Who Is Wade Wilson? The 'Deadpool Killer' Got Tattoos to Look Like a Comic Book Character

Wade Wilson’s 2024 conviction for the brutal murders of two women in Cape Coral, Fla., sent shockwaves through the community. Dubbed the Deadpool Killer by the media—due to his name and resemblance to the Marvel antihero—Wilson’s chilling lack of remorse made the case all the more disturbing.

Wilson, 30 at the time of sentencing, was found guilty of the October 2019 murders of 35-year-old Kristine Melton and 43-year-old Diane Ruiz. In August 2024, a Florida judge sentenced him to death following a jury’s recommendation for capital punishment, making it one of the state’s most high-profile murder cases in recent years.

Wade Steven Wilson was born in 1994 to teenage parents who struggled to provide a stable home. Shortly after his birth, he was adopted by a family in Cape Coral, Fla. From an early age, Wilson showed signs of emotional turmoil and behavioral problems. Friends and family recalled a childhood marked by frequent school suspensions, escalating aggression and early drug use. 

Despite efforts to help him through counseling and rehabilitation programs, Wilson’s troubles only deepened as he grew older. By his 20s, Wilson had amassed a long criminal record filled with arrests for violent offenses, child cruelty and domestic incidents. Friends and family described him as someone who could be charming one moment but quickly turn volatile the next. His troubled upbringing and growing instability painted the picture of a young man spiraling out of control, setting the stage for his violent crimes. 

Wilson’s deadly spree began on October 7, 2019. That night he went to a local bar with his girlfriend, Mila Montanez, but the couple, who had a volatile relationship, quarreled while at the bar. While there, Wilson befriended Jayson Shepard, and the two men struck up a conversation with Kristine Melton and her best friend, Stephanie Johnson. Wilson and Melton hit it off, and after the bar closed, the group went back to Shepard’s home where Wilson and Melton were intimate before Wilson, Johnson and Melton returned to Melton’s home. Sometime after Shepard left in the early morning hours, Wilson strangled Melton in her bed, stole her car and fled. 

That morning, he violently assaulted Montanez at her workplace before finding his next victim a few hours later. He spotted Diane Ruiz walking to her nearby job and asked her help in locating a local school. After he’d lured her into his car under false pretenses, he strangled her. When he went to bury her body, he found she was still breathing and ran over her repeatedly with Melton’s car. 

Wilson then made a chilling confession to his biological father, Steven Testasecca, in a series of phone calls, admitting he had killed the two women and providing gruesome details about their deaths. Testasecca immediately contacted law enforcement and Wilson was arrested that evening. Wilson later told detectives he “would do it again” when it came to his crimes. 

In between his arrest and his trial in 2024, Wilson dramatically altered his appearance by getting a series of tattoos on his face and neck, including several that experts have linked with white supremacist groups. 

The tattoos also include references to several comic book films, including The Dark Knight and Deadpool. Wilson shares the same name with the fictional Marvel antihero portrayed on screen by Ryan Reynolds. That, along with his physical resemblance to the character, contributed to the media dubbing him the “Deadpool Killer.” 

Wilson even continued his criminal activities behind bars. In 2020, he organized a failed escape attempt that saw him and his cellmate trying to remove the bars of their cell. In 2023, Wilson was implicated in a drug-smuggling plot. Shortly after his murder conviction, Wilson pled no contest on the drug charges, receiving an additional sentence of 12 years for attempted trafficking of amphetamine or methamphetamine and one count of conspiracy to traffic.

In June 2024, after a multi-week trial, a jury found Wilson guilty on six counts, including two counts of first-degree murder, grand theft, burglary and battery. The evidence was overwhelming, including eyewitnesses, phone records, DNA found in the crime scene and Melton’s car and Wilson’s own confessions. 

The jury recommended the death penalty. During the sentencing process, a neurologist working with Wilson’s defense team presented evidence that Wilson had suffered from brain trauma and cognitive issues for years, which might have contributed to his impulsive behavior. However, the judge dismissed a defense motion for a retrial or acquittal and sentenced Wilson to death in August 2024. 

Despite the brutality of his crimes, Wilson has gained a small but vocal group of supporters—some drawn in by his resemblance to the character of Deadpool, others by his courtroom image and rebellious persona. This phenomenon mirrors the disturbing public interest seen with other killers like Ted Bundy or Richard Ramirez, where notoriety breeds fascination and, in some cases, misguided admiration. 

Wilson himself has repeatedly claimed he was framed, insisting in letters and brief court comments that he was "set up" and wrongly accused and that Melton and Ruiz were murdered by an underground trafficking group. Wilson stated that he only confessed to the murders to protect his family from harm. 

Despite the cartoonish nickname and comic book associations, Wilson’s crimes were anything but fictional. Behind the tattoos and pop culture nods was a deeply disturbed man who preyed on vulnerable women. Now, after years of delay and legal wrangling, the man known as the “Deadpool Killer” continues to serve his sentence at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Fla.