Runaway Bride

Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks, left, leaves the Gwinnett County courthouse with her attorney, Lydia Sartain, in Lawrenceville, Ga., June 2, 2005. Wilbanks pleaded no contest to a felony charge and wept as she was sentenced to probation, community service and a fine.

A billboard in Duluth, Ga., seen here May 2, 2005, pokes fun at the Jennifer Wilbanks runaway bride case. Wilbanks, who had vanished April 26, 2005, after saying she was going out jogging, initially told authorities she was abducted. But she later admitted she took a cross-country bus trip to Albuquerque, N.M., to avoid her lavish, 600-guest wedding, which was to have taken place April 30. (This entire billboard was erected after Wilbanks admitted running away.)

Members of local and national media outlets are set up in front of the Duluth City Hall in Duluth, Ga., May 2, 2005, waiting for any information in the Jennifer Wilbanks case.

An old missing person sign, showing Jennifer Wilbanks, hangs on a utility pole, now wrapped with police tape, outside John Mason's Duluth, Ga., home May 1, 2005, just one day after Wilbanks, Mason's fiancee, was found in New Mexico.

Claude and Vicki Mason, parents of John Mason, leave the younger Mason's home in Duluth, Ga., April 30, 2005 after getting the news that his bride-to-be, Jennifer Wilbanks, had been found alive and had not been abducted.

Friends and family of John Mason form a prayer circle in front of Mason's home in Duluth, Ga., early April 30, 2005 after receiving news that his bride-to-be, Jennifer Wilbanks had been found alive. Wilbanks, 32, was in police custody in Albuquerque, New Mexico, more than 1,420 miles from her home, on what was supposed to be her wedding day, said Albuquerque police spokeswoman Trish Ahrensfield.

Wilbanks, a 32-year-old former marathon runner, went out for a jog in Duluth, Ga., on the evening of April 26 and didn't come back. Her fiance, John Mason, started searching for her that night and called police.

On April 28, police declared the case a criminal investigation. Police, family and friends are shown outside John Mason's home.

A poster for Wilbanks.

John Mason, fiance of Jennifer Wilbanks, speaks with friends and family in front of his home. He took a polygraph test and police suspicion turned to him, as the search for Wilbanks yielded no leads.

Joyce Parrish, right, mother of the missing woman Jennifer Wilbanks, and Wilbanks' fiance, John Mason, left, comfort each other during a news conference at the search command center in Duluth, Ga., on April 29. Police called off the search that day, saying they have "turned over probably every leaf in the city."

Jennifer Wilbanks, shown in a family photo, called her family overnight (Friday into Saturday, April 29 into April 30) and said she had been kidnapped.

John Mason reacts in front of his home to news that his bride-to-be had been found alive.

Albuquerque, N.M., police chief Ray Schultz, middle, announces that Jennifer Wilbanks confessed to police that she had not been abducted but instead had gotten very stressed about her impending wedding.

Alan Jones, the Baptist minister who had planned to marry John Mason and Jennifer Wilbanks, asked the public to pray for the bride who faked her abduction.

Police officers escort a blanket-covered Jennifer Wilbanks through the Albuquerque airport April 30 as she is taken to her flight and back to Atlanta.

The Rev. Tom Smiley, Jennifer Wilbanks' family pastor, answers questions in a packed lobby after he read Wilbanks' prepared statement May 5, 2005, at the Lakewood Baptist Church in Gainesville, Ga. Wilbanks' attorney, Lydia Sartain, was in court and did not participate in the news conference. In her statement, Wilbanks apologized for disappearing just before her wedding day, and insisted cryptically that her flight was prompted not by cold feet, but by "a host of compelling issues that seemed out of control."