Man Sentenced to Death for Random Killings of Florida Women
Wade Wilson, convicted of brutally killing two Florida women in 2019, was sentenced to death on Tuesday, according to reports.
A grand jury indicted the 30-year-old in 2019 on charges of first-degree murder for the deaths of Kristine Melton, 35, and Diane Ruiz, 43. Wilson confessed to police shortly after his arrest that he had killed both women on Oct. 7, 2019.
After being found guilty in June, a jury voted by two majority decisions that Wilson should receive the death penalty, and Lee County Circuit Judge Nicholas Thompson agreed at a hearing on Aug. 27.
“The evidence showed that both murders were heinous, atrocious, and cruel,” Judge Thompson wrote in the sentencing order, “and that the second murder was cold, calculated, and premeditated.”
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.
“He will pay the ultimate price,” State Attorney Amira Fox said in a news conference immediately following the sentencing, alongside the victims’ families.
During a motion hearing on Tuesday morning, Wilson’s attorney, Lee Hollander, requested that the court impose two life sentences instead of the death penalty, arguing, “the court to take into consideration that death is permanent.”
Assistant State Attorney Andreas Gardiner countered, stating, “Mr. Wilson’s decisions were not only pitiless and conscienceless, but they amounted to tragically reducing Ms. Melton, as well as Ms. Ruiz, to nothing more than memories and photographs,” asserting that Wilson was not fit for a lesser sentence.
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. He then stole Melton’s car and drove to meet his girlfriend, Melissa Montanez. After Montanez refused to get into the car, Wilson assaulted her, but she managed to escape.
Driving back to Cape Coral, he found Ruiz walking along a street and lured her into his vehicle by asking for directions. When Ruiz tried to get out, Wilson strangled her and ran her over 10 to 20 times “until she looked like spaghetti,” the court heard. Her body was found in the woods three days later.
According to the sentencing order, Wilson turned himself in to the police days after the killings, at his father’s recommendation. His father testified that Wilson sounded “excited” while recounting his crimes and showed no remorse.