A killer with Nazi facial tattoos who brutally murdered two women was sentenced to death on Tuesday.
Wade Wilson, 30, appeared motionless in the courtroom in Lee County, Florida. Wilson declined to speak in court during an early afternoon hearing.
The verdict was greeted with cheers and applause from the spectators in the stands. The verdict was postponed after a fire alarm went off in the courtroom a few minutes before it was due to begin.
In June, Wilson was found guilty of two counts of first-degree intentional murder and two counts of first-degree premeditated murder in connection with the deaths of 35-year-old Kristine Melton and 43-year-old Diane Ruiz. He strangled the women within hours of each other on October 6, 2019, in Cape Coral.
The jury voted 9 to 3 for the death penalty in Melton's case and 10 to 2 in Ruiz's case. In Florida, only eight of 12 jurors need to recommend the death penalty for a judge to consider it.
The jury also had to prove that the crimes involved aggravating circumstances. In this case, the panel found that the crimes were especially heinous, cruel, or cruel, and were committed by a person convicted of another capital crime or a crime involving the use or threat of violence, and by a person previously convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison or under community supervision or probation.
During a hearing Tuesday morning, Wilson's attorney, Lee Hollander, asked the court to impose two life sentences instead of the death penalty. He asked District Judge Nicholas R. Thompson to consider whether his client was capable of recognizing the criminal nature of the crime or whether he was significantly impaired at the time of the crime.
“We ask the court to consider that death is final,” Hollander said, an opinion shared by Deputy District Attorney Andreas Gardiner.
“Mr. Wilson's decisions were not only ruthless and unconscious, they also tragically left Ms. Melton and Ms. Ruiz with nothing but memories and photographs,” Gardiner said during the hearing.
Prosecutors said Wilson met Melton at a bar that featured live music and then strangled her in her Cape Coral home, where her body was discovered.
Wilson left the house and found Ruiz on a Cape Coral street. He approached her in a car 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 over her until she looked like spaghetti,” according to the court.
Throughout the trial, the jury heard evidence of the numerous injuries the women sustained. Melton suffered bruising to her face and body, bleeding from her neck, and bruising to her lungs, liver, bladder, and colon, among other injuries. The injuries Ruiz suffered included a broken nose, a laceration to her left breast, bruising to both sides of her body, and several broken ribs.
The two women did not know each other.
Judge Thompson had the final say on whether the defendant was sentenced to death or life without parole. To impose a death sentence, he had to consider all aggravating circumstances found by the jury and all mitigating circumstances.
“Given the facts of the case, there is nothing in the defendant's past or mental state to suggest that a death sentence would be inappropriate,” Thompson said before sentencing Wilson to death.
Before the sentencing, which was postponed from July 23 to August 27 because experts were not available on the earlier date, three women sent letters to Judge Thompson pleading with him to spare Wilson's life, citing the killer's mental health problems, substance abuse and alleged lack of parental support.
“With regard to the Wade Wilson case, it appears to be clearly documented that Mr. Wilson suffers from mental health issues that appear to be significantly exacerbated by drug use,” Lindsay Brann, a mother of two boys from Alberta, Canada, wrote in a letter, according to Lee County District Court records.
During the trial, Wilson's adoptive parents submitted a letter stating that he was “a happy child” and “loved his parents.” They claimed that Wilson became delusional after he began his drug addiction. An expert witness claimed that Wilson had taken drugs the night before the murders.
Sara Miller, an assistant district attorney, said Wilson was hospitalized for a fentanyl overdose while in prison.
During the motion hearing, Dr. Thomas Coyne, a neuropathologist and forensic pathologist, testified as an expert witness that he found no damage to Wilson's skull or brain that would have been a mitigating factor in considering the death penalty. Dr. Mark Rubino, a neurologist, disagreed with that assessment.
He said he found signs of cognitive and emotional dysfunction in Wilson, which, in addition to a brain injury, led to poorer behavior and less thinking. A combination of Wilson's brain injuries and the drugs he was taking at the time likely led to the murders, Rubino added.
