Jilted Ga. groom still wants to marry his runaway bride

DULUTH, Ga. -- The jilted groom whose bride-to-be ran away four days before their wedding still wants to marry fiancee Jennifer Wilbanks, saying, "Haven't we all made mistakes?"

"Just because we haven't walked down the aisle, just because we haven't stood in front of 500 people and said our I Do's, my commitment before God to her was the day I bought that ring and put it on her finger, and I'm not backing down from that," John Mason said Monday in an interview with Fox News' Hannity & Colmes show.

It was Mason's first public statement since he learned on the morning of his scheduled wedding day that Wilbanks had gotten cold feet.

As family and friends feared the worst, police say Wilbanks cut her hair and took a Greyhound bus to Las Vegas to get out of a lavish, 600-guest wedding planned for Saturday. She then went on to Albuquerque, N.M., where she eventually called Mason and police from a pay phone at a 7-11, saying she had been kidnapped. She later said it simply a case of cold feet.

Mason said he has given the 32-year-old Wilbanks her ring back -- she had left it at the house -- and said they still planned to marry.

"Some things needs to happen first, and we need to talk about a few things and ... she needs some treatment, for lack of a better word," he said.

But if Mason and the family are ready to forgive the jittery bride, authorities are still peeved.

The mayor said Monday she is looking into the possibility of suing Wilbanks for the estimated $60,000-plus cost of searching for her. That option would have to be approved by the city council.

A local prosecutor said Monday he will conduct a thorough investigation, which could take weeks, before deciding whether to charge Wilbanks for falsely claiming she had been kidnapped.

District Attorney Danny Porter said he has not yet interviewed Wilbanks.

He said Wilbanks could face a misdemeanor charge of false report of a crime or a felony charge of false statements. The misdemeanor carries a penalty of up to a year in jail; five years in prison is the maximum sentence for the felony.

Porter said earlier Monday that authorities have evidence that Wilbanks' disappearance "was not just a spur-of-the-moment thing." He noted she had cut her hair and said there was evidence she bought the bus ticket ahead of time and secretly set some cash aside.

Mason said Wilbanks bought a bus ticket to Austin, Texas, the week before she disappeared "just in case she couldn't handle anything else."

"From Austin, she found out that with what money she had in her pocket, she could afford a trip to Vegas that would allow her another 30-something hours on a bus, which was the safest place for her," he said.

He said she apparently took at least $200, which she used to pay for her other bus tickets -- to Vegas and then to Albuquerque.

Wilbanks' father said his daughter claims she did not know about all the media attention surrounding her disappearance. He said she did not see a television during her trip and only once read a newspaper, but it made no mention of her.

Mason appealed to the prosecutor not to bring charges.

"Her cutting her hair and getting on a bus and riding out of here ain't none of (prosecutor) Danny Porter's business," Mason said. "And that's not criminal as far as I'm concerned."