Probation Frustration: Wade Wilson & Ryan Cole prove justice system could be broken

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA - Scott Hannon lives with a friend in a small apartment in Fort Myers. He’s sold his house in Cape Coral along with most of his belongings. He no longer has a fiancée and barely has enough money to scrape by. Yvonne Gonzales lives hundreds of miles from Cape Coral in Ohio, but Pine Island Road in the northern part of the city is where her only son died. He was weeks away from his 21st birthday. Khyler Edman’s little sister in Port Charlotte will never see her big brother turn 16, drive a car, or graduate high school. All of these people and their families are living in a perpetual state of tragedy.

Each person’s situation is different, but they all have one thing in common.

The people responsible for taking their lives or the lives of their loved ones were released by the criminal justice system on probation in 2019.

Hannon’s fiancé, Diane Ruiz, was brutally murdered in October 2019. Her killer dumped her body in a field near their home in Northwest Cape Coral and she stayed there for days before investigators found her.

"It has completely turned my life upside down. Everybody around me, everybody that I know that she knew is completely torn apart,” Hannon said.

Ruiz’s suspected killer is Wade Steven Wilson. Wilson is facing two life sentences for killing Ruiz as well as Kristine Melton. Both women died within hours of one another, a few miles apart.

At the time, Wilson was a convicted felon. Months earlier in 2019, he skipped checking in with his probation officer in Palm Beach County after being released from jail there. He showed up living in Lee County, was arrested for attacking a girlfriend, but the charges were later dropped.

Wilson also has an extensive history of violent crimes in Leon County, Florida dating back to 2014.

"In my eyes he should not have been on the streets at all with him being a habitual offender, having a rap sheet as long as his,” Hannon said.Two weeks before Ruiz was killed, a few miles north in Charlotte County, another heinous crime took place. 

Ryan Clayton Cole, who was also on probation for a long list of crimes in Southwest Florida, is accused of stabbing 15-year-old Khyler Edman during a burglary.

Court paperwork and arrest documents from Cole’s extensive criminal history in Charlotte County label him as a “prolific habitual offender” known to authorities for several years.

Yet, each time he was incarcerated in the county jail, he was let out on probation supervised release.These stories may be the worst-case scenarios of the probation system.

A habitual offender gets freedom, albeit supervised, but then is re-arrested for re-offending in the worst possible way - murder.Lee County bail bondsman Frank Gonzalez deals with violent repeat offenders on a regular basis."You can't keep them in jail forever. There's a lot of people that are on probation that I would be afraid of, you know being out there," Gonzalez said.

In 2019, a third of the felony offenders on probation in the 20th judicial circuit, which covers Lee, Charlotte, Hendry, Collier and Glades counties, violated their terms of release.

Gonzalez calls that kind of statistic proof that there are significant cracks in the probation system that offenders can fall through.

He believes every situation has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis but admits it's easy for repeat offenders to skirt the law if they want to."It happens a lot of times. They just know the system. They know how to play it. They've been in and out of jail so many times. They know they can only keep them in jail so long and they'll go out there and do it again," Gonzalez said.The most common type of re-offender Gonzalez deals with is a drunk driver.

A good example of that is William Bohl. In summer 2019, Bohl was drunk and high while driving the wrong way down Pine Island Road. He slammed his pickup truck head-on into the minivan a father and son were inside.

Bohl had a history of DUI, careless driving, and suspended licenses prior to killing Kevin and Christian Hamm."If they would have been drug testing him... because he was drugged out of his mind, if they would have kept better tabs on him then my son would be here today. He probably should have been monitored a lot closer in my opinion," said Christian Hamm's mother, Yvonne Gonzales.The courts do enforce harsher sentences and jail time for habitual felony offenders, which means they typically get more jail time than someone with a clean criminal record.However, that is little consolation for the families who've lost someone they love."I think it did fail me and it failed multiple other families. I don't know how many stories I've seen like mine that are so similar, some even more tragic and it could have been avoided,” Gonzales said.

The Florida Department of Corrections responded to NBC2 with the following information regarding our request for data pertaining to felony probationers and their supervision in the 20th judicial circuit:

• Between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2019, a total of 13,160 total offenders were supervised by the 20th judicial circuit community correction office.

• Of those, 4,132 offenders violated their probation.

• The 20th judicial circuit community correction office currently employs 85 probation officers.

The 20th judicial circuit also provided data for misdemeanor offenders who violated their probation.

Here is the full break down of how many people violated their probation for misdemeanor crimes by county:

Lee County

• There were 4,834 defendants ordered on county probation in 2019.

• There were 1,452 probationers who violated their supervision.

• There are 15 probation officers.

Charlotte County

• There were 963 defendants ordered on county probation in 2019.

• There were 449 probationers who violated their supervision.

• There are 4 probation officers.

Collier County

• There were 9,657 defendants ordered on county probation in 2019.

• There were 994 probationers who violated their supervision.

• There are 7 probation officers.

Hendry and Glades Counties

• There were 293 defendants ordered on county probation in Hendry County in 2019.

• There were 190 defendants ordered on county probation in Glades County.

• There were 243 probationers who violated their supervision in Hendry County.

• There were 56 probationers who violated their supervision in Glades County.

• There are two probation officers in Hendry County

• There is one probation officer in Glades County.

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https://www.nbc-2.com/story/41700379/probation-perpetrators-wade-wilson-and-ryan-cole-prove-justice-system-could-be-broken

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