Cape Death Crimes: Ex-girlfriend says Wade Wilson is a ‘monster’

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Wade Wilson is the person of interest in the recent deaths of Cape Coral women Kristine Melton and Diane Ruiz in October 2019. Credit: WINK News.

Fifteen days. That’s all the time Melisa Montanez says it took for Wade Wilson to show her his true colors.

“I describe him as two different people,” Montanez said. “I see him as one way — kind, caring, funny, compassionate — and then the monster.”

Too shaken up to show her face, Montanez only agreed to talk to us in shadow. She said she and Wilson were newly dating in June, when she called the cops on him for allegedly beating her up, choking her and raping her. But Montanez dropped the charges.

“He blamed it on drugs, alcohol,” Montanez said. “And he did mention that he needed to be back on his lithium, that he was bipolar. I always give second chances.”

But that second chance, Montanez said, may have been her last chance.

“He kept reaching for something in his pants saying, ‘I’m going to kill you right now, I’m going to kill you right now,’” Montanez said.

Last Monday, the same day police found Kristine Melton’s body and reported Diane Ruiz missing, Montanez said Wilson came to her workplace and attacked her.

And this time, she was prepared to die.

“It’s 8:45 in the morning, and I didn’t even get to call my son and wish him a happy birthday, and I’m about to die on his 15th birthday,” Montanez described her immediate fear. “That’s the only thing you think about as a mom, how you’re going to leave your child, and how badly that would mess him up for the rest of his life.”

She also said she doesn’t plan to drop the charges, but Wilson is still trying to win her back, even from behind bars.

Prior to our sit-down interview, Wilson called her from a jail line, and she put him on speaker phone.

“Even after this, you’re still the best thing ever. You know that,” Wilson said to Montanez over the phone.

Montanez calls Wilson impulsive, saying he does what he wants, when he wants.

“Very narcissistic,” Montanez explained. “He’s always gotten by with his looks and his charm, and he’s hoping that it’ll work just one more time.”

Wilson is currently in jail on unrelated charges, and Tuesday he entered a written plea of not guilty to the battery charge.

Wilson is named a person of interest in the two Cape Coral homicides.

WINK News reached out to his attorney for comment.

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