The officers kept their observations clinical. They photographed the containers and their placement before removing anything, documented the condition of the remains, and collected surrounding items that could have evidentiary value. Among the property recovered were clear safety goggles, rubber gloves, bungee cords, a black belt, and a white ribbon.
The scene-processing officers treated the apartment as evidence rather than as a spectacle. Before moving the containers, they photographed where each one sat and documented the way surrounding objects were arranged. They noted that the remains had been separated between the two coolers, consistent with Wade’s later explanation that he could not fit KJ into a single container. The second cooler therefore was not an unrelated storage box; it completed the physical picture that his interrogation had begun to reveal.
The smell inside the apartment also became understandable in retrospect. Bill had noticed it during an earlier visit, and Sherry had smelled it through the wall. Neither had known the source. What had seemed like an unpleasant household odor now became a timeline marker showing that KJ had remained concealed there long enough for people outside Wade’s apartment to notice something was wrong.
Investigators also paid attention to what was missing. The saw Wade admitted using was no longer in the apartment, which is why the later interview with Bill mattered. Wade had already moved one potentially important item out of the scene before police arrived. His insistence that the transfer was an ordinary trade had to be weighed against Bill’s statement that Wade pushed him to take the saw immediately.
At first, the white ribbon seemed minor compared with the rest of the scene. Later, it would become significant because of what several jail inmates said Wade told them about KJ.
Back at the station, detectives continued asking Wade about his relationship with KJ before her death. Wade admitted that there had been physical conflict. He said he had kicked her once because he was angry about alleged cheating and acknowledged that he had used a belt on her shortly before she died.
“When was the last time you used a belt on her?” an investigator asked.
“Probably a day or two before,” Wade said.
“Before she died?”
“Yeah.”
Wade tried to minimize the admission. He said he used a belt because he did not want to hit her with his hands, almost as if switching methods made the violence less serious. He agreed that he should not have been physical at all but continued describing the conduct as punishment related to KJ leaving or returning.
Sherry’s recollections gave the relationship a more controlling context. She remembered one of the few times KJ answered Wade’s door. KJ appeared without clothing. Later, Wade brought coffee to Sherry and complained that KJ should never have answered the door like that. According to Sherry, he said he would have to “get the belt out.”
That statement stayed with her. She already knew Wade had admitted hitting women, and now she had seen evidence that KJ was living under unusual restrictions inside his home.
When detectives asked Wade whether they would find marks from a belt around KJ’s neck or elsewhere on her body, he said he did not think they would. The question clearly unsettled him. Investigators were signaling that the autopsy would reveal injuries he could not explain away simply by describing a fall.
Police also interviewed Katie, one of Wade’s former girlfriends. She had known him since childhood and dated him briefly in 2018. The relationship lasted only a few months before an incident convinced her to leave.
Katie said she had been unable to do something Wade wanted because she needed to be home with her children. Wade showed up and began an argument. She eventually agreed to drive him somewhere simply to get him away from the house. Her children were in the back seat.
During the drive, Wade realized Katie intended to leave him somewhere and became angry. When she raised an arm to tell him to stop because the children were present, Wade threatened to break her arm if she ever did that again. Katie’s diabetic daughter then pretended that her blood sugar was dropping so they could return home.
Katie got the children inside and refused to get back into the car with Wade. She placed a bicycle and chair between them to keep distance while he tried to persuade her to come closer. She told him she wanted nothing more to do with him.
Looking back after learning what happened to KJ, Katie told investigators that a frightening thought had occurred to her: if she had not acted the way she did during that relationship, she believed the victim in this case could have been her.
The accounts from Sherry and Katie reinforced the same pattern. Wade could appear calm and ordinary, but people close to him described control, intimidation, physical aggression, and an ability to explain troubling behavior as though it were reasonable.
Detectives returned to Wade and pressed him again about injuries KJ might have sustained while living with him. He became evasive. At one point he said he had only seen KJ cry a handful of times, including twice because of physical pain. Asked how she had been hurt, he hesitated and said he did not want to discuss it.
“Did you cause the pain to her?” the investigator asked.
Wade avoided a direct answer. He said talking about causing pain was not something he got a thrill from and insisted that he did not want to discuss it because it was inappropriate.