bitcoin transactions linking Stephen to Besa Mafia, the fake hitman-for-hire site. He had tried to have Amy killed online but got scammed because the hit never happened, and the money was gone. Digital traces led authorities right back to Stephen’s IP address. The threats that had terrified Amy? Stephen had written them himself. Amy had high levels of scopolamine in her system, a drug known for inducing confusion and drowsiness. Investigators believed Stephen had drugged her to stage the murder as a suicide.

Then there was his motive. Stephen had been living a double life. While he presented the image of a perfect husband and church deacon to his community, in private he was an active user of Ashley Madison, a website for people seeking extramarital affairs. Investigators discovered that he had been cheating on Amy for years. With divorce not an option in their strict religious community, murder became his solution.

In January 2018, Stephen Allwine went on trial for first-degree murder. Prosecutors laid out his chilling plan: He tried to have Amy killed by a hitman. When that failed, he drugged her and staged her death to look like a suicide. The jury took just eight hours to convict him.

At sentencing, Amy’s family spoke of the deep betrayal they felt—not just because Stephen had killed her, but because he had spent months terrorizing her with fake threats, forcing her to live in fear until the moment he took her life. Stephen received life in prison without parole.

Unlike many convicted killers, Stephen never showed remorse. He continued to deny involvement, claiming that he was a victim of a frame-up even as overwhelming digital evidence proved his guilt. His calculated deception, from faking death threats to hiring a hitman, to killing Amy himself, remains one of the most disturbing domestic murder cases in recent history.