Years before confessed serial killer Joshua Wade was found dead in his Alaska prison cell, he was being sentenced to life in prison, and told the families of his victims in the courtroom he deserved "much worse" than he was getting.
Wade, 44, a serial killer who admitted to killing two women and three men in Alaska between 2004 and 2007, was found dead in his prison cell on June 14.
Indiana Department of Correction confirmed Wade died in Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. DOC spokesperson Brandi Pahl told PEOPLE that Wade was "found unresponsive in his cell."
"Despite life-saving measures being performed, he was pronounced dead," Pahl said, adding that an autopsy will be administered.
Though Wade was convicted of state and federal charges in Alaska, he was transferred to an Indiana prison in 2014 after accepting a deal with both state and federal prosecutors.
According to a 2014 press release from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Wade confessed to murdering Anchorage-area woman Della Brown in 2000 when he was 20 years old; however, he was only convicted of witness tampering and was acquitted of the murder and sexual assault charges.
Following probation for the witness tampering case in 2007, he kidnapped and murdered Mindy Schloss, a nurse practitioner, and his neighbor in the Sand Lake neighborhood of Anchorage.
In 2009, Wade pleaded guilty to carjacking and killing Schloss.
Wade would later confess to Anchorage police and FBI agents that he killed two other men in 1994 and 1999, as well as another man on the same night he murdered Della Brown in 2000.
Investigators believe the men he murdered in the 1990s were 38-year-old John Michael Martin, when Wade was 14 years old, and 30-year-old Henry Ongtowasruk.
Wade was sentenced to 99 years in prison by an Alaska state court, and a federal court sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
At the state sentencing, he addressed the families of the two women, saying, "I deserve much worse. I'm sorry."
During a tense exchange in federal court with US District Court Judge Ralph Beistline, Wade attempted to apologize once more, but Beistline quickly shut him down.
"What an evil thing you've done," Beistline told him.
"What kind of person could take pleasure in the random destruction of another life?"
Responding to Beistline calling him selfish and a coward, Wade snapped at the judge.
"Don't push it, man," he said.
In the years that followed, many experts have cited his killings as an example of the high number of violent crimes against Alaska Natives.
Wade's cause of death was not released.
