Atlanta police, this week, arrested the husband of a young mom found dead and dismembered inside trash bags in 1999, solving a 25-year-old cold case that saw cops question her father, the notorious Flint River Killer.
Officials announced Wednesday that Christopher Wolfenbarger had been arrested for the murder of his wife, Melissa Wolfenberger, 21, whose body was chopped up, stuffed into black trash bags and tossed on the side of a road more than two decades ago.
“I don’t have to watch the news anymore,” Melissa’s mother, Norma Patton, said during a press conference announcing the arrest. “We got him, and he’s in jail. Lord help me, he stays there.”
Patton, who had filed the missing persons report for her daughter, added that her last words to her were, “I love you,” during a Thanksgiving conversation in 1998.
Melissa, a mom of two, disappeared sometime afterward.
By April 1999, a skull was found along Avon Avenue, and two months later, the rest of her dismembered remains were discovered in a nearby wooded area, police said.
But it wasn’t until 2003 that detectives were able to identify the remains as Melissa’s — in a strange twist. The body’s DNA was a familial match to Carl Millard Patton Jr, her father, who had been arrested for killing five people.
Carl, known as the Flint River Killer, was taken into custody for the 1977 murder of Liddie Matthew Evans, 31, and was soon linked to four other victims.
While the arrest allowed police to identify Melissa, investigators quickly concluded Carl — who remains incarcerated at Dodge State Prison, according to Fox 5 — was not responsible for his daughter’s death.
A quarter century later, they set their eyes on the other close man in her family, her husband.
Police arrested Wolfenberger on Tuesday at his home in Griffin, but officials did not elaborate on what evidence they had on him or what his motive might have been.
Officials, however, noted that Wolfenberger was always a “person of interest” in the cold case.
Wolfenberger was booked at the Fulton County Jail, where he was charged with murder.
Melissa’s mother and her sister, Tina, said they always knew she was killed by her own husband. They described him as a man with “evil in his eyes” and compared him to Charles Manson.
A representative for Wolfenberger could not be immediately reached for comment.
