The Hall of Fame

Jennifer Carol Wilbanks, C.M.A. (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 on April 30. Her disappearance from Duluth, Georgia, sparked a nationwide search and intensive media coverage. On April 29, she called Mason, her fiancé, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and claimed falsely that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted.

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' false claims resulted in a felony indictment of giving false information to police, a charge that could result in up to six years in prison. On June 2, 2005, Wilbanks pled no contest to faking her own abduction, and as part of a plea bargain, was sentenced to two years probation, 120 hours of community service, and a fine of $2,250 to be directed towards the sheriff's office.

To date, Wilbanks and Mason have not married.

Timeline of the actual event

April 26, 2005 — Mason notified police that she was missing two hours after 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 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 25 — Wilbanks is charged with making false statements.

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 for Wilbanks.

Media frenzy

As the story had become nationally newsworthy as a search for a possibly kidnapped or murdered bride, it lost some of its import when it was discovered she had merely run away. The media then struggled to attach significance to a case that many felt was closed. Instead of ceasing reporting on the case, the American news media sensationalized various elements of the story:

• statistics on the commonality of "runaway brides"

• 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 counselling

Soon, news stories began reporting various absurd capitalizations on the notoriety of the case. 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. The winner has refused to pay.

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!"

He later said that she didn't care "about anyone's feelings but [her] own" and "[She] belongs in Hollywood!"