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A killer with Nazi face tattoos who brutally murdered two women was sentenced to death on Tuesday.
Wade Wilson, 30, appeared motionless in the courtroom in Lee County, Florida as the sentence was read as cheers and claps erupted from people in the gallery. Wilson had declined to address the court earlier in the afternoon.
In June, Wilson was convicted of two counts of first-degree felony murder and two counts of first-degree premeditated murder in the deaths of Kristine Melton, 35, and Diane Ruiz, 43. He strangled the women within hours of each other on October 6, 2019 in Cape Coral.
The jury voted in favor of the death penalty 9-3 in Melton’s case, and 10-2 in Ruiz’s murder. In Florida, only eight out of 12 jurors need to recommend the death penalty for it to be considered by a judge.
The jury also needed to prove the crimes involved aggravating factors. In this case, the panel found the crimes were heinous, atrocious, or cruel; committed by a person convicted of another felony and who had previously been convicted of a felony while in prison.
During a motion hearing on Tuesday morning, Wilson’s attorney, Lee Hollander, requested the court impose two life sentences instead of the death penalty.
Hollander asked County Circuit Judge Nicholas R Thompson to consider whether his client had the capacity to appreciate the criminal nature of the conduct or was substantially impaired when the crimes occurred.
“We’d ask the court to take into consideration that death is permanent,” Hollander said, a sentiment Assistant State Attorney Andreas Gardiner agreed with.
“Mr Wilson’s decisions were not only pitiless and consciousness less, but they amounted to tragically reducing Ms Melton, as well as Ms Ruiz, to nothing more than memories and photographs,” Gardiner said, during the motion hearing.
Prosecutors said Wilson met Melton at a live music bar before strangling her to death at her home in Cape Coral, where her body was discovered.
Wilson left the residence and found Ruiz walking along a Cape Coral street. He approached her in a car that he had stolen from Melton’s home. Wilson asked Ruiz for directions and she got into the car. When the woman tried to get out of the vehicle, Wilson strangled her and “ran her over until she looked like spaghetti,” the court heard. The two women were not known to each other.
Throughout the trial, the jury heard evidence of the numerous injuries suffered by the women. Melton suffered bruising to her face and body, hemorrhages on her neck and contusions to the lungs, liver, bladder and colon, among others. Some of the injuries Ruiz suffered included a nasal bone fracture, a laceration to her left breast, bruising on both sides of her body and multiple rib fractures.
Judge Thompson had the final say on whether the defendant was sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. To impose a death sentence, he had to consider each aggravating factor found by the jury and all mitigating circumstances.
“Given the facts of the case, nothing in defendant's background or mental state would suggest that a death sentence is inappropriate,” Thompson said before sentencing Wilson to death.
Prior to the sentencing hearing, three women sent Judge Thompson letters pleading with him to spare Wilson’s life. They cited the killer’s history of mental health issues, substance abuse and alleged lack of parental support.
“With regards to the Wade Wilson case, it appears clearly documented that Mr Wilson suffers with mental health issues that appear to be severely aggravated by the use of drugs,” Lindsay Brann, a mother of two boys in Alberta, Canada, wrote in a letter, Lee County Circuit Court records show.
During legal proceedings, Wilson’s adoptive parents submitted a letter stating that he was “a joyful child” and “loved his parents.” They claimed Wilson became delusional after his drug addiction began. An expert witness claimed Wilson had taken drugs the night before the murders.
Sara Miller, an assistant state attorney, said Wilson had been hospitalized while in jail for a fentanyl overdose.
During the motion hearing, Dr Thomas Coyne, a neuropathologist and an associate medical examiner, provided expert testimony stating he did not find any damage to Wilson’s skull or brain, which could have been a mitigating circumstance when considering the death penalty.
Dr Mark Rubino, a neurologist, disagreed with that assessment. He said he found evidence of cognitive and emotional dysfunction in Wilson, causing worse behavior and less thinking, in addition to a brain injury. A combination of Wilson’s brain injuries and the drugs he was on at the time likely resulted in the murders, Rubino added.
