Overview

• Jurors deliberated for about two hours before returning a not-guilty verdict on Friday.
• Melissa Wolfenbarger vanished in late 1998, and in 1999 her decapitated head and other remains were found in trash bags near her husband’s workplace, later identified as hers in 2003 through DNA testing.
• Atlanta police arrested Christopher Wolfenbarger in August 2024 after renewed interviews and newer forensic methods, and a Fulton County grand jury indicted him on murder and felony murder charges.
• During the trial, daughter Christina Garrett testified that as a teenager she heard her father describe how a killer could hide a body under a house foundation and recalled being told her mother had 'run off.'
• The proceedings were streamed live by Court TV and Atlanta News First, drawing wide public attention to the decades-old case.