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| Mason is a 32-year-old office manager at Mason Primary Care. He teaches Sunday school and coaches a youth basketball team for his church. | Mason is a 32-year-old office manager at Mason Primary Care. He teaches Sunday school and coaches a youth basketball team for his church. | ||
| Sadly, if Jennifer Wilbanks were Black, regardless of her socioeconomic status, she would be in jail right now. This case goes to show how racist this country really is. | |||
| ===See also=== | ===See also=== | ||
Revision as of 02:54, 1 May 2005
Jennifer Wilbanks (b. 1973) is an American nurse who, in an effort to avoid her April 30, 2005 wedding, faked her own kidnapping. Her disappearance from Duluth, Georgia sparked a nationwide hunt.
Her fiancé, John Mason, notified police on April 26 that she was missing, after she failed to return from her evening jog. Wilbanks, a marathon runner, had left on a run at 8:30 PM, telling Mason that she would return in 40 minutes. After 10:30 PM, Mason went out searching for her. He then called local hospitals. At midnight, he called the police.
The following day more than 250 people took part in a search for Wilbanks. The search included police helicopters and tracking dogs. Because she had no regular jogging route, the search was wide. Local police major Don Woodruff speculated publicly that Wilbanks' disappearance might be "a case of the premarital jitters," but he did not call off the search.
On April 27, employees at a doctor's office discovered behind the building, in an area next to a retention pond, large clumps of dark brown hair. The office park where the hair was found is in an area where Wilbanks was known to have run. Later, Randy Belcher, the Duluth police chief, stated the clump of hair was likely not that of Wilbanks because the hair was cut, not pulled.
Over the next two days, a variety of sweatshirts and sweatpants were also turned in to police as possible evidence. WSB reporter Ross Cavitt reported that searchers found "a large knife, a shovel and some freshly turned dirt in a wooded area."
On 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. Mason was asked by police to take a polygraph test. On the advice of his lawyer, Mason would not agree to a polygraph conducted by authorities unless the test was videotaped. Mason however did participate in a privately administered polygraph, which family members said he passed.
Police seized three computers from Wilbanks' home to examine e-mails for possible clues.
Two prayer services were held at Gainesville churches that night.
On 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. In her 911 call, she stated that she had been kidnapped by a man and a woman in their 40s who were driving a blue van. Her voice was frantic and confused. When asks 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, New Mexico. She was picked up by local police. Her family publicly thanked the media for getting through to the kidnappers.
Wilbanks then admitted to police that she had faked the kidnapping. Wilbanks had cut her hair so no one would recognize her. She had traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada by bus before continuing on to Albuquerque, where she ran out of money.
Wilbanks flew on April 30 to Atlanta. She was received on the tarmac by a police car. She had a towel draped over her head to avoid the media.
Mason is a 32-year-old office manager at Mason Primary Care. He teaches Sunday school and coaches a youth basketball team for his church.
Sadly, if Jennifer Wilbanks were Black, regardless of her socioeconomic status, she would be in jail right now. This case goes to show how racist this country really is.