A young mother in Atlanta, Georgia named Melissa Wolfenbarger was last heard from by family members on Thanksgiving Day in 1998 — and then she disappeared, never to be seen again. But now, this week, it appears as though her case may have finally been solved.
Five months after her disappearance, in April 1999, a severed human head was found in a trash bag near Atlanta. Cops soon found other remains along with it, including two legs, an arm, and a foot. Unfortunately, forensic investigators initially misidentified the remains as belonging to a man.
They actually belonged to then-21-year-old Melissa. Cops didn’t realize that until more reliable testing confirmed they were her remains in March 2003 — more than four years after she disappeared. And to make matters even more complicated, she hadn’t even been reported missing until January of 2000 by her husband Christopher Wolfenbarger!
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Now, after Melissa’s case lingered for more than 25 years as an unsolved homicide, detectives finally believe they know what happened. On Wednesday, Christopher was arrested on murder charges relating to Melissa’s death. It isn’t known what breakthrough in evidence analysis led to his arrest, but the move is a monumental one finally undertaken nearly 26 years after Melissa first went missing.
Per the Atlanta Journal Constitution, investigators were extremely strong in their belief that Christopher is the killer. In their arrest warrant for Christopher (pictured above, in his mugshot) filed this week in Fulton County, cops wrote:
“Christopher Wolfenbarger knowingly and intentionally killed Melissa Dawn Wolfenbarger and dismembered her body.”
In a press conference on Wednesday announcing news of the arrest, Melissa’s sister Tina Patton was also extremely bold in her belief that Christopher was the one who murdered Melissa. She said:
“From day one, we knew it was Christopher. There was never, ever any doubt in our minds, who did this. My mom has said, I don’t know how many times, that when she first met him, there was just evil in his eyes.”
Creepy…
As we noted (above), Atlanta cops have explicitly chosen to withhold the evidence that finally led them to Christopher. However, during the press conference, People reports that Detective Jarion Shephard said he had been considered a person of interest in Melissa’s death since the very beginning. Furthermore, Detective Shephard said that while cops are still trying to piece together a specific motive, they believe the murder to have been domestic violence-related.
Detective Shephard also indicated that Christopher was found hiding behind the dryer in his home when cops showed up to arrest him. He was booked into Fulton County Jail on Wednesday, and remains there now, per 11 Alive.
There’s another even crazier twist to this case, too. Melissa’s father Carl Patton Jr. was also arrested back in 2003 — the year when Melissa’s remains were finally positively identified — after spending 26 years on the run over a 1977 serial killing spree that took the lives of four people. At the time, those killings came to be known as the Flint River Murders, and Carl was termed the Flint River Killer.
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After his arrest, Carl confessed to a fifth murder, as well. He was eventually sentenced to life in prison, and remains incarcerated to this day. But it was the 2003 focus on Carl’s crimes that brought all the attention back to his daughter’s death. For a time, Carl was considered a possible suspect in her murder. However, he always steadfastly denied being involved in her death — and over time, police came to agree that the Flint River Killer hadn’t taken part in Melissa’s murder.
As for Christopher, he has also strongly denied being involved in Melissa’s death. As recently as 2021, he told Dateline that he had “absolutely no reason to kill her.” He argued at the time:
“There was no insurance money. We didn’t have any assets. There was no reason in the world for me to hurt her like that.”
Instead, he argued that the couple had gotten in a fight, and Melissa left to go for a walk from which she never returned. And when confronted with the fact that her remains were found close to where Christopher worked at the time, he had an answer for that, too:
“Who in their right mind kills somebody and dumps the body at their job? It just doesn’t make sense.”
He also told Dateline that he had a reason for not reporting her missing for so long, as well: his theory that she had left town to get away from family and lay low, and that she was going to turn up soon. He argued during that 2021 interview:
“At the time I really believed she had changed her name and left for a better life. And that she’d come back eventually. Sometimes I thought I’d see a glimpse of her here and there. But it was never her. … That’s the reason I didn’t report her missing. She wanted to get away from her parents and from this place. So she had to become someone else. I just thought she’d come back when things settled down.”
Police didn’t see it that way, and now, after nearly 26 years, they believe they have their man in custody. Wow.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available. Consider calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788, or go to https://www.thehotline.org/.
[Image via Atlanta Police Department/Fulton County Sheriff’s Office]
