Missing Bride
 

I dont know how many of you have seen this....

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/28/wilbanks/index.html

but I thought I would pass it along so people can keep her in their thoughts.

She was having a huge wedding 500-600 guests with 16 bridesmaids.

This is really close to home....the command center that the Duluth police have set up is about 2-3 miles from my house.

What I dont get.....if its not the fiance...why wouldnt he agree to the polygraph test today? Why wait and tell the police that he will tell them tomorrow if he will take it or not.

Dave said while we were watching the news conference.....if it were you missing....I'd have already taken the damn thing

Saw it on the news this morning-- Legally, I can understand the reasons behind not taking it until he had consulted with a lawyer, been a lawyers kid too long to know you don't do anything without talking to a lawyer first. However... I do believe that he's hiding something...

Shades of that case out in Salt Lake City... I doubt this will end well.

I just saw this....so sad. I have a feeling that nothing like this turns out good. There is no way she would have missed her own wedding.

Good grief, his father was the city MAYOR and a judge.....wouldnt he get enuff legal "counsel" from him?

I don't know - if he'd done something to her he'd have a pretty good way to cover it up - he could go with the "cold feet" story, which he's steadfastly denying. It would be easy to remove her stuff from the house and say "gosh, I don't know where she went, she must have gotten cold feet and run off."

Then again, criminals are not always the brightest bulbs in the box. And it is suspicious that he's postponing the lie detector test. Maybe just legal paranoia, and given how quickly people assume that it's the husband/fiance, it may be justified.

nikki and lurkette if something happened to either one of you dont you think R or Ratbastid would be the first people trying to make sure they were cleared as much as they could be?

Im sorry this whole thing just pisses me off so much

it's horrible...just like with scott peterson...just BREAK UP WITH HER...I certainly hope he has NOTHING to do with this..it would be so horrible if he killed his own fiancee

I really hope that he had nothing to do with it - but Scott Peterson and that guy in Utah kinda raise the bar on suspicion. Right now, he's probably their chief suspect, and he's not being all that cooperative... so what that might mean is that while they are waiting for him to be talked to, the trail of her disappearance grows colder...

Well, it's usually the spouse. I always hope it's not, but it usually is. Sigh.

I find myself increasingly finding these guys guilty before they are even charged with a crime. Sad that I have got that soured against society.

Maleficent, what are you referring to the Mark Hacking case? I live in SLC.

yeah that's the name...

Yeah, unforunately that one ended on a sad note.

At least they were able to recover the woman's remains after searching for 2 months in the county landfill.

Anybody have any statistics on the accuracy of polygraphs?

I can only see a downside to taking one, since they're not admissible in court.

Apparently, the guy passed his private polygraph. He hasn't taken the GBI polygraph because he wants it:

1) In a neutral location
2) to be video taped.

The cops won't agree to #2, and that is the hold-up. For some reason, I don't think this guy had anything to do with it. In the Peterson and Hacking cases, I felt like the guys were involved immediately. With this guy, I just don't get that sense.

It appears the police are calling off the search and a prayer vigil will be held instead of the wedding.

This from MSNBC

Page one of a two page story.
It's like this woman just disappeared off the face of the earth. I watched a bit of the press conference on television tonight and had to change the channel. It was just too hard to watch. :(

Just saw on the news that they found her alive. Looks like the hubby is off the hook......

I cannot believe that she would leave on purpose and put her family through that hell thinking she might be dead. What a selfish bitch!

Things like this make me rather irritated. The police man hours she wasted by running off and not telling anyone, her whole family was a mess with worry. The worst is, when they did find her, she lied and claimed she was kidnapped! More resources and time wasted that could have been used to catch real criminals.

I'm sorry I don't care how cold your feet are, running away and making up a kidnapping story is unacceptable and extremely selfish. The worst part is, both Georgia and New Mexico are agreeing to press no criminal charges. Apparently it's ok to do all this?

Man, that's the height of fucked up. Shame on her! Reminds me of the case in Wisconsin where the woman faked her own abduction for attention. Sheesh, don't people think about the consequences of their actions? About the suffering they're causing the people around them? The guy should consider himself lucky that they DIDN'T get married, if she's capable of this.

One thing that I will take away from this, is that innocent, well-advised people do refuse lie detector tests. Declining to give the police carte blanche doesn't imply guilt.

is there any possible legal issues that she would have to face because she got cold feet and had the entire nation looking for her? also, for lying to the police about being abducted? i would hope something could be done to her to prevent this from happening again. cold feet, i understand, just tell somebody so it doesn't get blown way out of proportion and thousands of people are looking for her.

In a way I feel sorry for her, I can see how she must have felt trapped in the nightmare she created... but at the end of the day, massive amounts of resource have been wasted, and countless people have been deeply traumatised.... and Im afraid she will have to face the consequences of her actions.

I saw that woman's poor mother on the news yesterday.....it was awful, she was a wreck, really really bad off

HOW do you do that to your parents? I feel sorry for her fiance, and ashamed I thought he had something to do with it. That poor man had everybody in the city pointing fingers at him.

She will definitely receive a bill in the mail for the resources spent on her search. You know that $100k her family put up for a reward? Yeah, it's going to be used to pay for her search. I doubt that 600 person wedding will EVER occur. If they get married, it will be 20 people. The parents aren't going to pay again for all of that and there will be people so pissed at her that they won't go.

Here is something I noticed about this thread and I wanted to see if others noticed this and wanted to analyze it with me:

Review this thread and notice the discussion:

1) Prior to the announcement of her being found, the discussion is virtually all girls and they all imply the fiance's involvement.
2) Of the "undetermined" or male entries, they either speak on facts or acknowledge that they always suspect the man's involvement and feel guilt about that.

So, it appears as if the discussion was split, at some level, along gender lines. Is this because of the gender of the "victim"? Past cases in the news? Upbringing of the poster? Gender roles in society? Please discuss...

(Mind you, I am not being sexist or starting a gender fight. I am willing to admit this is all coincidence. However, there might be some room for discussion here.)

All I know is that I feel badly for assuming that it was her fiance because he wouldnt take the lie detector test....I mean REALLY bad. I would have to say my opinion was based on past cases in the news...there are so many of them here in Atlanta alone where it was the person's S/O that was involved. Then you have the petersons, hackings, that guy in Boston that killed his preggie wife, Pamela Smart...the list just goes on and on

I guess I need to work on "innocent until proven guilty"

She got cold feet and returned home. She's got a LOT of apologizing to do.

While there are plenty of losers in this case, the biggest is the fiance. The woman he loves turns up missing and he's automatically assumed guilty until proven innocent. I really try not to jump to conclusions in cases like these, although it's not easy, and although I feel really badly for him, I'm glad it turned out the way it did and hopefully have this restore something to the innocent until proven guilty motto we are supposed to have.

wow .guess this proves you should think people innocent until proven guilty.

If shed successfully hid away then no doubt this guy would have been labelled a murderer for the rest of his life.

That is disgusting, she wasted all those police hours that they could have been actually doing there job. I hope she has to pay the ENTIRE cost of all the hours the police and city officials waste on her looking for her, court costs..etc. What a loser. I have a feeling she is gonna say now that her husband beat her or some other torture type thing to try and save face. just a feeling....

It's sad how we as a society automatically blame the man, not knowing him, or ever having met him. If a woman disappears, string the bastard up. Now just imagine the guy doing something so selfish. Would we say the woman probably had a hand in his disappearance? Noooooo. We would say the guy was an asshole and probably ran off with his mistress. Pathetic.

This useless piece of shit of a woman should at the very least be made liable for paying back the thousands of dollars in resources spent looking for her. She might even be able to afford it depending on how long her 15 minutes run. But we couldn't do that to the poor soul because then she would become a victim. Fucking idiot.

FYI, lie dector tests are only around 65% accurate and aren't "one shot kill evidence" in a court of law. Part of the reason the guy probably didn't want to take one is because he knows it would have been used against him in a malicious way.

You know, I sympathize with the woman, even though what she did was really terrible. I used to work with someone who really really really really really really didn't want to get married but was afraid to admit it to anyone. She went through with the wedding, and during the reception her new husband got drunk and told her in front of 200 people that he didn't love her, never had loved her, and shouldn't have married her.

This girl was probably just confused about what to do and did the only thing she could think of- run away from her problem.

Remember the case of Jon Benet Ramsey- I don't think her parents ever took a lie detector test.

If the Hacking case and the Peterson case hadn't gotten such non-stop media attention, I seriously doubt that anyone would have thought that she did anything but run off... Her wedding was a circus--600 people and 16 bridesmaids? Who is she-- Princess Diana? That would be enough to make anyone want to turn tail and run...

But in cases where it couldn't possibly happen -- Laci was 9 months pregnant -- herehusband would never murder her .... well he did-- and that plants the seeds of distrust in the people closest to the missing people.

That was what I was alluding to earlier. With that kind of error ratio, you'd have to be nuts to take one. Plus, the general feeling is that a good liar can pass one, so you don't really get publicity points for doing so.

The fiance is lucky he wasn't arrested by now. That's the first thing cops usually do, whether or not there's any evidence.

If you REALLY want to see division along gender lines, try researching the Betty Broderick case.

Briefly (to the best of my recollection--it's been awhile), she was married to an attorney. They got divorced. One night she drove over to his house, got in somehow, and shot the attorney and his new wife (to death) while they were in bed.

Her defense was something to the effect that he was subjecting her to mental torment, because he was a good enough attorney that he had retained more of the marital assets than Betty, the ex, thought was appropriate.

Reporters who did surveys tabulated a nearly dead-on split among office workers in the downtown area: Men thought she committed murder; women felt he "drove her to it."

Oh yeah, she claimed she didn't go to his house with the plan to shoot them, although she took a gun with her. It was another gun that "went off" all by itself, and just happened to go off enough times to kill both people.

Fortunately, the jury didn't buy her story, or her defense, and locked her up for a long time. I think she's still in prison.

The scary thing about it (to me, anyway) was the number of women who seemed to think she shouldn't be locked up.

I can't recall a single man expressing the same sentiment about Scott Peterson.

I guess what I am trying to get at is that whether there is a predisposition for people who are the same gender as the "victim" to automatically convict the SO and people who are the same gender as the SO to automatically give the benefit of the doubt.

Does anyone else think there is a correlation here?

I think you can blace some of the blame on everyone pointing their fingers at the hubby to be on Peterson. Now anytime a wife takes a walk, he will be the first thing anyone thinks of. I just hope this dumb bitch counteracts some of the damage Scotty did. i hear he's still going to marry her after she pulled this stunt. If so, they are botha couple of dumb fucks.

I saw this story on the news tonight. I guess she can face charges because she told the cops she was kidnapped when she called collect from a payphone. On a side note, i Took a philosophy class at the U a couple of semesters ago and one of my books used to belong to mark hacking. It has his name written across the top in black sharpie... with a few notes in some margins. I think i took the class when all the shit was going down, too bad i didn't notice until way after the fact. i'm wondering what to do with the book.

I don't think she should have to pay for the search, she didn't ask for the police to do a search for her. I'd be hot pissed if I went off for a weekend at the beach or something, and everyone thought I had been killed. Then I come back and people try to stick me with a bill / call me an evil asshole. Granted this happened a little diffrent, but it is with in her rights to go running for however long she wants.

While it is a kind of 'shitty' thing to do to your loved ones, nothing illegal about leaving town for a few days.

“I don’t care where you are — unless you’re in the Amazon rain forest, you’d know everybody was out looking for you.”

That is BS, if you don't have a TV (and you don't while skipping town, I doubt she stoped somewhere to watch the news.)
Hell I know people who didn't know about 9/11 for large parts of the day, and that was a million times bigger.

Now, later making up the kidnaping story, that was dumb, but put your self in her shoes.
You have ran away from home, you are panicing at the end of your rope, you see that your all over TV and that going home is going to suck. Easy to see how you might want to go along with the kidnaping story.

If you are kidnapped you are a brave person. If you just paniced and ran off... you are a evil bitch and everyone hates you.

Anyway, she might be a evil bitch, but we really don't know.

I think I would be frightened at having a wedding that big...it is terrible what she did..but we don't KNOW her..what if sh is depressed or bi-polar and just couldn't handle it. It certainly is no excuse for what she did..but only a reason as to why he would still want to marry her

This case makes me pause to fully consider the words; "innocent until proven guilty". I have great empathy for this poor fellow and hope that everything works out for both parties.

Umm...no. This is not, contrary to the popular beliefs of some, a Police State. The fiance was most certainly a "person of interest", perhaps even a "suspect". But without evidence, that's all he'll ever be.
When I first heard this story, I knew that he was gonna get the media crucifiction. I didn't think that he did it, and here's the simple reason why. They weren't married yet. He had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, had he offed her. Now, had they been married...that's another story. You have insurance, inheritence, alimony, child support payments, divorce attorney fees, child custody battles, and so on and so forth, all making for one hell of a motive to just make her "disappear". That motive was not here.
I thought that, most likely, either one of two things happened. Either she panicked and ran (which is, in fact, what happened, or she was abducted, raped and killed while on a jogging trail. It's happened here a few times.
Don't be to quick to judge her. She made a bad snap decision judgement call. At that particular moment, she thought that this was her best 'escape". Dumb..but somewhat understandable. I'd be curious to see the long term follow up on this. The national interest in it is over. Most of us will not see, or hear, any more of it. Shani? Can you keep us advised?

Now your making excuses for the dumb bitch.
Sorry to be harsh, it's not usually my methodology of thought and speech.
The problem here is you are slowley excusing her behavior. Depression, Bi-Polar, etc. Those are not accepatable explanations of "Why" she did this.

I don't care how frightened she was, her selfish, attention whore behavior disrupted the lives of many, and she needs to be aware of that through painfull public judgement. If that drives her to depression, I don't care.

He loves her. Alot obviously. But there are a few problems on the table now. He was a "person of interest". That feeling of hurt and betrayal is not going to go away. This is a very bad long term problem, becuase her actions since turning up in AZ show that the last though on her mind was what she put him through.

Again, I am sorry to be so uncharateristicly harsh, but what her actions caused for her family and especially her future husband only reinforces the problem;s our society currently has on many levels.

On a side note, I'm sorry to see how this discusssion has split down gender lines (I'm looking at your "That would be enough to make anyone want to turn tail and run..." statment too Mal)

I'm not making excuses for her - it sort of reinforces my belief of the stupidity of weddings and how the stress of them makes people do things a sane human being wouldn't do.

If she had just bailed out... that'd be ok -- the fake kidnapping makes her absolutely no better than Susan Smith who killed her children andthen blamed someone else. this bridezilla didn't want to take responsibility for her actions -- she plum didn't want to get married in a three ring circus and didnt have the maturity to say so.

Had it not been for much publicized cases.... no one would have raised an eyebrow about the possible guilt of her fiance.

Haven't there been a few breach-of-promise suits when guys did the same thing she did?

There was one a few years ago, where the couple was supposed to get married in a big excessive wedding at the Plaza Hotel in NY - he bailed... She did the only fitting thing - Went on with the party and had a great time... For some stupid reason, it made the news... (Guests get off lucky because they don't have to kick in the gift - somewhere in bridal etiquette states if the wedding doesn't last a year, the gifts go back :)

I have been in the midst of moving for the past month and haven't had time to watch the news or visit the TFP : I was taking a break from unpacking last Friday when I saw this story on CNN (and it was all over their broadcast's!). After hearing this story over and over again and continually hearing sad phrases like "she was due to have her dream wedding tomorrow", it suddenly struck me-this is a hoax.

For whatever reason (I think the fact that she seemed to be a "privileged" person and the sheer amount of wedding guests), it popped into my head that this is staged. She got "cold feet" and couldn't deal with letting everyone down by leaving him at the alter (I know it's silly but I thought of Rachael running out on Barry at the beginning of "Friends") or facing her family and guests about backing out at the 11th. hour. Hubby knew way before I did that my instincts were right (I just saw the news tonight).

Maybe she didn't expect the media attention but that is no excuse for scarring the shit out of her family and letting it go on once she knew it was national news. She actually shed her sweat shirts and pants and other articles to make it look like she'd been abducted. The press conference on Fri. was quite sad. She willingly and knowingly put her loved ones through that heartache and bullcrap.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice this, but it bothers me that there seems to be a trend of people faking things just to get attention. There was the girl/young woman a while ago that faked her own kidnapping and the woman recently who claimed to be a witness to a baby being thrown out of a moving car, when in fact it was her own child and the throwing out of a car had never happened.

Don't we have enough serious shit in the U.S. to deal with without this new breed of self-absorbed people forcing themselves on the population just for attention? The phrase "negative attention is better than no attention" is unfortunately being thought of as all too real. Sadly, it is a tide that no one is going to be able to stem with so many assholes out there. Only really tough legislature might be able to nip-it-in-the-bud before it gets out of hand. I'm holding my breath but am hoping for not too long.

Ali

“The fake kidnapping makes her absolutely no better than Susan Smith who killed her children and then blamed someone else”

Uhhhh… WHAT?

Comparing this woman to a murder, as at least two people in this thread have, is inane. Not only did she not kill or cause physical harm to ANYONE, she did nothing illegal.

She didn’t want to get married, she panicked and ran away. By the time she calmed down it was too late, she was all over the news and she knew if she went home everyone in the world would hate her. Assholes on the internet would call her an evil bitch, and tell everyone that she eats Chinese babies on Tuesdays.

What were her options? Go home say sorry and have everyone call you an evil baby eating whore? Or try to play off what others expect happened? If you can get out of your self absorbed, holier then thou shoes for one second, and put hers on. I think you will see how easy it is to get into this situation.

This is just a woman who ran away from her wedding, as many other women and men have done before. Unfortunately for everyone she got national attention for it. I am sure many people will send hate mail and bitchy phone calls. But this really isn’t any of our business. Why is this stuff so popular on TV these days?

Find villains to keep the people preoccupied so we can ignore Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and China?

Train wrecks, nuclear testing in Korea, Chinese riots; that’s what I am worrying about.

Vincentt: what on earth are you going on about?

really?
leave the train wrecks, the nuclear testing and all other hyperboles out of this, and you'd give an impression a little more realistic.

For one, she did do something illegal, she lied to the police with the phonecall.
(at least, it's illegal around here)
For two, even if she didn't do anything wrong according to the letter of the law, she let the search go on, thereby wasting an enormous amount of money.

in my book, she has committed a misdemeanor at the very least. But I wouldn't compare it to murder, true...

As for the woman herself: apparently, she needs to develop a sense of maturity, responsibility and moreover, ask herself if she really loves the guy. Cuz she didn't bother to at least tell him even 1 thing about her doubts...

this is not "just" a woman who ran away from her wedding, running away from her wedding would be changing her mind half way down the aisle, not showing up at the church NOT telling her fiance she was going out for a jog, leaving ALL her personal affects at home and then not showing up.

What the hell did she think people were going to think? She didnt care enuff about her parents not to let them worry. She didnt care enuff about her fiance and left him to face a city that was immediately going to accuse HIM of doing something to her.

Then she turns around and makes it worse by lying to people and trying to convince them she WAS kidnapped when she'd been planning it for at LEAST a week (who knows how long, but she bought the bus ticket a week before).

I've got no sympathy for her

Aw heck, Just make her jog NUDE down Peachtree Ave. at High Noon, to redeem herself.

What i am waiting to hear is, if in fact she purchased the Bus ticket several days in advance and how did she get to the Bus station. Did she have some help? Did she take a cab to the bus station? Is she going to have to repay the city for the law enforcment used in the search?

Very interesting case.

I heard on the radio this morning that she came back home and was expecting a news conference.

according to stories....she left the house with over 100 bucks she took a taxi to the bus station

The county DA is trying to decide whether or not to make her repay them.....he isnt liking the the "pre meditated" fact.

An interesting fact pointed out by a caller on Boortz this morning....

Taking the bus was the only way she could leave undetected, its the only form of travel that doesnt require identification...IE she's on no passenger list, and doesnt have to show ID to board the bus, she couldnt have taken a plane or rented a car without being known.

I still got to argue that the lie was a last ditch thing because she knew coming back she would be crucified. Like you guys would be going after her any less had she just went home with ‘sorry’?

If her wedding was gonna have 600 people I don't think 100bucks is a lot of money to her. If she was planning on running away, I think she would have left with more...

Anyway, I still think she was a victim of bad circumstances. She panicked and before she knew it going home was going to make her hated across the nation.

ok so buying her bus ticket days in advance wasnt planning? What does "planning" entail to you?

Why run away to begin with... why not just say -- hey this ain't workin' for me.. Engagements and weddings get cancelled all the time.. It's not a big deal.

It's the running away, in a suspicious manner. Going out for a jog... leaving all her personal effects behind (There was a high profile murder case where the young woman who was murdered did the same thing - -all her personal effects were in her home) Then calling your family, who's sick with worry to begin with - -to tell them you have been kidnapped.

That's not bad circumstance, that's calculated...

I didn't know self inflicted stupidity was a prerequisite for victimhood. And now she is hated? Boo hoo. Just another reason to think before you act, something she apparently did strictly for her benefit since her 15 minutes live on.

In any event she should go to jail. That would tie up the loose ends quite nicely for the movie of the week.

vincentt,

I have put myself in her shoes for a moment, and that still does not ABSOLVE her of responsiblity for her actions. I don't care if you are the POTUS or even the Emporer of the Galaxy, you made a decision and choice, you live by the consequences of such choices.

I heard someone on the news today saying, "She must have had a REASON for running away like this-- her fiance must be a really terrible person."

It was only a matter of time.

Why does he have to be the one thats a "terrible" person? Isnt it possible she's just whacked?

Yeah, it was just a matter of time before the fiance smearing began.

Even if she was the victim of bad cicumstances, I don't see how it absolves of her guilt.

I mean, she seemed to have put some thought into this. When the search went nationwide and became the story of the moment for the cable news channels, she didn't bother to call. When the police mounted a massive effort to search for her, she didn't call. When her fiance was the center of the investigation, she didn't call. When the her mother went on television pleading for the life of her abducted daughter, she didn't call. This was a big story, so, I find it a bit hard to believe that she didn't know what was going on considering the coverage.

It was irresponsible. What exactly did she think was going to happen if she disappeared without a trace? She made a horribly bad decision, no doubt about it, but that decision carries with it consequences.

I am not blaming the fiance. Nor am I saying this woman is not guilty. But she has been constantly attacked on this forum even compared to MURDERS. The fact that you see her the same as someone who KILLS THEIR CHILDREN, to me, is insane!

I am only defending her because I don't think she deserves to be linched or compared to someone who kills their children.

She did a horrid thing, and I don't that she should be absolved of guilt, simply that people look at this with relalistic eyes. What she did amounts to nothing legally.


And as far as the stress she put on her loved ones?

Is it anymore then the stress that could have been caused by canning the wedding? But children who do drugs? By children who get pregent? By children who join gangs?

I don't think she left the house with the idea that everyone would think she had been kidnapped and the entire nation would be watching her. But I am not suprised that she lied when calling the cops. Think of what this thread would be about had everyone believed her story? I can say she wouldn't be called Susan Smith...

I've not studied law and I assume you haven't either with a statement like that. From what I've read, she could face charges of making a false police report and a felony charge of making false statements to authorities.

Ummm...what exactly do you think she thought would happen when she left her home to go on a run leaving all her personal belongings behind?

Did she really think, nobody will notice if I dont come home. Its not exactly the same as not showing up for the church the day of the wedding.

And no running away was not illegal.....telling authorities that she'd been kidnapped WAS.

Yes, we can lie to authorities all the time and have no repercussions of our actions. Ask Martha Stewart what lying to the authorities gets you.

I just found The Smoking Gun has letters from unhappy people. Some are humourous, others very scathing.

This whole thing is a total non-issue, just the media grabbing at whatever speculation they could find and running with it. My guess is that if it weren't for the media's overblown and exaggerated coverage there would be no talk of pressing charges and no national worries about taxpayer money paying for an investigation. Who honestly cares enough about this story and this woman to give a shit? Certainly not myself. Why should anyone else either? After all it was the mass media who led us on this goose chase, not Jennifer Wilbanks.

ok fortyrulz...suppose its you...and your S/O leaves the house saying they will be back in 40 minutes, doesnt take any ID with them, no money that you're aware of, and doesnt leave in a vehicle...well darn they dont show back up and you dont hear a word. Are you just going to go on about your life assuming they will show back up eventually and have no worries at all?

Of course I wouldn't, but that wasn't my point.

What would you do if a complete stranger's S/O that lives thousands of miles away, that you've never met and never heard of, leaves the house for a jog with no money, no ID, and no vehicle and doesn't come back? Aside from watching the media make a collective ass of themselves, you probably aren't going to do anything.

What business is it of ours what her reasons for leaving were, or where she went? Let the family, the people actually involved, deal with the ensuing mess. Are people not allowed the freedom of privacy, to deal with the consequences on their own? Or do we have to have TV cameras and mics recording their every move?

That's what the police were saying: the media pressure forced them to devote way more time and resources (hence the large bill) to this "case". That's why it's especially messed up that it was all a hoax.

The least she could do is reimburse the city/taxpayers.

You are 100% right. It's no one's business but the two betrothed....

but she ran amiss at this point...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...iq/smoking.jpg

If when she was found she just said, "I needed some time to myself..." or something about "personal business", but she did not. She lied.

Again, ask Martha Stewart how officials like it when you lie to them during questioning.

I had no idea she lied and claimed to be sexually assaulted, action should be taken against her in that case.

And the police report...that was the most un-sexual account of a sexual act I have ever read. Do they have to take classes for that kind of thing? :D

That guy doesn't want to still marry her, does he?

I still don't think we can compare her to someone who kills their own children.

I like that lying to the police is this horrid, remember what you call her for it next time you are pulled for a speeding ticket please.

Anyway, I think she is shitty. I only felt the need to defend her because, a least I, don't feel lying to the police is even remotely close to murdering children.

I agree that it is nowhere near the murder of children, but the traffic cop that you tie up trying to get out of a ticket is doing what the taxpayers expect, patroling the roads and writing tickets. All the police, detectives and searchers she tied up rom her spoiled, selfish stunt took resources away from where they quite possible could have been better used.

Bride Indicted

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks was indicted Wednesday on charges that she lied to police about being kidnapped, two counts that could mean up to six years in prison.

A grand jury indicted the 32-year-old woman on one count of making a false police report, a misdemeanor, and one count of false statement, a felony, said Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter.

The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, he said. The other count carries a penalty of up to a year.

"We believe this is a reasonable next step in the case. We believe the grand jury made the right decision," Porter said.

"At some point you just can't lie to the police," he said. A bench warrant will be issued for Wilbanks' arrest within the next few days, he added. No court date has been set.

This indictment does not rule out a possible plea agreement to lesser charges, Porter said. Authorities had said they were talking to the Wilbanks family about a possible deal.

Wilbanks' attorney, Lydia Sartain, has said she does not think Wilbanks committed a crime in Gwinnett County. Authorities in Albuquerque had said they would not charge Wilbanks.

"The citizens of the county will be ill-served by an attempted prosecution," Sartain said before Wednesday's charges were announced. She did not return a phone call seeking further comment Wednesday morning.

Wilbanks disappeared from her Duluth home on April 26, days before her planned wedding, after claiming that she was going for a jog.

While Georgia authorities looked for her, the woman traveled to Las Vegas by bus and then to Albuquerque There, she called authorities with a story about having been abducted and sexually assaulted.

But under questioning, she recanted and said she fled Georgia because of unspecified personal issues. She returned to Georgia on April 30, the day she was to have been married in a lavish ceremony with 600 guests.

Her disappearance prompted a massive search and nationwide publicity. City, county and state officials spent about $50,000 looking for her.

Several state and county agencies already said they will not ask her to reimburse them for a total of $10,000 spent in additional search costs. But the city of Duluth still is seeking repayment of about $40,000 and Mayor Shirley Lassetter said her city attorney has been in negotiations with Sartain.
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.... amazing what a mess she made for herself all because she didn't just say... hmmm.. not sure I really want to get married....

I have no idea how Sartain can say this at all. Ill served by attempting to prosecute someone for lying to the police? Tested via grand jury and the own defendant's recant and confession to the lie????

Im proud of my county for doing this, I was really afraid they were going to let it slide.

I think she should do 1500 hours of community service,...picking up garbage on the roadside, washing dishes at a woman's shelter,...etc, while being placed on a list to replace her brain with one that works.

Hope that isn't too harsh. Wouldn't want the poor thing to be further victimized.

Jennifer Wilbanks was afraid to marry her fiance, according to an FBI report.

LAWRENCEVILLE, Georgia (AP) -- Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks wanted to vanish because she feared she could not be the perfect wife. She picked Austin, Texas, as her original destination after seeing actor Matthew McConaughey talk about his hometown on TV.

And she funded her odyssey by cashing a cell phone rebate check and emptying an old bank account.

Those were some of the details that emerged Tuesday from investigation reports by the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that detailed Wilbanks' flight. The reports portrayed the 32-year-old nurse as a naive woman whose mother did her banking for her.

Wilbanks also discussed her ordeal in an NBC interview Tuesday night, saying she was suicidal when she fled.

"I had a bottle of pills or I had the bus ticket," she said.

Wilbanks' disappearance four days before her scheduled 600-guest wedding gained national attention. Hundreds of officers and volunteers -- including members of the wedding party -- searched for her for three days before she called her fiance from Albuquerque, New Mexico, early in the morning of her planned wedding day, claiming to have been abducted and sexually assaulted. She soon recanted her story, saying she fled because of personal issues.

Mother handled bride's bank accounts
Wilbanks told investigators that she didn't know about the extent of the search because she didn't see any television or listen to any radio while on the run. The one time she glanced at a newspaper, she "did not see her picture on the front," FBI agents wrote after interviewing Wilbanks on May 4, days after she returned from her cross-country bus trip.

"Wilbanks stated that she felt very humbled that so many people had been searching for her, but she did not feel like she had done anything wrong and she just wanted to disappear," the report said.

Agents said in the report that Wilbanks "was scared to marry (fiance) John Mason because she is afraid of an imperfect world. Wilbanks stated that she could not be the wife that her fiance John Mason needed. Wilbanks wanted to disappear without a trace."

The report from Georgia investigators said she broke off an earlier engagement to another man, and -- even though she had been in a relationship with Mason since August 2004 -- she kept "I love you" text messages on her cell phone from another man she dated in 2003.

Wilbanks pleaded no contest earlier this month to telling police her phony story and was sentenced to two years of probation and 120 hours of community service. She also was ordered to continue mental health treatment and pay the sheriff's office $2,550. The city of Duluth spent nearly $43,000 to search for her; Wilbanks has repaid $13,249.

Wilbanks originally wanted to flee to Austin after seeing McConaughey on TV, the FBI report said. After doing research on the Internet, she "thought it looked like a nice place to visit because of Austin's ranches and national parks," the report said.

A week before she disappeared, she purchased a ticket for a Greyhound bus that left April 26 from a station near the Atlanta airport.

Because her mother did her banking for her, Wilbanks scraped together a little more than $240 for her journey in a various ways, the report said. She cashed in a $100 rebate check for her cell phone. She received less than $100 after closing an old account at a credit union.

The night she disappeared, she withdrew $40 with her ATM card. She dared not use her card anymore because "her mother would be able to track her down," she told the FBI.

Called fiance when she ran out of cash
Then, after a bath and dinner, she left home for a jog, telling Mason that she would "run until she was tired." She instead ran a few blocks away to the city library, where a taxi took her to the airport. She then boarded the bus.

"Wilbanks realized during her travel on Greyhound that the Greyhound bus traveled to really rough areas for their bus stations," the FBI agents wrote.

After eating a meal during a stop in Dallas, she felt safer to be on the bus, the report said. She had no lodging arrangements in Austin and "was scared it may stop in a bad area," the report said, so she spent $107 of her money to continue on to Las Vegas.

She tried to get a room at three different hotels near the bus station in Las Vegas but they were all too expensive.

She told investigators that she then remembered a street full of hotels in Albuquerque, a city the bus had passed through on the way to Las Vegas. With only about $80 left, she bought a $76 ticket to Albuquerque.

Wilbanks arrived the next day. She asked a taxi driver to take her to a hotel where she had a travel coupon advertising rooms for $19.99. However, she only had enough money to pay for a taxi ride for part of the way. Out of money, she finally called her fiance collect.

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I missed the interview last night -- but this sounds like we are supposed to feel sorry for her... Poor baby...

I almost do -- that at her age her mother did her banking for her? What is she 12?

I watched it, it was pathetic....I have no sympathy for her

I don't use the word "fool" too often as a descriptive word of another of God's creatures, but anyone that buys a book or watches a TV show in which Wilbanks is getting money from it is a fool.

The only way to keep such trash from being publicly traded is to turn off the set when the made-for-TV movie comes on and leave the books to gather dust on the shelves until they are shipped back to the publisher for credit.

C'mon, people, we can do this!!

I don't know, she's a good example to use when talking to my daughters. As in, "That's your future if you don't learn some responsibility and how to take care of things yourself".

Let's play this to the logical end: Your daughters can see someone that (a) got their picture all over the newspapers and TV (b) got a slap on the wrist by the law for it and (c) is going to be cashing a big paycheck.

My point is not that we should condemn her for getting the money, but rather we (the public) should make the companies that offered it to her for her story suffer a financial setback in the form of low ratings and no sales of the book.

That'll teach the companies a lesson; the next Jennifers of the world may never learn. (I hope your daughters do, though! :thumbsup: )

False reports of rape are reprehensible. They make it much more difficult for those who were genuinely assaulted to be believed, and make conviction of men like Scott Petersen more difficult because it plants the seed of doubt that things are actually as they are claimed to be. The moment she did this, she lost any possibility of sympathy from me.

One has to wonder how much this has to do with the spoiled bitch not being able "handle a less than perfect world". Not so much the banking but the mommy does too much for her bit. And is momma going to have to take care of the money from the book and movie deals for her?

I still can't muster any pity for the spoiled bitch.

Runaway bride draws lawn mower duty

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/LAW/08/0...y.wilbanks.jpg
Yay for community service... and isn't that a flattering ensemble on her.. :) (Oh Dangit, be nice maleficent)

Damn,...no movie of the week. Wud up Amorica?

I saw this as a snippet on the news this morning - she apparently called the press herself and invited them to come watch... Awwww...

They were giving her hell on the radio this morning cause all her mowing lines were REALLY crooked lol

Probably by design also. But then if the media would ignore her, or would have ignored her from the get go, she would still be a nobody.

That's the good thing about Canada. When it is a slow news day, instead of popularizing those unwarranted of celebrity value, we air documentaries or have discussions (ie call in shows) about the nations affairs.

Because afterall, we are all stars already :thumbsup:

Oh crap, I have one of those, but it is green. Is it still OK to keep?

And was she being ironic by wearing that hat, or did she not think about it?

A buddy of mine asked me if I thought she was attractive. :mad: I said yeah ... if you like your women to have the constant 1000 yard stare... maybe that's part of what made her so appealing to him. He likes them to be a little lower on the IQ scale for some reason. *shrug*....I prefer a little give and take now and then and if there's a zero between the ears it's just not going work.

the picture of her from cnn's website is so unflattering, when she was being interviewed on the news, she didn't look near as frumpified... she's kinda cute... but definitely has that vacant look to her...

'Runaway bride' on the rebound
Talk about stories that don't end..

Gotta love a slow news day... and that CNN actually had this as one of their Top stories (right below the guy who moved out and left 70,000 beer cans behind)

So.. no movie of the week.. and she's single again.. will the men of Georgia be lining up for her? :D

I always found her creepy with that deer in the headlights face she always had. Maleficent, there could still be a movie, she is single. she might pull this again on some schmuck.

Well, CNN is headquartered in Atlanta and any Atlanta area story usually gets great play from them.

I heard some additional news that he did the dumping. I wonder if they are still (or ever were) virgins?

The story that never ends...

Runaway bride sues former fiance
LAWRENCEVILLE, Georgia (AP) -- The "runaway bride," who took off days before her lavish wedding in 2005, is suing her former fiance for $500,000, claiming he defrauded her out of her share of their assets, including a ladder, a gold sofa and gifts.

Jennifer Wilbanks is seeking $250,000 as her share of a home she says John C. Mason purchased through the partnership with proceeds from $500,000 received for selling their story to Regan Media in New York.

She also wants $250,000 in punitive damages for alleged abuse of the power of attorney she granted for Mason to handle their financial affairs. (Watch why the runaway bride is running to court -- 1:49)

She is seeking the return of personal property she claims he has kept, including the ladder that belonged to her father, a gold sofa and wedding shower gifts. Mason's attorney in July wrote to Wilbanks attorney that his client had agreed to deliver those items.

Wilbanks and Mason broke up for good in May, about a year after her excursion to Las Vegas and New Mexico made international headlines while hundreds of friends and family members searched for her back home in suburban Atlanta.

Mason has until October 22 to respond to the lawsuit, filed last month in Gwinnett County's Superior Court. The lawsuit, Wilbanks vs. JCM Consulting and Mason, was filed September 13, according to court records.

Wilbanks' attorney, Michael Wetzel, and Mason's father, Claude, declined comment Tuesday morning. John Mason's attorney, James C. Watkins, wasn't immediately available for comment.

The lawsuit says the $500,000 was put into an account of JCM Consulting, based in Gwinnett County. After Wilbanks was "hospitalized and under medication," Mason bought a home in Dacula in his name with the money, the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit claims that Wilbanks asked JCM Consulting during the summer for various documents, but the firm didn't give her records of bank accounts. Through the lawsuit, she wants to inspect and copy those records.

Wilbanks also claims that Mason used the company to defraud her.

Wilbanks disappeared four days before her planned April 30, 2005, wedding. Hundreds of police and volunteers searched for her for three days before she called Mason from Albuquerque, New Mexico, claiming to have been abducted and sexually assaulted.

She later recanted, saying she fled because of unspecified personal issues, and pleaded no contest to telling police a phony story.

She was sentenced to two years' probation and performed community service that included mowing the lawns of public buildings

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Ok - so let's see- she took off on the groom, causing him worry and speculation that he did her in.. she lied about where she went.. and made up an outlandish story... and She thinks she's entitled to anything?

People amaze me...