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Pat Brown Nails the Runaway Bride Excerpt from the April 30, 2005 CNN Morning News Nguyen: So if you're just joining us, a story that prompted a three-day nationwide search and an oh-my-gosh ending this morning. Georgia bride-to-be Jennifer Wilbanks turned up in New Mexico today. She initially told Alburquerque police she had been abducted Tuesday night. Well, now Wilbanks admits she had a case of cold feet. She was to be married tonight in a huge wedding in suburban Atlanta. Police say she couldn't handle the pressure. Police don't plan to file any criminal charges at this time, although that has not been made just official as of yet. So we will have to keep watch on that. But here's the question today: what made Jennifer Wilbanks run away? What might have been going through her mind? Right now we want to turn to psychologist Pat Brown. She is in Minneapolis to kind of hlep us sort this all out. All right. Huge wedding. A lot of pressure. Is it enough to make somebody run away? Obviously, it is. Pat Brown, Psychologist: Well, let's start out with I'm not a psychologist, I'm a criminal profiler. So, let me straighten that out. Nguyen: OK Brown: But, I have to agree with the Reverend that I'm going through a lot of emotions, as well, but they're not the same ones he's going through. I'm going through disgust and I'm really angry and I don't understand why there is so much minimization of what has happened here, what Jennifer has done. She did not simply run away. That is a minimization. What she did, she planned this, I think, for attention. And what also has been said... Nguyen: Wait a second, our attention? Why would she want any more attention? She already has a wedding with 600 people. Brown: One would think. But I actually think she ran away to get attention. I think she ran away to get the media attention. And I think she - there's a lot more behavioral problems than we are hearing about. Nguyen: But what could she benefit from that media attention? I don't understand. Brown: Oh, well, it's exciting. The same thing Audrey Seiler did out in Wisconsin. It's exciting. She's disappeared and everybody's going to be thinking about her, looking for her. It's going to be all over the news. She knows this when she leaves. I don't believe for a minute that she wasn't aware of this. She put her family through hell, she put the community through hell, she put her friends through hell, and she spent a fortune of the taxpayer's money that is being takken away from true victims of crime. She has committed a crime, but we're calling it a mistake. She has lied, but we're calling it a story. She should be ashamed, but we're calling it she's embarrassed. Nguyen: OK, but do you recognize the fact there are runaway brides out there? This happens often. Brown: Well, not to this extent and not for this long. Under those circumstances where, sure, people run away, and usually, you know, they've run away. She made no attempt to contact her family, to let them know that she wasn't dead, and that is a terribly cruel thing to do. She allowed her fiance, if he wasn't involved in any way, shape or form, she allowed him to become a murder suspect. That's a terrible thing to do. I mean, she allowed every one of her friends to think she was dead. I mean, this is very narcissistic behavior. This is someone who says, I am more important than everybody else. Everything should be focused on me. Attention, attention, attention. And I think we're going to find out in the future - now, this is a 33-year-old woman, this is not a 17-year-old child. This is a 33-year-old woman who si supposedly responsible. I think we're going to find out later on that she's had lots of behaviors exhibited in the past that show that she does like to get a lot of attention. Nguyen: But could it be possible that she did have wedding day jitters, she went off on this jog and just realized that it was too much for her to handle, so she ran away? Is that possible in your mind? Because everyone that we have spoken with said she showed no hesitation before now. Brown: I don't think she showed hesitation before now. That's correct, she was planning something. I think she came up with a better idea. I could buy it if it was just temporary, but for that length of time, I don't believe anybody who cared about other people could put people through that kind of agony. I know that I certainly couldn't run away from a situation, just leave my family suffering, thinking I was dead for day after day after day. I just - I do not buy that at all. Nguyen: But couldn't she have just gotten scared? Because all of this kind of spiraled ot of control. It was on news and the searches were continuing, that she really didn't know how to speak up. Or even as the pastor just mentioned a little bit earlier, she was on a Greyhound bus and she may not even have had access to media reports until she got into Albuquerque and realized, oh my goodness, what has happened with all of this? Brown: She wasn't on Greyhound bus for five days straight. She was off of that bus someplace, staying someplace with access to media. I don't buy it. I think it's a very nice way of looking at it. I think that's the way we like to look at things, but I don't believe that a 33-year-old woman doesn't have enough brains to know what she's doing and how she's affecting people. So I consider what she's done a crime and I think the police should file charges and we should call it what it is. And it is a sad situation for everybody, but I don't think we should minimize it. Because in the future, we're going to see this happen again. Just after Audrey Seiler did it, she didn't really suffer any. She got more attention. This woman's going to get more attention. So in the future, we're going to see more money wasted, more people saying, hey, I'm not going to search for that missing person. She's probably another Audrey Seiler, oh, she's probably like that runaway bride down in Georgia. I mean this is going to affect - horribly impact investigations in the future and we ought to say, let's stop this bad behavior so we can do things properly and we can have our money spent well and have our time spent well and have our concern for real victims. Nguyen: Look, let me ask you this quickly. What does it say when she left her money, her I.D. and her keys at home? What does that tell you? Brown: That tells me there's some other - well, she's got a ticket in her hands, didn't she? Now how did they do that? Nguyen: there are a lot of questions out there, but... Brown: Exactly. Nguyen: On the surface, it seems like... Brown: She purchased that ticket ahead of time. Nguyen: On the surface, it seems like it may not have been planned. Brown: I heard she purchased the ticket ahead of time, and that makes me concerned. The fact that she was able to get a ticket means she had money with her. So she didn't just run away into the bushes, she had a plan, she had to stay someplace and she had to take yet another bus. She had money with her, so she did plan this. She didn't just run off jogging and run off into - because, that isn't the truth. And that's the problem. We need to face this truthfully, because it is going to affect future homicide investigations and the way we perceive victims. And I think that's a tragedy for them, more so than it is a tragedy for this young woman. Nguyen: All right. Criminal Profiler Pat Brown. We thank you for your insight. Brown: My pleasure. Nguyen: And of course, we're going to have much more on this. And you know, this is going to be the talk for a few days. Harris: Look, I got to take that in. Nguyen: I know. Harris: That was very strong from Pat. I got to take that in. Nguyen: She had a lot to say, for sure.
The Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency |