Think of all the out of town guests, the 14 bridesmaids and groomsmen...not to mention the gifts..Here is their bridal registry...do they return the gifts?
macys-registry.weddingchannel.com
Breaking off engagement 'never crossed my mind'
Wedding will go on, fiance says; DA considers charges
By JOHN GHIRARDINI and DUANE D. STANFORD
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/03/05
The wedding is still on, merely postponed, her fiance says, and so is any decision on whether to charge Jennifer Wilbanks, Duluth's runaway bride, with a crime.
John Mason was strongly supportive of his bride-to-be in his first public comments since learning she had lied about being abducted during a Tuesday evening jog.
John Mason said on a radio talk show that he had again given Jennifer Wilbanks the diamond ring she left behind. He wants to get married.
"Breaking it off never crossed my mind . . . not once," he told commentator Sean Hannity on his nationally syndicated radio talk show Monday. "She asked me if I still wanted to marry her. I said absolutely."
Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said it might be weeks before he decides whether to prosecute Wilbanks on charges stemming from her faked abduction. But he and Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher said at an evening news briefing they believe Wilbanks broke the law and if convicted, could face up to five years in prison.
Belcher said Wilbanks told him during her first call to Mason's home from Albuquerque that she had been abducted in Duluth by a Hispanic man and a white woman — an allegation she recanted hours later. The police chief had rushed to Mason's home when told Wilbanks was on the phone.
"Up to this point, Miss Wilbanks had not violated any Georgia law," Belcher said Monday.
Mason, who avoided all media inquiries except radio and television interviews with Hannity, said he again gave Wilbanks the diamond ring she had left behind last Tuesday.
"I made these vows in front of my God and in my heart the minute I bought that ring," Mason told Hannity on Monday — a day the jilted groom noted he "should have been in St. Lucia" on his honeymoon.
The couple, reunited late Saturday when Wilbanks, 32, was returned from her cross-country Greyhound bus trip, have not set a new wedding date. Before a wedding can be planned again, Mason said Wilbanks will need to seek treatment. But he does plan to marry her and have a family with her, he said.
Mason said since her return she has spent time with family and has been counseled by a family pastor. "She wants the world to know that . . . she's very sorry," Mason said.
Mason's father, Claude Mason, said he told his son to proceed slowly.
"Take it slow and if this is what you still want, we're behind you," Claude Mason said Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Asked whether he would be anxious if the couple heads into another big wedding, Claude Mason said, "I have mixed emotions about that. I think the wedding plans got a bit out of hand, but I couldn't say a whole lot. I'm the father of the groom."
Wilbanks may have far bigger challenges than getting her wedding plans back on track.
Porter, the district attorney, said she could face a misdemeanor charge of falsely reporting a crime, or a felony charge of making a false statement. The maximum penalty for a conviction on the misdemeanor is one year in prison. A conviction on the felony charge could bring five years.
Since Wilbanks' report of the false abduction was made during a phone call from Albuquerque to Duluth, "It appears that the phone call gives us jurisdiction under Georgia law," Porter said. "The lie is the basis of any charges."
He confirmed that the bus ticket she used was bought a week in advance under a different name.
GBI Special Agent Carter Brank said Wilbanks cut her hair after leaving her fiancé's home, apparently in an effort to change her appearance. Searchers had found a clump of what appeared to be her hair near the Duluth library. That is also where Wilbanks had prearranged to have a taxi pick her up to take her to the bus station, Brank said.
Brank said Wilbanks maintained her innocence when interviewed by agents on Monday. "She didn't really feel she'd done anything wrong," he said. "She was somewhat remorseful. She didn't come to a full apology."
Wilbanks will not face federal charges relating to her abduction report, according to an FBI spokesman in Albuquerque.
Duluth Mayor Shirley Lasseter said the city may consider suing Wilbanks to recover an estimated $60,000 the two days of public searches cost the city. Seventy-eight city employees, including all of the city's 60 police officers, participated in the hunt for the missing woman. "We're looking into whether we may have the possibility of civil action," she said.
Lasseter said she conveyed a message to the couple from the syndicated TV show "A Current Affair" offering up to $100,000 toward repaying the city if the couple would agree to exclusive interviews and coverage of their wedding.
Such high-profile attention prompted authorities to take extra measures with Wilbanks when she discovered. Authorities in Albuquerque, who ushered her through a pack of reporters and gawkers and put her on a Delta flight to Atlanta Saturday evening, said they'd do the same for anybody.
Wilbanks and her stepfather and uncle, who had flown to New Mexico to accompany her return, were let off the plane at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on the tarmac and taken away in marked Atlanta police vehicles, avoiding reporters waiting in the terminal.
Officer John Quigley, Atlanta Police Department spokesman, said that the pickup was requested by "another law enforcement agency" to minimize "disruption at the terminal."
Staff writers Rosalind Bentley, Kirsten Tagami and Bill Montgomery and researcher Joni Zeccola contributed to this article.
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