The man known as Florida’s “Deadpool Killer” is now the subject of a major Netflix true-crime episode, bringing renewed national attention to one of the state’s most disturbing murder cases in recent memory. Wade Wilson appears prominently in Season 2 of the Netflix docuseries Worst Ex Ever, which premiered on May 6, featuring four new episodes centered on violent and manipulative relationships.
The first episode, titled “Dating the Deadpool Killer,” revisits the events surrounding Wilson’s 2019 murders of Kristine Melton and Diane Ruiz in Cape Coral, Florida. The series combines interviews, police bodycam footage, and animated reenactments to trace Wilson’s escalating pattern of violence before the killings.
Netflix describes the episode as the story of a woman who believed she had found “the perfect man” before his behavior spiraled into what the platform calls a “horrifying rampage.”
Wilson became widely known as the “Deadpool Killer” because he shares the same name as Marvel’s fictional antihero Wade Wilson, better known as Deadpool.
The nickname fueled intense internet fascination during his 2024 murder trial, where prosecutors laid out a timeline that showed Wilson killing two women within hours on October 7, 2019.
Authorities said he strangled Melton inside her Cape Coral home before later attacking Ruiz, beating and strangling her before repeatedly running her over with a stolen vehicle.
The documentary also revisits Wilson’s lengthy criminal history leading up to the murders. Court records and testimony introduced during the trial detailed prior arrests involving burglary, firearms theft, battery accusations, and allegations of violence against former girlfriends.
One woman reported to police in 2019 that Wilson beat and strangled her, though investigators said there was not enough evidence at the time to pursue charges. Prosecutors later argued those incidents reflected a growing pattern of instability and aggression.
Wilson was convicted in June 2024 on multiple charges, including two counts of first-degree murder, and was later sentenced to death. The jury recommendations were not unanimous — a major point now being challenged in his ongoing appeal.
Florida’s updated death penalty law allows a death sentence recommendation with as few as eight jurors agreeing, making the state one of the least restrictive in the country when it comes to capital punishment.
Wilson’s appellate team has argued that applying the revised law to crimes committed in 2019 violated constitutional protections because the standards were different when the murders occurred.
