On April 26, 2005, 32-year-old Jennifer Wilbanks disappeared from Duluth, Georgia, a suburb from Atlanta. Her fiancé, John Mason, reported her missing when she didn’t come back from an evening jog.
Evidence including clumps of dark brown hair, clothing, and alleged murder weapons were later found near a retention pond. Since the police had no other explanation, they treated her disappearance as a criminal case.
I live not very far from Duluth. During those days she was missing, I drove by the parking lot of an abandoned strip mall and saw it covered with a sea of media trucks. Her case hit the national news, and why wouldn’t it? It was perfect: young, beautiful woman, just days away from her wedding, goes missing? And the police think it was foul play? Let’s jump on it.
I fully expected her body to be found.
That weekend, I spent the night with some ladies from my church. On Saturday morning, April 30, one of the women jerked open the door of my room and yelled, “How about that Jennifer Wilbanks?” She was alive. She was in Alberquerque, New Mexico, claiming to have been kidnapped and sexually assaulted by an Hispanic man and Caucasian woman driving a blue van with ladders on top. I live in a neighborhood that is mostly Hispanic, and “van with ladders on top” describes a fair number of vehicles here.
I was relieved.
And then, Jennifer Wilbanks’ story fell apart. She admitted to the FBI that she’d faked it, that she’d needed time and space to deal with the pressure of her upcoming wedding to John Mason. Among other things, her wedding would have 28 bridesmaids.
I was furious.
Local and federal authorities, as well as the general public, spent time, money, and energy trying to find a woman they thought was in danger, and it turns out she just faked a kidnapping to run away from a wedding?
She called off her engagement, pled guilty to a charge of making a false statement, and served two years of probation and 120 hours of community service.
And the moniker “runaway bride” was slapped on her.
(According to a People magazine article dated August 5, 2021, Wilbanks married another man in 2010 and divorced him 11 years later.)
After her return, the city of Duluth put up another sign over the one they’d posted with Jennifer Wilbanks’ picture and description, along with the number to call if anyone had any information about her.
It was a picture of two feet in heels, running, with the caption: “Case solved. Cold feet.”
****
On July 13, 2023, a Hoover, Alabama woman, Carlee Russell, called 911 to report a toddler on the highway. Then she called a family member. While on the phone with Carlee, the family member heard her scream.
Police got to the scene within five minutes of being dispatched. In Carlee’s car, they found her cell phone, wig, purse, and Apple Watch.
When Carlee’s disappearance hit the news, the social media world went abuzz. “Woman finding abandoned toddler” is allegedly a prime way to kidnap women and either sexually assault them or sell them to a sex trafficker. A woman gone missing under suspicious circumstances is - or should be - a priority for the police, and from what I have read of the case, the police jumped on it quickly.
Social media also played a part in drawing attention to Carlee’s case. And because Carlee is Black, many posts mentioned that the disappearances of Black women are not taken as seriously or investigated as thoroughly as the disappearances of White women (and unfortunately, that is too often the case.)
I did forward Carlee’s picture on social media. But to be honest, something about the story felt “off”.
Carlee made it home on Saturday evening, July 15th. Her family called the police and Carlee was taken to a hospital to be evaluated. She told the police that she’d been forced into a car and then into a truck trailer with a man that had orange hair, and also with a woman. She was taken to a house and undressed; then put back into a vehicle. She escaped while the vehicle was in West Hoover and ran through the woods to get home.
Her parents, during a July 17th appearance on the “Today” show, stated that there were moments when Carlee “fought for her life” both physically and mentally.
But on Wednesday, July 19th, the police said that elements of Carlee’s story just didn’t add up.
One, they couldn’t find any evidence that a toddler was on the side of the road where Carlee stopped. Nor was any toddler reported missing.
Two, an investigations of Carlee’s online history came up with the following searches: “Do you have to pay for an Amber Alert,” “How to take money from a register without being caught,” Birmingham bus station,” “one way bus ticket from Birmingham to Nashville” departing July 13, “the movie ‘Taken’.”
Three, while Carlee was on the phone with 911 reporting the toddler on the side of the road, she said she’d stopped to check on him. During that phone call, she traveled about 600 yards; the distance of six football fields. So no, she hadn’t stopped at all.
Right now, Carlee herself has not confessed to faking a kidnapping.
But if she did, it makes me angry.
Faked crime makes me angry mainly because you have just made it that much more difficult for real victims to be believed when they do report a crime. Next time someone reports a missing person, will the family/friends of the missing person be believed? If the person is found alive, will they be believed when they tell what happened to them?
Carlee Russell is a nursing student. Maybe she was running away from the pressures of the classroom, just like Jennifer Wilbanks ran away from the pressures of an upcoming large wedding.
I don’t know why people fake crimes. Is it to cover their tracks? Or do they want attention so badly that they’re willing to fake a crime? Is it a cry for help from someone who’s desperate and doesn’t see a way out? Are they looking for sympathy?
I don’t know. What I do know is that every faked crime makes it that much harder for real victims of real crimes to be believed.
Jennifer Wilbanks now works in relative obscurity in metro Atlanta, according to the People article I referenced above. Unfortunately, her name will forever be linked to a fake crime.
If Carlee Russell’s story is proven false, she, too, will be forever linked to a fake crime.
Is that the sort of legacy you want to leave?
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
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