|
The runaway bride case was the case of Jennifer Carol Wilbanks (born March 1, 1973), an American woman who ran away from home on April 26, 2005, in order 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, including some media speculation that Mason had killed her. On April 29, Wilbanks 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. Jennifer Wilbanks gained notoriety in the United States and internationally, and her story persisted as a major topic of national news coverage for some time after she was found and her safety was assured. Many critics of the mass media attacked this as a "media circus". Howard Kurtz, an influential media critic for the ''Washington Post'' and CNN-TV, and recently Fox News wrote that the runaway bride had become a "runaway television embarrassment", and he compared the story to a TV soap opera.〔 (page B01)〕 Wilbanks's repeating of the false claims to investigating police officers resulted in a felony indictment against her of providing false information to law enforcement, a charge that could have resulted in up to five years of imprisonment. On June 2, 2005, Wilbanks pleaded no contest to this charge. As part of her plea bargain, she was sentenced to two years of probation and 120 hours of community service, and she was also ordered to pay $2,250 in restitution to the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department. As part of the plea bargain, a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report was dismissed. Wilbanks's criminal record was expunged after she successfully completed her period of probation. On March 15, 2008, Wilbanks's ex-fiancé, John Mason, married another woman, Shelley Martin, in a quiet ceremony at his parents' home in Duluth, Georgia. ==Timeline== *April 26, 2005 — Mason notified police that Wilbanks 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 — Major Donald L. Woodruff of the City of Duluth's Police Department 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 been abducted, but needed time and space to escape the pressures of her upcoming wedding. *May 17 — Wilbanks canceled her engagement to her fiancé. *May 25 — Wilbanks was charged with making false statements. *May 31 — Wilbanks reached an agreement with the city of Duluth to repay more than $13,000 in costs incurred by the city in their search. *October 10, 2006 — Wilbanks filed a lawsuit against her ex-fiancé for $500,000, claiming it is her share of a home the ex-fiancé purchased with the proceeds to a book deal he negotiated for them when she was medicated, plus punitive damages. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Runaway bride case」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|