Georgia man acquitted in 1998 wife’s murder case
A Georgia man who had been accused of killing his wife in 1998 was acquitted Friday, bringing a dramatic end to a cold case that spanned more than two decades. Christopher Wolfenbarger, now wheelchair-bound, leaned back in visible relief as a Fulton County jury returned a verdict of not guilty after just two hours of deliberation.
Wolfenbarger had been charged last year in the death of his wife, Melissa Wolfenbarger, after a task force of investigators revived the long-dormant case, believing they finally had the evidence needed to secure a conviction.
A disappearance that alarmed her family
Melissa Wolfenbarger was last heard from by her family on Thanksgiving Day in 1998. Alarm bells went off when she missed her mother’s birthday a few months later, an event she never would have skipped.
The search for answers took a grim turn in April 1999, when investigators discovered a severed head inside a black trash bag at Christopher Wolfenbarger’s workplace. Additional remains were recovered nearby about a month later.
Initially, the remains were misidentified as belonging to a missing man. It wasn’t until 2003 that they were conclusively linked to Melissa. That breakthrough came during an unrelated investigation involving her father, Carl Patton, who was arrested in connection with the Flint River Murders, a string of killings from the 1970s. Patton is now serving a life sentence.
Investigators build a case
Authorities believed Melissa was killed sometime between December 10, 1998, and April 29, 1999. When questioned, Christopher Wolfenbarger told investigators he thought his wife had left him and started a new life in California. Throughout the years, he maintained his innocence.
“Yes, I have a criminal history,” he said during a 2021 interview with Dateline. “But I’m not a murderer.”
Prosecutors, however, painted a darker picture. They pointed to the couple’s troubled marriage and alleged history of domestic violence. Melissa’s sister testified that in the summer before her disappearance, Christopher had assaulted his wife and even dragged her by the hair down a sidewalk.
The trial and acquittal
Despite the grisly nature of the discovery and the troubled marital history, jurors were not convinced by the prosecution’s case. After hearing testimony and reviewing the evidence, the jury deliberated for only two hours before acquitting Wolfenbarger of all charges.
The verdict spared him from a potential life sentence and brought an abrupt conclusion to a trial that had been more than 25 years in the making.
Unanswered questions remain
While Wolfenbarger walks free, many questions remain unanswered. Melissa’s family, who have endured decades of uncertainty, are left without a clear explanation of her death.
The case highlights the challenges of prosecuting cold cases, especially when evidence is limited, mishandled, or misidentified—as it was in this investigation. The initial error in identifying Melissa’s remains delayed justice and complicated the search for answers.
For Wolfenbarger, the acquittal marks the end of a long ordeal in which he consistently insisted on his innocence. For Melissa’s family, however, the verdict leaves lingering doubts and the painful reality that her killer may never be held accountable.
As one of Atlanta’s more haunting unsolved cases, the story of Melissa Wolfenbarger underscores both the determination of investigators to revisit forgotten cases and the difficulty of securing justice decades after a crime has been committed.
