An arrest has been made in the 1999 slaying of a Georgia woman whose dismembered remains were discovered months after her reported disappearance.
Sources told WSB-TV that Christopher Wolfenbarger was jailed Wednesday for murdering his wife, Melissa Wolfenbarger. Atlanta police listed her date of death as April 29, 1999.
Melissa Wolfenbarger vanished after calling her family on Thanksgiving 1998. Her husband did not report her disappearance to police, but he allegedly told them in 200o that he last saw his wife walking down the street in March or April 1999.
About five months after Melissa Wolfenbarger last contacted relatives, her head — soaked in bleach in a black trash bag — was reportedly discovered in Atlanta near where her husband had worked. Roughly a month later, more of her remains were found stashed in trash bags in the same vicinity.
Though Melissa Wolfenbarger’s remains were discovered months after her disappearance, they went unidentified until 2003 — when her father, Carl Patton, was arrested and later convicted of three unrelated murders that occurred in 1977.
Patton was eliminated as a suspect in his daughter’s slaying. Still, her husband remained a suspect because he never reported her disappearance to authorities or informed her family that she was missing.
Authorities are expected to provide a formal update on this case later today.
* Leigh Egan contributed to this report
