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GORGEOUS MOM DISAPPEARS AFTER FAMILY DINNER: WHAT HAPPENED TO MELISSA? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, a gorgeous mom disappears after
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Speaker 1: a family dinner. What happened to Melissa? I Nancy Grace,
0:14
Speaker 1: this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us, she.
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Speaker 2: Said, work one morning and here comes to my dad
0:20
Speaker 2: walking in the door.
0:21
Speaker 1: Where's your sister, he said, because we can't find her.
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Speaker 3: She didn't show up for Christmas.
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Speaker 4: She didn't call your mom and tell her happy Birthday either,
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Speaker 4: And I was like, wait a minute.
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Speaker 1: Something's wrong.
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Speaker 5: Melissa Wolfenberger, a young, married mother of two, has gone missing.
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Speaker 5: Her parents are worried thick about her because this is
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Speaker 5: not like her.
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Speaker 1: The kids were her life.
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Speaker 4: No way, there's no way she would have ever left them.
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Speaker 1: You know. I know it's anecdotal when let me just
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Speaker 1: say spectators those on the outside looking in here she
1:06
Speaker 1: would never have left her children. But when you know
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Speaker 1: the mom, you realize that it's absolutely true that there
1:17
Speaker 1: is no way she would have willingly left her children.
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Speaker 1: What happened to Melissa? Joining me in All Star Pedal,
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Speaker 1: But first I want to go to Melissa's sister, Tina Patten,
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Speaker 1: also joining us, her mother Norma Patten. To both of you,
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Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. And also for being
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Speaker 1: Melissa's voice, because without you, people would forget about her.
1:50
Speaker 1: I had never even heard about Melissa or her disappearance
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Speaker 1: until you made it known. Again, thank you for being
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Speaker 1: with us. I want to go first to you. Melissa's mother,
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Speaker 1: Norma Patten, tell me about Melissa as a mother. Why
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Speaker 1: are you so convinced she would never have parted with
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Speaker 1: her children?
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Speaker 6: Because she just she loved her kids. They were the
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Speaker 6: most precious thing in the world to her. She would
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Speaker 6: have never left them under any circumstances.
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Speaker 1: In addition to Norma, Melissa's mother or Tina is with us,
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Speaker 1: her sister. Explain to me, why are you so convinced
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Speaker 1: she would never have willingly left her children? Why she
2:36
Speaker 1: went back home because of the kids.
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Speaker 2: She would have never left them, not for any amount
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Speaker 2: of time at all.
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Speaker 1: Again with me, an all star panel. You know, Darryl
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Speaker 1: Cohen is with me. Former felony prosecutor in inner city Atlanta,
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Speaker 1: now high profile defense attorney from Cohen Cooper Estephan Allen
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Speaker 1: in the Atlanta jurisdiction. Darryl see, I understand what Norma
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Speaker 1: and Tina are telling me, and I agree with them
3:01
Speaker 1: from what I've now learned about her. It would take
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Speaker 1: wild horses to drag her away from her family, from
3:08
Speaker 1: her children. But when you're talking to a jury they've
3:12
Speaker 1: never met Melissa, you have to have hard examples about
3:18
Speaker 1: why you know and this is anecdotalis story, it's not
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Speaker 1: a statistic or a fact that she would never have
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Speaker 1: done this. I guess the way to do that is
3:29
Speaker 1: to load your jury with mothers or grandmothers, because they
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Speaker 1: get it. They know what we're talking about. When we say, oh, hl, no,
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Speaker 1: Melissa would never have left without them, this is bs,
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Speaker 1: this is bogus. She didn't just go away and move
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Speaker 1: to Arizona to start a new life for California. That
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Speaker 1: did not happen.
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Speaker 7: So, Nana, see what you have to do is you
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Speaker 7: take Melissa. You take her and make her into a
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Speaker 7: real person, not just a statistic that's something we've seen
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Speaker 7: on the news. But you talk about her as a mother,
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Speaker 7: You talk about the wonderful thing she did as a mother,
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Speaker 7: and on the other side of Jax you say, thank
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Speaker 7: you very much, I understand, and you accept it, and
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Speaker 7: then you go on and you still continue to personalize her.
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Speaker 7: You've got to make her someone that the jury loves
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Speaker 7: the very beginning, regardless of the facts.
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Speaker 1: Yet, Yeah, cherylmccollum, how do we prove it? Joining me
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Speaker 1: is Cheryl McCollum, director and founder of the Cold Case
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Speaker 1: Research Institute Forensics Expert. You can find her at coldcasecrimes
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Speaker 1: dot org and she is the one, along with the
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Speaker 1: Patent family, who has spearheaded this and first told me
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Speaker 1: about Melissa's disappearance. She's host of a brand new hit podcast,
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Speaker 1: Zone seven. Cheryl, maybe I'm not as I would like
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Speaker 1: to say to my judges, or let me rephrase that question.
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Speaker 1: In other words, the witness, what is it telling me?
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Speaker 1: What I need is jury to hear they what is
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Speaker 1: wrong with them? So let me rephrase the question to you.
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Speaker 1: You can't just say to a jury, hey, this mom
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Speaker 1: would never leave her children. You have to be able
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Speaker 1: to prove she would never leave her children. I know
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Speaker 1: it's hard for family members to take in because they're
5:20
Speaker 1: so upset about the whole thing, But I immediately go to
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Speaker 1: the evidence. How can you prove this to a jury?
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Speaker 1: For instance, she never left them alone. She moved from
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Speaker 1: New York to Atlanta so they could have a better
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Speaker 1: life and be around their grandparents. She sacrificed one, two, three,
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Speaker 1: and four for her children. She wouldn't leave them with
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Speaker 1: a babysitter. Blah blah, blah blah. I've got to have
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Speaker 1: a way to prove this to a jury. So how
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Speaker 1: do you prove this was a devoted mother that would
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Speaker 1: never have left her children, because that is fact number one.
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Speaker 8: For me, exactly what you're saying. You paint this picture
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Speaker 8: of who Melissa was. She left jobs so that she
6:03
Speaker 8: could stay home with the children. She did not leave
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Speaker 8: them overnight. Ever, she wanted them with her. She went
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Speaker 8: out of her way to be with them. She sang
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Speaker 8: to them, she read books to them, She took them
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Speaker 8: to visit their grandparents on both sides. She visited with
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Speaker 8: her sister. She wanted those children with her at all times.
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Speaker 8: There is no chance she just was walking down the
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Speaker 8: street and said, Hey, I'm off to California.
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Speaker 1: Oh hey, Cheryl, you're giving me an idea. Does the
6:38
Speaker 1: name Drew Peterson ring a bell to you? It should?
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Speaker 1: Let's see how many wives did he kill? Two that
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Speaker 1: I know of? Okay, Drew Peterson, police officer, not that
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Speaker 1: that's here nor there, police officer, and his third wife,
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Speaker 1: Kathleen Sommio ends up dead in a drowned in a
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Speaker 1: dry bathtub, her body covered in bruises. Remember that, and
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Speaker 1: for some reason they rule that an accidental death a
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Speaker 1: dry bathtub. How do you slip and fall with that
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Speaker 1: many bruises and a dry bathtub? Why you don't? That's
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Speaker 1: how you do it? You don't. Then we get to
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Speaker 1: Stacy Peterson. Well, her body has never been found. But
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Speaker 1: what did he say when Stacy Peterson left, left her car,
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Speaker 1: left her children, left her furs and her beautiful clothes
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Speaker 1: that she had accumulated. She left with a boyfriend? What
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Speaker 1: on foot? What boyfriend? There was no boyfriend? Or how
7:48
Speaker 1: many times have you heard she just wanted alone time, meantime.
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Speaker 8: That is BS completely BS. And in Melissa's case, the
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Speaker 8: family only had one car. So how did she get
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Speaker 8: to California?
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Speaker 3: She don't.
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Speaker 8: They didn't have EPs for money, they weren't loaded. She
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Speaker 8: wouldn't have had a way to get to California. She
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Speaker 8: had no cell phone, she didn't take any clothes, she
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Speaker 8: didn't take any money, she didn't have a vehicle, she
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Speaker 8: had no way of contacting any woman. She took nothing
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Speaker 8: that was precious to her, including her children, it's just
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Speaker 8: not ring.
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Speaker 3: It doesn't range through.
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Speaker 1: Well, you know all of that is true, but you've
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Speaker 1: got to be able to prove it to a jury.
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Speaker 1: And I want to point out something that you just said,
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Speaker 1: and you're entirely correct, Cheryl McCollum. She gave up a
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Speaker 1: job to have more time with her children. Now, nobody
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Speaker 1: was supporting her. She wasn't living off the government, she
8:41
Speaker 1: didn't have a rich husband, a sugar daddy, nothing, And
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Speaker 1: she gave up a job in order to be with
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Speaker 1: her children more and took a job that had horrible hours.
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Speaker 1: You've heard so many stories about moms working all night,
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Speaker 1: stocking shelves, working two in three jobs to support their children.
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Speaker 1: She did that. She did all that and more, giving
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Speaker 1: up one job that was really good for her so
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Speaker 1: she could spend more time with her children. So what
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Speaker 1: do we know. She has a family dinner, then she disappears. Listen.
9:17
Speaker 9: Thanksgiving Day, Melissa Wolfenberger makes a visit to her parents,
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Speaker 9: Carl and Norma Patten. Melissa is excited for the holidays
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Speaker 9: and asks her mother for a very specific gift. When
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Speaker 9: Melissa doesn't even call Christmas Day, Norma Patten is unsettled
9:30
Speaker 9: but Melissa doesn't have a cell phone or a car,
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Speaker 9: So Norma assumes her daughter is busy with her own
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Speaker 9: family and we'll pick up her gifts later. When Melissa
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Speaker 9: doesn't wish her mom a happy birthday two months later,
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Speaker 9: Norma Patten asks family members if anyone has seen her.
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Speaker 9: Tina Patton realizes Melissa hasn't worked a shift with her
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Speaker 9: in months.
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Speaker 1: Okay, I smell a rat right there. At the beginning.
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Speaker 1: She goes to this family get together and then she's
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Speaker 1: never seen again. Now, think about it. She doesn't have
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Speaker 1: a car, how is she getting around? Somehow? She manages
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Speaker 1: to take care of her children and get to work.
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Speaker 1: But then suddenly Tina realizes Melissa's hasn't worked her shift
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Speaker 1: at a restaurant in months. It hadn't occurred to her before,
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Speaker 1: but when she began analyzing it, she realized her sister
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Speaker 1: had not worked at the restaurant for months. It didn't
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Speaker 1: dawn on anyone. Why should it? But you heard earlier
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Speaker 1: that she was there and she asked for a specific
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Speaker 1: gift and then never showed up to get it. What
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Speaker 1: was the gift?
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Speaker 4: Listen, she had asked me for something in particular, and
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Speaker 4: she said, that was all the only thing she wanted.
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Speaker 4: And it wasn't something now I could go to the
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Speaker 4: store and buy. It was something I had to find.
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Speaker 4: And what it was was a picture of her with
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Speaker 4: her papa, her daddy father, And that's all she wanted
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Speaker 4: was that picture. So I found a picture of him
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Speaker 4: and her together. She was only five years old, maybe
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Speaker 4: six that the most. I took it and had it
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Speaker 4: blow up into a night by ten and had it
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Speaker 4: wrapped up and under the Christmas tree.
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Speaker 1: And she didn't.
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Speaker 4: Calls, she didn't come get it, you know. And that
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Speaker 4: was just they wouldn't like her. The kids were her life.
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Speaker 4: There's no way she would have ever left them. The
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Speaker 4: girl was three and the little boy was two.
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Speaker 1: What happened to Melissa? Now? Just to throw a wrench
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Speaker 1: in this, just to take the APD Atlanta Police Department's
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Speaker 1: focus off Missing Melissa, an unrelated skull pops up listen.
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Speaker 10: Atlanta PD finds a severede human skull that rolled out
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Speaker 10: of a ripped trash bag in the middle of Avon Avenue.
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Speaker 10: Industrial businesses lining one side of the street. The other
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Speaker 10: is bordered by train tracks. Just over a month later,
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Speaker 10: four more trash bags are discovered two blocks down Avon
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Speaker 10: in a wooded area. Inside are a pair of legs
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Speaker 10: and arms. Police cannot locate it tow ourd soll you know, to.
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Speaker 1: Justin Scott Morgan, professor forensic's death investigator, with I believe
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Speaker 1: you said at least one thousand death investigations under your belt?
12:13
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
12:13
Speaker 11: A little bit higher than that?
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Speaker 1: But that's okay? Yeah, what do you mean ten eleven hundred?
12:19
Speaker 1: Just give me a ballpark.
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Speaker 11: Probably closer to ten thousand.
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Speaker 1: Okay. I thought that was me and the number of
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Speaker 1: pleas and trials I had, but it's actually you. Okay, Wow,
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Speaker 1: Let that just sink in for a moment. You know,
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Speaker 1: you can't learn that in the book, although you have
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Speaker 1: been educated here up to hear ten thousand death scends,
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Speaker 1: some accidents, some suicide, some natural causes, many of them homicide.
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Speaker 1: That in mind, your worst work nightmare, I guess, would
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Speaker 1: be finding ahead a skull, a skull that you cannot identify.
13:08
Speaker 1: How difficult is that for a death investigator or medical examiner.
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Speaker 1: You have no torso to connect, You got nothing you.
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Speaker 11: Don't You're given very limited, you know, very limited evidence
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Speaker 11: to draw upon to do an analysis, and people would say,
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Speaker 11: I think, you know, well, you have a skull, isn't
13:29
Speaker 11: that enough? No, it's not because without you know, we
13:34
Speaker 11: think about things in the totality of evidence. What else
13:36
Speaker 11: is there? Well, what evidence do you have when you
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Speaker 11: have a bag that has been ripped found in the
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Speaker 11: middle of a road that contains a human skull, Well,
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Speaker 11: there's a lot. There's a lot to go on there
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Speaker 11: relative to this. When you begin to think about an investigation,
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Speaker 11: how exactly would a skull becomes separated from the rest
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Speaker 11: of the skeleton. How far along in the decompositional process
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Speaker 11: is skull You know, that gives us an indication of
14:02
Speaker 11: how long the skull perhaps was in the back, how
14:04
Speaker 11: did the bag wind up in the road, and why
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Speaker 11: is it ripped? You know, you begin to think about
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Speaker 11: animal activity. You don't necessarily think that some person that
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Speaker 11: would perpetrate this. And mind you, I'm thinking homicide immediately here,
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Speaker 11: and that's our one working theory is that all deaths
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Speaker 11: are homicides until proven otherwise.
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Speaker 1: Jo Sky Morgan, please stop. I'm not a death investigator
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Speaker 1: with ten thousand deaths under my belt. I'm certainly not
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Speaker 1: a medical examiner. But when a skull is found, disattached
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Speaker 1: from the body and a ripped trash bag out near
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Speaker 1: the street. It doesn't take an MD to figure out
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Speaker 1: it's homicide. What the skull does jump into the bag
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Speaker 1: and threw itself down the street. I mean practically speaking,
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Speaker 1: of course it's a homicide. And another another thing, how
14:59
Speaker 1: long does it take? You got to help me verbalize this,
15:01
Speaker 1: because you're the expert. How long does it take for
15:05
Speaker 1: I know we say skeleton or skull, but how long
15:08
Speaker 1: would it take for a skull to become skeletonized? In
15:12
Speaker 1: other words, you look at the skull and there is
15:16
Speaker 1: no skin on the no eyes, no hair, nothing to
15:20
Speaker 1: help you identify it.
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Speaker 11: Yeah, assuming that the skull is in fact a skull,
15:26
Speaker 11: that means that it's absent of any kind of soft tissue,
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Speaker 11: anything that's left behind that would be connected to the skull.
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Speaker 11: Just based upon that, the level of heat and exposure,
15:38
Speaker 11: particularly contained in a plastic bag, is going to potentially
15:43
Speaker 11: impact that. So it's going to accelerate this event. But
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Speaker 11: here's the curious thing. The skull was actually recovered in April,
15:51
Speaker 11: so we're coming out of the cooler month, So that's
15:53
Speaker 11: going to kind of skew your data a little bit
15:56
Speaker 11: relative to how long this would have taken. Every single
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Speaker 11: second counts here, But you're looking to get to the
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Speaker 11: point of skeletonization. You're looking at this point in tom
16:08
Speaker 11: probably about at minimum, at minimum eight eight weeks to
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Speaker 11: perhaps twelve weeks.
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Speaker 1: I would think, Okay, listen to more of the forensic evidence.
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Speaker 5: Tealafara County calls the Atlanta Police Department and say, hey,
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Speaker 5: we've got a body down here in a ravine.
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Speaker 1: With no head. It might be your guy.
16:28
Speaker 5: So the Atlanta Police Department takes the skull, goes to
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Speaker 5: tel Afara County.
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Speaker 1: It's no match.
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Speaker 5: Four more trash bags were found near where the skull
16:37
Speaker 5: was found. Each of those trash bags contained an arm
16:41
Speaker 5: or a leg no torso. So now in the same
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Speaker 5: general area we have two arms, two legs, and a skull.
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Speaker 1: You know, we recently had a dismembered body where the
16:52
Speaker 1: body parts were found. Her name Shade Robinson. Beautiful young
16:57
Speaker 1: girl goes on a date and it's never seen alive again.
17:02
Speaker 1: And then pedestrians, moms and dads find different parts of
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Speaker 1: her in different parks, children's parks, all around the area.
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Speaker 1: And it took some doing to connect the parts together
17:21
Speaker 1: to figure out these are all from one person. And
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Speaker 1: now Cheryl McCollum. First is a skull that is in
17:27
Speaker 1: a ripped trash bag. Then suddenly we find other trash
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Speaker 1: bags full of several remains, but they're identified as a male.
17:38
Speaker 1: So that's not helping anything in this case. I find
17:43
Speaker 1: it really difficult to believe that you have the same
17:46
Speaker 1: kind of trash bags and you've got a skull in
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Speaker 1: one and body parts in the others, and they're not related.
17:53
Speaker 1: They have to be related.
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Speaker 8: It is important that this was not a quick problem.
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Speaker 8: To ever perpetrate this killed this person, then dismembered and
18:04
Speaker 8: beheaded them, put them into trash bags, and then placed
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Speaker 8: them somewhere. So you basically had three separate crime scenes
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Speaker 8: where they were killed, how they were transported to where
18:14
Speaker 8: they were dump.
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Speaker 1: Caerl that I understand you to say chlorox was poured
18:17
Speaker 1: into the skull, correct.
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Speaker 3: So again, why would a cleaning agent be used?
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Speaker 8: That's like to clean up something, So that should tell
18:25
Speaker 8: you something about the perpetrator. You have to factor that in.
18:29
Speaker 1: While police are busy with the unidentified male skull and
18:34
Speaker 1: body parts, the family is still looking for.
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Speaker 5: Melissa at the same time that the Atlanta Police Department
18:40
Speaker 5: is dealing with the unidentified skull. Melissa Wolfenberger, a young
18:45
Speaker 5: married mother of two, has gone missing. Her parents are
18:48
Speaker 5: worried sick about her because this is not like her.
18:51
Speaker 5: They saw her at Thanksgiving, they did not see her
18:54
Speaker 5: at Christmas or worried as her birthday rolled around. Melissa
18:57
Speaker 5: had never not contacted her on her birthday.
19:01
Speaker 4: We went to Atlanta on Brookline Avenue where they were living.
19:05
Speaker 4: The house was completely deserted. We talked to some of
19:08
Speaker 4: the neighbors and they said that he'd moved down of
19:11
Speaker 4: the house right around Christmas or the first of the year,
19:14
Speaker 4: and they told us where he was working at. So
19:17
Speaker 4: we went over there and talked to the owner of
19:19
Speaker 4: the glass company. At that point we just didn't know.
19:23
Speaker 1: And the owner of the glass company tells the family
19:27
Speaker 1: that the husband we're talking about, the husband, Melissa Wolfenberger's husband,
19:32
Speaker 1: had been fired and then he disappears. Now Tina and
19:38
Speaker 1: Norman Patten joining us, the mom and sister Melissa. Tina,
19:42
Speaker 1: let me understand this. Your sister is there for Thanksgiving.
19:46
Speaker 1: She asked for a particular picture as a Christmas gift
19:50
Speaker 1: of her and her grandfather. Then she does to show
19:53
Speaker 1: up for Christmas. You then start looking for her yourself,
19:57
Speaker 1: call the restaurant where she works and they tell you
20:00
Speaker 1: she hasn't shown up for weeks at her shift. And
20:05
Speaker 1: then at the same time, around Christmas time, he is
20:09
Speaker 1: far from his job and disappears. Do I have that
20:12
Speaker 1: timing correct, Tina Patten? Yes, Okay, that's not good. So
20:19
Speaker 1: police finally track down the husband and this is what happens.
20:23
Speaker 10: Christopher Wolfenberger tells detectives he last saw Melissa in Atlanta.
20:27
Speaker 10: Wolfenberger says the couple always talked about moving the family
20:31
Speaker 10: to California and starting new lives. Wolfenberger says Melissa decided
20:35
Speaker 10: to go alone. Wolfenberger says Melissa broke his heart, so
20:39
Speaker 10: he made no attempt to look for her and assumes
20:42
Speaker 10: she's living in California under a new name.
20:45
Speaker 1: Then a stunning twist in the case. While the family's
20:49
Speaker 1: desperately searching for Melissa, we find out the skull that
20:53
Speaker 1: was found in the rip trash bag it's not a man,
20:58
Speaker 1: it's a woman. Share role. Did the medical examiner actually
21:03
Speaker 1: mischaracterize the skull as a man when it's a woman.
21:07
Speaker 3: It was misidentified as a Caucasian.
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Speaker 1: Mail Okay, you know, Joe Scott Morgan, how does that happen?
21:13
Speaker 1: You can't look at a skull and figure out it's
21:15
Speaker 1: a man or a woman.
21:16
Speaker 11: In most cases you can, but it's not completely definitive.
21:19
Speaker 11: There is a percentage, and this is what these forensic
21:22
Speaker 11: anthropologists work off of to get these bodies identified. And
21:27
Speaker 11: I've got to say that not only was it the
21:30
Speaker 11: medical examiner that was involved in this, quite strikingly, it
21:34
Speaker 11: was actually the University of Tennessee Body Farm, the anthropology
21:40
Speaker 11: department there that came to the same conclusion Nancy, which
21:43
Speaker 11: is absolutely mind blowing to me because this is what
21:46
Speaker 11: they specialize in.
21:47
Speaker 1: And then lo and behold listen.
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Speaker 5: One of the first things he realized is where Melissa's
21:53
Speaker 5: husband worked at Action Glass and where the skull was
21:56
Speaker 5: found was on the same street, Avon Avenue to the
22:00
Speaker 5: Atlanta Police Department and says, look, this skull was found
22:03
Speaker 5: just feet away from where a missing woman's husband works.
22:07
Speaker 5: So they agreed to get the dental records and have
22:10
Speaker 5: the medical examiner see if they could identify who that
22:13
Speaker 5: skull belonged to. On March fourteenth, two thousand and three.
22:17
Speaker 5: The skull is identified as Melissa Wolfenberg.
22:20
Speaker 1: Okay, let me understand this straight out to Norma Patten,
22:24
Speaker 1: who has been looking exhaustively for her daughter, no one
22:29
Speaker 1: will listen. She said, Oh, she's run off with a boyfriend.
22:33
Speaker 1: What boyfriend? She'll come back. You knew all along your
22:38
Speaker 1: daughter would never have left her children. When did you
22:42
Speaker 1: learn that this skull, which had been misidentified as a
22:46
Speaker 1: white male is your daughter?
22:49
Speaker 10: Brice Jordan.
22:52
Speaker 12: From Fayette County. He came to the house to my
22:56
Speaker 12: home and I walked outside on the porch and I
23:01
Speaker 12: was told that she had been identified in Atlanta, that
23:08
Speaker 12: her body had been dismembered.
23:11
Speaker 1: What went through your mind? After all the time you
23:15
Speaker 1: had searched for your daughter and you get this news.
23:20
Speaker 1: I was devastated completely.
23:24
Speaker 12: I screamed and I was crying. My two grandkids that
23:31
Speaker 12: were here with me came out to find out what
23:34
Speaker 12: was going on, and.
23:36
Speaker 1: I just didn't know what to do. Tina Patton, how
23:42
Speaker 1: did you discover that all this time your sister had
23:48
Speaker 1: been dead and her body misidentified as a white male.
23:54
Speaker 2: I received a phone call and they said, have you
23:59
Speaker 2: seen the news? And I said no, and they said, well,
24:02
Speaker 2: Melissa was found and all they found with her skull?
24:06
Speaker 1: What went through your mind? How? How could this happen
24:10
Speaker 1: to her? And I was just distraught.
24:16
Speaker 3: She came in one night with a handprint around.
24:18
Speaker 2: The throat, her eyes were red, she had been crying,
24:21
Speaker 2: and I knew what it was.
24:22
Speaker 1: It was Chris.
24:24
Speaker 4: It was the look in his eyes when I met him.
24:27
Speaker 4: You could just see the meanness in his eyes.
24:31
Speaker 1: Melissa didn't deserve what she got. She didn't deserve it.
24:35
Speaker 1: How could this be? All this time, her family bagging police,
24:41
Speaker 1: begging other investigators, telling them she's missing. No one took
24:47
Speaker 1: them seriously. Then, when a dismembered skull and body parts
24:52
Speaker 1: are found, they're misidentified as a white male. Only later
24:59
Speaker 1: after a dental record examination, was it discovered those remains
25:04
Speaker 1: are in fact Melissa. Listen.
25:06
Speaker 13: My main focus is on the bags Melissa's body was
25:10
Speaker 13: placed in. We both know it would be hard to
25:13
Speaker 13: tie knots, especially in plastic bags, without leaving trace evidence
25:18
Speaker 13: of some sort. Whenever murder occurs, some kind of evidence
25:22
Speaker 13: is left. No matter how careful the killer is, evidence
25:27
Speaker 13: will be there. It may be overlooked, but that does
25:30
Speaker 13: not mean it's not there. There is no perfect crime.
25:34
Speaker 1: That is a letter from Melissa's dad being read by
25:39
Speaker 1: our friend Walt McCollum, still seeking justice for his daughter.
25:44
Speaker 1: That's Carl Patten. But what more do we know? We
25:48
Speaker 1: know that the body the remains were in plastic bags
25:53
Speaker 1: Joskott Morgan. Plastic bags can be a forensic treasure trove.
25:58
Speaker 11: Why well, first off, you can trace them back to
26:01
Speaker 11: the manufacturer whoever made these things. You can actually get
26:06
Speaker 11: it down to the run that they came off of
26:10
Speaker 11: the perforations on each bag. You begin to think about
26:13
Speaker 11: how they're connected, what type of bag it is. Also,
26:17
Speaker 11: you know the plastic that you talk about the plastic bags.
26:21
Speaker 11: One of the things that we look at is that
26:23
Speaker 11: plastic bags are a non poor surface. So guess what
26:26
Speaker 11: you can find many times and find latent prints. And
26:29
Speaker 11: when you look at the knots and the way bags
26:32
Speaker 11: are tied, think about how you have to manipulate that
26:35
Speaker 11: bag in order to tie it up. That's why we
26:37
Speaker 11: have to be very very careful when we're undoing a knot,
26:41
Speaker 11: for instance, at the crime lab or even in the morgue,
26:44
Speaker 11: so that we don't destroy any of that evidence, not
26:47
Speaker 11: to mention if the individual has left any of their
26:50
Speaker 11: DNA there on that bag, that in fact could kind
26:53
Speaker 11: of cap off this idea of it being a treasure
26:55
Speaker 11: trove for forensic evidence exactly.
26:58
Speaker 1: And what do we learn from the remains themselves?
27:02
Speaker 14: Listen, there were some vertebra that still remained with the head.
27:06
Speaker 14: It wasn't many, and the vertebra had been sawed through,
27:10
Speaker 14: and he, you know, he made note of a mechanical
27:13
Speaker 14: saw that had dismembered the body, at least at that level,
27:17
Speaker 14: that the tool marks that were left behind were consistent
27:20
Speaker 14: with something other than a handheld saw. You know, you
27:22
Speaker 14: think about a carpenter saw or hacksaw or those sorts
27:24
Speaker 14: of things. That's not what happened in this case.
27:27
Speaker 1: The level of violence in this case is overwhelming. Out
27:32
Speaker 1: to Tina and Norma, I'm sorry to drag you through
27:41
Speaker 1: more pain, but the fact that we now know a
27:46
Speaker 1: mechanical saw we believe was used in the dismemberment of
27:51
Speaker 1: this beautiful young mom, your daughter, your sister. I mean,
27:57
Speaker 1: how do you go forward? How do you sleep at
28:00
Speaker 1: night knowing this happened to her? It's really hard to sleep.
28:08
Speaker 12: Knowing, well, what was done to her and not knowing
28:15
Speaker 12: why it was done.
28:17
Speaker 1: You know, I wonder sometimes about tell tell signs. Was
28:25
Speaker 1: there a red flag? Could we tell at the beginning
28:31
Speaker 1: that this was going sideways? Guys, take a listen to this.
28:35
Speaker 4: It was the look in his eyes when I met him.
28:38
Speaker 4: You could just see the meanness in his eyes. I
28:41
Speaker 4: didn't like him, and it just it went downhill from there.
28:46
Speaker 4: He had Melissa climbing out the bedroom window and sneaking
28:50
Speaker 4: out to go wherever he wanted to go.
28:53
Speaker 1: They run away and ended up in Oklahoma.
28:56
Speaker 4: The police told me that they caught him driving the
28:59
Speaker 4: wrong way the interstate, doing one hundred and twenty miles
29:02
Speaker 4: an hour with no lights on. He went off the
29:05
Speaker 4: interstate and hit a bull. When they caught up with
29:08
Speaker 4: him and laughed at him, he said, the only reason
29:10
Speaker 4: you caught me because I ate that bull. So that's
29:12
Speaker 4: the way he always looked at everything.
29:17
Speaker 1: Right at the beginning, I am talking about Melissa's husband.
29:24
Speaker 1: At the very beginning, he was nothing but trouble. What
29:28
Speaker 1: about it, Norma.
29:30
Speaker 12: He was troubled from day one, and the only reason
29:36
Speaker 12: I let it.
29:37
Speaker 1: My sister kept.
29:38
Speaker 12: Telling me that I was fighting it too much. And
29:41
Speaker 12: I need to let go and just let him have
29:45
Speaker 12: a relationship.
29:47
Speaker 1: And boy do I regret that today. You know, to
29:50
Speaker 1: Darryl Cohen joining me, former fellow he prosecuted for years now,
29:54
Speaker 1: veteran trial lawyer at defense attorney, Darryl, did you hear
29:59
Speaker 1: what tiny was at the beginning? She says? It was
30:01
Speaker 1: a look in his eyes when I met him. I
30:04
Speaker 1: could just see the meanness. And I know that that
30:09
Speaker 1: is not evidence that it would be allowable in court.
30:11
Speaker 1: I get it, that's totally inadmissible. And if it did
30:14
Speaker 1: come into court, you, a great trial lawyer, would say
30:17
Speaker 1: that means nothing. How can she tell he's got meanness
30:20
Speaker 1: in his eyes? You would make hay it on that
30:22
Speaker 1: you shred it across examination. But it's true, Darryl. Haven't
30:29
Speaker 1: you been in the car, say, with your daughter, and
30:32
Speaker 1: a guy walks up at the red light, and you
30:35
Speaker 1: go and you lock all the doors. It's a feeling,
30:39
Speaker 1: it's a gut feeling. It's after thousands of the years
30:44
Speaker 1: of evolution. That's why the hair sticks up on the
30:47
Speaker 1: back of your neck or you get chilled. You are
30:49
Speaker 1: processing something that your brain doesn't understand. And she knew
30:54
Speaker 1: day one this guy is trouble, Nancy.
30:57
Speaker 7: It's not difficult to see that. Times we have a
31:01
Speaker 7: gut reaction, and usually our gut reaction, the first one
31:04
Speaker 7: is what we need to go with. But when you
31:06
Speaker 7: see meanness in somebody's eyes, it's because sometimes you want
31:10
Speaker 7: to see it. Sometimes he or she just looks evil,
31:14
Speaker 7: and though it's not admissible, it's how we govern our lives.
31:18
Speaker 7: It's how we see look at people and say their
31:21
Speaker 7: body language, their facial expressions, in this case, the eyes
31:25
Speaker 7: and in this case the eyes told everything. But that
31:29
Speaker 7: doesn't mean mom or sister can stop it. It just
31:32
Speaker 7: means you can make your daughter, your sister realize what's
31:37
Speaker 7: going on. And please be aware. You can't change somebody.
31:41
Speaker 7: You can't make them do what you want them to do.
31:44
Speaker 7: Oh my gosh, Nancy, so many times I would love
31:46
Speaker 7: to tell my daughters, this is what you do. You
31:49
Speaker 7: know what they would do when I say that? The opposite?
32:00
Speaker 5: And how would he risk taking a dead body out
32:03
Speaker 5: of that house? Number one being unseen when you've got
32:06
Speaker 5: a neighbor, literally your walls meet, and then drive a
32:09
Speaker 5: dead body in a car, even if it is just
32:12
Speaker 5: a short distance, and risk being caught. Then take that
32:15
Speaker 5: body inside where you've got the privacy, where's all that
32:17
Speaker 5: blood going. And then you've got to get rid of
32:19
Speaker 5: that saul because there ain't no way to clean that thing.
32:22
Speaker 1: And then you still have.
32:24
Speaker 5: To take the body out of that place and dispose
32:26
Speaker 5: of it.
32:27
Speaker 1: And you just do it right there.
32:28
Speaker 5: You don't even bother to take it away from where
32:31
Speaker 5: you're tied.
32:31
Speaker 1: To Cheryl McCollum. You and the family have led the
32:35
Speaker 1: charge and seeking justice for Melissa. When you break it
32:41
Speaker 1: down that way about what the killer would have to
32:44
Speaker 1: go through in order to affect this crime, it makes
32:47
Speaker 1: your blood run cold, Nancy.
32:49
Speaker 3: It also is a flag again.
32:52
Speaker 8: Who would take that amount of time?
32:54
Speaker 3: Who would go get the.
32:55
Speaker 15: Trash bags, get a circular saw, get the car ox around,
33:01
Speaker 15: find a place the dispose of the body that is
33:04
Speaker 15: great risk to the perpetrator.
33:06
Speaker 1: And listen to more more from the letter from dad.
33:11
Speaker 13: How do you kill the mother of your two children?
33:14
Speaker 13: And then you look at those children in the eye
33:17
Speaker 13: and say your mother deserted you because she didn't want you.
33:20
Speaker 13: Then when it's proven this mother is dead and they
33:23
Speaker 13: want us to visit the grave, you take them to
33:26
Speaker 13: a different location. And claim someone must have moved her.
33:30
Speaker 1: Oh my stars, did that really happen, Tina. Did the father,
33:37
Speaker 1: the husband actually tell the children mommy deserted them and
33:41
Speaker 1: take them to the wrong grave.
33:42
Speaker 2: Yes, it is true.
33:46
Speaker 1: He did what happened.
33:47
Speaker 16: He just you know, every time their mom was he
33:50
Speaker 16: would say, she ran off, she didn't want to be
33:55
Speaker 16: here anymore, so she lived and I'll know where she is.
33:57
Speaker 1: So the children grow up thinking, mom, he deserted them,
34:01
Speaker 1: Is that right?
34:02
Speaker 3: Yes, they did.
34:04
Speaker 1: To normal patten, did you try to tell them differently?
34:06
Speaker 12: We weren't allowed to see them. His mother had custody
34:11
Speaker 12: of them, and she would not let us see them.
34:16
Speaker 12: The last time she brought them anywhere around was when
34:22
Speaker 12: she brought them to the cemetery when we buried Melissa,
34:27
Speaker 12: And they did not even know that they were at
34:31
Speaker 12: the why they were at the cemetery, or who it was.
34:36
Speaker 1: Oh my stars, what a tragedy. So she's murdered, she's dismembered,
34:45
Speaker 1: and her children are raised thinking mommy abandoned them. Well
34:51
Speaker 1: in the last days, over twenty five years after Melissa's
34:57
Speaker 1: dismembered body as found discovered just a block away from
35:03
Speaker 1: where her then husband worked, an arrest has been made.
35:08
Speaker 1: Cheryl McCollum explained, you know, they put.
35:11
Speaker 3: Together a solid, circumstantial case.
35:14
Speaker 8: They went through statement, they went through maps, they went
35:18
Speaker 8: through body disposal locations, and they narrowed this case down
35:22
Speaker 8: to one person.
35:24
Speaker 3: There wasn't a number one person. There was only one
35:29
Speaker 3: valuable suspect in this case.
35:31
Speaker 1: And that suspect then husband, Christopher Wolfenberger. To you, Nora Patten,
35:39
Speaker 1: it took so long. It took years for the case
35:43
Speaker 1: to be solved. What is your response to finally an arrest.
35:48
Speaker 12: When I was told that he had been arrested, I
35:53
Speaker 12: just yelled out as loud as I could, thank you, Bore.
36:00
Speaker 12: Don't have a long way to go.
36:03
Speaker 1: God willing. There will be justice delayed, Yes, delayed, But
36:08
Speaker 1: in the end, the APD did put the case together.
36:13
Speaker 1: By now, a cold, cold case. That's hard to do.
36:18
Speaker 1: Just God, it's really hard to put together a cold case.
36:23
Speaker 1: It's almost impossible. But they did it, and we finally
36:27
Speaker 1: have an arrest. How has this affected you, this quest
36:32
Speaker 1: we've all been on for so long.
36:34
Speaker 11: Well for me, God bless them. I see the pain
36:42
Speaker 11: in the family's eyes, and I've seen this look for
36:44
Speaker 11: years and years as a death investigator, and it all
36:47
Speaker 11: brings it flooding back to me now at this point
36:50
Speaker 11: in my life. It's a touchstone moment, I think, for
36:54
Speaker 11: them as a family, but it's also a moment in
36:59
Speaker 11: time where where those of us that are training professionals
37:03
Speaker 11: moving forward, look at the mistakes that were made along
37:07
Speaker 11: the way. Where could we have turned a corner that
37:10
Speaker 11: would have sent us down a different path and not
37:15
Speaker 11: put the family through so much pain? I think is
37:18
Speaker 11: what it comes down to. If we all do our
37:21
Speaker 11: jobs in the beginning, then it's at that point in
37:25
Speaker 11: time we can look back and understand that we could
37:30
Speaker 11: save a lot of pain that these families go through.
37:32
Speaker 11: Because Melissa is not a forgotten person, all right. She's
37:37
Speaker 11: not just a number that's thrown away. She's a sister,
37:42
Speaker 11: she's a mother, and she's somebody's baby. And that's what
37:46
Speaker 11: you have to keep in mind moving forward with all
37:49
Speaker 11: of this. I just thank God in Heaven right now
37:52
Speaker 11: that there is some kind, some kind of resolution. It
37:56
Speaker 11: might not be what we all wanted, but there is
37:59
Speaker 11: a resolution that we can all grow from at this
38:02
Speaker 11: point in time. I just hate that it's been done
38:04
Speaker 11: at the expenses of these precious women.
38:07
Speaker 1: Tina and Norman Patten. I just really don't have words
38:12
Speaker 1: to thank you. You are an example for all other
38:17
Speaker 1: crime victimist families because you never gave up, You never quit.
38:23
Speaker 1: There were many times Cheryl and I and Joe Scott talked,
38:27
Speaker 1: We talked about the case, and there were times I
38:30
Speaker 1: thought there would never be a resolution, there would never
38:34
Speaker 1: be an arrest, even though we all felt we knew
38:37
Speaker 1: who was responsible for the murder. The damage to you
38:42
Speaker 1: and to her children, but most important to her can
38:47
Speaker 1: never be fixed. There is no fix. But what is
38:51
Speaker 1: your message today to you, the mother of Melissa Wilsenberger,
38:57
Speaker 1: What is your message to other crime victims, feens families today.
39:01
Speaker 12: Don't give up, Get out there and talk to people,
39:07
Speaker 12: anybody that you can. We went everywhere anybody had gave
39:15
Speaker 12: us suggestions. We went, and we You just had to
39:19
Speaker 12: stay on top of it.
39:20
Speaker 1: You can't, you can't let it go. Tina. It was
39:25
Speaker 1: all consuming your search for justice, your search to find
39:29
Speaker 1: out what happened to your sister, and there could not
39:32
Speaker 1: have been more bizarre facts thrown into this quest. What
39:36
Speaker 1: is your message to other people listening today as we
39:40
Speaker 1: await a formal announcement.
39:42
Speaker 12: No matter what, no matter what happens, what you come across,
39:48
Speaker 12: what other problems come up, do not take No.
39:51
Speaker 16: You've got to push, and when it seems like you're
39:55
Speaker 16: ready to.
39:56
Speaker 1: Give up, keep pushing. Don't stop.
40:00
Speaker 13: Stop.
40:01
Speaker 1: If Tina and Norma Patten could keep going against all odds,
40:07
Speaker 1: then so can we. Tina and Norma thank you. We
40:13
Speaker 1: wait as God willing justice hunfals. Goodbye friend,