The Murder of Mindy Schloss

 

On August 3, 2007, the night of the murder, Wade and his housemates threw a party. This was the end of a long, difficult week at work for Wade. He had had several combative exchanges with his supervisors, and had even gone so far as to walk off of the job. The day of the party Wade arrived at his job only to be sent home for his argumentative and aggressive behavior.

Sometime around 1:30 a.m. Mindy Schloss signed out of her email and shut down her computer. According to the timeline established by investigators, she then went to sleep. Not long after, Wade made his way into Schloss' home, subdued her, and painfully bound her arms and legs with plastic restraints, zip ties commonly used by law enforcement. With Schloss immobilized, Wade returned to his house, retrieved his Glock and returned to abduct Schloss in her own vehicle. They stopped at several locations, including at least one ATM where Wade withdrew cash from Schloss' checking account.

After her disappearance when police canvassed the neighborhood, a neighbor reported hearing a woman's screams in the early morning hours of August 4. According to court documents, this "witness observed a small red car matching generally the description of the victim's car in the parking lot of a bank, and heard a woman's voice in that area screaming loudly 'Rape!' and 'Call the police!' or words to that effect." Although the court documents do not specify, it seems, sadly, that no witnesses contacted police that night with this information.

After Wade was done robbing Schloss, he drove her nearly an hour away to Wasilia, Alaska, where he marched an abused and tortured Schloss into the woods and unceremoniously executed her.

It took nearly a month before her decomposed remains were discovered.