Serial killer Joshua Wade from Alaska dies at age 44

Alaska serial killer Joshua Wade was found dead in his Indiana prison cell earlier this month.

Wade, whose dark deeds were once the focus of an episode of oxygen‘S Fatal Frontier: Evil in Alaska, was 44 years old.

Brandi Pahl, communications director for the Indiana Department of Corrections, confirmed Oxygen.com that Wade was found “unresponsive” in his cell at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana on June 14.

“Despite life-saving measures, he was pronounced dead,” she said.

No further details were released about the circumstances of Wade’s death.

Lynn Swanson, coroner of LaPorte County, said Oxygen.com that an autopsy had been performed, but her office was awaiting the results of the toxicology test to make a definitive determination on the cause of death.

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“I hope to have it finished in the next week or so,” she said Tuesday.

Joshua Wade’s Victim

Before his death, Wade, who was found guilty on both state and federal charges, admitted to killing five people in Alaska, beginning when he was 14 years old.

Wade was charged in 2000 with killing Della Brown by hitting her on the head with a rock and sexually assaulting her, but a jury would only convict him of witness tampering in the case, according to The Associated Press.

In August 2007, Wade was released from prison and was living in Anchorage. When his neighbor Mindy Schloss, a public health nurse, has suddenly disappearedSuspicion fell on Wade again, according to Fatal Frontier: Evil in Alaska.

Investigators found that a man later identified as Wade made two $500 cash withdrawals from Schloss’s bank account after she disappeared. They also found his DNA in her abandoned car.

Schloss’s body was later discovered in a wooded area by a community worker on September 13, 2007. She had been shot in the head.

To avoid the death penalty in this case, Wade pleaded guilty and confessed to Brown’s earlier murder in exchange for a 99-year prison sentence. If he is ever released on parole, he would face a life sentence in a federal prison due to the federal convictions against him.

He later attempted to avoid prison time in Alaska by agreeing to provide information about three other murders he allegedly committed in exchange for a transfer to a federal prison outside the state, according to a statement from 2014 from the FBI.

Wade confessed to killing one man in 1994, another in 1999 and a third man the same night he killed Brown. Authorities believe Wade was referring to the still-unsolved murders of John Michael Martin in 1994 – when Wade was just 14 years old – and the 1999 murder of Henry Ongtowaskruk, authorities said. The last victim was never identified.

To learn more about Wade’s crimes, watch Fatal Frontier: Evil in Alaska.