Jennifer Wilbanks | |
Hiding at Airport
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'It was mistake'
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Georgia Runaway Bride Hoax
Atlanta woman found alive, but fabricated
kidnapping before hoax was exposed
· Runaway Bride Starts Community Service. Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks mowed the lawn of a government building Tuesday as part of her court-ordered 120 hours of community service for lying to police after she ran off days before her scheduled wedding. Wilbanks seemed upbeat as she pushed a powered mower by a swarm of reporters and photograhphers. She wore an orange community service vest, a ballcap that said "Life is good," diamond earrings and running shoes. 
· 'Runaway bride' getting married? NBC-TV reports that an online wedding registry lists an August 12 wedding date for Gainesville native Jennifer Wilbanks - the so-called runaway bride - but, Wilbanks says the posting is a mistake. However, NBC reports that Wilbanks told the network she and John Mason still plan to get married.
· Runaway Bride, Hero Hostage to 'Tell-All.' One woman broke the law. The other helped catch a suspected killer. Both are selling their stories and could make millions in the process. Representatives of Ashley Smith - whose 911 call led police to courthouse shootings suspect Brian Nichols - and runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks made deals for their stories with publishing houses in the past week. The women likely received advances of about $500,000 for story rights that could turn into a windfall of millions of dollars should movies on their lives be made, entertainment experts said. The companies that acquired the rights have declined to release financial details of the deals. Smith and Wilbanks weren't the only ones striking high-profile deals.
· Runaway Bride Pleads No Contest to Felony. Escorted into court by her fiance, runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks tearfully pleaded no contest Thursday to faking her own abduction. She was sentenced to probation, community service and a fine. "I'm truly sorry for my actions and I just want to thank Gwinnett County and the city of Duluth," Wilbanks said in court. Judge Ronnie Batchelor sentenced her to two years of probation and 120 hours of community service as part of a plea bargain. He also ordered her to continue mental health treatment and pay the sheriff's office $2,550.
· Runaway bride agrees to pay $13,250 for search costs. Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks has agreed to pay $13,250 to the city of Duluth, Georgia, to help pay for the costs the city incurred searching for her, the mayor said Tuesday.
· 'Runaway bride' charged with making false statement. Jennifer Wilbanks, the Georgia woman who fled the state and faked her own kidnapping and sexual assault before her wedding, was indicted Wednesday by a grand jury, the Gwinnett County district attorney said. Wilbanks, 32, is charged with one count of making false statements, a felony punishable by five years in prison, and one count of making a false report of a crime, a misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail, District Attorney Danny Porter said.
· Jilting Jenny drawn to an old flame. Jennifer Wilbanks wasn't just running away from her wedding, she was running toward something — an old paramour with whom she had a steamy sexual relationship. The bolting bride set her sights on New Mexico sometime during her three-day cross-country sprint from the altar because it's the home of a short-lived fling, according to the Post.
· Runaway bride story spawns products. "Jennifer's High Tailin' Hot Sauce," a nod to the saga of Atlanta runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks, has sold briskly since its debut Wednesday. "I'm in the hot sauce business and this is the hottest thing I've got right now," said "Pappy" David Ryan, who runs Pappy's Peppers in Lawrenceville, Georgia. The label for the habanero hot sauce shows a fast-moving bride grabbing her veil. On the back is a warning: "This sauce may cause you to seek intense professional help ... voluntarily."
· Wilbanks told cops of forced sex with rotten-toothed Hispanic man. Before admitting that she simply fled west to avoid her super-sized Georgia wedding, Jennifer Wilbanks gave cops a graphic account of her purported sexual abuse at the hands of her abductors, a Hispanic man with rotten teeth and his heavy-set blonde girlfriend.
· Police Update: Runaway Bride Described Abduction. Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks' fake story of abduction and sexual assault in a van headed from Georgia to New Mexico contained precise and graphic details of the alleged crime, according to police documents released Wednesday.
According to a police summary of the April 30 interview with Wilbanks, she claimed she was abducted April 26 "by two individuals, a 'Hispanic male' and a 'white female,' and thrown in the back of a van. Her hands were then tied with a rope, she said.
· Bride checks into a clinic for altar ego. Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks has checked herself into an inpatient medical treatment program to deal with "physical and mental issues" that drove her to skip town just days before her wedding, a spokesman for her family's church said yesterday.
"Ms. Wilbanks entered a highly regarded, inpatient treatment program on her own volition to address physical and mental issues which, she believes, played a major role in her 'running from herself' as she described in a public statement last week," Smith said. Prosecutors are still considering whether to press charges against Wilbanks for making false statements to authorities.
· Did the 'runaway bride' have a Julia Roberts obsession? From cutting her hair - to going to Las Vegas, one emailer to the City of Duluth thinks Jennifer Wilbanks was watching too many Julia Roberts movies.
· Georgia city deluged with advice on handling runaway bride. What to do with the so-called Runaway Bride? Well, the city fathers and police from Duluth, Georgia - home to troubled Jennifer Wilbanks - have been deluged with suggestions from the public about how to punish the wide-eyed woman who fled town days before her 600-guest nuptials.
· Runaway Bride Arrested 3 Times For Shoplifting In 90'S. The Gainesville lawyer hired to represent runaway bride-to-be Jennifer Wilbanks once prosecuted Wilbanks for felony shoplifting, court records seen by the Atlanta Journal Constitution show.
Lydia Sartain was Hall County district attorney in 1996 when Wilbanks was arrested for allegedly stealing $1,740 in merchandise from a Gainesville mall. AJC.com reports that Sartain dropped the felony charge after Wilbanks completed a pretrial diversion program that included 75 hours of community service.
The newspaper said Wilbanks was arrested two other times for shoplifting - once before the felony arrest and once in 1998. She pleaded guilty to stealing $98 worth of merchandise in the 1998 incident and spent two weekends in jail.
· Jennifer's a 2-time 'matri-phony.' Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks cruelly ditched another fiancé over the phone eight years ago — after the pair had already picked out an engagement ring and went house-hunting, the man's wife has revealed to The Post.
· Wilbanks: 'I was ... running away from myself.' Jennifer Wilbanks, the so-called runaway bride who went missing for days in advance of her wedding, issued a public apology through her family's pastor and said that she is getting professional help.
· Attorney: Runaway bride to 'make amends' for search. Jennifer Wilbanks, the so-called runaway bride who went missing for days in advance of her wedding, will "make amends" for money and time spent on the extensive search for her, her attorney said Thursday.
In an interview on CNN's "American Morning," attorney Lydia Sartain painted a sympathetic portrait of her client as a woman who - overwhelmed by pressures stemming from her upcoming nuptials - bought a bus ticket "sort of as a safety precaution."
· Lawyer: Runaway Bride 'Had to Take Action.' Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks is "fragile ... emotional ... [and] upset" after running out on her wedding and sparking a massive search amid fears that she had been kidnapped or harmed, her new lawyer said yesterday.
"She had been under a tremendous amount of stress.... She had to take action, just get away and get out from under the pressure," said Lydia J. Sartain, a former district attorney in Georgia.
· Runaway bride 'deeply regretful,' attorney says. So-called runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks is "deeply regretful about the pain she caused," and she hopes her experience will "perhaps help others in similar circumstances," her attorney said in a statement Wednesday.
"Jennifer asked that I convey her appreciation of the many prayers and statements of support she has received from countless individuals," Sartain said in the statement. "She is deeply regretful about the pain she caused her family, her fiance, her friends and the community who rallied to her aid."
· Hispanic Group Angry With Wilbanks. The list of people who are angry at the runaway bride is growing. A group called Hispanics Across America is demanding a public apology from Jennifer Wilbanks for telling police she had been abducted by a Hispanic man.
» Jilted groom's father urges caution on marriage. The man whose bride-to-be skipped town days before a lavish wedding and claimed she had been abducted says he still wants to marry her, but his father said Tuesday he's cautioning his son to go slowly. Mason's father, Claude Mason, said Tuesday in a television interview that he has told his son: "Take it slow and if this is what you still want, we're behind you."
· Runaway bride's story perplexes authorities. 'She didn't feel like she really had done anything wrong.' Authorities say runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks cried when she met with them and recounted how she cut her hair to disguise her appearance and caught a bus heading West to escape her wedding. She did not, however, offer an outright apology, said Carter Brank, an assistant special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
· Jennifer Wilbanks & John Mason Wedding Invitation. We were wondering how long it would take for somebody to put the runaway bride's wedding invitation on eBay. It didn't take long.
· Groom Gives Ring Back to Runaway Bride. When runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks made her way home after running away last week, John Mason was waiting to give something to his fiancée. "The first thing I gave to her when I saw her was her diamond back. ... She put it right on her finger," Mason told Sean Hannity.
· Groom Still Wants to Marry Runaway Bride. The jilted groom whose bride-to-be ran away from their wedding still wants to marry Jennifer Wilbanks, saying, "Haven't we all made mistakes?" "Just because we haven't walked down the aisle, just because we haven't stood in front of 500 people and said our 'I Do's, my commitment before God to her was the day I bought that ring and put it on her finger, and I'm not backing down from that," John Mason said Monday in an interview with Fox News' Hannity & Colmes show.
· Flee-ancee is now a registry offender. Jennifer Wilbanks' doomed wedding plans not only featured a 600-strong guest list and eight bridal showers — the lavish affair also earned her thousands of dollars worth of bridal gifts that family and friends had already bought. Macy's, Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn may find that now's the time to whip out their return policies for inspection by angry would-be guests lining up to return their pricey gifts.
» Runaway bride may forgo $250 ice bucket. After a three-day flight that included faking her own kidnapping, runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks now has to face several hundred jilted guests, many of whom had already bought gifts, according to several gift registries.
· Town Feels Runaway Bride Should Apologize. The runaway bride everyone thought had been kidnapped is now back in her home tome in Georgia where many residents feel betrayed and want an apology. Georgia prosecutor is weighing whether to charge the runaway bride, Jennifer Wilbanks, 32, with making false statements to the police.
· Update: Wilbanks reported kidnapping story to Duluth police chief. Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said he had no jurisdiction over the woman's initial 911 call in Albuquerque, in which she told an operator she was kidnapped by a man and a woman in their 40s who were driving a blue van. Through sobs, she told the dispatcher they had a small handgun. But Porter said Jennifer Wilbanks could be charged for reporting her kidnapping story over the phone to Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher.
· Befriended hispanic in Las Vegas. After a night in Las Vegas, she befriended an Hispanic man and a white woman - Wilbanks told investigators - and the three took a bus to Albuquerque. Elwell said police were looking for the couple she befriended on the bus.
· Fury at bride who lied. Relief turned to rage in an Atlanta suburb yesterday after residents learned vanished bride-to-be Jennifer Wilbanks fabricated her abduction — which caused days of worry among her friends, family and small-town neighbors. According to a transcript of her seemingly frantic 911 call, Wilbanks told dispatchers a Hispanic man and a white woman kidnapped her in Duluth Tuesday while she was out for a jog. She gave police heights, weights, ages and hair color of her imaginary assailants. In between her bogus sobs she said they brandished a "huge pistol and a small handgun."
· Missing Bride May Still Face Charges. Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said he has questions about how Wilbanks was able to get from her jogging route in Duluth to a bus station on the night she disappeared. He wonders if she had help. "There is no Greyhound bus station in Duluth," Porter said. "I want to know how she got to the station, and you cannot rule out the involvement of another person in this." "If we learn that this was a premeditated act, that would push me closer to pressing charges."
· Runaway bride: Wedding 'postponed,' not cancelled. Instead of being the center of a lavish wedding Saturday night, Jennifer Wilbanks flew home to Georgia from New Mexico, where she surfaced early Saturday morning after a nationwide missing-person search. Shortly before the plane touched down in Atlanta Saturday night, a flight attendant handed out a written statement from the Wilbanks family to the media: "She has spoken to her fiance. He cannot wait to see her. She says the wedding is not called off, just postponed."
· Runaway Bride Back at Home. Distressed, out of cash and in disguise, a missing Georgia bride-to-be turned up on a seedy stretch of Route 66 and told authorities Saturday she'd been abducted, then copped to the truth — she fled the pressure of her looming wedding. Jennifer Wilbanks, 32, was picked up by police after a bus trip that took her through Las Vegas, Nev., to a payphone outside an Albuquerque 7-Eleven where she called her fiance, John Mason, and 911 late Friday and said she had been freed by kidnappers.
· Bride who went on a run... and kept on going. She travelled to Las Vegas by bus before going to Albuquerque. "She's obviously very concerned about the stress that she's been through, the stress that's been placed on her family," he said. "She is very upset." The mood outside the Wilbanks' home went from jubilant to somber after she changed her story.
· More Anger Than Joy in Bride's Hometown. They searched woods and alleys, crawled in sewage drains and stayed up late looking for a local woman who went missing four days before her wedding.
When residents of this Atlanta suburb learned that Jennifer Wilbanks ran away because she had cold feet, they thanked God she was safe - then shook their heads at her act. "I'm glad that she's alive and OK, but it was a dirty trick," said Louise McCoy, waiting in line at the Duluth post office on the day Wilbanks was supposed to be married in a lavish ceremony that included 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen.
Many called for Wilbanks to face criminal charges, even though Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher said none would be filed.
· Why she ran away. The wedding of Ms. Jennifer Wilbanks and Mr. John Mason had been described as the social event of the year in Duluth, Georgia a suburb of some 22,000 people a half hour northeast of Atlanta. There were about 600 people on the guest list, and the wedding party included 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen. A friend of Ms. Wilbanks said there had been eight wedding showers. Then, four days before the wedding, Ms. Wilbanks vanished.
· Psychology of a Runaway Bride. On the surface, Jennifer Wilbanks was a happy bride-to-be who showed no sign to friends or family that she wanted to call off her extravagant wedding. But underneath, as she would later tell police after running away to New Mexico, Wilbanks was scared and not sure she wanted to go through with her big day.
· Bride-To-Be Was Faking It. Jennifer Wilbanks, 32, was picked up by police after a cross-country bus trip that took her through Las Vegas to a payphone outside an Albuquerque 7-Eleven where she called her fiance, John Mason, and 911 late Friday and said she had been freed by kidnappers.
· Bride-not-to-be's 9-1-1 call. On the 911 tape, Jennifer Wilbanks told the dispatcher she was at a 7-Eleven but doesn't know where. "I've got my family and police on the phone," she said. "I was kidnapped from Atlanta, Georgia. My parents said it's been on the news. I don't know."
In answer to the dispatcher's questions, Wilbanks described her kidnappers in detail: a Hispanic man about 5 feet 9 inches tall with a medium build, and a white woman about 5 feet 5 inches tall with a heavier build. Both were in their 40s, she said, and the woman had frosted blonde hair. The man was wearing a maroon jacket and blue jeans, and the woman was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans, she said, and the two were driving a blue van, but she did not get the license plate number. She told the dispatcher her abductors were armed with a small handgun, and then she dissolved into sobs.
· Bride found in New Mexico, fabricated kidnap story. Distressed, out of cash and in disguise, a missing Georgia bride-to-be turned up on a seedy stretch of Route 66 and told authorities Saturday she'd been abducted, then copped to the truth — she fled the pressure of her looming wedding.
· Missing bride alive - Pre-planned hoax. A 32-year-old woman who vanished just days before her wedding was found alive early Saturday in New Mexico after calling her fiance from a pay phone and saying she had been kidnapped by a hispanic couple in a blue van, authorities said. Faked kidnapping - It turns out she lied to police at first when she said she was kidnapped. Jennifer Wilbanks had cut her long hair and took a Greyhound bus to Las Vegas, then back to New Mexico - more than 1,420 miles from her home in Duluth, Ga., said Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Trish Ahrensfield. The investigation continues as police try to determine if she had help getting to the bus station. Reports indicate that the hoax was premeditated, purchasing the bus tickets - ironically under the name, Jennifer Mason - the week before at a Gainsville, Georgia bus station. After several days of begging for media attention in the case, the family has now kicked all the reporters and media trucks off their property. DEVELOPING...
· Update: Ga. Woman Fabricated Kidnap Story A Georgia bride-to-be who vanished just days before her wedding has admitted that she lied about being abducted, police said Saturday. "She was in discussion with detectives and agents and she decided that she needed to do the right thing and tell the right story," said Ray Schultz, the police chief in Albuquerque.
· Cops Call Off Search for Missing Woman. Police said Friday they had called off the search for Jennifer Wilbanks and also asked her fiancé to undergo an officially administered polygraph test. "We've turned over every leaf in this city. I have suspended all future searches" until more evidence is found, Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher told reporters.
» Family offers $100,000. The family of a missing Georgia woman whose wedding was scheduled for Saturday has offered $100,000 for information leading to a breakthrough in the case.
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