Overview
- Worst Ex Ever’s new season features an episode on Wade Wilson, drawing fresh national attention to the Cape Coral double‑murder case.
- Wilson remains on death row at Union Correctional Institution while his lawyers press a direct appeal that challenges Florida’s law allowing a death recommendation without a unanimous jury.
- The Florida Supreme Court heard the appeal in February 2026 in a brief session that took no new arguments, and a ruling has not yet been issued.
- A jury in June 2024 convicted Wilson of two first‑degree murders, and a judge imposed a death sentence in August 2024 under the updated standard that permits as few as eight jurors to recommend death.
- Prosecutors said Wilson strangled Kristine Melton at her home, then lured Diane Ruiz into a stolen car, strangled her, and ran her over, with trial evidence including eyewitness accounts, phone records, DNA, and the stolen vehicle; the defense presented a neurologist who cited brain trauma as a mitigating factor.