Crime alert, hourly update. Breaking Crime News now. Nancy, in a shocking turn of events, Christopher

Wolfenberger was acquitted of the murder of his wife, Melissa, after jurors in Fulton County, Georgia

reached their verdict in just two hours. Count one, we the jury find to the defendant not guilty,

this 22nd day of August 2025.

Wolfen Barker had been charged with her murder last year following the efforts of a task

force that believed they had sufficient evidence to secure conviction.

The victim's family last communicated with her on Thanksgiving in 1998, but concerns heightened when she

fell to contact her mother on her birthday a few months later. In April 1999, investigators discovered

a severed head in a black trash bag at Mr. Wolfenbarger's workplace in Atlanta, and additional

remains were found a month later.

Unfortunately, these remains were initially misidentified as belonging to another missing person

and were not confirmed to be Melissa's until 2003, following the arrest of her father,

Carl Patton, for a series of murders known as the Flint River murders from the

1970s. Mr. Patton has since died in prison. Authorities believe that the murder occurred sometime

between December 10, 1998, and April 29, 1999. When interrogated, Christopher Wolfenberger

maintained he was innocent, saying he believed

his wife had relocated to California to start over. In an interview in 2021 with Dateline, he said,

yes, I have a criminal history, but I'm not a murderer. Prosecutors, however, contended that he

had killed her due to their tumultuous relationship.

A family member revealed that during the summer before Melissa's disappearance, Christopher

allegedly assaulted her and dragged her down a sidewalk by her hair. With this not guilty

verdict, Wolfenbarger avoided a potential life-in-prison sentence.

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