August 21, 2024 • 40 mins
April 29th, 1999. A skull is found in a trash bag outside Action Glass in Atlanta, Georgia. Soon after, in different trash bags, various other body parts are found. The remains are identified as the remains of Melissa Wolfenbarger, a 21-year-old married mother of two who is reported missing several months prior. In a remarkable twist, Melissa’s remains are verified only after her Father is arrested in connection to an unrelated murder.
Zone 7 celebrates its 100th episode in alignment with the arrest that solved the 25-year-old case of Melissa Wolfenbarger. Crime Scene Investigator Sheryl McCollum is joined by Norma and Tina, the mother and sister of Melissa Wolfenbarger to discuss the complexities of the cold case, the unwavering dedication from numerous supporters involved, and ultimately what led to the arrest of Melissa’s husband, Christopher Wolfenbarger.
If you’re new to Zone 7 and missed the beginning of Melissa Wolfenbarger's case episodes check those out here:
Melissa Wolfenbarger: Norma and Tina Patton | Part 1
Melissa Wolfenbarger: Karyn Greer | Part 2
Melissa Wolfenbarger: Trace Sargent | Part 3
Melissa Wolfenbarger: Letters From Carl Patton | Part 4
Melissa Wolfenbarger: Victims of Carl Patton - Liddie Evans Children Speak | Part 5
Melissa Wolfenbarger: Joseph Scott Morgan’s Insight on Melissa’s Case | Part 6
Melissa Wolfenbarger: Continued - Joseph Scott Morgan’s Insight on Melissa’s Case | Part 7
Melissa Wolfenbarger: Dr. Angela Arnold Weighs In | Part 8
Closing Thoughts For Now, April 2023 | Melissa Wolfenbarger Part 9
Melissa Wolfenbarger: 8.9.24 CRU Justice For Melissa Part 10
Show Notes:
- (0:00) Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum
- (0:15) Sheryl introduces Norma and Tina back to Zone 7
- (1:20) Brief background of Melissa Wolfenbarger’s case
- (4:00) The identification of Melissa’s remains
- (4:30) Carl Patton’s arrest and confession
- (8:45) The investigation begins
- (12:00) Challenges in the investigation due to changes in law enforcement personnel
- (15:00) Sheryl’s initial meeting with Norma in 2017
- (19:30) The impact of media involvement in advancing the case
- (21:30) “From the series that we did on Zone 7, a witness came forward. Now that by itself to me was amazing. That Nancy Grace had covered it. Dateline had covered it. CrimeCon had covered it.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Y'all, you don't always get the call when you work
cold cases. It could be five years, ten years, twenty
five years before you get that call. But honey, the
family of Melissa Wolfenberger got that call. Joining me today
(00:29):
is Melissa's mama, Norma and sister Tina. Norma and Tina
welcome to his own seven. Thank you, sir, Honey. It's
been twenty five years for you and Norma, for you
and I. It's been seven seven years since you walked
into an event where I was speaking, and you had
(00:53):
an eight y ten picture of Melissa, and you walked
up to me and said, my daughter was beheaded in Atlanta.
Will you help me?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
That's exactly what I did.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, you've been fighting a long time, and you've been
talking to a lot of people, taking that eight y
ten picture with you everywhere. So I want to give
just a little background. In nineteen ninety eight, Thanksgiving is
the last time you spoke to your daughter Melissa. Right,
What happened? What happened after that?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
What happened after that is I didn't hear anything else
from her. I mean she didn't call Christmas, you know,
after she had asked for a specific gift for Christmas.
She didn't want anything that was store ball. She wanted
something that I had to look for and find to
(01:45):
be able to give to her. I had to look
through a lot of pictures to find a good one
that I liked and thought that she would like. And
then when she didn't show up, she didn't call.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I got word.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
All she wanted was a picture of her and her grandfather, right,
he called it Papa, And she didn't come. Get it
the sentimental gift, right, Tina, When did you first know
that Melissa was missing?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
When my dad walked into the restaurant where I worked
at and said, where's your sister?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I said, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
You hadn't talked to her. He said no, he said
she didn't. You know. We talked to her Thanksgiving Day.
Christmas Day she didn't come. She didn't even call your
mama for her birthday. And that, right there was the
sign because Listen always called Mama.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So that's when now the whole family by February is
word sick yep So April of nineteen ninety nine, a
skull is found in the middle of Avon Avenue and
your mama normally you're watching the news.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I was because I didn't know where she was. If
they said anything about a body being found anywhere on
any of the local channels, I would always stop and
watch the news. And when I sat down and watched
the news, you know, they said it was a mail
and I said, okay, And then I thought, well, Avon
(03:16):
Avenue is I think on the north side of town,
because you know, in going around two eighty five, I
saw an exit that had Avon Avenue and I said, well,
that's north side of town, not in the same area.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So I kind of brushed it off.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
So you were somewhat relieved that that wasn't your child, right,
and then the skulls identified as a Caucasian mail. So
we move on. Now, something else happened in your life
that was difficult. At this same time, your husband, Carl
is arrested four years later. Four years later, so Carl
(03:54):
is arrested for several murders that occurred in the seventies.
Right around that same time frame that Carl Is arrested.
He decides, Hey, I'm going to tell the truth. I'm
going to cop to it. I'm going to tell him
I did it. I'm going to keep Norma out of it.
I'm going to just go into court, raise my hand
(04:18):
and confess to all of it.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
And that's exactly what he did.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
In three separate courthouses in three separate counties.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So I'm just going to state very clearly Carl Patten
is a convicted killer. Carl Patten has admitted it. He's
never lied about it once they came to him. Carl
and I have been exchanging letters since twenty twenty one.
When I started on this case. It was important for
me to have contact with Melissa's father, mother, and sister
(04:48):
to develop an accurate victimology. Through those letters, I learned
a lot. I learned a lot about Carl. I learned
a lot about the Patent family. I learned a lot
about Norma and Tina. I learned about their loyalty, their
love for each other, and their unwavering devotion to get
justice for Melissa. So Carl goes to prison and he says,
(05:13):
you know what, Norma, I'm here, I'm stuck here. I
can't search for Melissa. I can't do anything to try
to help find her or solve the situation for y'all
as a family. So he reaches out to the person
that arrested him, and he says, hey, you caught me
after twenty five years. You must be a pretty good detective.
(05:35):
Will you help look for my daughter? And to his credit,
that detective said yes. So he goes out and he says, huh,
there's a skull unidentified and it's literally feet from the
front door of where Melissa's husband works. So he goes
(05:57):
to the Atlanta Police Department and says, are you sure
this this is a male? And they get the dental
records and what happens Norma.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
On March seventeenth, two thousand and three, he pulled up
in my yard and I saw him when he pulled up,
and I walked outside on the porch and he come
up standing there talking and he told me she had
been identified and what had happened to her.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And I just.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Busted out screaming and yelling, and my two oldest grandkids,
which were Tina's, came.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Out to see what was wrong. What I was upset about.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Tina, you are literally walking down the street and you
get a phone call from a friend that says, hey, girl,
of you watch the news.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Oh no, it wasn't a friend, it was my ex husband.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Oh well, let me change that now because I don't
want that out there in the universe. Okay, okay, but
that's the important thing because again, even an ex husband
would reach out to you because this was going to
be so devastating for you, and he knew it. So
what does he tell you?
Speaker 4 (07:09):
I said, I don't think Mom wanted to be the
one to notify me like that, so he took it
upon himself to do it.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I was too upset to make that call.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, So now you have confirmation that Melissa was beheaded
and dismembered, because you know from the news there was
a skull found in April, but that same June of
nineteen ninety nine, four more trash bags were found containing
her arms and legs and no norma. That to me
(07:42):
is an unbearable scenario to know that that is your baby.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
It was, and it's been it's been hard.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Well it'll forever be hard. And Tina, you and I
have talked a lot, and I know you. I know
you now pretty good, and you know, what do you
do with it? You're now the surviving child. Your dad
is in prison, your mom is destroyed, and you are
(08:13):
now in the middle trying to help make your mama,
work through it, get through it, survive it somehow. You've
got your children, You've got Melissa's children, You've got your dad,
and you have been the one to me that has
glued this family together.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I've tried.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
It's not easy, Oh.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I know. I remember the phone call when you told
me you were headed somewhere to burn some stuff down. So,
and those are just natural feelings. I mean, you get frustrated,
you get angry, of course, and especially when things just
seem so unjust. She did not deserve what happened to her, exactly.
(08:57):
And I have said over and over over and I
will say it again right here. The sins of the
father have nothing to do with what happened to Melissa.
And here's the deal about Carl. I'll say it again.
Carl's in prison. Carl deserves to be in prison for
what he did. But what happened to Melissa she did
(09:20):
not deserve in any way whatsoever. Nope, she sure didn't.
And with what Carl did, that doesn't mean that something
should be able to happen to Melissa and we not
get justice for her. There should never be a killer
walk in the streets free. None of us should be
okay with that?
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Nobody should be okay with that.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So the reality is now, y'all. Now the Atlanta Police
Department knows they have a homicide of Melissa Wolfenberger. That's
a completely different scenario. So they start to look at
the facts. Did her husband report her missing? Did her
family report her missing? When was the last time she
showed up at work? When was the last time she
(10:01):
showed up anywhere she was supposed to be court, a
doctor's appointment, to vote? Where was she was there any
sighting of her? Was there any phone call, any letter,
anything since nineteen ninety eight? And the answer was no, nothing.
And so her husband said, well, I saw her. She
(10:23):
was walking down the street and she told me she
was leaving to go to California to start a new life.
And then he said she left over another man. Then
he said she left because she was going to be
doing some counterfeit identification cards and passports. I mean, he
has said several things that just don't make any sense.
And here's the bottom line. Would Melissa have ever left
(10:47):
her children?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
No way on this earth would she had left those
two kids. When I had my old bits tooth down here,
she helped me every day, take care of them, and
she loved them just as much as she did her own.
(11:08):
She bought the year that Timberly started school, Well, let'sa
got clothes for her to wear to school. There is
no way, there's no way on this earth that she
would ever leave those babies.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Every time there's a case where there's small children, and
in this case they were one in two years old,
and you hear somebody say, well, she just took off.
She just left she wanted a new life. That doesn't
ring true. And in this case, she didn't have a car,
she didn't have any money to speak of. She didn't
(11:51):
take any clothes, she didn't take any jewelry, she didn't
take anything that meant something to her. And I'm going
to tell you again the only thing that child wants
for Christmas was a photograph of her and her grandfather.
This was a family oriented child. And I'm going to
tell y'all something, Can you be two things at once? Yes,
(12:12):
you can be a sex worker and a fantastic mother.
You can be a doctor and a roller derby queen.
You can be a preacher and a breakdancer. I mean,
you can be these things that seem polar opposite that
are not if that makes any sense. And when you
(12:33):
look at Melissa's life, there is no way if she
wanted to leave Christopher. Listen, y'all. We can leave a man, okay,
because we can get another one. May not be a
good one, but we can get another one. But we
don't leave our children because we can't get those children back.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Anytime Melissa left him, she wanted to take the kids.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
She always went back to the children. And when she left,
he hounded her and hounded her to come back, tracked
her down, but not but not. In nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
He tracked her down one time, but he didn't track
her down in December when she Dick left.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
That's right. He didn't have to, That's right. He didn't
have to. He knew where she was. Same reason he
didn't call you asking you have you seen her? He
didn't call Tina, have you seen her? He didn't call work,
he didn't call anybody. She was even on probation at
the time. He didn't reach out to the probation officer.
He had called them before to tell them stuff about her,
(13:39):
but he sure Lord didn't after nineteen ninety eight, Sure didn't, y'all.
Have twenty five years. Y'all had some roadblocks. Y'all had
no activity at times. Y'all have changed detectives over and over.
People retire, they transfer out, they get promoted out. You've
had different ada's assistant district attorneys. You've had to reintroduce
(14:03):
yourself to the ada's and reintroduce Melissa to make sure
they knew who she was. You've had to go through
the change of the da y'all have gone from Paul
Howard to Fannie Willis.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Thank God for that.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
We tried to get an appointment with Paul Howard and
we're told that we couldn't even make an appointment without
her file being on his death.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
We couldn't even get past the front door.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Cheryl and then a high school friend of mine, Donna Jones,
meets Tina. Yeah, and you know, Donna and I have
known each other since nineteen seventy nine, and me and
Donna and Walk went to college together. We've just had
a great time and she's a tremendous person. So when
Norma walked in, I noticed her right away. And this
(14:54):
was like a kind of a formal dinner type event.
And Norma walks in and she's got like Bermuda shorts
on and a tank top and a straw hat, like
she just came off the beach. It was hot, it
was hot, it was absolutely hot. But I noticed her,
and I noticed she was hugging an eight by ten frame,
(15:16):
so I knew it was somebody's mama and they were
either missing or murdered. And again when she walked up
to me, she said, this is my daughter, Melissa, and
showed me the picture. Beautiful, looked so kind, looked so
sweet in the picture she was And she said she
was beheaded in Atlanta. Will you help me? And I said,
well yes, I mean, how in the world do you
(15:40):
say no to that? And I said, you know, come
to my office next week and let's talk about it.
And that was twenty seventeen. And she came the very
next week, and y'all, she brought a case file. It
took about two hand trucks to bring it in, I think.
And she walked in and she sat down and she said, look,
I know you've already said you would help me, but
(16:01):
there's something I got to tell you before we go
any further. And I said, okay, and she said, my
husband is in prison. For murder and I helped him
and if that's okay, will you still help me? And
I thought to myself, I don't know that anybody has
ever been more honest with me in their life, because
I'm in a business where people lie to me pretty
(16:24):
much every day all day. And so I told her,
of course, and then she starts talking about her husband,
and I went, wait a minute, is your husband the
Flint River Killer? And she said yes, and then she said,
and he hates that moniker, he hates that nickname. So
after that meeting, we decided to put together an action
(16:47):
plan and we went to work, and we had several
experts that joined us, so willingly donated their time and talents.
And it's the first time in history that a convicted
cyril killer became an actual victim of crime, reached out
to law enforcement for help, who then reached out to
(17:08):
a nonprofit for help, the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute.
Then what happened was a new DA was elected and
Fannie Willis became the DA of Fulton County. Before she
took office, she agreed to meet with me and I
laid out five cases that I thought she could solve
(17:31):
relatively quickly. They were all, of course cold cases. I
should have said that one of them was Melissa Wolfenberger.
And Miss Willis told me that she was going to
put together a cold case unit, and she knew who
she wanted to head it up, and then she was
going to put together a task force and wanted me
on it. The first assistant district attorney that she put
(17:56):
over the cold case unit was Adrian Love. And when
I tell y'all, Adrianan Love hit the ground running and
went to work. She met with me and Karen Greer
and Norma and Tina and Dwayne Thompson and Trey Sargent
out at the crime scene. She walked it. And here's
(18:18):
the other thing. She knew the whole history. She knew
the whole family history. She knew where Karl was, She
knew what had happened in the seventies. She knew everything.
When she went over to the car and your mama
was sitting in the passenger seat and they just talked
and your mama was able to give her the victimology
(18:41):
as only a mama can. And she watched that dog work,
Trace worked two of her canines. Doctor Thompson was out
there with the metal detector. Karen Greer was out there
covering it. And I'm going to tell you Karen's involvement
has been invaluable. He has stayed on this case for
(19:02):
twenty years, maybe the whole twenty five, but I know
for a fact twenty and she has been devoted and
she's just been on this thing, is all I can
tell you. And then we had another big push and
another big person to come up and help. Nancy Grace said,
I want to cover it. I won't end Norma. Do
(19:25):
you remember the day I called you and said, Nancy Grace,
won't you on her show? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:32):
I said really, or something along that line.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
No, I think it was really. I think that's exactly
what happened. And we knew at that point we're going
to get some national attention. And when that sort of
thing starts to happen, the first thing I pray about
is please somebody come forward. Please somebody hear about this
and remember something, or maybe call and say, hey, eight
(20:00):
the police never interviewed me, but here's something that I
know because in cold cases that happens all the time.
So you and Tina again put it out there, buck
up and get your emotions all twisted because this is
not you know, this is not easy for y'all to
talk about. You'll feel it the whole day. It, you know,
(20:22):
brings everything to the surface, so to speak. But there
you are. And honey, Nancy Grace did what only Nancy
Grace could do, and she stirred that pot. Baby. It
was awesome. And then she comes to me and she says,
you know, you need to do a podcast. And I'm like,
I ain't got time to do a podcast. I don't
know how to do a podcast. I'm not even sure
(20:43):
what one is. And she said, well, I'll help you,
and I'm gonna get you some folks. So, along with
Karen and Trace and a ton of other experts came
on and we did I think a seven or nine
part series on Melissa's case, the series that we did
on Zone seven Normal. We of course had you and Tina,
We had the original detective Detective Calhoun. We had several
(21:06):
of the experts Karen Greer, Tray Sargent, Dwayne Thompson, Joe
Scott Morgan, just unbelievable talent and expertise to help. And
there have been other people like Betsy Ramsey and Leslie
Bailey and doctor Joni Johnson and Joe Jackalone and Lisa
Ribakoff Mooney, all of these people have said, yes, I
(21:28):
want to help. Yes, I see that we can get
this into the finish line. Well, then when once Nancy
Grace got involved, she took us to Crime Con. We
did a live Wine and Crime there. Then we did
a live Crime Stories with Nancy Grace right from the stage.
Well then that led us to Dateline because there was
(21:51):
a producer there that I talked to and I was like, look,
y'all need to cover this case because I think there's
some folks out there and if we shaking up trees,
somebody's gonna be able to come forward. From the series
that we did on Zone seven, a witness came forward.
Now that by itself, to me was amazing that Nancy
(22:13):
had covered it, Dateline had covered it, Crime Con had
covered it. All of this information is out there, and
that led this person to Zone seven. Once they heard
every single episode, they reached out to me on social
media and said, are you still covering Melissa's case? Well, honey,
I couldn't type back fast enough yes. And then they
(22:36):
said that they had some memory of the way that
Christopher treated her at a party once. So now I'm thinking, y'all,
this thing actually just got some new legs. So I
reached out to Detective Shepherd, gave him the information, and
he was on it. I mean immediately he talked to
(22:58):
the person, interviewed person, and then he went back and
interviewed Christina, Melissa's daughter, And then some dominoes started to
fall pretty quick, didn't they.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
All right, Tina, talk about that a little bit. What
started to happen pretty quick?
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Oh boy, Let's see. We went to crime Con and
then every six from Orlando, it's been pretty much NonStop.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And people keep asking. So from crime Con, we got
a call from the Georgia Writers Museum and they said,
can y'all come here and do a wine and crime
as well, which we did, and Joe Scott Morgan joined us.
Now I want to talk about Norma just a minute.
She loves her from Joe Scott Morgan, y'all, and when
(23:50):
he walked into that room. For those of y'all that
are fans of body bags, you're making the right decision,
But you need to be a fan of Joe Scott.
He is one of the most comforting, calming, reassuring people
I've ever met.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Compassionate.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
He is so compassionate. The day that we got the
call that Christopher Wolfenberger has been arrested for the murder
of Melissa Wolfenberger, I thought Joe Scott almost had a
better reaction than Norma because he knows Norma, he knows Tina,
(24:30):
he has worked this case. He went through the autopsy
like nobody else could have done it. He gave her information,
not as an expert to a crime victim. He spoke
to her parent to parent with as much love and
concern as I've ever seen in my life. So they
(24:51):
love his voice, They love his the way he just
presents himself with such confidence and such joy. But the
reality is, I think that y'all knew y'all had a
true advocate in him. Yeah, we do, you do, absolutely so. Again,
he came over to Atlanta from Alabama and was with us,
(25:13):
and then the Hamptons who done it up in New
York called and said, can you present the whining crumb here?
So you literally have people from all over the country,
from the five thousand people that were at crime con
from all over to New York, to Alabama. I mean,
you've just got people invested in what happened and most
(25:37):
importantly the unjust of it that everybody wanted to see
somebody in custody for this murder. Norma, how are you
feeling right now today?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
For lack of a better description, on Cloud nine, this
has been a busy couple of days. But I just
I feel like I'm a lot younger than what I am.
I'm walking a little faster and getting things done, and
you know, it's just been it's been amazing. And Karen
(26:12):
Greer when I found when I found out he had
been arrested, and I called you and you were out
of town and found out Karen Greer was out of town. Well,
Karen Greer called me yesterday to check on me to
see how I was doing after the press conference.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And see, I just want to say something. I love her.
I adore her, and this is one reason why. And
I have said over and over and I'm going to
say it again. As good as she is on TV,
she is better when that camera's off. She It's the truth.
She is lovely and kind and generous. But I'm going
(27:00):
to tell you something. Her heart, she leads with it.
There have been more than one time where she and
I have been at a scene, and Melissa's crime scene
was one of them. And she would turn to me
and she would say, I am no longer a reporter
and you are no longer a crime scene investigator. We
(27:21):
are two mamas standing here. And that's how she feels.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Chera.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
When we were at crime Con last year and she
I was sitting on the side, she was probably fifty
feet away from me as she walked by, and I
glanced up and realized it was her, and I yem back, Karen,
and she turned around and she thought what she where
(27:48):
she was headed and come back up to me to
talk to me.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Well, she's been in this thing. I mean, she's been
in it longer than I have, and just stellar and
again and leads with her heart, and she's devoted to Melissa.
She's devoted for justice. And I can't say nothing but
I just love her. I adore her, I respect her.
I got nothing but accolades. And she always looks fawless.
(28:15):
Good lord. So y'all had her. Y'all had Nancy Grace.
Now let's talk about that spitfire for a minute. You know,
Nancy is another one you know exactly how she feels.
She can't hide it, and I know when we did.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Her show, she puts it out.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
She puts it out there. But you know she she feels.
And here was the really touching thing. She called me
after Crime Stories of Nancy Grace when she broke the
news about the arrest, and she said, you know, this
is the anniversary of Keith's murder. No, and she said it.
(28:55):
She said, it's always just under the surface, and any
thing can make it rise to the top. It could
be a song, it could be you know, his favorite food,
it could be a memory. But when this kind of
thing happens, you know, she feels it on more levels
than most people because she has lived losing a loved
(29:18):
one to murder. So she's connected to y'all in an
extraordinary way. So again, her heart on this thing is
pretty clear now, Tina, you at the press conference were extraordinary.
And in that moment when you could have been selfish
and you could have talked all about your sister, all
(29:41):
about your mama, all about you and everything that y'all
have done and your dad to get justice for your sister,
you didn't do that. You took the opportunity to thank
other people, which you did not have to do in
that moment, and then you di the most extraordinary thing
(30:01):
that I've seen. Through your tears and your heartbreak, you
stopped to help other people, tell everybody what you did.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
You know, it was like I had so many emotions
going right then, just like I still do.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
I'm happy one second, and next second I'm in tears,
and then I'm happy again, and then my heart's breaking again,
like it's back twenty five years ago. You know, I
have tried so hard to be strong for my mom, especially.
It's a little different with Dad because Dad's strong, but
(30:42):
I can see Mom and how she is suffering because
her and Melissa were so close. But I thought, really
really hard to get this done for my sister. But
I couldn't have done it by myself and you and
Nancy Grace and Karen Greer. I love all three of y'all.
(31:06):
I cannot get up there and not say that if
it wasn't for y'all, we wouldn't be standing there because
we wouldn't be If Donnah had to introduce me to you,
Mom would have never met you. We would have never
met Nancy Grace. We would have never met Karen Greer,
you know what I'm saying. And I had to tell
(31:28):
them people, thank you. And I had to tell Atlanta
Pde thank you, even though you know, at times I've
been like dag, I'm get off your butts, guys, but
you know.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Oh yeah, I had to calm her, had to calm
her down quite a few times. Her and her pearl too,
her dad. It was I had both of them.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
I said, y'all got to be patient, this think.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
I but mom and dad do not have patience.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Oh yeah, I've had. I have called her a Carl
Junior more than once.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
So even better, I have a customer that grew up
with my daddy that cost me hot Shot Junior. There
you go, Hotshot because that's my daddy's nickname.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
So Tina again, I appreciate that so much. You will
never know what that meant to me personally, just to
hear you say that, and it really touched me. And
Huck and Caroline were like, Mom, that was so crazy.
She would say that you know about you, but it
means a lot to me. You have no idea, But
(32:37):
what I'm asking is what you did in that moment,
which was so selfless when you tried to protect other people.
What did you say from that podium?
Speaker 4 (32:49):
You know my sister was it was she suffered with
domestic violence. Chris abused her. I don't know how many
times I saw her with bruises and scratches and handprints
around her throat. And you know I could not get
her to listen to me as much as I tried,
(33:10):
And I mean I tried really hard. Mom and Dad
have no idea how much I tried to get Melissa
away from Chris behind doors.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
And I do not want my sister's case, her death,
her murder, as brutal as it was, to be in vain,
to be for nothing. There's got to be a reason
why it happened. And to me, it's to help other people,
to get other domestic violence people out of what they're in.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Amen. I believe that, and I believe you and Melissa
are going to be able to save a lot of lives.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Tell me Melissa's story, maybe somebody will actually listen and realize, Hey,
this could be me, this could be my mama, this
could be my sister, this could be my daughter. Come on,
y'all wake up. Domestic violence is real. It's not a lie.
It's not a made up thing that Hollywood made up.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
It's real and it happens every day.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Amen, normal. Where are you headed when we hang up?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
As soon as we hang up, I'm headed to Coastal
State Prison where Carl is to be able to sit
down and tell him about this week and everything that's
going on, because he needs to hear it. He's had
some help she's recently and he needs to something.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
To hold on to.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
You know, this case got started because a detective went
to the prison met with Carl. Carl he would help him.
And one of the things that touched me so much
is we got the call on Tuesday, but Carl wasn't
going to be able to call home till Thursday, so
(35:11):
he wasn't going to know there was an arrest. But
ab Calhoun, the original detective, I.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Called him to tell him about the arrest.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Tell us what he did.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
He was the fourth person I called, and when he
had said the phone, he said, I'm sitting here waiting
on your call.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I said, okay.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
So anyway, on the conversation, he asked me about Carl
as he did quite frequently, and I told him Carl
didn't know, and he wouldn't know till Thursday because that
was when he was going to call home.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
He said, I know some higher up. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
I don't have the number, but I know who to
call to get the number. I said, okay, So anyway,
we ended the conversation and he got on apparently got
on the phone. When Carl called me Wisday. He told
me that that man went to Coastal State Prison. They
(36:20):
called him out at eleven o'clock on Wisesday morning and
told him that the rest was made and he and
he screamed and jumped up and down as loud.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
As I did.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Unbelievable. So that, to me is just that full circle
moment where you have a detective that started this investigation
and he saw to it again father to father. He
knew Carl needed to know, he had a right to know,
and he made that happen. So I will forever be
(36:55):
grateful for Detective Calhoun.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
I called him back after I talked to Carl, and
I told him. When he answered the phone, he said, yes, ma'am,
and I said, I just wanted to tell you, thank you.
And I told him when they got down there, and
he kind of wondered why why I waited to Wednesday morning,
but I figured that was because of the storm they
(37:20):
had down there this week.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Sure. Absolutely, Yeah, I texted him as well. And when
I texted him, just how grateful I was and how
just touched I was by that. I don't even know
what you would call it.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
He told me.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
He said, ma'am, you don't ever have to thank me.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
That's again, that's the kind of caliber of folks that
have been involved in this case, I think throughout, and
I just thought that was a lovely sentiment. Oh sorry,
that kind of got to me a little bit, because again,
you know, just father to father, he wanted to, you know,
make sure that happened for him.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
Just like he did when it first all happened. He
was the one to go down there and tell Dad.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
When Melissa was first identified formally, Detective Calhoun drove down
to the prison to make sure that he told Carl
in person what had happened to his child, and the
fact that he would then make sure that Carl knew
twenty five years later that an arrest had been made.
(38:26):
I mean, that's just part of this story that I
think gets to me and chokes me up because again,
at that point, just like Karen Greer says, that's just
a dad talking to a dad. All right, Tina, Norma,
anything y'all want to say that I haven't asked you
or you want to be sure y'all say.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
I just want to say that the men and women
in Atlanta PD that go out there every day and
have to deal with this sort of stuff and they
are just amazing and they put their hearts and souls
into it just like we do.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Amen.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Right on, Tina, We've seen a lot of changes over
the past twenty five years, and there's been a couple
of changes that I wasn't too happy with. There was
a lady that we had and I didn't care for
her too much anyway. But we got lucky when we
started out with Calhoun, and we've gotten lucky because now
(39:25):
we have another Calhoun that's Shepherd. But Shepherd was really, really,
really being very kind to us Tuesday when we got
to that police department, and he said, if y'all have
any questions for me, y'all ask and if you think
of it after you leave and need to ask, just
(39:48):
call me. Well, he kept that promise because we called
him on something else later on and he really stepped up.
So oh, I just want to say thank you Shepherd.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Absolutely. I'm going to end Zone seven the way that
I always do with a quote. Chris's days are numbered,
and I pray I'm there to see the look on
his face when his world comes crashing down. On that day,
Melissa will be smiling down from heaven and her children
(40:24):
and grandchildren will know the truth. She did not desert
her children. She was taken away from them. June sixteenth,
twenty twenty two, a grateful father, Carl Patten. I'm Cheryl
McCollum and this is Zone seven.
Y'all, you don't always get the call when you work
cold cases. It could be five years, ten years, twenty
five years before you get that call. But honey, the
family of Melissa Wolfenberger got that call. Joining me today
(00:29):
is Melissa's mama, Norma and sister Tina. Norma and Tina
welcome to his own seven. Thank you, sir, Honey. It's
been twenty five years for you and Norma, for you
and I. It's been seven seven years since you walked
into an event where I was speaking, and you had
(00:53):
an eight y ten picture of Melissa, and you walked
up to me and said, my daughter was beheaded in Atlanta.
Will you help me?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
That's exactly what I did.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, you've been fighting a long time, and you've been
talking to a lot of people, taking that eight y
ten picture with you everywhere. So I want to give
just a little background. In nineteen ninety eight, Thanksgiving is
the last time you spoke to your daughter Melissa. Right,
What happened? What happened after that?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
What happened after that is I didn't hear anything else
from her. I mean she didn't call Christmas, you know,
after she had asked for a specific gift for Christmas.
She didn't want anything that was store ball. She wanted
something that I had to look for and find to
(01:45):
be able to give to her. I had to look
through a lot of pictures to find a good one
that I liked and thought that she would like. And
then when she didn't show up, she didn't call.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I got word.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
All she wanted was a picture of her and her grandfather, right,
he called it Papa, And she didn't come. Get it
the sentimental gift, right, Tina, When did you first know
that Melissa was missing?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
When my dad walked into the restaurant where I worked
at and said, where's your sister?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I said, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
You hadn't talked to her. He said no, he said
she didn't. You know. We talked to her Thanksgiving Day.
Christmas Day she didn't come. She didn't even call your
mama for her birthday. And that, right there was the
sign because Listen always called Mama.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So that's when now the whole family by February is
word sick yep So April of nineteen ninety nine, a
skull is found in the middle of Avon Avenue and
your mama normally you're watching the news.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I was because I didn't know where she was. If
they said anything about a body being found anywhere on
any of the local channels, I would always stop and
watch the news. And when I sat down and watched
the news, you know, they said it was a mail
and I said, okay, And then I thought, well, Avon
(03:16):
Avenue is I think on the north side of town,
because you know, in going around two eighty five, I
saw an exit that had Avon Avenue and I said, well,
that's north side of town, not in the same area.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So I kind of brushed it off.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
So you were somewhat relieved that that wasn't your child, right,
and then the skulls identified as a Caucasian mail. So
we move on. Now, something else happened in your life
that was difficult. At this same time, your husband, Carl
is arrested four years later. Four years later, so Carl
(03:54):
is arrested for several murders that occurred in the seventies.
Right around that same time frame that Carl Is arrested.
He decides, Hey, I'm going to tell the truth. I'm
going to cop to it. I'm going to tell him
I did it. I'm going to keep Norma out of it.
I'm going to just go into court, raise my hand
(04:18):
and confess to all of it.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
And that's exactly what he did.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
In three separate courthouses in three separate counties.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So I'm just going to state very clearly Carl Patten
is a convicted killer. Carl Patten has admitted it. He's
never lied about it once they came to him. Carl
and I have been exchanging letters since twenty twenty one.
When I started on this case. It was important for
me to have contact with Melissa's father, mother, and sister
(04:48):
to develop an accurate victimology. Through those letters, I learned
a lot. I learned a lot about Carl. I learned
a lot about the Patent family. I learned a lot
about Norma and Tina. I learned about their loyalty, their
love for each other, and their unwavering devotion to get
justice for Melissa. So Carl goes to prison and he says,
(05:13):
you know what, Norma, I'm here, I'm stuck here. I
can't search for Melissa. I can't do anything to try
to help find her or solve the situation for y'all
as a family. So he reaches out to the person
that arrested him, and he says, hey, you caught me
after twenty five years. You must be a pretty good detective.
(05:35):
Will you help look for my daughter? And to his credit,
that detective said yes. So he goes out and he says, huh,
there's a skull unidentified and it's literally feet from the
front door of where Melissa's husband works. So he goes
(05:57):
to the Atlanta Police Department and says, are you sure
this this is a male? And they get the dental
records and what happens Norma.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
On March seventeenth, two thousand and three, he pulled up
in my yard and I saw him when he pulled up,
and I walked outside on the porch and he come
up standing there talking and he told me she had
been identified and what had happened to her.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And I just.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Busted out screaming and yelling, and my two oldest grandkids,
which were Tina's, came.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Out to see what was wrong. What I was upset about.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Tina, you are literally walking down the street and you
get a phone call from a friend that says, hey, girl,
of you watch the news.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Oh no, it wasn't a friend, it was my ex husband.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Oh well, let me change that now because I don't
want that out there in the universe. Okay, okay, but
that's the important thing because again, even an ex husband
would reach out to you because this was going to
be so devastating for you, and he knew it. So
what does he tell you?
Speaker 4 (07:09):
I said, I don't think Mom wanted to be the
one to notify me like that, so he took it
upon himself to do it.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I was too upset to make that call.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, So now you have confirmation that Melissa was beheaded
and dismembered, because you know from the news there was
a skull found in April, but that same June of
nineteen ninety nine, four more trash bags were found containing
her arms and legs and no norma. That to me
(07:42):
is an unbearable scenario to know that that is your baby.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
It was, and it's been it's been hard.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Well it'll forever be hard. And Tina, you and I
have talked a lot, and I know you. I know
you now pretty good, and you know, what do you
do with it? You're now the surviving child. Your dad
is in prison, your mom is destroyed, and you are
(08:13):
now in the middle trying to help make your mama,
work through it, get through it, survive it somehow. You've
got your children, You've got Melissa's children, You've got your dad,
and you have been the one to me that has
glued this family together.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I've tried.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
It's not easy, Oh.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I know. I remember the phone call when you told
me you were headed somewhere to burn some stuff down. So,
and those are just natural feelings. I mean, you get frustrated,
you get angry, of course, and especially when things just
seem so unjust. She did not deserve what happened to her, exactly.
(08:57):
And I have said over and over over and I
will say it again right here. The sins of the
father have nothing to do with what happened to Melissa.
And here's the deal about Carl. I'll say it again.
Carl's in prison. Carl deserves to be in prison for
what he did. But what happened to Melissa she did
(09:20):
not deserve in any way whatsoever. Nope, she sure didn't.
And with what Carl did, that doesn't mean that something
should be able to happen to Melissa and we not
get justice for her. There should never be a killer
walk in the streets free. None of us should be
okay with that?
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Nobody should be okay with that.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So the reality is now, y'all. Now the Atlanta Police
Department knows they have a homicide of Melissa Wolfenberger. That's
a completely different scenario. So they start to look at
the facts. Did her husband report her missing? Did her
family report her missing? When was the last time she
showed up at work? When was the last time she
(10:01):
showed up anywhere she was supposed to be court, a
doctor's appointment, to vote? Where was she was there any
sighting of her? Was there any phone call, any letter,
anything since nineteen ninety eight? And the answer was no, nothing.
And so her husband said, well, I saw her. She
(10:23):
was walking down the street and she told me she
was leaving to go to California to start a new life.
And then he said she left over another man. Then
he said she left because she was going to be
doing some counterfeit identification cards and passports. I mean, he
has said several things that just don't make any sense.
And here's the bottom line. Would Melissa have ever left
(10:47):
her children?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
No way on this earth would she had left those
two kids. When I had my old bits tooth down here,
she helped me every day, take care of them, and
she loved them just as much as she did her own.
(11:08):
She bought the year that Timberly started school, Well, let'sa
got clothes for her to wear to school. There is
no way, there's no way on this earth that she
would ever leave those babies.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Every time there's a case where there's small children, and
in this case they were one in two years old,
and you hear somebody say, well, she just took off.
She just left she wanted a new life. That doesn't
ring true. And in this case, she didn't have a car,
she didn't have any money to speak of. She didn't
(11:51):
take any clothes, she didn't take any jewelry, she didn't
take anything that meant something to her. And I'm going
to tell you again the only thing that child wants
for Christmas was a photograph of her and her grandfather.
This was a family oriented child. And I'm going to
tell y'all something, Can you be two things at once? Yes,
(12:12):
you can be a sex worker and a fantastic mother.
You can be a doctor and a roller derby queen.
You can be a preacher and a breakdancer. I mean,
you can be these things that seem polar opposite that
are not if that makes any sense. And when you
(12:33):
look at Melissa's life, there is no way if she
wanted to leave Christopher. Listen, y'all. We can leave a man, okay,
because we can get another one. May not be a
good one, but we can get another one. But we
don't leave our children because we can't get those children back.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Anytime Melissa left him, she wanted to take the kids.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
She always went back to the children. And when she left,
he hounded her and hounded her to come back, tracked
her down, but not but not. In nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
He tracked her down one time, but he didn't track
her down in December when she Dick left.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
That's right. He didn't have to, That's right. He didn't
have to. He knew where she was. Same reason he
didn't call you asking you have you seen her? He
didn't call Tina, have you seen her? He didn't call work,
he didn't call anybody. She was even on probation at
the time. He didn't reach out to the probation officer.
He had called them before to tell them stuff about her,
(13:39):
but he sure Lord didn't after nineteen ninety eight, Sure didn't, y'all.
Have twenty five years. Y'all had some roadblocks. Y'all had
no activity at times. Y'all have changed detectives over and over.
People retire, they transfer out, they get promoted out. You've
had different ada's assistant district attorneys. You've had to reintroduce
(14:03):
yourself to the ada's and reintroduce Melissa to make sure
they knew who she was. You've had to go through
the change of the da y'all have gone from Paul
Howard to Fannie Willis.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Thank God for that.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
We tried to get an appointment with Paul Howard and
we're told that we couldn't even make an appointment without
her file being on his death.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
We couldn't even get past the front door.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Cheryl and then a high school friend of mine, Donna Jones,
meets Tina. Yeah, and you know, Donna and I have
known each other since nineteen seventy nine, and me and
Donna and Walk went to college together. We've just had
a great time and she's a tremendous person. So when
Norma walked in, I noticed her right away. And this
(14:54):
was like a kind of a formal dinner type event.
And Norma walks in and she's got like Bermuda shorts
on and a tank top and a straw hat, like
she just came off the beach. It was hot, it
was hot, it was absolutely hot. But I noticed her,
and I noticed she was hugging an eight by ten frame,
(15:16):
so I knew it was somebody's mama and they were
either missing or murdered. And again when she walked up
to me, she said, this is my daughter, Melissa, and
showed me the picture. Beautiful, looked so kind, looked so
sweet in the picture she was And she said she
was beheaded in Atlanta. Will you help me? And I said,
well yes, I mean, how in the world do you
(15:40):
say no to that? And I said, you know, come
to my office next week and let's talk about it.
And that was twenty seventeen. And she came the very
next week, and y'all, she brought a case file. It
took about two hand trucks to bring it in, I think.
And she walked in and she sat down and she said, look,
I know you've already said you would help me, but
(16:01):
there's something I got to tell you before we go
any further. And I said, okay, and she said, my
husband is in prison. For murder and I helped him
and if that's okay, will you still help me? And
I thought to myself, I don't know that anybody has
ever been more honest with me in their life, because
I'm in a business where people lie to me pretty
(16:24):
much every day all day. And so I told her,
of course, and then she starts talking about her husband,
and I went, wait a minute, is your husband the
Flint River Killer? And she said yes, and then she said,
and he hates that moniker, he hates that nickname. So
after that meeting, we decided to put together an action
(16:47):
plan and we went to work, and we had several
experts that joined us, so willingly donated their time and talents.
And it's the first time in history that a convicted
cyril killer became an actual victim of crime, reached out
to law enforcement for help, who then reached out to
(17:08):
a nonprofit for help, the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute.
Then what happened was a new DA was elected and
Fannie Willis became the DA of Fulton County. Before she
took office, she agreed to meet with me and I
laid out five cases that I thought she could solve
(17:31):
relatively quickly. They were all, of course cold cases. I
should have said that one of them was Melissa Wolfenberger.
And Miss Willis told me that she was going to
put together a cold case unit, and she knew who
she wanted to head it up, and then she was
going to put together a task force and wanted me
on it. The first assistant district attorney that she put
(17:56):
over the cold case unit was Adrian Love. And when
I tell y'all, Adrianan Love hit the ground running and
went to work. She met with me and Karen Greer
and Norma and Tina and Dwayne Thompson and Trey Sargent
out at the crime scene. She walked it. And here's
(18:18):
the other thing. She knew the whole history. She knew
the whole family history. She knew where Karl was, She
knew what had happened in the seventies. She knew everything.
When she went over to the car and your mama
was sitting in the passenger seat and they just talked
and your mama was able to give her the victimology
(18:41):
as only a mama can. And she watched that dog work,
Trace worked two of her canines. Doctor Thompson was out
there with the metal detector. Karen Greer was out there
covering it. And I'm going to tell you Karen's involvement
has been invaluable. He has stayed on this case for
(19:02):
twenty years, maybe the whole twenty five, but I know
for a fact twenty and she has been devoted and
she's just been on this thing, is all I can
tell you. And then we had another big push and
another big person to come up and help. Nancy Grace said,
I want to cover it. I won't end Norma. Do
(19:25):
you remember the day I called you and said, Nancy Grace,
won't you on her show? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:32):
I said really, or something along that line.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
No, I think it was really. I think that's exactly
what happened. And we knew at that point we're going
to get some national attention. And when that sort of
thing starts to happen, the first thing I pray about
is please somebody come forward. Please somebody hear about this
and remember something, or maybe call and say, hey, eight
(20:00):
the police never interviewed me, but here's something that I
know because in cold cases that happens all the time.
So you and Tina again put it out there, buck
up and get your emotions all twisted because this is
not you know, this is not easy for y'all to
talk about. You'll feel it the whole day. It, you know,
(20:22):
brings everything to the surface, so to speak. But there
you are. And honey, Nancy Grace did what only Nancy
Grace could do, and she stirred that pot. Baby. It
was awesome. And then she comes to me and she says,
you know, you need to do a podcast. And I'm like,
I ain't got time to do a podcast. I don't
know how to do a podcast. I'm not even sure
(20:43):
what one is. And she said, well, I'll help you,
and I'm gonna get you some folks. So, along with
Karen and Trace and a ton of other experts came
on and we did I think a seven or nine
part series on Melissa's case, the series that we did
on Zone seven Normal. We of course had you and Tina,
We had the original detective Detective Calhoun. We had several
(21:06):
of the experts Karen Greer, Tray Sargent, Dwayne Thompson, Joe
Scott Morgan, just unbelievable talent and expertise to help. And
there have been other people like Betsy Ramsey and Leslie
Bailey and doctor Joni Johnson and Joe Jackalone and Lisa
Ribakoff Mooney, all of these people have said, yes, I
(21:28):
want to help. Yes, I see that we can get
this into the finish line. Well, then when once Nancy
Grace got involved, she took us to Crime Con. We
did a live Wine and Crime there. Then we did
a live Crime Stories with Nancy Grace right from the stage.
Well then that led us to Dateline because there was
(21:51):
a producer there that I talked to and I was like, look,
y'all need to cover this case because I think there's
some folks out there and if we shaking up trees,
somebody's gonna be able to come forward. From the series
that we did on Zone seven, a witness came forward.
Now that by itself, to me was amazing that Nancy
(22:13):
had covered it, Dateline had covered it, Crime Con had
covered it. All of this information is out there, and
that led this person to Zone seven. Once they heard
every single episode, they reached out to me on social
media and said, are you still covering Melissa's case? Well, honey,
I couldn't type back fast enough yes. And then they
(22:36):
said that they had some memory of the way that
Christopher treated her at a party once. So now I'm thinking, y'all,
this thing actually just got some new legs. So I
reached out to Detective Shepherd, gave him the information, and
he was on it. I mean immediately he talked to
(22:58):
the person, interviewed person, and then he went back and
interviewed Christina, Melissa's daughter, And then some dominoes started to
fall pretty quick, didn't they.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
All right, Tina, talk about that a little bit. What
started to happen pretty quick?
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Oh boy, Let's see. We went to crime Con and
then every six from Orlando, it's been pretty much NonStop.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And people keep asking. So from crime Con, we got
a call from the Georgia Writers Museum and they said,
can y'all come here and do a wine and crime
as well, which we did, and Joe Scott Morgan joined us.
Now I want to talk about Norma just a minute.
She loves her from Joe Scott Morgan, y'all, and when
(23:50):
he walked into that room. For those of y'all that
are fans of body bags, you're making the right decision,
But you need to be a fan of Joe Scott.
He is one of the most comforting, calming, reassuring people
I've ever met.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Compassionate.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
He is so compassionate. The day that we got the
call that Christopher Wolfenberger has been arrested for the murder
of Melissa Wolfenberger, I thought Joe Scott almost had a
better reaction than Norma because he knows Norma, he knows Tina,
(24:30):
he has worked this case. He went through the autopsy
like nobody else could have done it. He gave her information,
not as an expert to a crime victim. He spoke
to her parent to parent with as much love and
concern as I've ever seen in my life. So they
(24:51):
love his voice, They love his the way he just
presents himself with such confidence and such joy. But the
reality is, I think that y'all knew y'all had a
true advocate in him. Yeah, we do, you do, absolutely so. Again,
he came over to Atlanta from Alabama and was with us,
(25:13):
and then the Hamptons who done it up in New
York called and said, can you present the whining crumb here?
So you literally have people from all over the country,
from the five thousand people that were at crime con
from all over to New York, to Alabama. I mean,
you've just got people invested in what happened and most
(25:37):
importantly the unjust of it that everybody wanted to see
somebody in custody for this murder. Norma, how are you
feeling right now today?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
For lack of a better description, on Cloud nine, this
has been a busy couple of days. But I just
I feel like I'm a lot younger than what I am.
I'm walking a little faster and getting things done, and
you know, it's just been it's been amazing. And Karen
(26:12):
Greer when I found when I found out he had
been arrested, and I called you and you were out
of town and found out Karen Greer was out of town. Well,
Karen Greer called me yesterday to check on me to
see how I was doing after the press conference.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And see, I just want to say something. I love her.
I adore her, and this is one reason why. And
I have said over and over and I'm going to
say it again. As good as she is on TV,
she is better when that camera's off. She It's the truth.
She is lovely and kind and generous. But I'm going
(27:00):
to tell you something. Her heart, she leads with it.
There have been more than one time where she and
I have been at a scene, and Melissa's crime scene
was one of them. And she would turn to me
and she would say, I am no longer a reporter
and you are no longer a crime scene investigator. We
(27:21):
are two mamas standing here. And that's how she feels.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Chera.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
When we were at crime Con last year and she
I was sitting on the side, she was probably fifty
feet away from me as she walked by, and I
glanced up and realized it was her, and I yem back, Karen,
and she turned around and she thought what she where
(27:48):
she was headed and come back up to me to
talk to me.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Well, she's been in this thing. I mean, she's been
in it longer than I have, and just stellar and
again and leads with her heart, and she's devoted to Melissa.
She's devoted for justice. And I can't say nothing but
I just love her. I adore her, I respect her.
I got nothing but accolades. And she always looks fawless.
(28:15):
Good lord. So y'all had her. Y'all had Nancy Grace.
Now let's talk about that spitfire for a minute. You know,
Nancy is another one you know exactly how she feels.
She can't hide it, and I know when we did.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Her show, she puts it out.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
She puts it out there. But you know she she feels.
And here was the really touching thing. She called me
after Crime Stories of Nancy Grace when she broke the
news about the arrest, and she said, you know, this
is the anniversary of Keith's murder. No, and she said it.
(28:55):
She said, it's always just under the surface, and any
thing can make it rise to the top. It could
be a song, it could be you know, his favorite food,
it could be a memory. But when this kind of
thing happens, you know, she feels it on more levels
than most people because she has lived losing a loved
(29:18):
one to murder. So she's connected to y'all in an
extraordinary way. So again, her heart on this thing is
pretty clear now, Tina, you at the press conference were extraordinary.
And in that moment when you could have been selfish
and you could have talked all about your sister, all
(29:41):
about your mama, all about you and everything that y'all
have done and your dad to get justice for your sister,
you didn't do that. You took the opportunity to thank
other people, which you did not have to do in
that moment, and then you di the most extraordinary thing
(30:01):
that I've seen. Through your tears and your heartbreak, you
stopped to help other people, tell everybody what you did.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
You know, it was like I had so many emotions
going right then, just like I still do.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
I'm happy one second, and next second I'm in tears,
and then I'm happy again, and then my heart's breaking again,
like it's back twenty five years ago. You know, I
have tried so hard to be strong for my mom, especially.
It's a little different with Dad because Dad's strong, but
(30:42):
I can see Mom and how she is suffering because
her and Melissa were so close. But I thought, really
really hard to get this done for my sister. But
I couldn't have done it by myself and you and
Nancy Grace and Karen Greer. I love all three of y'all.
(31:06):
I cannot get up there and not say that if
it wasn't for y'all, we wouldn't be standing there because
we wouldn't be If Donnah had to introduce me to you,
Mom would have never met you. We would have never
met Nancy Grace. We would have never met Karen Greer,
you know what I'm saying. And I had to tell
(31:28):
them people, thank you. And I had to tell Atlanta
Pde thank you, even though you know, at times I've
been like dag, I'm get off your butts, guys, but
you know.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Oh yeah, I had to calm her, had to calm
her down quite a few times. Her and her pearl too,
her dad. It was I had both of them.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
I said, y'all got to be patient, this think.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
I but mom and dad do not have patience.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Oh yeah, I've had. I have called her a Carl
Junior more than once.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
So even better, I have a customer that grew up
with my daddy that cost me hot Shot Junior. There
you go, Hotshot because that's my daddy's nickname.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
So Tina again, I appreciate that so much. You will
never know what that meant to me personally, just to
hear you say that, and it really touched me. And
Huck and Caroline were like, Mom, that was so crazy.
She would say that you know about you, but it
means a lot to me. You have no idea, But
(32:37):
what I'm asking is what you did in that moment,
which was so selfless when you tried to protect other people.
What did you say from that podium?
Speaker 4 (32:49):
You know my sister was it was she suffered with
domestic violence. Chris abused her. I don't know how many
times I saw her with bruises and scratches and handprints
around her throat. And you know I could not get
her to listen to me as much as I tried,
(33:10):
And I mean I tried really hard. Mom and Dad
have no idea how much I tried to get Melissa
away from Chris behind doors.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
And I do not want my sister's case, her death,
her murder, as brutal as it was, to be in vain,
to be for nothing. There's got to be a reason
why it happened. And to me, it's to help other people,
to get other domestic violence people out of what they're in.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Amen. I believe that, and I believe you and Melissa
are going to be able to save a lot of lives.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Tell me Melissa's story, maybe somebody will actually listen and realize, Hey,
this could be me, this could be my mama, this
could be my sister, this could be my daughter. Come on,
y'all wake up. Domestic violence is real. It's not a lie.
It's not a made up thing that Hollywood made up.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
It's real and it happens every day.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Amen, normal. Where are you headed when we hang up?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
As soon as we hang up, I'm headed to Coastal
State Prison where Carl is to be able to sit
down and tell him about this week and everything that's
going on, because he needs to hear it. He's had
some help she's recently and he needs to something.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
To hold on to.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
You know, this case got started because a detective went
to the prison met with Carl. Carl he would help him.
And one of the things that touched me so much
is we got the call on Tuesday, but Carl wasn't
going to be able to call home till Thursday, so
(35:11):
he wasn't going to know there was an arrest. But
ab Calhoun, the original detective, I.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Called him to tell him about the arrest.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Tell us what he did.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
He was the fourth person I called, and when he
had said the phone, he said, I'm sitting here waiting
on your call.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I said, okay.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
So anyway, on the conversation, he asked me about Carl
as he did quite frequently, and I told him Carl
didn't know, and he wouldn't know till Thursday because that
was when he was going to call home.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
He said, I know some higher up. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
I don't have the number, but I know who to
call to get the number. I said, okay, So anyway,
we ended the conversation and he got on apparently got
on the phone. When Carl called me Wisday. He told
me that that man went to Coastal State Prison. They
(36:20):
called him out at eleven o'clock on Wisesday morning and
told him that the rest was made and he and
he screamed and jumped up and down as loud.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
As I did.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Unbelievable. So that, to me is just that full circle
moment where you have a detective that started this investigation
and he saw to it again father to father. He
knew Carl needed to know, he had a right to know,
and he made that happen. So I will forever be
(36:55):
grateful for Detective Calhoun.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
I called him back after I talked to Carl, and
I told him. When he answered the phone, he said, yes, ma'am,
and I said, I just wanted to tell you, thank you.
And I told him when they got down there, and
he kind of wondered why why I waited to Wednesday morning,
but I figured that was because of the storm they
(37:20):
had down there this week.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Sure. Absolutely, Yeah, I texted him as well. And when
I texted him, just how grateful I was and how
just touched I was by that. I don't even know
what you would call it.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
He told me.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
He said, ma'am, you don't ever have to thank me.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
That's again, that's the kind of caliber of folks that
have been involved in this case, I think throughout, and
I just thought that was a lovely sentiment. Oh sorry,
that kind of got to me a little bit, because again,
you know, just father to father, he wanted to, you know,
make sure that happened for him.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
Just like he did when it first all happened. He
was the one to go down there and tell Dad.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
When Melissa was first identified formally, Detective Calhoun drove down
to the prison to make sure that he told Carl
in person what had happened to his child, and the
fact that he would then make sure that Carl knew
twenty five years later that an arrest had been made.
(38:26):
I mean, that's just part of this story that I
think gets to me and chokes me up because again,
at that point, just like Karen Greer says, that's just
a dad talking to a dad. All right, Tina, Norma,
anything y'all want to say that I haven't asked you
or you want to be sure y'all say.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
I just want to say that the men and women
in Atlanta PD that go out there every day and
have to deal with this sort of stuff and they
are just amazing and they put their hearts and souls
into it just like we do.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Amen.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Right on, Tina, We've seen a lot of changes over
the past twenty five years, and there's been a couple
of changes that I wasn't too happy with. There was
a lady that we had and I didn't care for
her too much anyway. But we got lucky when we
started out with Calhoun, and we've gotten lucky because now
(39:25):
we have another Calhoun that's Shepherd. But Shepherd was really, really,
really being very kind to us Tuesday when we got
to that police department, and he said, if y'all have
any questions for me, y'all ask and if you think
of it after you leave and need to ask, just
(39:48):
call me. Well, he kept that promise because we called
him on something else later on and he really stepped up.
So oh, I just want to say thank you Shepherd.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Absolutely. I'm going to end Zone seven the way that
I always do with a quote. Chris's days are numbered,
and I pray I'm there to see the look on
his face when his world comes crashing down. On that day,
Melissa will be smiling down from heaven and her children
(40:24):
and grandchildren will know the truth. She did not desert
her children. She was taken away from them. June sixteenth,
twenty twenty two, a grateful father, Carl Patten. I'm Cheryl
McCollum and this is Zone seven.
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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