Serial killer convicted of murdering five people found dead in prison cell
Prison officials said convicted killer Joshua Wade was "found unresponsive in his cell at the Indiana State Prison" on Thursday
Alaska serial killer Joshua Wade, responsible for the deaths of five individuals, died in an Indiana prison, according to the state’s department of corrections.
Prison officials said the convicted killer was "found unresponsive in his cell at the Indiana State Prison." Brandi Pahl, a spokesperson for the department, said official’s efforts to resuscitate him failed. "Despite life-saving measures being performed, he was pronounced dead."
Following being found guilty of state and federal crimes in his home state, Wade was transferred to a federal prison in Indiana about 10 years ago after state and federal prosecutors reached an agreement. The convicted murder had a checkered past, reportedly spending the majority of his teen years in juvenile jail.
Della Brown’s body was found battered and partially clothed ( Image: No credit)
In 2000, Wade murdered Della Brown and dumped her body in a Spenard shed. Eventually, he confessed to another murder he performed the same night. Wade reportedly showed Brown’s corpse to a number of acquaintances, however he was somehow able to avoid sexual assault and murder charges.
He was ultimately charged and convicted of witness tampering. Wade soon became a repeat offender-killing another individual in 2007 just as he completed his probation for Brown’s murder. That time he slaughtered his Sand Lake neighbor Mindy Schloss who was a nurse practitioner.
Schloss’s death wasn’t immediately made clear to the public as her body wasn’t found until more than a month later. Prosecutors said the young women was tortured before Wade sent a flurry of bullets into her body. "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 in court documents filed at the time.
Mindy Schloss was Wade’s next door neighbor ( Image: No credit)
The Alaska native was slammed with both state and federal crimes for the Nurse’s murder. He received multiple life sentences as a part of a plea agreement, in which he confessed to Brown’s murder.
Wade resided at Spring Creek Correctional Center, which is Alaska’s maximum-security prison, for several years before he struck another deal with law enforcement officials. He assumed responsibility for three more unsolved murders in exchange for the ability to serve the remainder of his sentence outside Alaska.
Joshua Wade committed his first murder in 2000 ( Image: Anchorage Police Department)
He told officials that he’d killed John Micheal Martin, 38, in 1994 when the serial killer was just 14 years old. He also admitted to killing Henry Ongtowasruk, 30, in 1999. Both men had issues with mental health. Finally, Wade confessed to killing an additional man the same night he murdered Brown, according to a FBI statement.
It remains unclear why Wade requested to be moved to another federal prison outside Alaska and when he was transferred to the Indiana facility. His corpse is currently undergoing an autopsy.
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