After more than two decades of suspicion and legal battles, a Georgia man has been acquitted in the 1998 murder of his wife, bringing an unexpected end to a case that haunted investigators and family members for years.

On Friday, jurors in Fulton County found Christopher Wolfenbarger not guilty in the killing of his wife, Melissa Wolfenbarger, following only two hours of deliberation.

The 2024 trial was launched after a cold-case task force concluded it had enough evidence to finally convict him.

Melissa’s family last heard from her on Thanksgiving 1998, but their concern grew when she missed her mother’s birthday months later. In April 1999, investigators discovered a severed head inside a black trash bag at the back of Christopher Wolfenbarger’s Atlanta workplace. Additional remains surfaced a month later.

Initially, the remains were misidentified as those of a missing man. It wasn’t until 2003, after her father Carl Patton was arrested for a string of killings known as the Flint River Murders of the 1970s, that the victim’s remains were correctly identified. Patton is currently serving a life sentence.

Authorities believe Melissa’s death occurred sometime between December 10, 1998, and April 29, 1999. When questioned, Christopher Wolfenbarger insisted his wife had left for California to begin a new life. Throughout the years, he consistently proclaimed his innocence.

“Yeah, I have a criminal history. But I’m not a murderer,” he told Dateline in 2021.

Prosecutors argued otherwise, pointing to the couple’s troubled marriage. Melissa’s sister recalled that in the summer before her disappearance, Wolfenbarger had allegedly assaulted her and dragged her by the hair down a sidewalk.

Despite these claims, the jury’s verdict spared Wolfenbarger from a life sentence, allowing him to leave court as a free man after more than two decades under suspicion.