Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Beloved Young Mom Skull Found But NO ARREST

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

In 1999, remains of a 21-year-old woman are found. She has been decapitated, dismembered and stuffed into black trash bags, discarded outside Atlanta. It is years before an identification is made.  ��And even now,  Melissa Wolfenbarger’s murder remains unsolved.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Wendy Patrick - California prosecutor, author “Red Flags” www.wendypatrickphd.com 'Today with Dr. Wendy' on KCBQ in San Diego, Twitter: @WendyPatrickPHD Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, www.drbethanymarshall.com,  Netflix show: 'Bling Empire' (Beverly Hills) Sheryl McCollum - Forensic Expert & Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder, ColdCaseCrimes.org, Twitter: @ColdCaseTips Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan" Shera LaPoint - Genetic Genealogist, Author: "The Gene Hunter", Founder: TheGeneHunter.com, Twitter: @LapointShera   Karyn Greer - Emmy Award Winning Anchor, WSB -TV, Twitter/Instagram/Facebook: @karyngreer  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A beautiful young mom, gorgeous brunette hair with a million dollar smile. Goes missing. Last heard from around Thanksgiving and she is excitedly planning Christmas for her two children with her extended family, her mother, but then she doesn't show up. Five months pass and the theory is she just got up, took off, and left her family. Well, we all know that's not what a devoted mom does.

Fast forward. Her severed head, her skull is found. Who killed Melissa Wolfenbarger and why? We try to uncover the truth at CrimeCon Vegas 2022. WSB, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, at Karen Greer. Of course, she has to spell it differently. You know those people? K-R-Y-N Greer. You know Karen's not a good name right now, so I need it different. That's a good idea.

I was having you sit right here, then Joe Scott Morgan just jumped up and got your spot. He goes, wait, yay, she's gone. She's late. I'm taking her spot. With me, Joseph Scott Morgan, death investigator, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. He's the star of a brand new hit series, Body Bags, with Joseph Scott Morgan.

And I need to take you back to school Because your name is spelled wrong And the Crime Con What do you say? Directory J-O-S-S-E-S-P-H Something like that I had nothing to do with that Anyway, he's here

We all know Dr. Bethany Marshall Psychoanalyst joining us from Beverly Hills, star of a hit series of her own, Bling Empire. This is Wendy Patrick, WDBQ. Right, I've memorized it. San Diego? Right. Today with Dr. Wendy, prosecutor. And I'm so glad you're here, Dr. Wendy. Oh, yes. Author of Red Flags. And she's very shy and would never plug herself. Okay. Guys, sitting right there is all the brains of the operation today. Shira LaPointe. She, yeah. Yeah. She is a genetic genealogist.

They did not teach me about that in law school. She's the author of The Gene Hunter, J-E-N-E Hunter, and founder of thegenehunter.com. And you can find her on Twitter at Lapointe Shira thank you and on the end you know her well Cheryl McCollum we met in the trenches fighting crime she is active law enforcement and she is the founder and director of the cold case research Institute and you can find her at cold case dot Cold case

Cold case tip Jackie cold case tip dot org Because every day on the guest list it says at cold case It's coldcasetip.org. And all this time I've been saying it, and you haven't said anything? What, did you just kick back having a drink? Cold case, yeah, some wine. Coldcasetip.org.

Guys, today we are here amongst friends, and I want to thank you for being with us. Super grateful. Really grateful. Because believe it or not, guys, a lot of people around you have been with me since Cochran and Grace with Johnny Cochran. God rest his soul.

And I'm really grateful you were the ones that prayed me through the twins when Lucy and I almost passed away in childbirth. It was all of your prayers and your kind words. Really grateful. Thank you for being with us today. and your kind words. Really grateful. Thank you for being with us today. We are talking about a gorgeous young woman,

just 21 year old mother. Her name, Melissa Wolfenbarger. And that makes me tear up because just thinking about when I had the twins, how tiny and precious they were and are, even though, believe it or not, John David is 6'6". He's 14. And I cook every night and fill him up.

Lucy is beautiful and sweet and smart. I'm just so blessed. And I think about Melissa, this young mom. She was found not only murdered, but she had been decapitated and dismembered. Now think about it. I think about my dad all the time. He went to heaven. In fact, right now I'm wearing his socks.

I think about him and I miss him and I love him so much. What if my thoughts were, who decapitated my dad? Who dismembered him? That's what her children have to think about every day. Let's talk about it. Cheryl, first to you. Well, Nancy, we can start April 29th, 1999. A UPS driver was driving down Avon Avenue in Atlanta, and he saw a trash bag. I can't hear you. Is this better? Yeah. Okay. April 29th, 1999, a UPS driver was driving down Avon Avenue in Atlanta. He saw a trash bag and something rolled out of it and it was a human skull. At that point, they started unidentified remains. Wait, was it skeletonized already? It was skeletonized already. So she had been dead for a while, right, Joe Scott?

Yeah, it would take a protracted period of time for that to happen because the tissue has to desiccate to the point where it's just going to completely slough off. What did we say about talking English? I know, I'm sorry. Yeah, it takes a protracted period of time for the tissue to actually come away from the skull to expose the skull. And I'm sure that it was shocking for the finder when they came by. This is not something that somebody expects to go out, you know, in their everyday life. They're just going about their business. Can you imagine rolling up on this, you open a bag, and there it is?

Why was he there, Cheryl? Uh-oh, I just did a tot, Mom. Remember when the guy, the, what was his name, that was in charge of something to do with the county and he kept calling the police going there's something really weird out there and it's white and you need to come look at it and it was little kelly's body and then they tried to blame him for a minute he's like wait a minute i've called the cops three times i certainly didn't do it. But I'm like, why was he there? Why was he there? Avon Avenue has several businesses. That's all that's on that road. And he was making deliveries.

So it was first categorized as a male. The hair was cut short. Clorox had been poured on the skull. You said it was skeletonized. It was, but they... But there's still hair on it. Yeah, and that's not uncommon. You're still going to find tufts of hair. Many times as the skin dries out or desiccates, it'll begin to fall away from the actual skeleton. You can still see hair. The follicles will still be attached to the

scalp itself. You'll find hair and of course hair doesn't decompose like regular tissue does. It will remain behind when everything else is gone. Okay, wait a minute. You mean, how long will the hair remain? Yeah, yeah. How long? Oh my God. I mean, I've, you know, I've done exhumations on bodies where I found hair still in caskets, coffins, 50 years after they were buried. Okay, that's something to think about. But wait a minute now.

Cheryl, I'm sorry, but now I want to bring in Cheryl a point because now I'm hearing hair, and hair to me means nucleus. Nucleus means DNA, and even without a nucleus, you can get mitochondrial DNA. What about it? Yes, Nancy, at that time, they definitely could have used that to get DNA to identify her. But they didn't have a sample to compare it to at that time. So while they possibly had DNA, they did not know who it was. Okay, let me get Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor.

Wendy, people always say, well, don't you have fingerprints? Well, yeah, you have fingerprints, or in this case DNA, from the body or from the crime, but... But you need something to compare it to. And that is often the problem. We all watch CSI and forensic crime dramas and it seems so simple. But it's one thing to get DNA. It's another to get a valid sample to compare it to and a list of suspects and all the kinds of things we can generate once we have that kind of forensic evidence. So that's just the very first step in a long line of investigatory steps after that that helps us identify a profile.

Do you see that woman right there texting? Right while you were talking. Just texting right in front of you. I saw it. I saw her. I mean, who are you? What is her name and where is she from? You brought a stain on the family name.

That's a quote from Home Alone, by the way. That's what I always tell the twins when they do anything wrong. That's a stain, and they go, on the way. That's what I always tell the twins when they do anything wrong. That's a stain. And they go, on the family name. She's taking notes. Yeah, I've got your name. Okay, Cheryl, go ahead. So we need to back up at this point because Melissa had not been seen since November 9, 1998.

Now, she had an unusual relationship with her family. She didn't have a home phone. She didn't have a cell phone. And they didn't keep in contact like, you know, you can today with cell phones and that sort of thing. So they would go months without hearing from her. Her mama, though, she knew at Christmas and Mother's Day and her birthday, something was terribly wrong. But when she first contacted law enforcement, they told her, look, she's a grown woman. She's married.

If she wants to get goes, she can. There's nothing you can do about it. Okay, right there. She's a grown woman. Why is that, Dr. Bethany Marshall? Why so often cops say, oh, we can't do anything for 72 hours that's total bs she's probably gone with her boyfriend that's what they said about stacy peterson you know the fourth wife the one that drew peterson murdered and he's never been charged

that one well because they're procedural and they're not human. You know, this victim, she didn't have a cell phone. She didn't have a house phone. That doesn't mean she didn't love her mother or that her mother didn't love her, that she didn't have children, that she wasn't in a marriage. This is not just a skull and a garbage bag. This is a human being to whom someone had given birth. And I think when we humanize the search for people, then we look just a little bit harder. But that's what was so profound about Christmas and New Year's going by and the family not hearing from her, is that this is when she would come bring her beautiful children to be with the family. Otherwise, they were out of contact.

And we also have to think about the role that maybe socioeconomic status plays. Not everybody can afford a phone or a phone bill or a cell phone. That doesn't mean that they don't love and that they're not connected. And they don't show up to family holidays when they say they're going to. So then here's what happened. The skull was found in April. In June, four more trash bags were found with arms and legs in them. Okay, where? Where were they found in relation to the first one? About 500 yards from the skull. So it appeared to law enforcement that maybe a feral dog or a coyote had drugged the first bag out, that they were all together at one time. Wait a minute.

How much time passed before the others were found? From April to June. April, May, June. Wait, so you see a skull fall out of a bag and you wait three months? They didn't wait. To go search the area to find the rest of the body? Well, they didn't wait. They searched at the time, but they didn't find them until... Didn't you say it was 500 yards? It was. Well, what about a cadaver dog? All I can tell you is that's how long it took. You're just sorry.

I know. You're just sorry. Sorry. Good for nothing. So, Nancy, can I jump in? Who's jumping in? That's Karen. Yes.

So, we went to the scene to see. I'm sorry. I can't see anything because of Joe Scott's big head. Well. Jump in. We went to the scene. Cheryl and I, my Emmy Award winning partner. Emmy.

Emmy Award winning partner. And we wanted to see just what this crime scene looked like. So we went out there with a cadaver dog, with officials, with metal detectors to see what we could find if there was anything else because there still was no torso found and the family still believes which cheryl's going to get into in a minute that this was someone very close to her that was a part of this because she was said reported missing by mom not by husband and um can we say it was a very peculiar circumstance because when they talked to him he said he hadn't seen her you know and that was it Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Karen Greer, where were the children during all this? Babies. They were young. Who had them? Mom, her mom, his mom. Both were taking care of them. So it was a tough time for the whole family. Was he, the husband, taking care of the children?

I'm sure he was at some point. So no? Cheryl? He was not taking care of the children. He had actually signed over his rights to his mama. Okay, let me let that sink in for a moment. How many children were there? Two beautiful children.

Were they twins? No. The oldest is, how old now, Cheryl? In her early 20s? Yes. But at that time, they were little. They were very little. And he gave them to his or her mother?

His. Signed them over officially? Yes, and then the two families really kind of struggled because her parents wanted custody as well. And then she was just gone? She was gone. Okay, so you find out about the skull, you and Cheryl go to the location with cadaver dogs, with metal detectors, and what, if anything, did you find? We could really see where they were up in the bush area that's now totally covered, but we could see where something would be up there and be hard for police and investigators to find it. So it really took something pulling them out. We also didn't mention yet that...

You mean you had to go up there and look? Had to go up in between some very, yes, very deep bush. Well, you know, people are climbing mountains now. They're going to space. They're rappelling up. Have you ever seen Tom Cruise rappelling up something? Oh, yeah. And you're saying the cops had to just go up there and look.

Oh, okay. So did they go look? They did go look and still didn't find any new pieces. But we also need to mention the husband's business where he worked was right across the street, down the street from where this body was. Cheryl, why didn't you tell us that? I was building up to it. I until karen greer just like put it all out there she did she just put it right out there thanks karen but y'all when she says it's down the street the skull from the front door of his business is for me to about that gentleman in that hat. It's right there.

Right there. So many victims of crimes who are killed are found within two-thirds of a mile from the family home. I think Casey Anthony or Kaylee Anthony. This woman is across the street from her husband's business. I mean, when we think of intimate homicide, they keep their intimates close at hand. They don't dump them miles and miles and miles away. They're always close by. And Nancy, can we add that her body parts were sawed off with a saw that's used in that business where he worked, that type of saw.

What business is that? It was a glass. Action glass. It's a glass. So to you, Joe Scott Morgan, Karen Greer is telling me that they could tell her body parts had been sawed, her limbs had been sawed. How do you know that when you find a torso is skeletonized, how can you tell what the tool markings that a saw was used versus a knife?

Yeah. As a matter of fact, every single saw that's out there leaves a particular forensic signature behind. So if you ever look at, say, for instance, this is kind of graphic, but think about a spiral cut ham. You look at the bone on the spiral cut ham. It's got these little swish marks on it, on the long axis of the bone. And it looks in waves. This fellow had been fired from his job for stealing a saw at one point in time.

A sawzall, if you guys are familiar with these, a reciprocating saw. That signature is completely different than, say, a circular saw or even a hand saw. Even the teeth themselves can be specifically tied back from the marks on the bone to a particular saw. The trick is, if you're an investigator, can you put your hands on that saw to compare the bone sample that you have? And I can tell you this, at autopsy, they would have taken the bone that actually made contact or that the saw made contact, and still probably to this day, they have that bone in evidence. So if they ever recover the saw, they can actually do a tool mark comparison. I want to tell you about a moment in this case. The family got so worried about Melissa that they drove from their home in Locust Grove, which I'd say is about an hour and a half away, to her place in Atlanta to try

to find her. Because remember, the husband didn't know where she was. The children were being taken care of by the grandparents. And like, where did she leave town? Has she moved to California? Where is she? They go to her place to get answers. And when they get there, her whole place is cleaned out.

None of her stuff is left. Let's talk about that. What that means. What about it, Wendy? That means somebody wanted to start an entire new life, new chapter where there wouldn't be any questions asked. You know, what we're laying out here is the circumstantial evidence case,

which under the law is just as good as direct evidence. Somebody saw the murder occur. This kind of unlikely scenario that makes no sense, given what the family relayed, given this loving mother of two little children, is something that obviously investigators took note of because it just doesn't add up. Do you guys ever get tired or weary? Not tired as in fed up, but weary of hearing missing mom of two

missing mom beautiful young wife it just happens over and over and over again seemingly we can't make it stop I mean Karen Greer you're the Emmy award winning reporter don't you ever just like, I can use my script from last week. Because the same thing's happening again. Women are being... It's like a genocide. My same script from the day before. It's just that comment.

And it is frustrating. It is annoying. Because so often, you know, we know law enforcement's busy. We know they have a lot going on. That's why you all are so important. That's why it's great that Nancy is here to keep these cases, these stories out in the public, because that's the only way. We can't keep telling them day after day because we're on to the next one as a news person. And you have to go to the next one to help that family. You know what this reminds me of?

Gabby Petito. Because if that wasn't it, red, white, and methane or something like that. Just a regular person, a couple, were out camping in that dispersed camping area. And they saw what they believed to be Gabby Petito's van. You remember she was a vlogger, video blogger, and they took a picture and sent it in. And then not long after that, her body was found very close to the van. It would never have been found. And I'm not knocking the cops. They can't go traverse the entire Tetons.

But with people like you helping, like all of us, we can make a difference. You know, I was just thinking, Cheryl LaPointe is too polite. I want you to jump in. What popped in your head when you heard that she had been dismembered with a particular kind of saw as far as genetic genealogy goes? So, Nancy, what pops in my head when I think of those body parts at that time, what DNA was taken or what exactly was done with that evidence? What is it that we can use now to help solve that case? You know, at that time, like you said, her apartment was cleared out. But even though it was cleared out, I'm going to tell you there was some trace DNA evidence in there, but was anything done at that time to restore,

to store that information so we can use it now? If not, you have to move on to other sources of DNA. Well, you brought up an important point, and Cheryl, you both can get in on this. Her DNA was not brought into this case you're right until her father was arrested and Cheryl can talk about that so Melissa's father was arrested for murder back in 1977 he committed a murder but was not arrested until the late 1990s for that murder. The detective that arrested him for that cold case, he asked him,

would you please find out what happened to my daughter? So that detective was instrumental in going to Atlanta and saying, hey, you've got a unidentified skull here that you've identified as a male. We need to get some dental records and cross-check that with Melissa Wolfenberger because the addresses of his place of business and her home are within a mile. And that's what happened. And that's when Melissa was identified, but not until 2003. Oh, my stars. All this time, the children growing up without their mother, and nobody could add two and two and get four.

And had it not been for her father doing that, she may never have been identified. And Nancy, I'd love to say something about the husband, about Melissa's husband. It's interesting when they questioned him about this, he said, well, you know, Melissa and I were just, we were living the dream. We wanted to go to California. And when she went missing, I just assumed she went to California without me. Another statement he made was, well, I don't think I had any motivation to kill her. It's not like there was a life insurance policy. So it's like this guy had been sort of

watching true crime stories somehow. But I think what's interesting is these women, these young mothers, when they go missing, they're trapped in marriages often with perpetrators who don't know the concept of having a conversation. Or if you and I don't get along, maybe we can part ways. Maybe we can divorce or separate. Maybe we can raise the children together. They don't think like that. It's just like you have to be gone from the face of the planet.

That's how these men think. I got to jump in here, too. First of all, I wish this was our jury right here. Y'all's faces were priceless. But again, every single time you hear a man say, well, she just left. She just left me and the kids. Let me tell every man in this room something. We will leave y'all quick and in a hurry. But we are not going to leave our babies. We're not going to do it. So when that is your alibi that we just got ghost and gone, it's a red flag to us.

That's a lie every time. One thing that I noticed at the beginning, and I've noticed in several cases like the Suzanne Morphew case, the husband did not call 911 and report her missing. Doesn't that bother anybody? I mean, I remember one night, my husband travels a lot for work. And the thing is, if he calls when I'm with the children, I'm not picking the phone up. I mean, I keep it on mute all the time. But just text me.

Let me know you're there, that you're okay, that you're going to supper, that you get back to your hotel room, and you're safe. Just text me. He didn't text. Honey, I had D, my assistant. I forgot who else. We were up until 4 in the morning trying to find David. Finally, he wasn't in a hospital.

He wasn't in an emergency room. I finally found him at a hotel. I called the front desk, 4 a.m. I'm like, I've been up all night looking for my husband to make sure he made it there. Because I was having all these visions. Like, you can't do these cases all day long. And I think it's going to happen. He went, oh, that's against our policy.

We're not going to knock on the door. I said, son, I'm going to sue you off if you do not go check on him. And for all I know, he's in there having a heart attack right now. I said, if he's with another woman, just go, shh. All I want to know is he's alive. I'll deal with the other woman when I get a hold of her, okay? He went, I said, I will sue you. I will sue you.

And I could hear him go, okay. And he walked. He went, he knocked on the door. I was listening. And David came to the door. I said, that's all I want to know. Tell him I'll chew him out in the morning. And the next morning I'm like, what happened? I was up till four o'clock. I got to get up and go to work. He goes, you know, I was so tired. I had the TV on. I just laid down in the bed with the TV. I fell asleep. I slept in my clothes. I was so tired. I had the TV on. I just laid down in the bed with the TV. I fell asleep. I slept in my clothes. I was so tired because he had gotten up at four that morning. I'm like, okay, you're forgiven. Anyway, so you don't think I'm not going to call 911 when he doesn't come home even one night? No, he did not call 911. Did he call 911, Karen? No, he did not.

And all that time passed and it was the mother, right? Her mother that called. Her mama was desperate. She called her own local Henry County Police Department. She called the Atlanta Police Department. Everybody kept telling her the same thing. She's grown. She can run away if she wants to. There's nothing we can do about it. It's grown. She can run away if she wants to. There's nothing we can do about it. It's not our jurisdiction. We don't even know where she left from. She fought and fought.

So it wasn't until her father got a hold of the detective that arrested him that this case took a turn. And I got to tell y'all, I've been in communication with her father, and he called me from prison the day before I left for CrimeCon and told me to tell Nancy Grace how much this means to him, and this is what he said. He said, Cheryl, I've done some bad things in my life. He sure has. He said he deserves to be where he's at. He said, but it was not until Melissa was murdered that he realized

what he did to another family. That's absolutely right. And it's tough. And you look at Nancy, just how this whole case has gone. And the fact that we wouldn't have known anything, this was around the holidays. So mother's instinct kicked in and the mom was concerned because all she wanted was a picture of her family for Christmas. And they went, found the picture, and then she didn't show up for the holidays. And you know that mother knew that her son-in-law was not bonded with her little girl or her little girl's babies. And we know that two-thirds of all women who are victims of homicide are killed by intimate partners. And so when a woman goes missing, you don't have to cast a really wide net.

You start with the people closest to the victim. But that's not where they look. You know, one thing about this guys he also he did tell one truth he said well she was trying to make extra money I'm like why? Because you're sitting at home on the sofa eating chips and she's supporting you

but he said this young mom would take double and triple shifts at the Waffle House to support those children. And this is the woman that's going to leave her babies and go to California? Didn't he say he thought she made a fake ID?

I mean, that'd be like my husband going, oh yeah, Nancy was into making fake IDs. What? Some women do abandon their children. Some women are not bonded with their children, shockingly so. But they do not take extra shifts at the Waffle House to support their children. They go find a sugar daddy to take care of them and then they take off. That was not the case here.

Remember also that she was described by her family as trusting naive, which makes her vulnerable to somebody that wants to take advantage of her and also makes it even more unlikely that she's going to be working double time to prepare for her family and then also leave without a trace right around the same time that the husband decides to move, making it very unlikely that this walking away story holds any water. Well, that's the reason it sounds so ridiculous. If she was actually a missing person, is that when you move in case she shows up, you ain't there? You know, she's not coming through the door.

Like the minute Lacey went missing, Scott Peterson tried to sell her car, tried to sell the house, and got the porn channel. You know what would happen if I came in and caught David Lynch on a porn channel? Let me just say, fur would fly. Nancy, relative to the dismemberment of this body, I think that you can learn a lot about the person that actually did this. Relative to, it's one thing and I worked a lot of homicides over the course of my career. It's one thing for someone to just simply shoot somebody, stab someone,

beat them up, beat them to death, bludgeon them to death. But when you go beyond that point in time, that marker where you have killed someone, and again this is non-specific homicidal trauma at this point. When you kind of go over that bridge to get to the point where you're going to take a saw and take a body apart, you're going to take the limbs apart and take the head

off. And again, to this day, they still have not yet found the torso. Here's something important to consider. The person that did this would have had to have had access to electricity. They would have had to have had a secured area that was away from everywhere else because they're going to have... This is not something that's just going to simply take a very short period of time to do. And one of the things we look for with dismemberment, did they bring other tools? Because saws don't work really good on flesh. You have to cut through the flesh to get to the bone in order to do this. And if you remember what Robert Durst said when he was given the interview in New Orleans, where he said, I talked to a surgeon, and he said, well, how do you take a body apart?

I was shocked when I heard this guy say this. You go to the joint and you take it apart. It goes to the level of skill that this person has. Do they have anatomical knowledge? Do they understand how easy it is to separate a body at the joints as opposed to going across the long, the shaft of the bone?

That takes a protracted period of time. And what happened to the torso? That's the biggest part of the body. Why is the torso never showing up? Is there evidence of the cause of death contained in that torso? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Karen, has this case gone cold? It has and it hasn't because of you and because of Cheryl Mack McCollum.

Different organizations have picked it up and now realize the importance of trying to get to the bottom of it. And they found that the husband had an extensive criminal background, a family of violence. So they've interviewed him several times, talked to him, and have not had enough, they say, to charge him. So bottom line, this young mom working double shifts at the Waffle House goes missing. Nobody knows she's dead until her skull literally rolls out of a bag and a complete stranger finds it. I mean, another thing I don't understand, Cheryl LaPointe, genetic genealogist, the gene hunter, is why would they classify her, based on her skull, a male, when an anthropologist can take one look at it and tell

you that's not a male? And why wouldn't they do DNA? There was hair on her skull. To figure out if it was at least a man or a woman, they didn't do much. And it's not what I wanted to say, but I gave up cursing. Nancy, I have those same questions. I don't know what was done at the time of the investigation, but you have a situation where, you know, at first they weren't serious about even looking for her. They find a body. They don't know how to identify the body. I don't really know. I do know that where are those trash bags? Where are those body parts? The trash bags, you're right, Cheryl, a point.

That's the way. People think they're doing such a great job when they put bodies in trash bags. Trash bags are awesome conduits for fingerprints. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, we share about 400,000 epithelial cells a day. And somebody

tied those trash bags. Somebody put those body parts in those trash bags. Where are the trash bags? I don't know. Where are they? The trash bags. Where are the trash bags? I don't know. Where are they? The trash bags were lost. But, but, but, but, but, but. But for a period of time.

But then when Karen Greer did a story, it kind of busted this thing wide open, and we got a hold of a prosecutor, Adrienne Love, who is brilliant and dedicated with the Fulton County DA's office. And she said, I am going to find those bags. And honey, she found them bags. And Cheryl, she came out there with us in her sneakers and her skirt in the hot sun of Georgia,

walking that crime scene, looking at everything that was out there. And let me tell you, she got mad. And that was a good thing. Because when she stood near the sewer grade where the skull was found, and she looked where the door of the office was, she was like, are you freaking kidding me? So she went to work. And I'm going to tell you, when we were first talking about Carl Patton calling me on the phone, I saw the lady right there. She was like, she talked to an inmate on the phone? Let me tell you, I was fortunate enough to have Nancy Grace as my prosecutor way back in the day when I was 20-something. And Nancy told me a long time ago, swans don't swim in the sewer.

So you've got to go where the people are that have the information. I don't care if he's an inmate or if he's a preacher. If he knows something, let's go to work. Whenever I would get stumped in a case, I'd say to my investigator, Ernest, let's go to the jail. Let's see what we can find at the jail. Maybe somebody knows somebody that saw something because this guy is not hanging out with nuns and priests and virgins. Okay. He's hanging out with other people just like him. All right. I mean, who do you hang out with? People kind of

like you that like to do what you like to do I like to talk to these people even when I'm not at work because we like to talk about the same things who's he hanging out with people in the jail go to the jail but what is so amazing to me what I don't understand the bags were lost and then they were found they have found them where were they they were in the evidence room but they were just you know in a bad place they weren't where they were found. They have found them. Where were they? They were in the evidence room, but they were just in a bad place. They weren't where they were supposed to be with the other, you know, pieces of evidence. But it's been found. You're giving me actual chest pain.

Okay, but let me tell you the great news. Right here. It's right here. Give me the baby aspirin. Wait a minute. I got to tell one story. Do you remember Henry Hamilton, may he rot in hell? Yes.

Okay. Henry Hamilton and his POS, technical legal term, co-defendant, killed the son of an APD. And it happened when I was in law school. But when I got to the DA's office, the DA called me on the overhead. Nancy, come to my office. I'm like, I had an office by the stairwell, and I wouldn't give it up. It was about this big because I wanted to be by the stairwell because I could run up and down the stairs faster than going to the elevator.

I ran down there. I'm like, what? He said, I need you to retry this case. I'm like, one of my cases was reversed. He went, no, this is from 19-whatever. I'm like, okay. I went in the evidence room. I had two pieces of evidence left on a murder case.

One was an x-ray. I didn't know what it was. The other one was a hat that said, kiss my bass. I'm like, what is this how am i going to prove a 20 year old murder case with a kiss my bass hat anyway it it related back to an atm where the victim's atm was taken and the perp had on a kiss my bass hat. Anyway, it got tried. I retried it and got a conviction, but don't blame. I know it is their fault, but don't be too hard on the cops or the DAs. They had moved the evidence room before I got there and everything was relocated and lost. I'm just happy she found it.

Well, have they tested it for epithelial skin cells? What we talked about is exactly what you just said. The money tree is the knots. Whoever tied those knots, hopefully, prayerfully, one bag protected another bag, and we're going to be able to hopefully, prayerfully, get DNA from those knots. What's happening? They're at

the lab right now. Right now. Just before we got here. Can you believe that this whole case might boil down to a knot on a trash bag? I hope it does. Oh, I'd love to try that. Amen. A knot on a trash bag? I hope it does. Oh, I'd love to try that.

Amen. Oh, yeah. Knot on a trash bag. Oh, yeah. And it's going to be a direct result of the people sitting at this table and her family fighting. Now, Nancy, could we say when this happened 23 years ago, her DNA was not immediately taken.

So you talk about those trash bags, there's probably other evidence that was lost. I love the Georgia Crime Lab. That's where it is, right? Do they still have the body parts? Okay. What about fingernails?

If I'm going to get attacked, I'm going to claw your eyeballs out. Thank you, Shira. She's so about fingernails if i'm gonna get attacked i'm gonna claw your eyeballs out thank you shara yeah she's so sweet and smart and then she jumps up and says there's dna under fingernails when this happens to people but then we showcase anybody got a question wait come up here please do not make me move again. I want to know, isn't that kind of the first go-to to check underneath the fingernails, like in cases like this? Did she even have fingernails by the time they found her? But back in those days, they didn't have the technology to do what they can do now.

It's amazing what can be done now with degraded DNA. These labs are wonderful. I think Jackie's trying to say five minutes left. You know, you could just do that. You don't have to hide it. Yeah. Okay, nobody can, yeah, thanks Karen Greer. Forget it, Karen Gre greer you're awful both of them both might just do it i feel like barbara streisand with this thing could scream louder than this you said that the head was found 500 feet from the body

the body parts right you said the head was found in in April and the rest of the body was found in June. Is it possible he was putting out the parts of the body to throw off the cops? No. That's a great question, but no. We know from the, you know, weather of the bags and where they were eventually found, we know just one was moved from, again,

a feral dog or a coyote. Yeah, you can tell if it's been moved. Okay, question? I have a question. Was there ever any other motive? You mentioned something about life insurance. Was that proven to be a motive or he had another girlfriend? She worked a double shift at the Waffle House.

I bet you anything there was not a life insurance policy. Yeah, what he was saying to police is... I can tell you something about a motivation. I wouldn't have killed her. It's not like she was worth any money. There was no life insurance. Oh, man. And you know what? Just imagine your spouse being missing. Would you be thinking, well, I didn't have life insurance. Why would you even say that? Usually the motivation in domestic homicide is that the woman is gaining independence and the man can't tolerate it and wants control over her. Or conversely, he wants to start a new life without her.

So I was very curious about, did he have other girlfriends lined up? Did he have a pornography addiction? Karen Greer, did he have a girlfriend? Did Karen? I don't know what that is back there. No, I don't believe he had any other girlfriends. But when he did abscond, he moved in with a woman in a really small town that already had a house and a phone and a car so that he could have it set up where nothing was in his name. And he was living under a non-diploma, an AKA.

Sound like a winner. Let me remind everybody, this guy has not been charged with a crime. He has not been named a suspect, and we are not naming him as a suspect. We are simply going through the evidence, aren't we? Does everybody agree he's not a suspect? Absolutely. Oh, last question. Okay, what's going to be the question?

Go ahead, dear. I just have one question, and if you could say her name again, because I didn't catch it at the beginning, and I would like to help with one of these programs that's trying to develop the evidence and Melissa Wolfenberger Barger Melissa Wolfen Barger and thank you so much it's generous guys just like in Gabby Petito that would never have been solved without people, citizens trying. I really want to solve this case, not just for her mom, but for her children.

To know that somebody cared, that somebody stood up and tried to do this for their mom. Thank you, everybody. This is an iHeart podcast.