She vanished without a trace — her cat unfed, her bed made too perfectly, her car gone. Friends feared the worst.
But no one imagined the real monster was living right next door.
What investigators uncovered still haunts Anchorage to this day.

Anchorage, Alaska. A city at the edge of the world — where endless daylight meets shadowed secrets.
In August 2007, beloved psychiatric nurse Mindy Schloss, 52, failed to show up for work. Friends grew anxious when calls went unanswered and her house sat eerily silent — except for the sound of her cat crying inside.

Nothing seemed stolen. There were no signs of a break-in. The bills were half-written on her kitchen table, a glass of wine left unfinished. It was as if Mindy had simply vanished into the cold Alaskan air.

But detectives would soon learn that what happened inside that quiet home wasn’t an accident, or a disappearance.
It was a hunt — carried out by a man who’d already killed before.

At first, no one wanted to think the worst. Mindy was organized, careful, and devoted to her patients. Her best friend Jerry thought maybe she’d flown to Fairbanks early for work. But when Mindy’s car turned up missing — something snapped.

“Somebody else has done things in here,” Jerry told police. “This isn’t Mindy.”

Detective Pam Perrenue of the Anchorage PD arrived that same day. The scene didn’t make sense — no forced entry, no valuables missing, no struggle. But tiny details stood out: the pristine bed, the half-filled wine glass, the cat’s untouched medication.

Mindy’s friends told investigators she had mentioned feeling uneasy about a man doing repairs on her home. “He was creepy,” she had said.
Police began checking everyone who’d recently been in contact with her — contractors, friends, even her ex-boyfriend.

Then came a chilling clue.
Early the next morning after her disappearance, Mindy’s bank card was used to withdraw $500 from an ATM.

Surveillance footage showed a man in a quilted jacket, face hidden by a bandana. But when he briefly lowered it to check the keypad, cameras caught a flash of his chin and mouth — just enough for police to hope someone might recognize him.

Then came a second withdrawal — and this time, the man forgot to retrieve the card. The ATM swallowed it back.
It was the break investigators had been waiting for.

When the card was traced, detectives went door to door around Mindy’s neighborhood — and one address kept coming up.
A house just next door to Mindy’s.

Neighbors complained of wild parties, suspicious visitors, and a man named Joshua Wade.
The name made every detective in Alaska freeze.

Joshua Wade — the same man acquitted in 2000 for the brutal killing of Della Brown, a young Anchorage woman whose death had shocked the state. Wade had walked free after the jury found him not guilty of murder.

Now he was living right beside Mindy Schloss.

A terrified neighbor told detectives Wade had come to her house the night police arrived in the neighborhood, begging her not to tell them he lived there. “He said he was on probation,” she whispered. “And he was scared.”

Wade wasn’t just scared — he was hiding something horrific.

Days later, Mindy’s car was found abandoned near the airport, wiped clean. But inside, investigators found a faint shoe print and DNA on the steering wheel. It was a match: Joshua Wade.

When police searched his home, they found Mindy’s missing watch tucked away in an attic crawl space, and the same quilted jacket seen in the ATM footage — still holding the withdrawal receipt from her account.

The evidence was overwhelming. But Wade had disappeared.
Anchorage went into lockdown. Posters flooded the streets. FBI scent-tracking dogs followed his trail — from Mindy’s car, to her front door… and then straight to Josh Wade’s house.

The result was undeniable. He’d taken her.

When Wade was finally cornered by SWAT, he held two people hostage before surrendering. Police feared another tragedy — but this time, Alaska refused to let him slip away.

At first, Wade taunted detectives, refusing to speak. But as evidence piled up — the DNA, the ATM, the watch — the silence broke.
Through his former girlfriend Lisa, investigators learned the truth.

Wade had broken into Mindy’s house to rob her. When she caught him, he panicked. He bound her with zip ties, returned later with a gun, and forced her into her car. He drove her deep into the Alaskan woods.
He told her he’d let her go — then pulled the trigger.

Weeks later, Mindy’s body was discovered by a utility worker. A single shell casing lay nearby — a .45 caliber, the same type Wade was known to carry.

When confronted with Lisa’s testimony and DNA proof, Wade confessed not only to killing Mindy Schloss, but also to the long-unsolved murder of Della Brown.

In 2009, the court sentenced Joshua Wade to 99 years without parole.
Anchorage finally breathed again.

“It was justice,” said Detective Perrenue. “Not just for Mindy, but for Della too. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”

Today, Mindy’s friends remember her not for how she died, but for how she lived — compassionate, strong, and endlessly giving.
Her story serves as a reminder that even in the quietest neighborhoods, evil can live just next door.

And sometimes, justice — like Alaska’s winter — takes time, but it always arrives. ❄️