Inside the Chilling Tania Wise Murder Case: How a Florida Man’s Secret Double Life Led to the Death of His Pregnant Mistress
On a humid August morning in 2018, a passerby driving through the quiet stretches of St. Lucie County, Florida, made a discovery that would haunt the community for years. Lying face-down in a muddy ditch was the body of 23-year-old Tania Wise, a young woman just days away from giving birth. The air was heavy with silence as officers arrived, red and blue lights flickering against the stillness of the rural road. For investigators, the grim scene told a story of rage, betrayal, and the lengths one man would go to hide his secret.
The autopsy revealed the truth that the eye could not ignore—Tania had been beaten, her skull fractured, and her throat slashed. Her unborn son, the baby she planned to name Josiah, never had the chance to take his first breath. Detectives soon learned that this was not a random act of violence but something far more personal. Tania, who worked as an exotic dancer in Stuart, Florida, had been involved in a relationship with 49-year-old Jose Antonio Soto-Escalera, a married father who lived a double life. What began as an affair grew complicated when Tania became pregnant, and Jose’s carefully constructed world began to crumble.
According to investigators and testimony later shared in court, Jose had offered Tania $500 for an abortion, desperate to keep his marriage intact and his image clean. She refused. She told him she planned to keep the baby, naming him Josiah—a gesture that symbolized new beginnings but for Jose meant exposure, humiliation, and scandal. Witnesses recounted a heated phone call between the two in which Tania threatened to tell his wife the truth if he refused to take responsibility. Friends described Tania as strong-willed yet vulnerable, torn between hope and fear. For Jose, the threat of exposure grew unbearable, and prosecutors later argued that he saw only one way out.
When questioned by detectives, Jose denied everything. He claimed he barely knew Tania, insisting that they were mere acquaintances. But as investigators combed through his digital footprint, the mask began to slip. His phone revealed a chilling sequence of internet searches made the morning Tania’s body was found. Among them were phrases like “dead body in woods” and “wooded area dead body.” He had deleted his calls and text messages, but those searches painted a damning picture of premeditation. Surveillance footage captured a pickup truck matching his near the crime scene that night, and tire impressions found near the ditch matched his vehicle. Within weeks, police arrested Jose Soto-Escalera, charging him with two counts of first-degree murder—one for Tania and one for her unborn son.
It took seven years for the case to reach trial. In September 2025, a jury in St. Lucie County heard the evidence: the affair, the pregnancy, the threats, the deleted data, and the desperate lies. It took them less than an hour to reach a verdict—guilty on both counts. The same jury later recommended the death penalty, citing the brutality of the act and the loss of two innocent lives. On October 10, 2025, Judge Lawrence Mirman delivered the sentence: Jose Soto-Escalera would die for his crimes.
As the sentence was read, Tania’s mother wept quietly in court, clutching a photograph of her daughter and grandson. She told reporters afterward that no punishment could ever fill the void left behind but that justice had finally spoken. For the investigators, it was a case that tested their patience and resolve, a reminder that even the most carefully hidden lies eventually come to light. And for the small Florida community that mourned a young mother and her unborn child, it was a story of love turned lethal—a chilling testament to how fear and deceit can destroy more than one life at a time.
