A Florida jury this week recommended the death penalty for a man convicted of killing two women in 2019.
Wade Wilson was found guilty of strangling Kristine Melton to death as she slept the morning after he met her at a bar, and then he beat, strangled and ran over Diane Ruiz with his car after seeing her on a street that same day.
Ten out of the 12 jurors in the Lee County Courthouse in Fort Myers voted on Tuesday that Wilson, whose seemingly “smug” and “smirking” demeanor in court went viral, should be put to death for killing Ruiz, and nine out of 12 voted for death in Melton’s murder. State law requires eight jurors to vote for the death penalty.
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Wade Wilson sits in the courtroom as the verdict is read during the penalty phase of his murder trial at the Lee County Courthouse in Fort Myers Tuesday. (Jonah Hinebaugh/Naples Daily News/USA Today Network-Florida)
The decision will be up to Judge Nicholas Thompson July 23.
Social media users following the trial called Wilson “soulless” and accused the murderer of looking “smug” and “smirking” while his crimes were relayed to the jurors.
“He’s remorseless & says he’d do it again. I’m not ‘an eye for an eye’ person. I never have been. But smug aloofness as Wade Wilson displays, makes me think life in a cell with 3 meals a day, in genpop, isn’t okay,” a user wrote on X.
Another added, “Note the psychopathic smirk on the face of the serial strangler.”
A third said, “Wade Wilson was given the death penalty in Florida for murdering two women. His own father turned him cause the creature was a soulless monster.”
Judge Nick Thompson speaks during the penalty phase of Wade Wilson’s murder trial at the Lee County Courthouse in Fort Myers Tuesday, June 25, 2024. The jury recommended the death penalty for Wilson. (Jonah Hinebaugh/Naples Daily News/USA Today Network-Florida)
“You know, you’re asking someone to take another life, and so it’s always a difficult thing,” Assistant State Attorney Sara Miller said after the recommendation, according to FOX 4. “I think in this case it was a justified act given the horrific nature of this case.
“Both murders were especially heinous, atrocious and cruel. He inflicted pain, and he showed utter indifference to her [Melton’s] life.”
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A picture of Kristine Melton is displayed for the jury during the penalty phase of Wade Wilson’s murder trial at the Lee County Courthouse in Fort Myers Tuesday, June 25, 2024. The jury recommended the death penalty for Wilson. (Jonah Hinebaugh/Naples Daily News/USA Today Network-Florida)
The defense tried to argue during the trial that Wade has a “diseased mind” and the “disease of drug addiction,” the station reported.
But Miller told jurors, “It’s not credible that mental illness caused the defendant to murder Kristine Melton and Diane Ruiz. He was under the influence of power, of lust, of control, of hate.
A photo of Diane Ruiz is displayed during the penalty phase of Wade Wilson’s murder trial at the Lee County Courthouse in Fort Myers Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (Jonah Hinebaugh/Naples Daily News/USA Today Network-Florida)
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“Many people suffer from drug addictions, but they don’t go out and commit murders.”
