FBI: Runaway bride feared she wouldn't be the perfect wife
By wire services
Published June 22, 2005
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks wanted to "disappear without a trace" because of worries she would not be the perfect wife for fiance John Mason, according to investigation reports obtained Tuesday by the Associated Press.
Those were some of the details that emerged Tuesday from investigation reports by the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that detailed Wilbanks' flight. The reports portrayed the 32-year-old nurse as a naive woman whose mother did her banking for her.
Wilbanks also discussed her ordeal in an NBC interview Tuesday night, saying she was suicidal when she fled.
"I had a bottle of pills or I had the bus ticket," she said.
Wilbanks' disappearance four days before her scheduled 600-guest wedding gained national attention. Hundreds of officers and volunteers searched for her for three days before she called her fiance from Albuquerque, N.M., claiming to have been abducted and sexually assaulted. She soon recanted her story, saying she fled because of personal issues.
Agents said in the report that Wilbanks "was scared to marry (fiance) John Mason because she is afraid of an imperfect world. Wilbanks stated that she could not be the wife that her fiance John Mason needed. Wilbanks wanted to disappear without a trace."
Felon voting advocates report progress
NEW YORK - With a victory in Iowa last week and appeals arguments set for today in federal court, advocates for restoring felons' right to vote say they are making progress in rolling back laws they contend disproportionately affect blacks and other minorities.
"Felony disenfranchisement laws are the last vestiges of Jim Crow," said Catherine Weiss, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University who is working on the issue. "They disenfranchise African-Americans way out of proportion to their numbers in the population."
As of 2000, almost 5-million Americans couldn't vote because of laws that restrict those convicted of a felony from casting ballots - in some cases even after their sentences and parole are complete, according to the Sentencing Project. Four in 10 of those were black.
Elsewhere . . .
TERROR PLEAS: A father and son pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that they lied to authorities investigating links to Pakistani terrorist training camps connected to al-Qaida. Hamid Hayat, 22, is accused of lying to the FBI when he said he did not attend a terrorist camp in Pakistan. Umer Hayat, 47, was indicted on a single count of lying to investigators.
YELLOWSTONE INJURIES: Lightning struck near a boardwalk Tuesday where a crowd had gathered to watch an eruption of the Old Faithful Geyser, injuring 11 people, one seriously. The bolt hit in front of the geyser, near the Old Faithful Visitor Center, officials said. It did not strike anyone directly.
