“Handsome Devil: Charming Killer,” a 3-part documentary exploring the case Florida killer Wade Wilson, is set to release on Paramount+ in January.
In July 2024, Florida killer Wade Wilson, 31, who shares his name with the alter ego of the Marvel character Deadpool, was convicted of the gruesome murders of two Cape Coral women.
On the morning of Oct. 7, 2019, Wilson, then 25, strangled Kristine Melton, 35, to death as she slept in her bed. Hours later, he strangled and beat Diane Ruiz, 43, before pushing her out of a car and running her over 10 to 20 times.
Police, aided by Wilson’s biological father Steven Testasecca, arrested Wilson the next day and charged him with the killings.
Five years later, on June 12, 2024, a Lee County jury found him guilty and recommended the death penalty for each murder.
Trial judge Nicholas Thompson imposed the two death sentences on Aug. 27, 2024.
“The evidence showed both murders were heinous, atrocious and cruel, and that the second murder was cold, calculated and premeditated,” Thompson said during sentencing.
Here’s what to know about the “Handsome Killer” documentary, Wade Wilson, the murders he committed and the trial that put him on death row.
‘Handsome Devil: Charming Killer’ Wade Wilson 2026 documentary release date
The documentary “Handsome Devil: Charming Killer” about Florida killer Wade Wilson will release Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, on Paramount+.
Do you need a Paramount+ subscription to see ‘Handsome Devil’ documentary?
Yes, you will need a subscription to watch Paramount+, but you may qualify for a free 1-week trial.
Paramount+ plans and pricing:
Watch ‘Handsome Devil: Charming Killer’ trailer
Who is Wade Wilson?
Wade Steven Wilson was born on May 20, 1994 and grew up in Tallahassee, Florida.
Wilson’s biological parents were teenagers when he was born, his biological father, Steven Testasecca, testified at his murder trial.
The couple eventually gave him up for adoption.
His adoptive parents, Cindy and Steve Wilson, addressed the court in a letter read by one of Wilson’s attorneys during sentencing.
“Wade was a joyful child. Loved his parents,” they wrote. They said Wilson became delusional after his drug addiction began.
“The system failed him on that fateful day in 2019. Please see it in your heart to not take our son.”
Wilson attended Chiles High School and has a history of arrests in Leon County dating back to 2012 on charges including sexual assault, burglary, child cruelty and firearms offenses, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
According to prison records, Wilson was incarcerated in the Florida Department of Corrections on burglary and grand theft convictions from Nov. 26, 2013, to Sep. 19, 2014. He served a second prison sentence for firearms theft from Oct. 17, 2017, to July 15, 2018.
What did Wade Wilson do? Crimes that sent him to death row
On Oct. 7, 2019, Wilson met Kristine Melton, 35, and her friend Stephanie Sailors at Buddah LIVE, a Fort Myers bar.
After the bar closed, Wilson and the two women went to the home of Jayson Shepard where they stayed for several hours before leaving in the morning.
Wilson, Melton and Sailors then went to Melton’s Cape Coral home. After Sailors left, Wilson strangled Melton to death as she slept in her bed.
He stole Melton’s car and went to see his girlfriend at her Fort Myers business and tried to pull her into the car. When she fought back, he viciously attacked her. She got away and called the police.
A short time later, Wilson saw 43-year-old Diane Ruiz walking along a Cape Coral street, asked her for directions to a nearby school and lured her into Melton’s car.
When Ruiz tried to exit the car, Wilson attacked her, beating and strangling her before pushing her out of the car and running her over 10 to 20 times.
Who was Wade Wilson murder victim Kristine Melton?
Kristine Melton grew up in Illinois and moved with a friend to Cape Coral where she worked as a waitress.
She reportedly was godmother to her cousin Samantha Catomer’s child, owned a cat and lived in a Cape Coral duplex.
Melton loved to dress up and her favorite holiday was Halloween, Catomer testified during Wilson’s trial.
Melton had a quick wit, made everyone around her feel safe and understood and “was precious, not just to me, but to everyone who knew her,” Catomer said.
Melton was 35 years old when she met Wilson at Buddah LIVE, a Fort Myers bar. After leaving the bar and spending several hours at the home of Jayson Shepard, Melton, Sailors and Wilson went to Melton’s duplex.
After Sailors left, Wilson strangled Melton to death in her sleep and stole her car.
Who was Wade Wilson murder victim Diane Ruiz?
Diane Ruiz, 43, a mother and engaged to be married, was described as caring and hardworking.
She worked as a bartender at the Moose Lodge in Cape Coral and never missed a shift in five years.
Ruiz was walking to work for her 10 a.m. shift when she encountered Wilson.
A short time after killing Melton, Wilson saw Ruiz walking along a Cape Coral street and lured her into the car after asking for directions.
When she tried to leave, Wilson beat and strangled Ruiz, pushed her out of the car and ran her over repeatedly.
Her body was found in a field three days later.
How did Wade Wilson get caught, arrested?
After the murders, Wilson called his biological father Steven Testasecca several times confessing to and narrating the gruesome details of his crimes.
After initially dismissing the calls and attributing the admissions to Wilson being a “good storyteller,” Testasecca, 46, put his phone on speaker with Testasecca’s wife listening in and relaying information to police.
Testasecca asked Wilson for his location and told him he would send an Uber.
Instead, his whereabouts were provided to police who arrested Wilson on Oct. 8, 2019 at an unoccupied home he’d broken into.
Wilson was booked into the Lee County jail in Fort Myers and held there until after sentencing.
What was Wade Wilson charged with?
On Nov. 19, 2019, a Lee County Grand Jury returned an indictment against Wilson charging him with:
The State Attorney’s Office filed its intent to seek the death penalty on Dec. 12, 2019.
Wade Wilson attempted escape from Florida jail
In 2020, Wilson and his cellmate were accused of tampering with a window in their Lee County jail cell in an attempt to escape.
Wilson, who was reportedly the primary planner and instigator of the escape effort, also tried to set up a getaway car.
Deputies searched the 10×10 cell Wilson and his cellmate were housed in and found the window tampered with. The metal frame holding the window had been removed and there were several cracks in the thick security glass.
Wilson was charged with attempted escape and criminal mischief.
The charges were dropped in August of 2024 as part of a plea agreement involving drug charges.
Wade Wilson tied to violent Florida prison gang Unforgiven
Court records in the attempted jail escape case connect Wilson to the prison-based white supremacy gang “Unforgiven.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Unforgiven gang was founded in the Florida prison system in 1986 and is the largest white supremacist prison gang in the state.
Unforgiven seeks to expand its power, territory and reputation – in and out of prison – by systematically recruiting members and indoctrinating them in a vicious form of white supremacist ideology that permeates everything they do, court documents in a 2021 federal racketeering case involving 16 Unforgiven members show, according to USA TODAY.
It requires its members to study and propagate “Aryan philosophy,” to pay dues and to perform violent acts to join and remain in the group, prosecutors said.
Tattoos of swastikas, Iron Crosses, SS bolts and other Nazi symbols allegedly are also required.
Wilson sports several swastika tattoos, including on the right side of his head and below his right eye.
The swastika was adopted in 1920 as the symbol of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party, and since 1945 has “served as the most significant and notorious of hate symbols, anti-Semitism and white supremacy,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Wade Wilson death penalty trial
Wade Wilson, then 30, went on trial for his life at the Lee County courthouse in Fort Myers in June 2024.
Ahead of the trial, Wilson asked the court’s permission to alter his appearance to help him look more presentable to a jury.
According to court documents, he requested to cover “numerous and varied tattoos” on his face, including “stitches,” swastikas, and other designs “that might be objectionable to members of the potential jury pool” with makeup.
He also sought permission to wear street clothes and get a haircut. The requests were granted.
Though he wore street clothes in court and appeared to have had a haircut, Wilson’s facial tattoos were conspicuously visible throughout his trial.
Jury selection began June 1, 2024. Twelve jurors and four alternates were chosen, though two were dismissed for undisclosed reasons by trial judge Nicholas Thompson on the first day of witness testimony.
After days of testimony from 29 witnesses, the prosecution rested its case on June 11. Wilson did not testify on his own behalf.
The next day, the jury found Wilson guilty on all six counts
Wade Wilson sentenced to death in Cape Coral, Florida murders
The jury reconvened June 20, 2024, for the penalty phase of Wilson’s trial, with the options of recommending sentences of life in prison without parole or death.
Florida juries don’t have to be unanimous and can recommend death with as few as 8 votes.
On June 25, 2024, the jury voted 9-3 in Melton’s case and 10-2 in Ruiz’s case in favor of the death penalty.
On Tuesday, August 27, 2024, Judge Thompson imposed the two death sentences.
Wade Wilson supporters slammed by prosecutor
After sentencing, prosecutors denounced Wilson supporters, who’d sent letters of support, set up fundraisers and online petitions, and pined for him on social media, saying he is nothing to idolize.
“It has not gone unnoticed that this defendant is being idolized by some people who are somehow proud to mix their names with his, through public comments, fundraising for him, or holding him up to be some sort of positive representation of a man, ignoring that he is nothing more than a vicious killer and about the most poor representation of a man that there could ever be,” State Attorney Amira Fox said.
“His victims physically suffered tremendously, due to his decision to kill, due to his horrific actions.”
“They fought back, they fought for their lives. This defendant is no idol. It is disgraceful and pitiful to hold him up as such. This defendant is now nothing more than a number in the Florida Department of Corrections, awaiting death.”
Where is Wade Wilson now?
Wilson was back in court August 29, 2024, two days after receiving two death sentences for the murders of Melton and Ruiz, to resolve unrelated drug and attempted escape charges he racked up while in custody in the Lee County Jail.
His move to death row was on hold while the criminal charges he accumulated in jail were pending.
As part of a plea agreement, Wilson pleaded no contest to charges of attempted trafficking in amphetamine or methamphetamine between 28 and 200 grams and conspiracy to traffic in amphetamine or methamphetamine.
He received a 12-year sentence to run concurrently to the death sentences. Charges related to the escape attempt were dropped.
Just after 1:30 a.m. the next morning, Wilson was transferred from the Lee County jail to Florida’s death row at Union Correctional Institution.
Where is Florida’s death row?
Male death row inmates, including Wilson, are housed on Florida’s death row at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, 45 miles southwest of Jacksonville.
Wade Wilson death row mugshot
When will Wade Wilson be executed?
Capital cases are automatically appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.
If the Florida Supreme Court affirms the defendant’s conviction and sentence, most defendants will ask the United States Supreme Court to review the case, according to the Florida Attorney General’s office. This is known as a petition for writ of certiorari.
Most capital defendants continue to pursue their cases in court, even after losing their direct and discretionary appeals. Discretionary appeals can be filed before cases even go to trial. They involve issues that may arise during or before the trial.
If Wilson loses all appeals and is denied executive clemency by the governor, he can be executed once the governor issues a death warrant.
The process can take years. Tommy Zeigler has been on Florida’s death row since 1976.
In 2020, the national average time from sentencing to execution was 227 months.
Contributing: Tomas Rodriguez, Fort Myers News-Press
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Ahead of ‘Handsome Devil’ release, what to know about Wade Wilson, murders
Reporting by Kim Luciani, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Fort Myers News-Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
