The Murder of Mindy Schloss



Wade was put behind bars, but he wasn't done yet.

Love, it seems, can be gullible as well as blind, as it was in the case of Lisa Andrews, then 46, who fell for Joshua Wade. Following his arrest and incarceration, Wade married Andrews in a hastily arranged telephone ceremony. True love, hoping to claim something for itself before the lovers are sent into an exile of unknown length? Hardly. It was more a case of evil seducing stupidity. Andrews had been subpoenaed by the prosecution to testify against Wade, and the jailhouse marriage was a ham-handed attempt to circumvent the law requiring her to testify. Wade and his attorneys argued that as his wife, she could not be forced to testify against him. Thankfully their arguments did not sway the judge.

When voiding the marriage, judge Ralph Beistline wrote, "A marriage that has been secretly and hastily carried out, solemnized in manner that casts doubt as to the validity of marriage at all, and conducted on the eve of a trial between a defendant and a key witness, in circumstances such as exist in this case, would not likely merit protection at the expense of justice."

The sham marriage wasn't the last bit of legal maneuvering on Wade's part. A month later, his attorneys petitioned the court, claiming that solitary confinement was having an adverse effect on Wade. They argued unsuccessfully that Wade's increasing mental crisis threatened the trial's legitimacy.

"He is confined to his cell 23 hours a day," argued his lawyers, "with no radio and no television. He has no opportunity to take classes, attend religious services, or interact with other prisoners." As they wrote, according to the Anchorage Daily News, the point at which Wade was incompetent to stand trial had not yet been reached, "but that point is not that far off if the conditions of confinement remain unchanged."

Instead of the robust social life his lawyers evidently wanted for him, Wade spent much of his time in solitary reading books, including the ultimately confiscated Hacksaw, a tale about a talented convict who repeatedly escapes from prison.

Wade's legal team made no mention of the altercation with another prisoner that had caused Wade to be placed in solitary confinement in the first place. Instead it seemed that they were trying to use the fact of his solitary confinement, not to get him placed back in the general prison population, but to get him entirely off the hook by arguing that his right to a fair trial was being violated.