DEATH OF MONSTER
Serial killer who murdered five including ‘two in single night’ found dead in cell aged 44 as probe launched at max jail
The killer confessed to three additional murders to avoid the death penalty
A MAN who confessed to killing five people over 13 years has died while serving his 99-year sentence.
Serial killer Joshua Wade, 44, was found unresponsive in his prison cell at Indiana State Prison on June 14, sparking an investigation into his death.
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The Montana native moved to Alaska as a child and committed his first murder in 1994 at 14 years old.
Last Friday, Wade was "found unresponsive in his cell at the Indiana State Prison," Brandi Pahl, a spokesperson for the state Department of Corrections told The U.S. Sun.
"Despite life-saving measures being performed, he was pronounced dead," she said.
Wade was convicted of state and federal crimes in Alaska before being transferred to the maximum security federal prison following an agreement with prosecutors about a decade ago.
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In exchange for the transfer and to avoid the federal death penalty, Wade confessed to three other murders that he had not been connected to.
The killer's first victim was John Michael Martin, a 38-year-old man suffering from schizophrenia.
He had sustained fatal gunshot wounds on a bike trail in Anchorage in May 1994 and was not known to his teenage killer.
Just five years later in December 1999, Wade struck again, this time fatally shooting 30-year-old Henry Ongtowasruk in a motel room at the Alaska Budget Motel in Knik-Fairview.
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Like Martin's murder, Ongtowasruk had a mental illness and was also not connected to Wade.
However, Wade did not confess to these murders until 2014 when he made the agreement with state and federal law enforcement.
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As part of this deal, he also admitted to murdering an unidentified man in 2000, on the same night that he killed Della Brown.
That victim was with Wade at the shed where he dumped Brown's body.
He knocked the unidentified man out, locked him in the trunk of his car, and went for some drinks before coming back and killing him, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Wade had previously confessed to the murder of 33-year-old Brown as part of his conviction for the carjacking and murder of Mindy Schloss in 2007.
He faced additional charges of theft and bank fraud but it was the carjacking that made him eligible for the federal death penalty.
The admissions to the three other murders between 1994 and 2000 came as part of a plea bargain deal in exchange for avoiding the penalty and being transferred to a federal prison.
Wade was sentenced to 99 years behind bars without the possibility of parole.
As part of that 2014 plea deal, announced by the FBI, Wade was moved out of Alaska to the Indiana prison.
FIRST ADMISSIONS
Wade's first confession was to Brown's September 2000 murder, which was a robbery gone wrong.
After attempting to rob her, a struggle ensued and Wade smashed a rock against her head, killing her and leaving her half-naked body in a trash-filled shed, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
He later bragged about the murder and brought his friends to show them Brown's body, according to the outlet.
But despite this, Wade was acquitted of almost all charges, except witness tampering.
These details of Brown's death emerged as part of Wade's 2009 trial in the carjacking and murder of Schloss, a 52-year-old nurse who was also his neighbor.
Despite receiving a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence for witness tampering in Brown's case, Wade was out on probation for a year, after which he killed again.
After reportedly having a bad day in August 2007, he decided to try and rob Schloss which ended in her kidnapping and murder.
Prosecutors said Wade kidnapped and tortured Schloss, binding her with zip ties, before killing her and burning her body, per the Anchorage Daily News.
Schloss was reported missing by a friend after failing to show up to work and not returning calls.
She was missing for a month before her body was found in a secluded area of the woods in September 2007.
The fact that he chose to kill again, and kill quickly, demonstrates his indifference to human life, his inability to be rehabilitated, and his omnipresent danger to society.
Prosecutors in Wade's 2009 trial
PLOT THICKENS
While investigating Schloss' murder, cops looked into her financial records and discovered somebody had been making active withdrawals from her bank account.
It was later revealed that, before kidnapping and killing her, Wade forced Schloss to hand over her ATM card and PIN, according to court testimony, per the Anchorage Daily News.
They were able to identify Wade from surveillance footage of him taking money from her account at an ATM and later abandoning Schloss' stolen car at an airport in Anchorage.
Police tracked Wade to an acquaintance's house where he held the people in the home hostage at gunpoint.
But after several hours of negotiating, he surrendered.
Wade was charged with Schloss' murder in state court and faced additional federal charges of carjacking, theft, and bank fraud.
Serial Killer Joshua Wade Confessed to 5 Murders
Joshua Wade's five victims:
- May 1994 - John Michael Martin, 38. An unemployed man who was suffering from schizophrenia was shot to death along a bike trail in Anchorage, Alaska. Wade was just 14 years old when he killed Martin.
- December 1999 - Henry Ongtowasruk, 30. Suffered from mental illness and was shot to death in a motel he was living in.
- September 2000 - Della Brown, 33. Alaska Native woman who Wade tried to rob and take advantage of, killing her with a rock and hiding her body in a shed. He later showed his friends the body but was ultimately acquitted in court.
- September 2000 - Unidentified Male. On the same night as Brown's murder, Wade confessed to killing another unidentified man after he led him to the shed where Brown's body was hidden. Wade knocked the man out, locked him in the trunk of his car, and went for some drinks before coming back and killing him.
- August 2007 - Mindy Schloss, 52. Wade's neighbor, who he decided to rob, kidnap, and murder after reportedly having a bad day.
As part of his plea bargain, Wade confessed to Brown's murder which he had previously been acquitted of.
"The fact that he chose to kill again, and kill quickly, demonstrates his indifference to human life, his inability to be rehabilitated, and his omnipresent danger to society,” prosecutors wrote at the time, per the Anchorage Daily News.
At his 2010 sentencing, US District Court Judge Ralph Beistline called Wade a "coward" for murdering the two women.
But Wade took the judge by surprise when he yelled back, "Don't push it. What about the men?"
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The killer later contacted authorities in 2014 and offered his confession to the three additional murders that he had alluded to in court four years earlier.
An investigation into Wade's death is ongoing and an autopsy is being performed.