A criminal investigation that ended in Palm Beach County in March 2019 has become one of the most closely examined elements of the Wade Wilson case, largely because Wilson went on to commit two murders only months later. The renewed scrutiny has been driven by Netflix’s “Worst Ex Ever,” along with reporting from Florida news organizations that obtained and reviewed records from the original investigation and the later internal review. The earlier case began when Kelly Matthews reported Wilson to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. She said he had ᴀssaulted her and described conduct that included beating, choking, threats and Sєxual violence. Detective Louis Potter was ᴀssigned to the case. The investigation included interviews and the collection of Wilson’s DNA. But according to records later examined by investigators, Potter closed the case approximately 34 days after it began, before the DNA laboratory results were available. The later internal review became critical of that decision. Investigators concluded that Potter had not conducted a thorough Sєx-crimes investigation and had failed to follow up after receiving DNA results that reportedly connected Wilson to the relevant evidence.

The review also examined whether the detective should have pursued an arrest related to dating violence. Potter’s own report presented a different interpretation. He wrote that there were no witnesses, insufficient evidence to establish probable cause and that Wilson denied the accusations. Those statements became important because they documented the reasoning behind the decision at the time it was made. The controversy therefore cannot be reduced to a simple question of whether evidence existed. It involves the different judgments made about that evidence by investigators at different points in time. The significance of the case changed dramatically after Oct. 7, 2019. On that date, authorities say Wilson killed two women in Cape Coral and the surrounding Fort Myers area. Kristine Melton, 35, and Diane Ruiz, 43, became the victims at the center of the prosecution that followed. Wilson was arrested the next day. Years later, a jury convicted him on multiple counts, including two counts of first-degree murder. A judge sentenced him to death in 2024. His legal team has challenged the death sentences while leaving the convictions themselves outside the main focus of the most prominent appeal described in recent reporting.

The renewed documentary attention has also raised broader questions about how Sєxual-ᴀssault and dating-violence reports are investigated, how forensic evidence is tracked, and what happens when an investigation is closed while laboratory testing is still pending. Those questions extend beyond Wilson himself. The case demonstrates how a decision made during an apparently ordinary investigation can become enormously consequential when later events reveal information that was unavailable at the time. For Matthews, the experience remains personal.

For investigators, prosecutors and legal observers, it has become a case study in evidence, procedure and hindsight. And for audiences discovering the story through Netflix, the most disturbing element may not be the nickname attached to Wilson years later, but the chronology: an allegation, an investigation, a DNA sample, a closed case, a later laboratory result and, months afterward, two murders that transformed the meaning of everything that came before. The record now contains more information than it did in 2019, but the central questions remain rooted in those original decisions and the evidence available at each stage. That is why the case continues to attract attention even years after the murders and why the Palm Beach investigation has become an essential part of understanding the larger story.

Source: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/crime/2026/08/12/netflix-show-details-ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool-killer-failures-in-palm-beach-county/91147812007/