This week, the daughter of murdered Georgia woman Melissa Wolfenbarger testified in the murder trial of her father, revealing unsettling comments he made during conversations about true crime.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, Christopher Wolfenberger is on trial in Atlanta. He stands accused of murdering his wife, Melissa.

Back in 1999, authorities discovered a decapitated head, drenched in bleach and discarded in a black trash bag, near Avon Avenue in Atlanta. This location was behind a glass company where Christopher Wolfenbarger had once been employed.

Christopher reported his wife as missing in 2000, asserting she had left on her own accord and never came back. He was formally charged in 2024.

At the time of her disappearance, Melissa was married to the defendant and had two children.

Christina Garrett, Melissa’s eldest daughter now 30, revealed she had no recollection of her mother and was raised believing her paternal grandparents, who took care of her, were her real parents.

When she found photos of her mother and started asking questions, she was met with reluctance from paternal family members, according to testimony.

Garrett said she was discouraged from asking questions because of the case surrounding her maternal grandfather, Carl Patton.

Carl Patton, infamously labeled the “Flint River Killer,” was incarcerated for multiple murders committed in the 1970s following his arrest in 2003.

“We were told they were bad people, and we didn’t want to talk to them,” she said.

Garrett disclosed that during Melissa’s funeral in 2003, she recognized Melissa’s mother, Norma Patton, who had sporadically visited her over the years, standing outside and inquiring about her missing daughter’s whereabouts.

“That was essentially when we pieced together that the woman from the front yard was our grandmother, and the woman she had been talking to [about] was our mom,” Garrett testified.

Garrett reached out to her mother’s family and, by 2013, stopped speaking to her father. She began searching online for information regarding her mother, and has since lost contact with the defendant’s side of the family.

Garrett said she never really had much of a relationship with Christopher Wolfenbarger, who told her that her mother “ran off” to California.

When she became interested in true crime, however, she began watching shows and discussing the cases with her father.

In one instance, Christopher Wolfenbarger allegedly said that a killer should have hidden a body under a house, recalling a true crime case they had been discussing.

“It was a murder case and the person had been free several times,” Garrett testified. “Like it was a very old murder case that he had been found on.”

“Chris said that wasn’t the way he should have hit the body to begin with: ‘If you go out there when they’re about to build a new house and put it under where the foundation of the house is gonna go. And so when the crew comes back to lay the foundation the next morning, they’re just gonna continue building the house.’”

Garrett said the information caught her off guard. She said she confronted Christopher Wolfenbarger and said, “it sounds like you’re talking about my mom.”

“That’s when he told me he didn’t know where my mom was. He didn’t know if she was in Heaven, hell, Stockbridge, but he wished that he did.”

She also recalled how the defendant claimed he could “get away” “if they come looking” for him.

Check back for updates.

[Feature Photo: Family Handout]