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'Heinous, atrocious and cruel': Man gets death penalty in random killings of Florida woman
By Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY,
2 hours ago
A Florida judge on Tuesday sentenced a 30-year-old man to death for the random 2019 killings of two Southwest Florida women.
Wade Steven Wilson, reportedly tied to a white supremist gang, was found guilty this summer of charges including first-degree murder in the slayings of Kristine Melton, 35, and Diane Ruiz , 43, of Cape Coral. A 12-member Lee County jury previously recommended he receive the death penalty for his crimes.
In Florida, juries recommend whether a convict should receive the death sentence, but the decision is ultimately up to a judge.
Wade Wilson was sentenced to death by Judge Nick Thompson for the murders of Kristine Melton and Diane Ruiz on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. Andrew West/The News-Press/USA Today Network
On Tuesday, 20th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Nicholas Thompson imposed the capitol sentence - one for each murders.
“The evidence showed both murders were heinous, atrocious and cruel, and that the second murder was cold, calculated and premeditated,” Thompson said during Wilson's sentencing hearing.
The defendant inflicted "serious physical and emotion pain to the victims" while on probation for felony convictions, the judge said.
Wilson's weeks-long trial began June 1 with jury selection, and took place at the the Lee County Courthouse in Fort Myers.
The jury convicted him of six charges including two counts of first-degree murder June 12.
A cousin of Kristine Melton addresses the media after Wade Wilson was sentenced to death for the murders of Kristine Melton and Diane Ruiz at the Lee County Courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. Andrew West/The News-Press/USA Today Network
On June 25, 10 of the 12 jurors voted Wilson should be executed for killing Ruiz. Jurors voted nine to three in favor of the death penalty for Melton's slaying.
According to trial testimony, Wilson met Melton , and a friend Oct. 7, 2019, at a Fort Myers bar and later in the evening, the trio visited Melton's Cape Coral home . After Melton's friend left, Wilson strangled Melton to death as she slept, stole her car, and then drove to meet his girlfriend, Melissa Montanez. After his girlfriend refused to get into the car, he assaulted her, but she managed to flee.
Not long after he drove back to Cape Coral, Wilson saw Ruiz walking to work along a street, pretended to ask her for directions, lured her into the car then attempted to strangle her. He then drove to an empty lot and attacked. When she tried to flee, Wilson attacked her, strangled then pushed her out of the car and running her over 10 to 20 times.
Her body was found in a field three days later, as vultures circled overhead, the News-Press, part of the USA TODAY Network reported, and after the murders, Wilson called his father Steven Testasecca several times and said he killed the woman. Testasecca contacted police and Wilson was arrested Oct. 8, 2019 .
The prison gang was founded in the late 80s in the Florida prison system, according to the Anti-Defamation League, and is the largest in the state,
Wade Wilson was sentenced to death by Judge Nick Thompson for the murders of Kristine Melton and Diane Ruiz on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. Andrew West/The News-Press/USA Today Network
Florida's is set to execute 57-year-old Loran Cole by lethal injection on Thursday for the 1994 murder of an 18-year-old college student and rape of the victim's sister during a camping trip at Ocala National Forest in north central Florida.
A Marion County jury convicted Cole of killing John Edwards, a freshman at Florida State University and sexually assaulting Edward's then 21-year-old sister.
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