The runaway bride case concerns Jennifer Wilbanks (born 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.[1] Her disappearance from Duluth, Georgia, sparked a nationwide search and intensive media coverage, including 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 man 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 unharmed. Many critics of the mass media attacked the coverage as a "media circus". Howard Kurtz, an influential media critic for The Washington Post and CNN-TV, and Fox News wrote that the runaway bride had become a "runaway television embarrassment", comparing the story to a TV soap opera.[2]
Wilbanks repeated the false claims that fell apart under FBI interrogation resulting in a felony indictment of providing false information to law enforcement, a charge that could have resulted in up to five years of imprisonment.[3] 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 misdemeanorcharge of filing a false police report was dismissed. Wilbanks's criminal record was expunged after she successfully completed her period of probation.
On May 22, 2006, People magazine reported that Wilbanks and Mason had officially called off their engagement.
According to the BBC, Jennifer Wilbanks sold the media rights to her story to a New York City company for $500,000.[8] Wilbanks did not offer to repay the whole cost of the search for her, which totaled almost $43,000.[3]
In September 2006, Wilbanks filed a lawsuit against her ex-fiancé, claiming 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. According to her, Mason negotiated a deal for $500,000 and then used the money to buy a house, in his name only, from which he later evicted Wilbanks. She claimed $250,000 as her share of the house, and another $250,000 in punitive damages. Mason countersued, claiming emotional distress from being left at the altar. In December 2006, both of the parties dropped their respective lawsuits.[9]