By MARY PEREA
Associated Press Writer
Update: Albuquerque, N.M. police chief Ray Schultz announced at a news conference early Saturday morning that Wilbanks confessed to police that she had not been abducted but instead had gotten very stressed about her impending wedding. She had then taken a bus from Georgia to Las Vegas, NV., and then to Albuquerque, making up the story about her abduction. Wilbanks is to be re-united with her family later on Saturday.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A Georgia woman who vanished just days before her wedding was found in New Mexico three days later after she called her fiance from a pay phone and said she had been kidnapped, authorities said.
Jennifer Wilbanks, 32, was in police custody more than 1,420 miles from her home on what was supposed to be her wedding day, Albuquerque police spokeswoman Trish Ahrensfield said Saturday. Police were searching for a blue van with a man and woman inside.
Wilbanks was tired and thirsty, but was not complaining of any injuries, Ahrensfield said. Her hair, which was long in pictures released by her family, was shoulder-length.
The bride-to-be had been missing since Tuesday, when her fiance reported that she went for her nightly run and didn’t come home, police said.
Wilbanks called her fiance, John Mason, late Friday from a pay phone outside a 7-Eleven.
“Jennifer said she thought the people got scared because of all the media coverage and just let her go,” Ann Wilbanks, the woman’s stepmother, told The Associated Press.
Duluth police traced the call to Albuquerque as the couple spoke, Ahrensfield said.
“She went to the pay phone at the 7-Eleven there and called her family. Then we were contacted through their police,” she said.
Mason said he wanted to burst into tears when his fiancee called.
“When I finally put the phone down, it was like the burden of the world fell off my shoulders,” he said outside the home of Wilbanks’ family in Georgia.
Wilbanks, who is a nurse, was picked up by police on the corner of a main street near the 7-Eleven.
After being interviewed by the FBI, she may be taken to a hospital, police said.
“There’s some possibility she may need some medical attention,” Ahrensfield said.
Mason and Wilbanks’ family planned to fly to Albuquerque later Saturday - the same day that the couple had been planning to marry.
The couple had mailed 600 invitations for their wedding, and the ceremony was to feature 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen.
Just hours before Wilbanks was found, police in Duluth said they had no solid leads in the case and began dismantling a search center. Relatives offered a $100,000 reward for information and were planning a prayer vigil.
The hunt for Wilbanks had consumed Duluth, a tight-knit town. Her picture and newspaper articles about her disappearance were on telephone poles and shop windows. Police had also seized three computers from the couple’s home.
On Saturday, Ann Wilbanks said her stepdaughter’s wedding would probably be rescheduled, but it would still happen.
“We will definitely have a wonderful, big, beautiful wedding,” she said, “and everybody will be happy and smiling.”