ATLANTA — A Georgia man is standing trial for the murder of his wife, who was also the daughter of a convicted serial killer.
Opening statements got underway Thursday in the case against Christopher Wolfenbarger.
A court document says Melissa Wolfenbarger’s remains were discovered in April and June of 1999. Her remains were identified via dental records in March 2003.
And that’s where Melissa’s father being a serial killer becomes important.
“What triggered the identification, ultimately, is the arrest of Melissa Wolfenbarger’s father,” deputy district attorney Vincent Faucette said.
A cold case solved in 2003 involving five murders is now inextricably involved with another cold case murder for which Christopher Wolfenbarger is on trial this week in Fulton County Superior Court.
“There is no evidence of these charges in this case, and that’s why we will ask you at the end of this case to return a verdict of not guilty,” defense attorneys argued Thursday.
Carl Patton Jr. was the man arrested in 2003. We’re told Melissa Wolfenbarger was his daughter, who had been the wife of Christopher Wolfenbarger.
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He was charged in a 2024 indictment with her murder.
“Melissa’s father, Carl Patton, committed a string of murders in the late 1970s,” defense attorneys said.
We were there in 2003 when serial killer Patton Jr. was turned over to the custody of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office, already suspected of four killings in the 1970s known as the Flint River Murders, because the first two bodies discovered were found in or by the Flint River.
“He pled guilty to two murders in Clayton County, two in DeKalb County, and one in Henry County,” said retired lawman Bruce Jordan.
Jordan led the investigation into Patton as the chief investigator for the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office.
Jordan told Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne that around the time Patton pled guilty to the four murders to which authorities had already connected him in Clayton and DeKalb counties, he told Jordan and prosecutors he had also killed a man in Henry County.
In that same meeting, he turned to Jordan with a request.
“He said, ‘My daughter’s been missing for years.’ And he said, ‘I didn’t kill her. Would you put the time into finding her that you did find in me?’ I said, ‘Well, I can try it,’” Jordan said.
In a 2003 story, we talked about how Carl’s wife, Norma Patton, said she had turned to him for help to look for her daughter, Melissa.
“She stopped me and said, ‘Now would you help me find my daughter?’” Jordan said.
“He seemed sincere,” Norma Patton told Winne at the time.
Jordan said he went from one metro Atlanta medical examiner’s office to the next looking for an unidentified body that might be Melissa, and later on the same day, he visited the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent called him and said authorities had checked her dental records against a skull they had, and it was Melissa.
“At some point in time, I no longer had standing in the fight,” Jordan said.
Jordan said that since he has been subpoenaed in the trial of Melissa’s husband, Christopher, he’s limited in what he can say.
But because her remains were discovered in Atlanta, the case belonged to Atlanta police, who announced in 2024 that they had arrested Christoper Wolfenbarger.
“I think the key definitely was the ability to re-interview witnesses, and line the facts up. To create the case. Circumstantial evidence case, but most cases are based on circumstantial evidence,” Faucette told Winne in an interview last year.
“The extent of her suffering in life and in death had nothing to do with Christopher Wolfenbarger,” defense attorneys said Thursday.
We’re expecting Norma Patton to be a witness in the case, and from the defense’s opening statement, Winne said he is expecting the defense to go after her in cross-examination.
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