GORGEOUS MOM DISAPPEARS AFTER FAMILY DINNER: WHAT HAPPENED TO MELISSA?

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline

True Crime, News

3.9 • 7.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2024

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melissa Patton grows up in Locust Grove, Georgia with her parents and older sister, Tina. In high school, Melissa is head over heels for Christopher Wolfenbarger. The two quickly marry after graduating and move to Atlanta with their baby daughter Christina. When the couple welcomes a son, Joey, they settle in a duplex. Melissa works alongside her sister near the airport.

Thanksgiving Day, Melissa Wolfenbarger visits her parents, Carl and Norma Patton. Melissa is excited for the holidays and asks her mother for a very specific gift. When Melissa doesn’t even call Christmas day, Norma Patton is unsettled. Melissa doesn’t have a cell phone or a car, so Norma assumes her daughter is busy with her own family and will pick up her gifts later. When Melissa doesn’t wish her mom a happy birthday two months later, Norma Patton asks family members if anyone has seen her. Tina Patton realizes Melissa hasn’t worked a shift with her in months. Then, Melissa misses her mother's birthday.

Atlanta PD finds a severed human skull, that rolled out of a ripped trash bag in the middle of Avon Avenue. Just over a month later, four more trash bags are discovered two blocks down Avon in wooded area. Inside are a pair of legs and arms. Police cannot locate a torso. It would be more than four years before the body is identified as Melissa Wolfenbarger, and 25 years before police arrest her killer.

Joining Nancy Grace today:

Tina Patton - Sister of Melissa Wolfenbarger
Norma Patton - Mother of Melissa Wolfenbarger
Darryl Cohen - Former Assistant District Attorney, Former Assistant State Attorney, Defense Attorney, Cohen, Cooper, Estep, & Allen, LLC, CCEAlaw.com, Facebook: "Darryl B Cohen", Twitter: @DarrylBCohen
Sheryl McCullum - Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder, ColdCaseCrimes.org, Host of new podcast: Zone 7, Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
Joseph Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan", @JoScottForensic
Sydney Sumner - CrimeOnline investigative reporter

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
0:05.0	A gorgeous mom disappears after a family dinner.
0:10.0	What happened to Melissa?
0:13.2	I'm Nancy Grace.
0:14.2	This is Crime Stories.
0:15.2	Thank you for being with us.
0:17.0	I said, we're at one morning and here comes my dad walking in the door.
0:21.7	Where's your sister? He said because we can't find her. She
0:25.3	didn't show up for Christmas. She didn't call your mom and tell her happy
0:27.9	birthday either and I was like, wait a minute, something's wrong.
0:38.0	Melissa Wolfenburg, a's wrong. Melissa Wolfenburger, a young married mother of two, has gone missing. Her parents are worried sick about her because this is not like her.
0:44.0	The kids, the kids were her life.
0:47.0	No way. There's no way she would have ever left them.
0:51.0	You know, I know it's... them.
0:53.6	You know, I know it's anecdotal when, uh, let me just say spectators, um, those on the outside looking in.
1:05.0	Here, she would never have left her children.
1:09.5	But when you know the mom, you realize that that is absolutely true, that there is no way she would have
1:19.6	willingly left her children. What happened to Melissa? Joining me an all-star panel, but first I want to
1:29.7	go to Melissa's sister Tina Patton, also joining us her mother Norma Patton. To both of you,
1:39.7	thank you for being with us and also for being Melissa's voice because without you people would forget about her.
1:50.0	I had never even heard about Melissa or her disappearance until you made it known.
1:58.0	Again, thank you for being with us.
	...

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