¶ Welcome! Nancy and Sheryl introduce this week's crime roundup
Welcome to the crime round up.
Y'all.
We got an update for you today. Nat Sick, good morning, Good morning.
I take you as somebody stayed up late last night celebrating. Because either you said that late celebrating or there is a frog living.
In your throat. I might have been up a little
¶ Today's CRU is the latest updates on The Melissa Wolfenbarger case
late being grateful.
Now, wait a minute, aren't you in Vegas.
I am in Sholo, Arizona.
It's that near Vegas.
It's about six hours. I think.
Oh, okay, well, I know you aren't playing the crap tables last night. Can we talk about something other than you and the crap tables.
When we were in our twenties, Mary Max, to me, was always a place that we would save for, like celebrating something, acknowledging something. So I'm saying, once I get back home and what you're free, we need to celebrate something.
It marry Matt and I already know what I'm gonna get. I'm getting a vegetable plate, vegetable plight with the double collars of corn bread, a squashed passwall, and some surprise I don't know what it means. Maybe broccoli, I'm not sure. Cheese, grits, yes, that yes, amazing we're talking, of course, about Melissa Wilson Berger. You start because I am overwhelmed. You know, sometimes, Cheryl and our line of work, we're used to getting knocked
down open and over and over. We're used to things not going our way in court, We're used to sing injustice. But when it happens, it's all worth it. It makes all the years of working this case worth it. And you have worked this case.
Honey. We have this case. And I'll tell you, anybody
¶ Reflection on the discovery and initial reactions
that got to listen to crime Stories with Natcy Grace yesterday heard it in Joe Scott Morgan's voice. We have
¶ "We have worked this case for seven years, but the family has lived with it for 25."
worked this case for seven years, but the family has lived with it for twenty five. That's just an amazing number. But this all started November of nineteen ninety eight. That's the last time Melissa spoke to her mama. And then nothing, not a word, not a letter, Nobody saw her, nobody heard from her. And we took this case on. And I remember the first time you and I talked about it. We didn't have DNA, we didn't have an eyewitness, we
didn't have any new evidence come forward. But honey, we worked it.
You know, when I first started churing cases, Cheryl, there was no such thing. Yeah, well, we didn't know how
¶ Misidentification of remains
to use it for insticcely, of course it existed, DNA, dioxy ribonicolinic acid. When I would have to try a rape case, the best I had I could have. Well, we can tell the journey that the rapist had Type A blood and the defendant has Type A blood. Or we can say this pubic care came from a redheaded white male and the defendant is a redheaded white male. That could be anybody. Right then the advent of DNA, but this case, at the time that Melissa Wolf and
Barker went missing, no DNA nothing. And now, of course the way that her skull, oh please don't even say skull what I look back and realized, and that her skull was miss identified as a white male. Yes, for all that time. Yes, it just it just actually makes my stomach hurt thinking about when I talked to the
mother and the sister yesterday, the pain. They held it together really well for a long time, and then at the end of our program Crime Stories, it just they couldn't take it anymore when they were describing when they were told that the remains were Melissa, just that pain is right there at the surface. And you know, you and I have discussed this many times in private, but when I hear other crime victims talking that way, it made my chest hurt because always just below the surface
for crime victims, that pain, it's right there. And the day before had been the day that my fiance had been murdered many years before. You know, I sold her do day, you know, focusing on work, focusing on the twins, focusing on anything but that. But when I heard Melissa's mother and sister break down in tears, I felt like it was me breaking down in tears. I mean, just that pain never goes away, much less for your child. That was her child, and I felt so bad for her. Well,
you know, your life with Keith is always there. Her life with Melissa is always there. But that ended that
¶ Melissa's husband in custody
somebody took them, that somebody did something so horrible for them.
Yesterday. Here's what I watched. The entire time I've known them, they've been fighting. Once that fight ended, they had a release yesterday of all those emotions. They were able to give up that fight and now turn it into We're going to see this through. We know who, we know how, we know when and now they've got to pay for what they did.
The bombshell is he's in custody. A man has finally been arrested, twenty five years after Melissa's body's found dismembered, dismembered in trash back. And you know another thing, while I'm talking about it's one thing to see a skeletonized skull. Okay, when I say skeletonized, I mean devoid of any hair, soft tissue, skin, eyes, lips, anything. It's just a bone, dry skull. I still don't understand because anthropologists can look at various body parts. I'm talking about bones and tell.
And it's a man or woman that said I want to have today as a good day, a rejoicing day, because somebody's finally behind bars. It poc technical legal time, but I mean I can't help. But look, I mean you used to tell me this after trials. Well, I should have done this, I should have done the ego. Shut up, you won, Okay, quit looking at what you could have done a little bit better. Blah blah blah. But for me, it's all part of the post mortem. And I'll not casting blame. I'm all about how can
we avoid this happening? Next time, I.
Think what we've got, We've got a day, like you said, to celebrate, and I think that's exactly what we should do.
Cheryl, Cheryl, Shall you know I don't celebrate. I basically breathe easier for that day. I exhel because when I would leave court with a guilty verdict, I thought, before I started trying taxes, it's going to be like on TV or movies, Well, party, but it's not like that. I've never had a single case or I felt like party and I've got David shut up there. I told him I was just getting that out of the way.
Did we ever party? One time? After a trial? Was more like, oh great, gone in heaven, that's over, did we David?
No? Just so you know, I don't tell him to shut up. If I did tell me shut up, you wouldn't shut up anyway. Thankfully for me, the Lord blessed me with a husband that does not talk a lot. Can you imagine coming home from work and having a gabby chatty husband.
It would be awful.
Oh that said, we have absolutely carried over before. Now come on, you.
Speak for yourself, woman, like we can afford champagne. I would get water every day for a lunch if we went anywhere Lombardey So that was a big deal to go to Lombardi's and have a Caesar salad at the Italian restaurant by the courthouse. I'm like, no, I do not want any ice ta that costs a dollar twenty five forget it.
Oh lord, But you know, I tell you what really got to me yesterday. As you know, I'm out of town and I couldn't go to the press conference. You were, of course busy taping crime stories, couldn't be there. But the fact that Tina would take the time during the press conference to name you and I publicly and thank us for what we had done on this case. I'm going to tell you something that got to me as much as anything yesterday.
I very rarely talk about any court win or nothing like that. You know, it's certainly not anything to brack about. But yesterday I will tell you. I told John David I won't guess what's son, and he knew about the case because he sard you and I are talking about it, and I can't believe that at his young age he got it. He went, Wow, Mom, I said, big deal. It's about to make me cry right now, I know, because that woman in so much pain, and you and I were just especially me, you did so much more
¶ Details of the misidentification
than me, just two little cogs in a big wheel of justice. And when I think about what they've been through all these years, all my stars, and they basically felt they knew who had murdered Melissa and dismembered her. And just and Cheryl, you tell it, you tell how her body not only dismembered, but the trash back in which her skull had been hidden rips open and it's out near a street that just is so.
It just desecrated her. He was thrown out like trash. We believe it was probably a dog or a coyote. Something drugged that bag out. It was ripping it apart. And there's literally a skull in the middle of the road and a ups driver finds it making deliveries, calls the police. It's miss identified as the Caucasian mail and Nancy.
¶ Family reaction to the arrest
They lose four years, four years, and then when the arms and legs they're located, they think they belonged to the same man and just keep it on his shelf. She stayed in the morgue for four years until finally somebody says, wait a minute. She lived right there on Brookline, her husband worked right there at action Glass. Her head
is found not thirty feet from the front door. Hit the dental records, and of course it's Melissa, and her mom is told on the front porch that that skull that you watched the news and you were so grateful. She was so grateful when it wasn't Melissa. And then she's told it was Melissa and.
She was beheaded. I've got to tell you something. You going to think, Okay, what does that have to do with this? Just wait for it. Last night at the supper table, I had once again cooked dinner, although it was crocked bite. I don't know why that's frowned up mine. It's my favorite Swiss chicken. Then I got from a court TV the God Rest Her Soul, Donna ka chirt.
You put boneless thighs on the bottom, covered them with Swiss cheese slices, put a concoction of various cream of chicken soups and in stovetop dressing and let it cook for seven hours. It's Lucy's favorite. We were having that. Lucy turned to me and went, Mom, are you really still going to drive us to school on Fridays when school starts. I'm like, yes, that's my only time to really be alone in the car. He she is, Mom, I'm going to be a junior. I don't want you
to drive me to school anymore. John David wisely, and you enough not to say anything. And I was looking at her because I sit between her and John David, I was looking at her. To me, I was looking at her. It's like a three or four year old little girl going Mommy, yeah, I want you to try me to to preschool. That's how I see her, right, it's my sweet little baby, not a teen girl. Actually that's her own mind. And I just am thinking about Melissa and how her mother sings her and being told
this is my lessa. How she broke down and basically fell down on the porch crying when she found out, Oh gosh, and you know.
What, her sister Tina got a phone call, go into the store, just having a great afternoon walking. That's how she finds out. You know, hucking Caroline. They're twenty one and twenty three. They get invested in these cases as well. They've been crime seen with me, they've met Melissa's mom and sister. So yesterday they felt the same way John David did.
They're proud of this.
They understand what it takes to get here, and you know, it's just wonderful to me to also share that with them. They know what we do for a living, they know how important what we do is, and they knew they had a hand in this as well.
The mother and the sister yesterday are still I can just see them vividly in my mind's eye right now. Yesterday I felt like they were in the round with me and they were describing, you know how they she was there at Thanksgiving and she asked for one Christmas present, one thing, a picture of her with her grandfather. That's all she wanted. And then she didn't show up one month later to get the gift. The mom had gotten it, had it framed, all wrap, and she didn't show up.
They knew right then, right then, I think they knew she was dead. I agree that would be impossible to accept that. And again they just prayed and surely she's going to show up.
Surely there's going to be a phone call, because there were times, you know, she didn't even have a call. So they didn't always, you know, get in contact with her regularly. But when her sister found out she hadn't showed up at work for a month.
¶ Reflection on the impact of advocacy
Hey, you know another thing that the sister Tina said, I got to say you, I don't think I've ever met any people's finer than these to Amna and his sister, and they're very plain spoken, very forced to right, kind of quiet spoken people. The sister Tina stated, hopefully we can finally get justice from Elissa. She did not deserve what she got and then she ended it by selling.
¶ Closing thoughts and celebration of the arrest
And I hope anybody who is in a domestic violence situation please get out, because that's what this was. I hate to say domestic violence because that makes it sound all warm and fuzzy like the Hallmark movies where you know, the Hallmark movies. I did for so long about Haley Dean, you do know that was going to be Lucy's name, Haley from after Holly's comment once in a lifetime, but then at the last moment, I named her after my
grandmother Lucy. But that said, you know, they always turn out great in the end and everybody's happy, and even though it's the murderer. Hello, but this is a domestic violence, as she said, situation. The person charged with murdering her, which the family felt all along was the killer, is Christopher Wolfen Barker. And there were times that she would the family would see her crying and with the black eye, and she had the children with him, so she didn't
want to break up the family. Oh, Cheryl, I've seen it so many times. It just breaks my heart.
And you know, I thought her taking the time again to advocate for other people in this situation. Here she's in the middle of hurting, but she's thinking of other people and trying to save other lives because her sister did not get out safely. And you can't do anything but just look at her. And again, for me, anytime that you would be able to be a little selfish, it would have been yesterday, and she was not that at all.
What a journey a rocky road, this family, this mother, this sister has traveled not just to rocky road, but a rocky road barefoot. And they have walked it and walked it and walked it. And I gotta say, Cheryl, I respect to you in so many ways, but in your way, you helped them carry that burden along around Rocky Road, and I'm just really proud that you let me be part of it.
I really appreciate you saying that. But I got to tell you two things. One, when I told the family that I was gonna call you, I didn't think the mother was going to survive that.
Nathan Grace, Nasan Grace. It's gonna get solved now. And I'm like this heaper. I mean, Nancy's okay, she's not all that. I'm just calling her because you know whatever.
But you know, you know, when you're in high school and you're a freshman and that senior just seems untouchable. They're so smart and they're so beautiful, they got everything together. That's how I always felt coming to you. I was always the freshman. You are always this just golden child. And every time I have ever called you on a case, you have helped. And people don't know that. People think you're on TV. They don't know you. And I still
go in the field. They don't know you, and I still work a crime scene with ground penetrating radar in the heat and bugs. They don't know that because you don't ever brag. So I'm gonna brag right now on you when I called you on this case. You didn't hesitate, and you knew we didn't have DNA or witnesses or new evidence. You knew the father's background. That didn't stop you either. You were like, okay, the sins of the father has nothing to do with Melissa, Amen and hallelujah.
And in our job, we don't get to pick who we help anyway. That now, when one call comes in and we go to work, well, I always told Jeris, who do you expect to be part of a case?
Nuns and priests and versins, because they're not okay, that's not new. I'm putting up as witnesses.
And you told me a long time ago swam don't swim in a sewer.
And you are absolutely right. I believe I said cesspool. But okay, go ahead and take literary license. Okay, So just for this one day, just today, and then we'll pick it up tomorrow about getting a conviction on this guy who has presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I always have to say that, of course I'm forced to. Just for this one day today, I'm just gonna be happy that a rest has been made. And then tomorrow we'll pick it up and go.
Amen.
Amen, Sister. All I have to say is shut up, David, just in case you're.
With Bye buddy, Bye buddy. Congratulations