Jennifer Wilbanks

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Jennifer Wilbanks

Jennifer Carol Wilbanks, CMA (a.k.a. "The Runaway Bride") (born August 25, 1973) is an American who ran away from home on April 26, 2005, in an effort to avoid her wedding with John Mason, her fiancé, on April 30. Her disappearance from Duluth, Georgia, sparked a nationwide search and intensive media coverage. On April 29, she called Mason from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and falsely claimed that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a Hispanic male and a white woman.

Wilbanks gained national fame and notoriety in the United States and internationally, and her story persisted as a major topic of national news coverage well after she was found and her safety assured. Many critics of the mass media attacked this as a media circus. Howard Kurtz, influential media critic for the Washington Post and CNN, wrote that the runaway bride had become a "runaway television embarrassment," and compared the story to a soap opera.^[1]

Wilbanks' repeating of the false claims to investigating officers resulted in a felony indictment of giving false information to police, a charge that could have resulted in up to five years of imprisonment. On June 2, 2005, Wilbanks pleaded no contest to the charge. As part of her plea bargain, she was sentenced to two years' probation and 120 hours of community service and was ordered to pay $2,250 in restitution to the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department. Also as part of the deal, a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report was dismissed. Wilbanks' record will be expunged if she successfully completes probation. If not, she will be forced to surrender and be placed in a mental institution.

1 Timeline
2 Media frenzy
3 Aftermath and lawsuit
4 Impact of the events
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Timeline

April 26, 2005 — Mason notified police that she was missing two hours after she failed to return from her evening jog.
April 27 — 250 people took part in the search for Wilbanks. Local police speculated publicly that Wilbanks' disappearance might be "a case of the premarital jitters," but the search continued. The mayor of Duluth later reported the city spent between $40,000 and $60,000 in the search.
April 27 — Police received numerous pieces of evidence that later turned out to be false leads, including large clumps of dark brown hair in an area next to a retention pond, a variety of clothing, and purported murder weapons.
April 28 — Woodruff announced that because there were no other explanations, Wilbanks' disappearance was being handled as a criminal investigation. The FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation were now involved in the case.
April 29 — Wilbanks' relatives offered a $100,000 reward and planned vigils. Later that day, Wilbanks called Mason from a pay phone and told him that she had been kidnapped, but had just been released. She also called 911, declaring in a frantic voice that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a Hispanic man and a Caucasian woman in their 40s driving a blue van. When asked if she knew what direction her captors went after setting her free, she said, "I have no idea. I don't even know where I am."

The calls were traced to a pay phone at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Albuquerque, where she was picked up by local police. Her family publicly thanked the media for getting through to the kidnappers.

Later, during police interrogation, Wilbanks admitted that she had not, in fact, been abducted, but needed time and space to escape the pressures of her upcoming wedding.

May 17 — Wilbanks officially cancels her engagement to her fiance.
May 25 — Wilbanks is charged with making false statements. ^[2]
May 31 — Wilbanks reaches an agreement with the city of Duluth to repay more than $13,000 in costs incurred by the city in their search. ^[3]
October 10, 2006 — Wilbanks files a lawsuit against her ex-fiance for $500,000, claiming it is her share of a home the ex-fiance purchased with the proceeds to a book deal he negotiated for them when she was medicated, plus punitive damages.^[4]

[edit] Media frenzy

As the story had become nationally newsworthy as a search for a possibly kidnapped or murdered bride, it lost some of its importance when it was discovered she had merely run away. However, coverage continued by some reporters and news outlets, discussing issues such as:

editorializing upon the racism shown by her accusation against a fictional Hispanic man
reporting on the gratuitous details of her lies to the police
speculating about what should be done to people who exact a cost on public services when they run away
reporting on biographical details including her crime record and her entry into psychological counseling

[edit] Aftermath and lawsuit

According to the May 22, 2006, issue of People magazine, Wilbanks and Mason have officially called off their engagement.

According to BBC, Jennifer Wilbanks has sold media rights to her story to a New York firm. Media reports said the deal was worth $500,000, although this has not been confirmed by the firm. Jennifer Wilbanks has not yet offered to repay the whole cost of the search, totalling almost $43,000.

In October 2006, Wilbanks filed a lawsuit against her ex-fiance for $500,000. In the lawsuit, filed September 13, she and her lawyer said that while she was hospitalized and under medication, she granted Mason power of attorney to negotiate the sale of the couple's story to a publisher in New York. Mason struck a deal for $500,000, but Wilbanks said Mason used the money to buy a house (in his name only) and later evicted Wilbanks from the home.

She is claiming $250,000 as a share of a house her ex-fiance bought from selling their story to an agent and another $250,000 in punitive damages. She is also suing for several personal property she claims that her ex-fiance has kept, including a ladder, a gold sofa, and gifts.

[edit] Impact of the events

Wilbanks has inspired a "Runaway Bride" action figure and a hot sauce called "Jennifer's High Tailin' Hot Sauce." An auction on eBay of a slice of toast carved with a likeness of Wilbanks closed with a winning bid of $15,400.^[5]

On the May 6, 2005, episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill Maher editorialized that Americans were calling her situation a "temporary case of insanity" when he felt it was a case of "temporary sanity," stating that she was "staring down the barrel of 14 bridesmaids and 600 guests in the Georgia heat watching a Baptist in a blue suit sanctify her sex life with Welch's grape juice and a reading from The Purpose Driven Life. Suddenly, Greyhound to Vegas looked pretty good!" ^[6] He later said that she didn't care "about anyone's feelings but [her] own" and "[She] belongs in Hollywood!?"