Wade, 27, is accused of using an ATM card belonging to Mindy Schloss, a nurse who has been missing since Aug. 6 and is presumed dead.
Assistant U.S. attorney Crandon Randell spent most of Monday questioning FBI agent Michael Thoreson, who outlined the evidence against Wade. At one point, Wade yelled at Thoreson, accusing the agent of lying and having a "smirk" on his face.
Randell illustrated the prosecution case against Wade with still photos from cameras at two ATM machines in the days after Schloss vanished. They depict a man they say is Wade withdrawing money from her account on Aug. 5 and 6. Each time, the man appears early in the morning, wearing a quilted jacket, a gray backpack, a striped baseball cap and a bandana pulled up over his face or around his neck. He does a balance inquiry -- Schloss' account held around $20,000-- and then withdraws $500.
During the Aug. 6 ATM transaction, a witness told police he saw a man on a silver bike who told him the ATM was broken, Thoreson testified. The machine kept Schloss' ATM card that morning. Whoever was using it took too long to take it out of the machine, Thoreson said.
Police also searched the house next door to Schloss where Wade lived when she disappeared. There they found a jacket like the one worn by the person using the ATM card, with an ATM receipt from Schloss' account in the pocket. The jacket also had mud on the back that looked like it was thrown from the rear tire of a bicycle, Randell said.
A gray backpack said to be Wade's and given to police by a friend of his contained his ID, a blue bandana like the one seen in the ATM tapes, and a bunch of receipts from purchases made around the time of the ATM withdrawals from Fred Meyer, Burlington Coat Factory and Mammoth Music.
An interior security tape from the Jewel Lake Northrim Bank branch, shot the afternoon of Aug. 6, showed Wade at a teller window in a striped baseball cap similar to the one in the ATM tapes. Bank records indicate he had overdrawn his account by more than $100. He paid the debt using cash and closed out his account, Thoreson said.
At this point, Wade erupted from his spot at the defense table.
"I didn't close my account, man," he said. "That's a (obscenity) lie, man!"
Wade didn't like what he thought he read in Thoreson's face: "There's nothing funny about this, man!" he yelled. "This is my life, dude."
Magistrate Matthew Jamin told Wade to calm down.
Said Wade: "I would appreciate it if these people could act professional and quit smirking at me."
The moment passed, and testimony continued.
The pending federal charges do not accuse Wade of a role in Schloss' disappearance. But the suspicion that he is actually an uncharged killer hung in the air. From the witness stand, Thoreson said investigators used dogs who tracked Wade's scent from the ATMs to Wade's house.
And DNA found on the steering wheel of Schloss' car, which was abandoned in a parking lot near the airport, matched Wade's.
When police were searching for Wade, he hid out at the home of a friend, Thoreson said. The friend said Wade watched television reports on Schloss' disappearance and clipped out newspaper articles. He asked for money and said he planned to hide out in the Mat-Su Valley.
Defense attorney Mary Geddes accused the government of making a case against Wade that doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Evidence linking him to the coat found at the house was thin, and pictures from the ATMs weren't clear enough to make an accurate identification, she said.
Though there was evidence Wade might have done something wrong, she said, it wasn't federal bank fraud. That would require evidence that Wade misrepresented himself. An ATM doesn't ask for identification, she said. A person puts in a card and money comes out. It's not illegal to use someone else's card with permission. The prosecution can't prove Wade didn't have permission, she said.
At Anchorage police headquarters on Monday, Lt. Paul Honeman said there have been no new developments in the search for Schloss. Wade is still officially just a "person of interest" in the case.
In 2003, Wade was acquitted of charges he beat a woman to death in Spenard. He served time for tampering with evidence in that case and was released in 2004.
The probable cause hearing on the federal bank charges resumes today at 11 a.m. at the federal court house.
Find Julia O'Malley online at adn.com/contact/jomalley or call 257-4591.
Case timeline
• Mindy Schloss disappeared on Aug. 3 or Aug. 4. Her 2000 red Acura was found a few days later in a parking lot on Old International Airport Road, near an air cargo office.
• On Aug. 8, police learned that Schloss' ATM card had been used twice by someone who checked the balance both times, then lost the card to the ATM when the person was too slow to pull it out.
• On Aug. 18, Anchorage police executed a search warrant on the house where Joshua Wade lived and seized a black quilted jacket with an ATM receipt in the pocket for the Aug. 6 withdrawal from Schloss' account.
• Wade is charged on Sept. 3 with federal bank fraud and identity theft.
Source: Affidavit of FBI Special Agent Michael Thoreson, Aug. 24.
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