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CNN Saturday Morning News

Missing Bride-to-Be Found in New Mexico

Aired April 30, 2005 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning and welcome back.
We have been in continuing coverage since 3:00 a.m. this morning because a missing bride-to-be has been found on, of all days, her wedding day.

Jennifer Wilbanks was found alive this morning. In fact, she made a phone call to her parents in Georgia, Duluth, Georgia, around 1:40 Eastern time, telling them that she is OK, a little shooken up. She was cold and she was really distraught about the whole situation. She didn't know exactly where she was, but she was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, of all places.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And I've got to tell you that in just a couple of minutes, we're standing by, waiting for a news conference to be held. And we're going to get more information about this investigation and the discovery and recovery of Jennifer Wilbanks. We're expecting at any moment now a news conference from Albuquerque, New Mexico, police and the FBI.

But right now, let's sort of bring you update with what we know about this investigation and this amazing story with twist and turns throughout.

Jennifer Wilbanks, the subject of an intense manhunt since she disappeared from Duluth, Georgia Tuesday night, is now safely in police custody in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is safe to say this story has not turned out the way many people thought it might.

Here's what we know so far.

Wilbanks' family and police say she contacted her family by phone about 1:40 a.m. Eastern, but she didn't know quite where she was. The call was traced to Albuquerque and police there found her a few minutes later at a convenience store. Police and the FBI in Albuquerque are now interviewing the 32-year-old woman. That interview has concluded. And they were talking to her to determine the facts of her situation.

Her fiance and family will fly out to Albuquerque in just a few hours, 11:00, we understand, 11:00 Eastern is the scheduled flight to Albuquerque. And once that family touches down in Albuquerque, we are anticipating one heck of a reunion.

NGUYEN: We want to get an update on the situation outside the family's home. Let's go now to Charles Molineaux in Duluth -- Charles, I have seen cars come in and out, running up and down that street this morning. Everyone is finding out that Jennifer Wilbanks is, indeed, alive, today, on her wedding day, of all things.

CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Amazingly enough. And the situation has not calmed down, although a lot of Jennifer's closest family have now gone inside and they're actually packing up to fly out to Albuquerque for their reunion.

Just a few minutes ago, Jennifer's mother, Joyce Parrish, told me that whoever it was who kidnapped her, just let her go. After snatching her here on Tuesday evening and apparently driving her out to Albuquerque, New Mexico, let her go some time overnight. And she went to a convenience store and called the first person, of course, the man who has been in the middle of all this, her fiance, John Mayor, who has been going -- John Mason, rather -- who has been going through an awful lot.

This is the man who has been in the middle of this, first as the fiance of this missing woman, then as a subject of suspicion. Questions were flying around about would he take a lie detector test and people were looking at him a little funny and it was a big burden for him. He was having a hard time and he said that for a while he got kind of angry, but a lot of the family says that never did they ever suspect him. And he, of course, has said that there is some understanding that cops have to do what they have to do and the questions that have to be asked have to be asked.

But it's been a wild couple of days.

Listening to him just a while ago, very shortly after he heard that Jennifer was OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MASON, JENNIFER WILBANKS' FIANCE: I was trying to stay calm to talk to her, to keep her calm. And it's so much and you kind of have to keep yourself composed, because she didn't know where she was and she was scared to death. And I had to try to keep her on the phone until we got somebody to her. And I -- and when I finally put the phone down, I was just, I don't know, it was like the burden of the world, you know, was off my shoulders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MOLINEAUX: John Mason was obviously a very happy man. He is thrilled that this is actually going to happen. He and Jennifer's immediate family are going to be heading out to Albuquerque shortly, after a roller coaster of a day.

He admits that for a while he was angry about all the suspicion suddenly zeroing in on him. There was talk about a lie detector. He actually had an investigator administer a lie detector privately. Police and the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had been wanting to perform a lie detector test on him, but some of his lawyers were concerned that it would turn into an interrogation and the terms under with a lie detector could be administered had not been hammered out.

But the family says that they do understand that questions had to be asked and while John confesses that he was a little angry, a lot of happiness now and a big burden off of his shoulders. And this family is, instead of keeping a very anxious vigil, now preparing for a very joyous reunion and, yes, a wedding that is going to happen after all.

NGUYEN: It may not happen today, Charles, but it will, indeed, happen.

What an amazing story.

MOLINEAUX: Not today. But it's going to happen.

NGUYEN: Oh, yes.

Charles Molineaux outside the family's home there in Duluth, Georgia.

Thank you, Charles.

HARRIS: And as we mentioned, Jennifer Wilbanks turned up early this morning in Albuquerque, New Mexico, more than 1,500 miles from her home in Duluth, Georgia. Albuquerque police found Wilbanks at a convenience store along a main boulevard. We have exclusive video from affiliate KOAT of an interview early this morning with a spokeswoman for the Albuquerque police.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRISH AHRENSFIELD, ALBUQUERQUE POLICE: We have a lot of work ahead of us. We have not interviewed her yet. She is safe. And so we have a lot of steps in the next couple of hours and we will be obtaining suspect information in the future to get that out.

It's a possibility that she was dropped off here and released. And all of that is still being investigated. So at this time she is here. She is with police. She is -- there doesn't appear to be any life threatening injuries. We are going to get her medical attention and we will be talking to her in the next couple of hours.

QUESTION: What was the circumstance that you all came to find her, have her in the back of a police car?

AHRENSFIELD: My understanding is that this female called her family, called the police there and then through that we were dispatched. Basically they connected the police there to the police here and we then received the call. And that's when we found her at Solano and Central.

QUESTION: Just, APD got a call saying please go to Solano and Central and pick up this woman?

AHRENSFIELD: Yes. In reference to a possible kidnapping victim. QUESTION: And who responded to this? The beat sergeant or the beat officer?

AHRENSFIELD: The sergeant, I believe a couple of beat officers and good police work led them to possibly have a link to a possible connection with the female from Georgia. And so they called their sergeant and that is where we are right now. And, again, more importantly, she is safe and with us.

QUESTION: What made you guys think that there was this connection between this (INAUDIBLE)? Was it something that she said that tipped you guys off?

AHRENSFIELD: Yes, I believe she made several comments that -- and not only that, things have been plastered all over the news about a female from Georgia. And I guess the officer, I believe, even almost recognized her.

So at this time we have not confirmed that, but it's a very high possibility that we believe that this is her and she is safe.

QUESTION: And you mentioned you had actually gotten to talk to the sergeant.

What was his reaction? What was -- what were the officers' bead on the whole situation? That's got to be...

AHRENSFIELD: Just, I think they're amazed the fact that we've -- that if, in fact, this is her, that she is here and she is alive and not injured. And it appears at this time, again, like no life threatening injuries. So we are very glad that she is safe.

QUESTION: I take it some degree of shock, but she's able to communicate...

AHRENSFIELD: Yes.

QUESTION: ... and can talk about who she is...

AHRENSFIELD: Yes.

QUESTION: ... and what may have happened to her?

AHRENSFIELD: Yes. And the FBI is now going to interview her very shortly. So as soon as we have better concrete information so we can get out, suspect information, we'll get that out immediately.

QUESTION: I know there has been some speculation that given that her wedding day was coming up soon that she may have just sort of taken off on her own.

Is there anything to lead you guys to believe that this is not the case and that she was actually -- that this victim was held against her will and actually kidnapped?

AHRENSFIELD: We don't know any of that. And that's like very preliminary right now. Our detectives, when I just walked out, the detectives haven't even walked in to interview her and meet her yet. So anything would be not accurate or confirmed that I could tell you, except that it's very much a high possibility that this is her and we'll be taking the steps to get all of her information in and, again, get her medical attention and go from there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Wow!

That was Trish Ahrensfield of the Albuquerque Police Department. We now know that the woman police picked up is, in fact, Jennifer Wilbanks.

NGUYEN: Now, police in Duluth, Georgia searched for miles, for many days, searching for Jennifer Wilbanks. The police chief said they virtually turned over every leaf in the city and had exhausted their manpower. But the big break, of course, came when Wilbanks called home.

Chief Randy Belcher is among those who were on the phone when she made that call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDY BELCHER, DULUTH POLICE CHIEF: She had no idea where she was at. Again, she was hysterical. I contacted my office. We tried blue booking the phone number. I continued talking to her, trying to calm her down so, to give us a better location as to where we needed to look for her at. She was able to give me the name of a street from a street sign. She didn't have her contacts in, so she couldn't tell me a whole lot as far as being able to see where she was at.

And I then contacted -- found out that the number came back to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We contacted the Albuquerque Sheriff's Department and they -- I gave them the address that Jennifer had given me. And they stated that it was in the Albuquerque Police Department's jurisdiction. So we contacted the Albuquerque P.D. through the Sheriff's Department and we were able to locate her. They sent officers and picked her up. The FBI was contacted. And since that time the FBI has picked Jennifer up and she is now in their custody.

She didn't have her contacts. I don't know what happened to them. She was unable, you know, she was on the verge of being hysterical and that's why it was so difficult when I was first talking to her trying to get a location as to where she was at. So I was finally, after talking to her for about five minutes or so, able to get her calmed down enough that we could get a phone number.

It was just talking, you know, just telling her to take a deep breath, look around, see what's around her, just, you know, does she see anybody else? You know, trying to get some idea of where she was at while trying to calm her down at the same time.

So she did calm down quite a bit by the time we were able to get the phone number.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: They were trying to calm her down because when she made that call, she didn't call police, she called home.

HARRIS: Right.

NGUYEN: And maybe that's a testament to how close this family truly is.

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: But she had no idea where she was. All she knew was that she was at a pay phone at a convenience store. And, in fact, the family had to check caller I.D. when she was on the phone with them to determine that she was in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

HARRIS: Wow!

NGUYEN: They're the ones who, while folks were on the phone with Jennifer, other people in the house made a phone call to police. And that's how they tracked her down.

But this story is just quite extraordinary. It's got a ton of twists and turns over the matter of three days.

HARRIS: Yes, all along the way. Yes.

We're going to take a break, but first we want to remind you that we are standing by waiting for a news conference from Albuquerque police as well as the FBI. And we will certainly hope to learn more information about the circumstances surrounding Jennifer Wilbanks' recovery, we're happy to say, recovery in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

We'll take a break and come back with more of CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

HARRIS: Dramatic, boy.

NGUYEN: Yes, it has been.

HARRIS: We can't say that enough, can we?

NGUYEN: No, we cannot.

HARRIS: Dramatic new developments in the case of Jennifer Wilbanks on the day of her schedule wedding. The bride-to-be has turned up alive in New Mexico. She disappeared near her Georgia home. That was three days ago. Police in Albuquerque found Wilbanks at the convenience store after she called her family in Georgia. She told them she had been abducted Tuesday night by two strangers, a man and a woman, who eventually let her go.

Police have been questioning Jennifer Wilbanks.

Meantime, her family plans to fly out to New Mexico in just a few hours for a reunion.

NGUYEN: They're making a flight out to New Mexico, where on this day they had originally planned to have a wedding to celebrate the marriage of Jennifer Wilbanks and her fiance, John Mason. And many bridesmaids, many people in the wedding party are in town because of this. In fact, they had to take part in the search for Jennifer Wilbanks.

And we have one of those bridesmaids that we're going to be speaking with shortly.

Charles Molineaux, our correspondent, is on the scene at the family home in Duluth with a bridesmaid who, of course, has to be so thrilled today that Jennifer has been found alive -- Charles.

MOLINEAUX: Absolutely.

And the fact is that those bridesmaids and Jennifer had gotten together only last Sunday for what was to be the final shower before the big wedding day, which, of course, was to be today.

Shelley Ray was to be one of them.

She's actually a college friend of Jennifer's.

And all of a sudden your duties as a bridesmaid seem to have changed, and not necessarily for the better, over the past few days.

SHELLEY RAY, BRIDESMAID: Absolutely.

MOLINEAUX: What happened?

RAY: You know, I saw Jennifer last on Sunday at the shower and she was in great spirits and really excited. And then I got the news on Wednesday morning that she was missing.

MOLINEAUX: What have you been doing?

RAY: Wednesday we searched all day. We were down here most of the day on Wednesday searching. Then Thursday I actually went to a nearby mall and handed out fliers all afternoon. And just praying, praying that god would protect her.

MOLINEAUX: What have you seen happen to this family over the past few days?

RAY: Just everybody coming together, a very unified family on John's side of the family and Jennifer's. They're both very, very strong families with great faith and I've just seen them come together and unify in faith to bring Jennifer home.

MOLINEAUX: Now we hear she was actually kidnapped and taken off to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

How do these developments register as you sit here wondering what's happened to her and then they start to unfold? What goes through your mind?

RAY: You know, I think that all along we were so -- it was just so baffling to us that anything could have happened to her, particularly at this week in her life. And so it was very concerning. And I think anybody who was close to her felt like it had to be something of this nature.

We never felt like it was a cold feet issue. We never felt like that it was a John issue. Most of us who knew her and knew her well knew that it had to be something of this nature or that she was abducted or that something like that had happened to her.

MOLINEAUX: Yesterday afternoon, the police announced that they had pretty much done everything that they could in terms of searching around this area. The family announced a $100,000 reward. You must have been at a low at that point.

RAY: Absolutely. I mean it was just surreal. I mean you just feel like you're paralyzed, you're helpless. This search is off. You know, there's no information, no leads, no anything that has turned out to be anything that's concrete. And we were all very, very low. And, you know -- but still, I mean in my mind, there came a point Thursday night that, for some reason, I just really felt like that maybe she was alive and talked to another bridesmaid and she and I both actually talked about that. And we really felt like maybe she was alive somewhere.

So just praying and believing that god would protect her and bring her home was what we were doing at that point.

MOLINEAUX: If you were watching the news coverage, you couldn't have missed the suspicion that was starting to float around over Jennifer's fiance, John.

What was it like seeing that suddenly come into this story?

RAY: Oh, it was horrible. I mean, you know, just -- anybody who knows Jennifer and John know that that was not the case and, you know, it never entered anybody's mind that that was the case, anybody that knew them, anyway. It was very sad. It was very sad to see, you know, John to be -- have to, you know, lose his fiance the week of their wedding and then to have to be, you know, pointed -- fingers pointed at him. It was very, it was very sad to watch that.

MOLINEAUX: Where were you overnight and what happened as the word started to come through?

RAY: I actually went to bed about midnight, finished watching coverage on this about midnight and went to sleep. And about 1:40 got a phone call from another bridesmaid. And we had, she said, initially when the phone rang, it was, she said, you know, she's alive. And that's all that kept going through my head. And at that point I was just crying and waking my husband up: "She's alive, she's alive."

And so we began to call people, to pray at that point, because we didn't know exactly what, you know, what -- we just knew that she was alive and we didn't know where she was and didn't know what kind of shape she was in.

And so, you know, just praying that she was safe and that god would continue to keep her safe and keep his hands on her at that time.

MOLINEAUX: And then I guess everybody simply had to come here.

What was the scene like here? What was happening?

RAY: Oh, everybody was hysterical, just overjoyed, just relief, just absolute joy. We were so excited and so thrilled that we know that she is alive and she is safe.

MOLINEAUX: Thank you very much.

RAY: Thank you.

MOLINEAUX: Shelley Ray, a good friend of Jennifer's and a bridesmaid in this wedding that is going to be happening.

OK, her duties for a while included searching the woods and passing out fliers. But once again there will be a wedding and she will be a bridesmaid once again. And, again, the family of Jennifer is going to be heading out to Phoenix -- to, rather, to Albuquerque this morning and there will be a big reunion. And that wedding is going to happen eventually. Not today, but the anxious, anguished vigil is over.

NGUYEN: Hey, Charles, I don't know if Shelley has stepped away. But I do want to see if maybe you can find out, of course, everyone in this wedding party...

MOLINEAUX: Shelley.

NGUYEN: ... all 600 people -- yes, just grab her if you can -- cannot go to Albuquerque for this reunion.

Fourteen bridesmaids. She had, what, eight showers within the past week.

What is being planned? Something has to be planned for when Jennifer comes back home? And does...

MOLINEAUX: Fourteen bridesmaids, eight showers. What is going to happen...

NGUYEN: And does Shelley know when she'll be back home?

MOLINEAUX: ... when she gets back?

RAY: There is absolutely no telling what's happening next. I mean we, it's going to be just a great celebration.

MOLINEAUX: What have you seen happen in the town of Duluth?

RAY: I'm not from Duluth. I'm from Gainesville. And so I've been back and forth here. But what I've seen, I've seen, I mean, I searched with people on Wednesday who had no connection to either family, were just citizens of Duluth or citizens from other counties who just came to help search for her. And so, I mean, the outpouring of love for her, she would be so grateful. She would be...

MOLINEAUX: There's going to be a big party.

RAY: Oh, it's going to be huge, yes.

MOLINEAUX: Thank you very much.

RAY: Thank you.

MOLINEAUX: And, of course, keep in mind, these were two very large and well known families in this area already. And I think the both of them have suddenly gotten an awful lot bigger over the past few days and a lot more people are going to be involved in this wedding.

NGUYEN: Yes, they've become pretty well known across the nation, as well, with this search for Jennifer Wilbanks.

Let me ask you this. Maybe you know, maybe you don't, the family is going to pick up Jennifer today. They're going to reunite with her. And I can only imagine what that's going to be like for them.

Do you have any idea of when Jennifer will return to Georgia?

MOLINEAUX: They're not talking about that yet. Obviously there is still an investigation going on. We understand that the actual questioning of Jennifer has pretty much wrapped up. But, of course, she is still in Albuquerque. The time frame of getting her back has not yet been discussed. What we're hearing more along the lines of is the family is anxious to get out to her.

NGUYEN: With no doubt. And the news of the day, Charles, obviously, is the fact that Jennifer Wilbanks is alive. She has been found alive. The circumstances are very interesting and there are a lot of questions. We hope to learn some answers from that a little bit.

And we understand that a press conference should be starting momentarily. We see officers stepping out. They will be stepping up to a microphone very shortly.

This is the Albuquerque Police Department along with the FBI. Both of them have been questioning Jennifer Wilbanks.

Let's listen to what they have to say.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... missing since Tuesday has been found. We join a live news conference with the Albuquerque Police Department.

HARRIS: We want to -- we just want to let you know that we're working on that audio problem so that we can actually hear what's being said in this press conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

And guys in the back, as soon as you get any indication that we've got the audio back, let me know and I'll pipe down here.

But, once again, this is a press conference with Albuquerque, New Mexico police and the FBI, where we are anticipating getting more information, more information on the circumstances surrounding Jennifer's recovery in Albuquerque late last night, at about 11:00 p.m. last night.

And as we've been telling you, she was being questioned.

We've got it?

Are, let's take you down there.

CHIEF RAY SCHULTZ, ALBUQUERQUE POLICE DEPARTMENT: ... she had originally claimed. Agents and detectives learned that Miss. Wilbanks had become scared and concerned about her pending marriage and decided that she needed some time alone.

Miss. Wilbanks had traveled from the Georgia area to Las Vegas, Nevada via bus. Earlier today, she traveled from Las Vegas back to the Albuquerque area, again via bus, arriving this evening.

She remained in the Albuquerque area, traveling around the southeast area Heights, until approximately 23:38 hours, when she called 911, at which time officers responded and met her at the 711.

Miss. Wilbanks is being assisted by the FBI and APD victims assistance unit. We have her presently and later today we will be rejoining her with her family, who will be flying to Albuquerque.

As far as the Albuquerque Police Department goes and the Albuquerque FBI office, our investigation is closed. We will be turning this investigation over to the Atlanta FBI office, as well as the Duluth Police Department in Georgia.

Are there any questions?

QUESTION: Are there going to be any charges filed in connection with this or (INAUDIBLE) resources were spent in trying to find this woman?

SCHULTZ: There will be no charges at this time charged here in Albuquerque or the State of New Mexico. That will be left up to the authorities back in Georgia.

QUESTION: Is she saying she just got a case of cold feet?

SCHULTZ: Basically she was just very concerned about the pending wedding and very nervous about it, yes.

QUESTION: Chief, what's your overall (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: She's just, she's obviously very concerned about the stress that she's been through, the stress that's been placed on her family. So she is, she is very upset.

QUESTION: What about the blue van (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: There was no blue van involved. She was on a bus.

QUESTION: So did she initially say she was kidnapped? Was that...

SCHULTZ: She originally responded to the 911 dispatchers as well as the responding officers that she had been, yes.

QUESTION: Is she still here at the substation and is she going to be taken to the hospital?

SCHULTZ: No. She is no longer here at the substation. She is in the custody of victims assistance specialists, who will stay with her until her family gets here.

QUESTION: Has she talked to her family?

SCHULTZ: Yes, she has.

QUESTION: How long was she in Albuquerque (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: We're not exactly sure. She arrived some time Saturday -- I'm sorry, Friday evening or afternoon.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) from Las Vegas, Nevada?

SCHULTZ: Yes.

QUESTION: Greyhound?

SCHULTZ: I believe it was a Greyhound bus, yes.

QUESTION: Did she call her family (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: She did make more than one phone call. We're not exactly sure who she called and in which order.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: Her appearance is different, but I'm not exactly sure. I know her hair has been cut.

QUESTION: Is there any indication that she was (INAUDIBLE) with anyone else (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: She wasn't traveling with any family members or friends. She did meet some folks, however, while she was on the bus. QUESTION: Did she maintain that she (INAUDIBLE) after she had made the 911 call?

SCHULTZ: There was a period of time before she eventually told us what the true story was, yes, sir.

QUESTION: Can you give us any indication of where she (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: Las Vegas, Nevada.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: No, she was just wondered the Southeast area. Yes.

QUESTION: Did she make any statements that she may have (INAUDIBLE) once she had gotten to Albuquerque and met people, I mean, made -- you said she made some friends on the bus and did she just meander around aimlessly, according to her? Or did she meet those people?

SCHULTZ: No, basically she just walked around town for a while, until she made that 911 call.

QUESTION: Does she have any personal connection to Albuquerque at all? (INAUDIBLE) reason why she...

SCHULTZ: No.

QUESTION: Was there any particularly turning point that made her decide to tell the truth? I mean was it under intense questioning or how did she finally divulge the truth?

SCHULTZ: I don't know. I just know she was in discussion with detectives and agents and she decided that she needed to do the right thing and tell the right story, the true story.

Thank you very much.

HARRIS: Oh, my.

NGUYEN: We are just sitting here...

HARRIS: Oh, my.

NGUYEN: ... in shock listening to this, because all that we've heard earlier -- oh, let's listen in now.

SCHULTZ: Schultz. Albuquerque Police Department. Yes, sir. Chief of police.

Thank you.

NGUYEN: OK, he was just saying his name.

That's the Albuquerque chief of police right there. Let's see if he'll answer another question.

SCHULTZ: Yes. Thank you.

QUESTION: And she has left the station?

SCHULTZ: She's gone.

HARRIS: Well, and a story that has had twist upon twist, turn upon turn. Here is the latest. Apparently this is a case of cold feet.

NGUYEN: Absolutely. They say -- we missed the first part of this and we're trying to get the information on that from the Albuquerque police.

HARRIS: Well, I think we got the gist of it, though.

NGUYEN: But I think what we've learned in that was that she took a bus from Georgia to Las Vegas, and then from Vegas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Apparently saw all of the coverage and felt like she needed to do the right thing.

Albuquerque police say that she was not with any family or with any friends, although she did meet some people on the bus. But all morning long, speaking with the family, we've been told that there was never a case of cold feet, there was never any suspicion that that was the case at all.

HARRIS: Well, Betty, let's back this up.

NGUYEN: OK.

HARRIS: You know, we really, we really need to back this up now because we're talking about a story that started to unfold at 8:30 on Tuesday evening. And I understand initially, in the first hours after this investigation started, it was right here on AMERICAN MORNING where Bill Hemmer asked the major, the PIO for Duluth police, whether or not cold feet might have been an issue in this case. And the major said no. Dismissed it out of hand.

Here's what's interesting. Later that afternoon, the police chief, Randy Belcher, was asked a similar question about whether it is possible that Jennifer may have gotten a case of cold feet about this wedding. What he said, it is possible. He did not rule it out. He said that it is absolutely possible, that this might be a case of cold feet.

And then later in the evening, about 24 hours later in the cycle, the chief came back and said we are ruling out that this was a case of cold feet because it has been such a long period of time. Such a period of time has transpired that we're going to rule out again this notion of cold feet.

Let's go to Charles Molineaux on the ground at the family home, the Mason family home in Duluth, Georgia for reaction to this stunning turn of events -- Charles.

MOLINEAUX: And, Tony, let me tell you that the family has all along ruled out the notion of cold feet, as well, saying that no, that Jennifer was utterly enthused about this, thrilled and talking about great length with her family. Just about an hour-and-a-half ago, I talked to her mother, Joyce Parrish, who said that cold feet was never a possibility, that she had been talking so excitedly about the upcoming wedding.

And well now, a lot of the relatives, the friends, the family have actually pulled inside the house because things have turned out dramatically different from the very exciting situation that we were hearing just within the past half hour. All of a sudden yet another dramatic turn here.

Keep in mind that the news is still that Jennifer is alive and well. But all of a sudden it's a little different from what we were hearing just so recently from police and from the family, that apparently she decided that she was a little less than certain about this wedding or having, well, we can't know what was going on inside of her head, but took off across the country pretty much on her own. And we're waiting to hear from some of them about what might have happened.

The family is still planning to go out to Albuquerque for their reunion with her. But under circumstances a little bit different from those even what we were expecting a few minutes ago.

HARRIS: And, Charles, we need to bottom line this. And we have to call it is -- she made up this story. She made up a lot of this story, this notion of the blue van, this notion that she was jogging and that folks came up behind her, a woman and possibly a Hispanic man came up behind her and kidnapped her, this whole idea of this clump of hair that was found.

I guess at some point we may be led to conclude that she may have cut that herself. But let's face it, a number of aspects of this story she simply flat out made up.

MOLINEAUX: At this point, really, we're going to have to find out a lot about what could possibly have been her state of mind, fleeing halfway across the country and then, somewhere along the line, when she finally got to Albuquerque, calling the police, calling her family, calling in and saying where she was, for one thing. And then also, apparently, from what we are hearing, telling them that she had, in fact, been abducted, even to describing a Hispanic man and a white woman in a blue van and that they cut her hair.

These things are...

HARRIS: Yes.

MOLINEAUX: ... coming together now in a way that we had not anticipated even just a few minutes ago. And the questions that we were going to wonder as to what it was that prompted this kidnapping that we were hearing about... HARRIS: Right.

MOLINEAUX: ... her mother, for example, she told that they wanted money, they were talking about money. Well, obviously more of this story that we're now trying to process into an entirely different scenario from the one that we thought. What could possibly have been going through her head?

And then ultimately, as she came forward and revealed where she was, what was going through her head now?

And certainly some painful questions. And, again, the family is now being very quiet, all of the friends and people who have gathered here, first for this anxious vigil, then for this joyous celebration, and now suddenly a lot of uncertainty thrown into this.

The fact is she is alive. She is OK. But the circumstances have changed somewhat and...

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: Yes, they have, Charles...

MOLINEAUX: ... that is something of a letdown.

NGUYEN: ... and all morning long, I think the question that I've been asking is why did she call her family first if she was, indeed, released, like she said she was, which we're learning that she wasn't. It was all kind of made up. And -- because she called her family first. She didn't call 911. And -- but we have been speaking with family members and friends, family members who spoke with her on the phone this morning who said that this situation is how it all played out, what we had earlier believed to be, that she was abducted.

So she never told them -- are you learning anything about whether she ever told them the truth on the phone today?

HARRIS: Whether she told them the truth?

MOLINEAUX: We have heard several different accounts from several different family members, her fiance, her father, her mother. Each of them said that what they heard from her was a story about being abducted, being abducted by two people, being abducted by two people in a van who were talking about money. Nothing about her deciding that she had some misgivings or was concerned or was alarmed about the idea of this upcoming wedding, this huge production, to which she had committed.

Again, we're talking about something that involved 600 guests, two, well, very prominent families in this area, 14 bridesmaids and all the works that we have been hearing about all morning, something that she was suddenly so committed to, the idea that she suddenly might have had some misgivings about that was something that everyone that we had spoken to had pretty much dismissed, although we did have that one comment from the police that, well, there are cases of guys who go out for cigarettes and don't come back. Well, if what we're hearing now turns out to be the case, and that's what it looks like may, indeed, have happened, the word is still, of course, that she's OK, but suddenly the circumstances look dramatically different and a little less of the joyous occasion that we were thinking of.

NGUYEN: OK, Charles, we are looking at people really surrounding this tent area outside the house. Perhaps we will be learning from the family, getting some kind of reaction with the family there. They're supposed to be boarding a plane at 11:00 today to meet with this reunion with Jennifer Wilbanks.

But now that we've learned this bombshell from police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that all of this was just a case of cold feet, that, indeed, she may not have been abducted and that this whole story...

HARRIS: Well, she wasn't.

NGUYEN: Yes, that she wasn't abducted.

HARRIS: She wasn't.

NGUYEN: Let's go ahead and just put it out there, she wasn't abducted.

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: This whole story about people, this couple coming up from behind her while she was on a jog, cutting her hair. Maybe she cut her own hair. If it, indeed, is shorter, is what Albuquerque police are saying, then she had to have cut her own hair, unless she got some help with someone else in this whole plot of cold feet here.

And we are seeing people outside the house right now, clamoring around, hoping to hear something from the family, because she called home this morning. She called home and spoke with her stepfather. She spoke with her fiance, telling them this story about how these abductors just somehow saw the information on television and released her at this convenience store. And she didn't know where she was and they had to use caller I.D. to find out that she was, indeed, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So there are lots of thwats. But the latest in this abducted situation is, indeed, the fact that it wasn't an abducted at all, that it was a case of cold feet.

But Jennifer Wilbanks is alive this morning.

HARRIS: All right, and let's take you back just a couple of moments ago and hear the press conference from the chief of police in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

This is how Ray Schultz described the events with regard to Jennifer Wilbanks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHULTZ: At approximately 4:00 a.m. this morning, Miss. Wilbanks informed agents and detectives that she had not been abducted as she had originally claimed. Agents and detectives learned that Miss. Wilbanks had become scared and concerned about her pending marriage and decided that she needed some time alone.

Miss. Wilbanks had traveled from the Georgia area to Las Vegas, Nevada via bus. Earlier today, she traveled from Las Vegas back to the Albuquerque area, again via bus, arriving this evening.

She remained in the Albuquerque area, traveling around the southeast area Heights, until approximately 23:38 hours, when she called 911, at which time officers responded and met her at the 711.

Miss. Wilbanks is being assisted by the FBI and APD victims assistance unit. We have her presently and later today we will be rejoining her with her family, who will be flying to Albuquerque.

As far as the Albuquerque Police Department goes and the Albuquerque FBI office, our investigation is closed. We will be turning this investigation over to the Atlanta FBI office, as well as the Duluth Police Department in Georgia.

Are there any questions?

QUESTION: Are there going to be any charges filed in connection with this or (INAUDIBLE) resources were spent in trying to find this woman?

SCHULTZ: There will be no charges at this time charged here in Albuquerque or the State of New Mexico. That will be left up to the authorities back in Georgia.

QUESTION: Is she saying she just got a case of cold feet?

SCHULTZ: Basically she was just very concerned about the pending wedding and very nervous about it, yes.

QUESTION: Chief, what's your overall (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: She's just, she's obviously very concerned about the stress that she's been through, the stress that's been placed on her family. So she is, she is very upset.

QUESTION: What about the blue van (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: There was no blue van involved. She was on a bus.

QUESTION: So did she initially say she was kidnapped? Was that...

SCHULTZ: She originally responded to the 911 dispatchers as well as the responding officers that she had been, yes.

QUESTION: Is she still here at the substation and is she going to be taken to the hospital?

SCHULTZ: No. She is no longer here at the substation. She is in the custody of victims assistance specialists, who will stay with her until her family gets here.

QUESTION: Has she talked to her family?

HARRIS: OK, that is the police chief of the Albuquerque Police Department. That is Ray Schultz describing those events there in Albuquerque. Just a real bombshell now to learn that it appears that Jennifer Wilbanks concocted this story of being kidnapped.

Just a few moments ago -- is this live?

OK, just a few minutes ago, we heard from Randy Belcher, the police chief of Duluth, Georgia.

Oh, I see. OK. This is a tape turn for us.

All right, so, in just a moment, we're going to see that -- Randy is making his way.

OK. Let's listen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... give a statement here in the street, please?

QUESTION: So regardless of what happened, she's safe, she's not harmed and she'll be back (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, watch the car.

QUESTION: Chief?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you hear me?

We've got Chief Belcher. And Chief Belcher here is about to make a statement. I'm going to put the phone up so you guys can hear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. OK. OK. BELCHER: Folks, if you will, scoot back just a little bit, OK, so we can breathe over here?

As you all know, the last three or four days we've been looking for Miss. Jennifer Wilbanks, who came up missing after she had gone for a jog last Tuesday afternoon.

I'm happy to announce that this morning at 2:00 a.m., we located Miss. Wilbanks and she was in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The police, through direction, was able to find her. The FBI then took Miss. Wilbanks and took her to their headquarters and began talking to Miss. Wilbanks to determine what had taken place.

Originally, it appeared that she had been kidnapped. But after talking to the FBI, it turns out that Miss. Wilbanks basically felt the pressure of this large wedding and could not handle it. And therefore she got on a Greyhound bus and she went to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So at this point in time, we're just waiting for Miss. Wilbanks to come back. The family will be making a statement shortly and right now we expect that when she comes back, her and the family will go through a time where they can try to heal one another and put this behind them.

Thank you.

QUESTION: Will there be criminal charges pressed? BELCHER: No criminal charges.

QUESTION: Who is speaking for the family? BELCHER: I don't know, sir.

QUESTION: Did she go alone?

QUESTION: She got a Greyhound bus under pressure of the wedding day?

QUESTION: Did she cut her own hair? BELCHER: That's all we'll comment on.

Thank you.

QUESTION: Chief, let me ask you again. (INAUDIBLE)

HARRIS: And there you have the statement from Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher just a few minutes ago, walking us through the investigative process and the interview with Jennifer Wilbanks that was conducted by authorities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque police and the FBI.

Cold feet, when you get right to the bottom line on this. Cold feet. Jennifer became nervous about this wedding, a huge wedding, a big bridal party, 600 guests.

NGUYEN: Fourteen bridesmaids, what, eight showers in the span of a week or two?

HARRIS: Yes.

MOLINEAUX: And what we have learned -- let's take it a step back so we can help folks digest all of this.

HARRIS: Sure.

NGUYEN: ... because there's been a lot of turn of events.

We were told around 1:40 this morning Jennifer Wilbanks made a phone call to her parents, also to her fiance, saying that she had been abducted, these abductors dropped her off at this convenience store. She was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to caller I.D., because that was tracked to determine exactly where she was calling from. And she, at the time, said she didn't even know where she was.

Well, police came. They picked her up. They questioned her. At 4:00 a.m. today, around, what, two, a little over two...

HARRIS: That's Mountain time. Sure.

NGUYEN: ... three hours later, from when she was picked up. Police determined through that interrogation, that investigation, that, no, this whole story about being abducted was made up. It was a case of cold feet. None of it happened.

But there are still a lot of questions, a lot of questions about...

HARRIS: Well...

NGUYEN: ... the hair that was cut. Did she do it herself? Did someone help her in this? Was someone assisting her in this flee?

HARRIS: OK, let's, let's, for a moment, there is a lot of information we're getting. And obviously she made up a lot of this story, all of this story.

But for a moment, if you try to do a bit of a -- let's take it back to the two shot please.

If you try to do a bit of a perspective shift here, I mean, and try to view this from her perspective, this is a huge event. We don't know if this is her first -- would have been her first wedding, but this is clearly a huge event in her life, anyone's life. Just the size and scope of this wedding, 600 people, invited guests on this. She became nervous. There was a lot of talk and some speculation that, at the very beginning, that this might have been a case of cold feet. And there were a lot of people within the wedding party, a lot of people within the family, both sides of the family, that were quick to dismiss that notion that it was cold feet.

NGUYEN: Right.

HARRIS: But we now know that Jennifer was edgy, nervous, concerned -- the words from the police chief, Ray Schultz, in Albuquerque -- nervous, concerned about the size of this wedding. There was stress, he says, stress in all of it.

NGUYEN: Well, not only the size of the wedding, but also the prominence of this wedding. And I think you can speak to that because you got to know both of these families pretty well in covering the story.

HARRIS: Well, let's bring in Charles Molineaux, who is out in Duluth, who can help us talk through this.

Charles, what we're hearing is the rain, ironically, has started to fall.

MOLINEAUX: Yes, yes. I'll tell you what, Tony, you know, I'm sure there will be a lot of opportunities for people to look at the situation and try to do some analysis. If you talk to someone who's concerned about an upcoming wedding, a lot of people are when they've got one coming up. There's talk of the deep dread. And that is something that you can never predict and it might come along when you're doing something that everybody around you is so excited about.

And there was tremendous excitement here. Once the news came out that Jennifer was OK, it shifted back again to the idea of this huge wedding, this great big party that there was going to be. And you might imagine that perhaps there was a certain level of inevitability to it. And, well, obviously, we can't get into Jennifer's head, but you've got to wonder, perhaps, that if that may have played a part in some of what must have been going through her head as she decided to do whatever it was that she turned out to have done.

The scene here has changed dramatically. In fact, in a bit of an irony, we are now looking at a heavy downpour. The rain has started just in the past few minutes and everyone has run indoors.

HARRIS: Well, Charles, and stay with me on this. We understand that there is a whole investigative process that has to transpire here and still has to be worked through. But if you do, for a moment, try to attempt to see this from Jennifer's perspective, you're right, this was a huge event. And I know we're going to keep saying that. But, you know, folks are going to come back and say hey, look, it's a wedding. She agreed to it, she had been involved in this relationship with this man for a year-and-a-half. She knew the prominence of the family she was marrying into.

And, yes, you can't predict when this kind of thing might happen, but it was a big deal in her life and we certainly don't know now what motivated her to go to the lengths -- and I think that's the thing that's going to be most surprising to folks -- the lengths that she went to to avoid this wedding day.

To concoct this story, to take a bus to Las Vegas first and then another bus to Albuquerque -- and there are chunks of time, periods of time here that are missing. We don't know how long, from the time she left for this run at 8:30 until she gets on this bus to Las Vegas first. We don't know from the time that she gets off the bus and gets on another bus and comes to Albuquerque, how long she's, in essence, sort of wandering around Albuquerque in the southeast area of the city, is what we understand from the chief there. We don't know how long she was wandering around, what she was thinking, what hare state of mind was at this time.

But clearly, as the chief said, she was stressed out, nervous and very concerned.

MOLINEAUX: Yes. And, Tony, if you want to try and throw out some theories, there is the fact that this was a wedding of tremendous magnitude. And if you want to throw in another word, let's try inertia. We're talking about 600 guests. We're talking about 14 bridesmaids, all the showers, the entire community, two very big families. And perhaps only something truly precipitous could derail it the way that it seems to have been derailed. So perhaps there was a sense of inevitability that may have driven Jennifer to, for starters, just flee, and then try to come up with something that would make this right, that would make this make sense. And, of course, what does the fact that she, instead of merely announcing that she wasn't going to go through with it or merely announcing right up front that she had had cold feet, this story about a kidnapping came out. Well, how did that happen? What was the process?

HARRIS: Yes, yes.

MOLINEAUX: And you've got to hope that even as the police are understandably a little perturbed with her, that we get some sort of a handling of this that reflects, no doubt, a very severe emotional situation that she must have been in.

And keep in mind that she did, in fact, talk to her fiance and her parents, who described her as being extremely emotional, very intense, very distraught. Well, that's what you would expect from someone who has been kidnapped. Perhaps it wasn't necessarily the kidnapping that they were hearing.

HARRIS: And it's also something you would expect from someone who has gotten a case of cold feet.

MOLINEAUX: Yes. And has suddenly...

NGUYEN: And, Charles, it's not only...

MOLINEAUX: ... embarked on something precipitous...

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: Yes.

MOLINEAUX: ... and enormous. And we heard about the talk that maybe these kidnappers may have seen some of the coverage of this tremendous effort to find Jennifer. Well...

HARRIS: Jennifer saw the coverage, too.

MOLINEAUX: ... perhaps we may find out that she saw some of it.

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: That's right. And it's not only the kidnapping, Charles. There was also some talk of she may have been possibly sexually abused in this kidnapping. So there are a ton of, a ton of theories that went out there surrounding this abduction, which is now not the case, which is just a case of cold feet. But all morning long we have been getting reaction from family members, from wedding party members.

Now I want to know what is the reaction to this bombshell of information that we've learned from the Albuquerque Police Department that this, indeed, was not an abduction, but a case of the cold feet by Jennifer?

MOLINEAUX: I guess the best way I can sum up the reaction we're getting is stunned silence. And silence is exactly what is coming out right now. The family has pulled indoors. Well, for starters, it's raining. But also when the news came out that what we were dealing with was, in fact, apparently a case of cold feet, from what we're hearing. All of a sudden we were not hearing some very excited people only an hour or so ago talking to us anymore. It was more a case of...

NGUYEN: Right. Well, just an hour ago they were talking about...

MOLINEAUX: ... a blank stare.

NGUYEN: ... the wedding is still on, we're going to bring her back, this wedding is going to be bigger...

HARRIS: In the town center.

NGUYEN: ... than we can imagine. Everybody in town was going to be here. We'll see if that, indeed, is the case. I think a lot of questions still need to be answered in this.

But one thing we do know, Jennifer Wilbanks is alive today. But the whole abduction story, according to Albuquerque police, was fake. It was made up. This was a case of cold feet.

HARRIS: You know what? I sort of, my instinct here is to try to give Jennifer a bit of a pass here. Think about it, if not for all of the intense media scrutiny on this case, what do you have? You have a young woman, 32 years old, who got a case of cold feet, jitters about this wedding, and decided to run. A bit of a runaway bride scenario here.

So, and since my instinct is to sort of give her a bit of a pass and understand that this has been made bigger than life by our involvement in all of this -- let's take a break.

And we'll come back with more of our coverage as CNN SATURDAY MORNING continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

NGUYEN: All right, where do we begin with this story?

It has taken so many twists and turns. We're talking about the search for Jennifer Wilbanks.

Well, we have learned this morning a bombshell was dropped in Albuquerque, New Mexico by the police chief there, that Jennifer Wilbanks made this all up, that she is alive, she is well. She just has a case of the cold feet. And the whole story about being abducted and taken by van to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she may have even been sexually assaulted, all of that fake, made up, a case of cold feet.

HARRIS: And we want to welcome you back, everyone, to CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

Just a couple of minutes shy of 8:00 in the East.

Just a few moments ago we heard from the police chief in Duluth, the City of Duluth, the home of the Mason family. OK, the home of the Mason family. And basically what he told us is, he gave a bit of the insight of the process that went on with Jennifer out in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

This is a case where Jennifer left her home Tuesday evening, told her fiance that she was going for a run. Remember, she was in a sweat suit. There's so many questions here. She was in a sweatshirt, sweatpants, New Balance tennis shoes, did not take...

NGUYEN: No money, no keys.

HARRIS: ... her money, car keys, credit cards, nothing. She took off on Tuesday evening. It's interesting how she was able to purchase a ticket to get on a bus, which is what she did. She got on a bus to Las Vegas first and spent some time in Las Vegas. We don't know exactly how long she was there. And then she took another bus, another bus to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the best we can make out, she wandered around the southeast portion of that city for a period of time before she began to make phone calls.

And one of the phone calls she made was to her folks back here. Was it her stepfather that she talked to?

NGUYEN: It was to her fiance's house, but her stepfather, Roger Parrish, was manning the phone. That was his job, just in case any kind of information was coming in to her whereabouts.

So this family has been really put through an emotional roller coaster. They have been searching and waiting and hoping and praying. Today was supposed to be Jennifer Wilbanks' wedding.

So what we have learned is that she made a call from Albuquerque, New Mexico around 1:40 a.m. Eastern time this morning. Her stepfather, Roger Parrish, answered that phone. And she said I'm cold, I don't know where I am...

HARRIS: I'm thirsty.

NGUYEN: ... I'm thirsty, I've been abducted. And they kept her on the phone as long as they could, trying to calm her down, because she was very distraught. And while they were doing that, other folks in the house were trying to determine from caller I.D. exactly where she was, because when she made that call, she said she didn't even know.

Now, this is a woman who took a bus from Las Vegas, from Georgia to Las Vegas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. So she knew very well exactly where she was. It was just a case of cold feet. She got nervous, but she apparently saw all the media attention about the search for her and decided that she had to at least let her family know that she, indeed, is alive. HARRIS: And what we learned from Ray Schultz, who is the chief of police in Albuquerque, is that she finally told the story. And when we take a break and come back here, we'll recap everything that we know about this and try to bring you the very latest information, the very latest sound bites from everyone involved in this investigation.

We'll take a break and come back with more of CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired April 30, 2005 - 07:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning and welcome back.
We have been in continuing coverage since 3:00 a.m. this morning because a missing bride-to-be has been found on, of all days, her wedding day.

Jennifer Wilbanks was found alive this morning. In fact, she made a phone call to her parents in Georgia, Duluth, Georgia, around 1:40 Eastern time, telling them that she is OK, a little shooken up. She was cold and she was really distraught about the whole situation. She didn't know exactly where she was, but she was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, of all places.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And I've got to tell you that in just a couple of minutes, we're standing by, waiting for a news conference to be held. And we're going to get more information about this investigation and the discovery and recovery of Jennifer Wilbanks. We're expecting at any moment now a news conference from Albuquerque, New Mexico, police and the FBI.

But right now, let's sort of bring you update with what we know about this investigation and this amazing story with twist and turns throughout.

Jennifer Wilbanks, the subject of an intense manhunt since she disappeared from Duluth, Georgia Tuesday night, is now safely in police custody in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is safe to say this story has not turned out the way many people thought it might.

Here's what we know so far.

Wilbanks' family and police say she contacted her family by phone about 1:40 a.m. Eastern, but she didn't know quite where she was. The call was traced to Albuquerque and police there found her a few minutes later at a convenience store. Police and the FBI in Albuquerque are now interviewing the 32-year-old woman. That interview has concluded. And they were talking to her to determine the facts of her situation.

Her fiance and family will fly out to Albuquerque in just a few hours, 11:00, we understand, 11:00 Eastern is the scheduled flight to Albuquerque. And once that family touches down in Albuquerque, we are anticipating one heck of a reunion.

NGUYEN: We want to get an update on the situation outside the family's home. Let's go now to Charles Molineaux in Duluth -- Charles, I have seen cars come in and out, running up and down that street this morning. Everyone is finding out that Jennifer Wilbanks is, indeed, alive, today, on her wedding day, of all things.

CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Amazingly enough. And the situation has not calmed down, although a lot of Jennifer's closest family have now gone inside and they're actually packing up to fly out to Albuquerque for their reunion.

Just a few minutes ago, Jennifer's mother, Joyce Parrish, told me that whoever it was who kidnapped her, just let her go. After snatching her here on Tuesday evening and apparently driving her out to Albuquerque, New Mexico, let her go some time overnight. And she went to a convenience store and called the first person, of course, the man who has been in the middle of all this, her fiance, John Mayor, who has been going -- John Mason, rather -- who has been going through an awful lot.

This is the man who has been in the middle of this, first as the fiance of this missing woman, then as a subject of suspicion. Questions were flying around about would he take a lie detector test and people were looking at him a little funny and it was a big burden for him. He was having a hard time and he said that for a while he got kind of angry, but a lot of the family says that never did they ever suspect him. And he, of course, has said that there is some understanding that cops have to do what they have to do and the questions that have to be asked have to be asked.

But it's been a wild couple of days.

Listening to him just a while ago, very shortly after he heard that Jennifer was OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MASON, JENNIFER WILBANKS' FIANCE: I was trying to stay calm to talk to her, to keep her calm. And it's so much and you kind of have to keep yourself composed, because she didn't know where she was and she was scared to death. And I had to try to keep her on the phone until we got somebody to her. And I -- and when I finally put the phone down, I was just, I don't know, it was like the burden of the world, you know, was off my shoulders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MOLINEAUX: John Mason was obviously a very happy man. He is thrilled that this is actually going to happen. He and Jennifer's immediate family are going to be heading out to Albuquerque shortly, after a roller coaster of a day.

He admits that for a while he was angry about all the suspicion suddenly zeroing in on him. There was talk about a lie detector. He actually had an investigator administer a lie detector privately. Police and the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had been wanting to perform a lie detector test on him, but some of his lawyers were concerned that it would turn into an interrogation and the terms under with a lie detector could be administered had not been hammered out.

But the family says that they do understand that questions had to be asked and while John confesses that he was a little angry, a lot of happiness now and a big burden off of his shoulders. And this family is, instead of keeping a very anxious vigil, now preparing for a very joyous reunion and, yes, a wedding that is going to happen after all.

NGUYEN: It may not happen today, Charles, but it will, indeed, happen.

What an amazing story.

MOLINEAUX: Not today. But it's going to happen.

NGUYEN: Oh, yes.

Charles Molineaux outside the family's home there in Duluth, Georgia.

Thank you, Charles.

HARRIS: And as we mentioned, Jennifer Wilbanks turned up early this morning in Albuquerque, New Mexico, more than 1,500 miles from her home in Duluth, Georgia. Albuquerque police found Wilbanks at a convenience store along a main boulevard. We have exclusive video from affiliate KOAT of an interview early this morning with a spokeswoman for the Albuquerque police.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRISH AHRENSFIELD, ALBUQUERQUE POLICE: We have a lot of work ahead of us. We have not interviewed her yet. She is safe. And so we have a lot of steps in the next couple of hours and we will be obtaining suspect information in the future to get that out.

It's a possibility that she was dropped off here and released. And all of that is still being investigated. So at this time she is here. She is with police. She is -- there doesn't appear to be any life threatening injuries. We are going to get her medical attention and we will be talking to her in the next couple of hours.

QUESTION: What was the circumstance that you all came to find her, have her in the back of a police car?

AHRENSFIELD: My understanding is that this female called her family, called the police there and then through that we were dispatched. Basically they connected the police there to the police here and we then received the call. And that's when we found her at Solano and Central.

QUESTION: Just, APD got a call saying please go to Solano and Central and pick up this woman?

AHRENSFIELD: Yes. In reference to a possible kidnapping victim. QUESTION: And who responded to this? The beat sergeant or the beat officer?

AHRENSFIELD: The sergeant, I believe a couple of beat officers and good police work led them to possibly have a link to a possible connection with the female from Georgia. And so they called their sergeant and that is where we are right now. And, again, more importantly, she is safe and with us.

QUESTION: What made you guys think that there was this connection between this (INAUDIBLE)? Was it something that she said that tipped you guys off?

AHRENSFIELD: Yes, I believe she made several comments that -- and not only that, things have been plastered all over the news about a female from Georgia. And I guess the officer, I believe, even almost recognized her.

So at this time we have not confirmed that, but it's a very high possibility that we believe that this is her and she is safe.

QUESTION: And you mentioned you had actually gotten to talk to the sergeant.

What was his reaction? What was -- what were the officers' bead on the whole situation? That's got to be...

AHRENSFIELD: Just, I think they're amazed the fact that we've -- that if, in fact, this is her, that she is here and she is alive and not injured. And it appears at this time, again, like no life threatening injuries. So we are very glad that she is safe.

QUESTION: I take it some degree of shock, but she's able to communicate...

AHRENSFIELD: Yes.

QUESTION: ... and can talk about who she is...

AHRENSFIELD: Yes.

QUESTION: ... and what may have happened to her?

AHRENSFIELD: Yes. And the FBI is now going to interview her very shortly. So as soon as we have better concrete information so we can get out, suspect information, we'll get that out immediately.

QUESTION: I know there has been some speculation that given that her wedding day was coming up soon that she may have just sort of taken off on her own.

Is there anything to lead you guys to believe that this is not the case and that she was actually -- that this victim was held against her will and actually kidnapped?

AHRENSFIELD: We don't know any of that. And that's like very preliminary right now. Our detectives, when I just walked out, the detectives haven't even walked in to interview her and meet her yet. So anything would be not accurate or confirmed that I could tell you, except that it's very much a high possibility that this is her and we'll be taking the steps to get all of her information in and, again, get her medical attention and go from there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Wow!

That was Trish Ahrensfield of the Albuquerque Police Department. We now know that the woman police picked up is, in fact, Jennifer Wilbanks.

NGUYEN: Now, police in Duluth, Georgia searched for miles, for many days, searching for Jennifer Wilbanks. The police chief said they virtually turned over every leaf in the city and had exhausted their manpower. But the big break, of course, came when Wilbanks called home.

Chief Randy Belcher is among those who were on the phone when she made that call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDY BELCHER, DULUTH POLICE CHIEF: She had no idea where she was at. Again, she was hysterical. I contacted my office. We tried blue booking the phone number. I continued talking to her, trying to calm her down so, to give us a better location as to where we needed to look for her at. She was able to give me the name of a street from a street sign. She didn't have her contacts in, so she couldn't tell me a whole lot as far as being able to see where she was at.

And I then contacted -- found out that the number came back to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We contacted the Albuquerque Sheriff's Department and they -- I gave them the address that Jennifer had given me. And they stated that it was in the Albuquerque Police Department's jurisdiction. So we contacted the Albuquerque P.D. through the Sheriff's Department and we were able to locate her. They sent officers and picked her up. The FBI was contacted. And since that time the FBI has picked Jennifer up and she is now in their custody.

She didn't have her contacts. I don't know what happened to them. She was unable, you know, she was on the verge of being hysterical and that's why it was so difficult when I was first talking to her trying to get a location as to where she was at. So I was finally, after talking to her for about five minutes or so, able to get her calmed down enough that we could get a phone number.

It was just talking, you know, just telling her to take a deep breath, look around, see what's around her, just, you know, does she see anybody else? You know, trying to get some idea of where she was at while trying to calm her down at the same time.

So she did calm down quite a bit by the time we were able to get the phone number.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: They were trying to calm her down because when she made that call, she didn't call police, she called home.

HARRIS: Right.

NGUYEN: And maybe that's a testament to how close this family truly is.

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: But she had no idea where she was. All she knew was that she was at a pay phone at a convenience store. And, in fact, the family had to check caller I.D. when she was on the phone with them to determine that she was in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

HARRIS: Wow!

NGUYEN: They're the ones who, while folks were on the phone with Jennifer, other people in the house made a phone call to police. And that's how they tracked her down.

But this story is just quite extraordinary. It's got a ton of twists and turns over the matter of three days.

HARRIS: Yes, all along the way. Yes.

We're going to take a break, but first we want to remind you that we are standing by waiting for a news conference from Albuquerque police as well as the FBI. And we will certainly hope to learn more information about the circumstances surrounding Jennifer Wilbanks' recovery, we're happy to say, recovery in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

We'll take a break and come back with more of CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

HARRIS: Dramatic, boy.

NGUYEN: Yes, it has been.

HARRIS: We can't say that enough, can we?

NGUYEN: No, we cannot.

HARRIS: Dramatic new developments in the case of Jennifer Wilbanks on the day of her schedule wedding. The bride-to-be has turned up alive in New Mexico. She disappeared near her Georgia home. That was three days ago. Police in Albuquerque found Wilbanks at the convenience store after she called her family in Georgia. She told them she had been abducted Tuesday night by two strangers, a man and a woman, who eventually let her go.

Police have been questioning Jennifer Wilbanks.

Meantime, her family plans to fly out to New Mexico in just a few hours for a reunion.

NGUYEN: They're making a flight out to New Mexico, where on this day they had originally planned to have a wedding to celebrate the marriage of Jennifer Wilbanks and her fiance, John Mason. And many bridesmaids, many people in the wedding party are in town because of this. In fact, they had to take part in the search for Jennifer Wilbanks.

And we have one of those bridesmaids that we're going to be speaking with shortly.

Charles Molineaux, our correspondent, is on the scene at the family home in Duluth with a bridesmaid who, of course, has to be so thrilled today that Jennifer has been found alive -- Charles.

MOLINEAUX: Absolutely.

And the fact is that those bridesmaids and Jennifer had gotten together only last Sunday for what was to be the final shower before the big wedding day, which, of course, was to be today.

Shelley Ray was to be one of them.

She's actually a college friend of Jennifer's.

And all of a sudden your duties as a bridesmaid seem to have changed, and not necessarily for the better, over the past few days.

SHELLEY RAY, BRIDESMAID: Absolutely.

MOLINEAUX: What happened?

RAY: You know, I saw Jennifer last on Sunday at the shower and she was in great spirits and really excited. And then I got the news on Wednesday morning that she was missing.

MOLINEAUX: What have you been doing?

RAY: Wednesday we searched all day. We were down here most of the day on Wednesday searching. Then Thursday I actually went to a nearby mall and handed out fliers all afternoon. And just praying, praying that god would protect her.

MOLINEAUX: What have you seen happen to this family over the past few days?

RAY: Just everybody coming together, a very unified family on John's side of the family and Jennifer's. They're both very, very strong families with great faith and I've just seen them come together and unify in faith to bring Jennifer home.

MOLINEAUX: Now we hear she was actually kidnapped and taken off to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

How do these developments register as you sit here wondering what's happened to her and then they start to unfold? What goes through your mind?

RAY: You know, I think that all along we were so -- it was just so baffling to us that anything could have happened to her, particularly at this week in her life. And so it was very concerning. And I think anybody who was close to her felt like it had to be something of this nature.

We never felt like it was a cold feet issue. We never felt like that it was a John issue. Most of us who knew her and knew her well knew that it had to be something of this nature or that she was abducted or that something like that had happened to her.

MOLINEAUX: Yesterday afternoon, the police announced that they had pretty much done everything that they could in terms of searching around this area. The family announced a $100,000 reward. You must have been at a low at that point.

RAY: Absolutely. I mean it was just surreal. I mean you just feel like you're paralyzed, you're helpless. This search is off. You know, there's no information, no leads, no anything that has turned out to be anything that's concrete. And we were all very, very low. And, you know -- but still, I mean in my mind, there came a point Thursday night that, for some reason, I just really felt like that maybe she was alive and talked to another bridesmaid and she and I both actually talked about that. And we really felt like maybe she was alive somewhere.

So just praying and believing that god would protect her and bring her home was what we were doing at that point.

MOLINEAUX: If you were watching the news coverage, you couldn't have missed the suspicion that was starting to float around over Jennifer's fiance, John.

What was it like seeing that suddenly come into this story?

RAY: Oh, it was horrible. I mean, you know, just -- anybody who knows Jennifer and John know that that was not the case and, you know, it never entered anybody's mind that that was the case, anybody that knew them, anyway. It was very sad. It was very sad to see, you know, John to be -- have to, you know, lose his fiance the week of their wedding and then to have to be, you know, pointed -- fingers pointed at him. It was very, it was very sad to watch that.

MOLINEAUX: Where were you overnight and what happened as the word started to come through?

RAY: I actually went to bed about midnight, finished watching coverage on this about midnight and went to sleep. And about 1:40 got a phone call from another bridesmaid. And we had, she said, initially when the phone rang, it was, she said, you know, she's alive. And that's all that kept going through my head. And at that point I was just crying and waking my husband up: "She's alive, she's alive."

And so we began to call people, to pray at that point, because we didn't know exactly what, you know, what -- we just knew that she was alive and we didn't know where she was and didn't know what kind of shape she was in.

And so, you know, just praying that she was safe and that god would continue to keep her safe and keep his hands on her at that time.

MOLINEAUX: And then I guess everybody simply had to come here.

What was the scene like here? What was happening?

RAY: Oh, everybody was hysterical, just overjoyed, just relief, just absolute joy. We were so excited and so thrilled that we know that she is alive and she is safe.

MOLINEAUX: Thank you very much.

RAY: Thank you.

MOLINEAUX: Shelley Ray, a good friend of Jennifer's and a bridesmaid in this wedding that is going to be happening.

OK, her duties for a while included searching the woods and passing out fliers. But once again there will be a wedding and she will be a bridesmaid once again. And, again, the family of Jennifer is going to be heading out to Phoenix -- to, rather, to Albuquerque this morning and there will be a big reunion. And that wedding is going to happen eventually. Not today, but the anxious, anguished vigil is over.

NGUYEN: Hey, Charles, I don't know if Shelley has stepped away. But I do want to see if maybe you can find out, of course, everyone in this wedding party...

MOLINEAUX: Shelley.

NGUYEN: ... all 600 people -- yes, just grab her if you can -- cannot go to Albuquerque for this reunion.

Fourteen bridesmaids. She had, what, eight showers within the past week.

What is being planned? Something has to be planned for when Jennifer comes back home? And does...

MOLINEAUX: Fourteen bridesmaids, eight showers. What is going to happen...

NGUYEN: And does Shelley know when she'll be back home?

MOLINEAUX: ... when she gets back?

RAY: There is absolutely no telling what's happening next. I mean we, it's going to be just a great celebration.

MOLINEAUX: What have you seen happen in the town of Duluth?

RAY: I'm not from Duluth. I'm from Gainesville. And so I've been back and forth here. But what I've seen, I've seen, I mean, I searched with people on Wednesday who had no connection to either family, were just citizens of Duluth or citizens from other counties who just came to help search for her. And so, I mean, the outpouring of love for her, she would be so grateful. She would be...

MOLINEAUX: There's going to be a big party.

RAY: Oh, it's going to be huge, yes.

MOLINEAUX: Thank you very much.

RAY: Thank you.

MOLINEAUX: And, of course, keep in mind, these were two very large and well known families in this area already. And I think the both of them have suddenly gotten an awful lot bigger over the past few days and a lot more people are going to be involved in this wedding.

NGUYEN: Yes, they've become pretty well known across the nation, as well, with this search for Jennifer Wilbanks.

Let me ask you this. Maybe you know, maybe you don't, the family is going to pick up Jennifer today. They're going to reunite with her. And I can only imagine what that's going to be like for them.

Do you have any idea of when Jennifer will return to Georgia?

MOLINEAUX: They're not talking about that yet. Obviously there is still an investigation going on. We understand that the actual questioning of Jennifer has pretty much wrapped up. But, of course, she is still in Albuquerque. The time frame of getting her back has not yet been discussed. What we're hearing more along the lines of is the family is anxious to get out to her.

NGUYEN: With no doubt. And the news of the day, Charles, obviously, is the fact that Jennifer Wilbanks is alive. She has been found alive. The circumstances are very interesting and there are a lot of questions. We hope to learn some answers from that a little bit.

And we understand that a press conference should be starting momentarily. We see officers stepping out. They will be stepping up to a microphone very shortly.

This is the Albuquerque Police Department along with the FBI. Both of them have been questioning Jennifer Wilbanks.

Let's listen to what they have to say.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... missing since Tuesday has been found. We join a live news conference with the Albuquerque Police Department.

HARRIS: We want to -- we just want to let you know that we're working on that audio problem so that we can actually hear what's being said in this press conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

And guys in the back, as soon as you get any indication that we've got the audio back, let me know and I'll pipe down here.

But, once again, this is a press conference with Albuquerque, New Mexico police and the FBI, where we are anticipating getting more information, more information on the circumstances surrounding Jennifer's recovery in Albuquerque late last night, at about 11:00 p.m. last night.

And as we've been telling you, she was being questioned.

We've got it?

Are, let's take you down there.

CHIEF RAY SCHULTZ, ALBUQUERQUE POLICE DEPARTMENT: ... she had originally claimed. Agents and detectives learned that Miss. Wilbanks had become scared and concerned about her pending marriage and decided that she needed some time alone.

Miss. Wilbanks had traveled from the Georgia area to Las Vegas, Nevada via bus. Earlier today, she traveled from Las Vegas back to the Albuquerque area, again via bus, arriving this evening.

She remained in the Albuquerque area, traveling around the southeast area Heights, until approximately 23:38 hours, when she called 911, at which time officers responded and met her at the 711.

Miss. Wilbanks is being assisted by the FBI and APD victims assistance unit. We have her presently and later today we will be rejoining her with her family, who will be flying to Albuquerque.

As far as the Albuquerque Police Department goes and the Albuquerque FBI office, our investigation is closed. We will be turning this investigation over to the Atlanta FBI office, as well as the Duluth Police Department in Georgia.

Are there any questions?

QUESTION: Are there going to be any charges filed in connection with this or (INAUDIBLE) resources were spent in trying to find this woman?

SCHULTZ: There will be no charges at this time charged here in Albuquerque or the State of New Mexico. That will be left up to the authorities back in Georgia.

QUESTION: Is she saying she just got a case of cold feet?

SCHULTZ: Basically she was just very concerned about the pending wedding and very nervous about it, yes.

QUESTION: Chief, what's your overall (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: She's just, she's obviously very concerned about the stress that she's been through, the stress that's been placed on her family. So she is, she is very upset.

QUESTION: What about the blue van (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: There was no blue van involved. She was on a bus.

QUESTION: So did she initially say she was kidnapped? Was that...

SCHULTZ: She originally responded to the 911 dispatchers as well as the responding officers that she had been, yes.

QUESTION: Is she still here at the substation and is she going to be taken to the hospital?

SCHULTZ: No. She is no longer here at the substation. She is in the custody of victims assistance specialists, who will stay with her until her family gets here.

QUESTION: Has she talked to her family?

SCHULTZ: Yes, she has.

QUESTION: How long was she in Albuquerque (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: We're not exactly sure. She arrived some time Saturday -- I'm sorry, Friday evening or afternoon.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) from Las Vegas, Nevada?

SCHULTZ: Yes.

QUESTION: Greyhound?

SCHULTZ: I believe it was a Greyhound bus, yes.

QUESTION: Did she call her family (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: She did make more than one phone call. We're not exactly sure who she called and in which order.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: Her appearance is different, but I'm not exactly sure. I know her hair has been cut.

QUESTION: Is there any indication that she was (INAUDIBLE) with anyone else (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: She wasn't traveling with any family members or friends. She did meet some folks, however, while she was on the bus. QUESTION: Did she maintain that she (INAUDIBLE) after she had made the 911 call?

SCHULTZ: There was a period of time before she eventually told us what the true story was, yes, sir.

QUESTION: Can you give us any indication of where she (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: Las Vegas, Nevada.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: No, she was just wondered the Southeast area. Yes.

QUESTION: Did she make any statements that she may have (INAUDIBLE) once she had gotten to Albuquerque and met people, I mean, made -- you said she made some friends on the bus and did she just meander around aimlessly, according to her? Or did she meet those people?

SCHULTZ: No, basically she just walked around town for a while, until she made that 911 call.

QUESTION: Does she have any personal connection to Albuquerque at all? (INAUDIBLE) reason why she...

SCHULTZ: No.

QUESTION: Was there any particularly turning point that made her decide to tell the truth? I mean was it under intense questioning or how did she finally divulge the truth?

SCHULTZ: I don't know. I just know she was in discussion with detectives and agents and she decided that she needed to do the right thing and tell the right story, the true story.

Thank you very much.

HARRIS: Oh, my.

NGUYEN: We are just sitting here...

HARRIS: Oh, my.

NGUYEN: ... in shock listening to this, because all that we've heard earlier -- oh, let's listen in now.

SCHULTZ: Schultz. Albuquerque Police Department. Yes, sir. Chief of police.

Thank you.

NGUYEN: OK, he was just saying his name.

That's the Albuquerque chief of police right there. Let's see if he'll answer another question.

SCHULTZ: Yes. Thank you.

QUESTION: And she has left the station?

SCHULTZ: She's gone.

HARRIS: Well, and a story that has had twist upon twist, turn upon turn. Here is the latest. Apparently this is a case of cold feet.

NGUYEN: Absolutely. They say -- we missed the first part of this and we're trying to get the information on that from the Albuquerque police.

HARRIS: Well, I think we got the gist of it, though.

NGUYEN: But I think what we've learned in that was that she took a bus from Georgia to Las Vegas, and then from Vegas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Apparently saw all of the coverage and felt like she needed to do the right thing.

Albuquerque police say that she was not with any family or with any friends, although she did meet some people on the bus. But all morning long, speaking with the family, we've been told that there was never a case of cold feet, there was never any suspicion that that was the case at all.

HARRIS: Well, Betty, let's back this up.

NGUYEN: OK.

HARRIS: You know, we really, we really need to back this up now because we're talking about a story that started to unfold at 8:30 on Tuesday evening. And I understand initially, in the first hours after this investigation started, it was right here on AMERICAN MORNING where Bill Hemmer asked the major, the PIO for Duluth police, whether or not cold feet might have been an issue in this case. And the major said no. Dismissed it out of hand.

Here's what's interesting. Later that afternoon, the police chief, Randy Belcher, was asked a similar question about whether it is possible that Jennifer may have gotten a case of cold feet about this wedding. What he said, it is possible. He did not rule it out. He said that it is absolutely possible, that this might be a case of cold feet.

And then later in the evening, about 24 hours later in the cycle, the chief came back and said we are ruling out that this was a case of cold feet because it has been such a long period of time. Such a period of time has transpired that we're going to rule out again this notion of cold feet.

Let's go to Charles Molineaux on the ground at the family home, the Mason family home in Duluth, Georgia for reaction to this stunning turn of events -- Charles.

MOLINEAUX: And, Tony, let me tell you that the family has all along ruled out the notion of cold feet, as well, saying that no, that Jennifer was utterly enthused about this, thrilled and talking about great length with her family. Just about an hour-and-a-half ago, I talked to her mother, Joyce Parrish, who said that cold feet was never a possibility, that she had been talking so excitedly about the upcoming wedding.

And well now, a lot of the relatives, the friends, the family have actually pulled inside the house because things have turned out dramatically different from the very exciting situation that we were hearing just within the past half hour. All of a sudden yet another dramatic turn here.

Keep in mind that the news is still that Jennifer is alive and well. But all of a sudden it's a little different from what we were hearing just so recently from police and from the family, that apparently she decided that she was a little less than certain about this wedding or having, well, we can't know what was going on inside of her head, but took off across the country pretty much on her own. And we're waiting to hear from some of them about what might have happened.

The family is still planning to go out to Albuquerque for their reunion with her. But under circumstances a little bit different from those even what we were expecting a few minutes ago.

HARRIS: And, Charles, we need to bottom line this. And we have to call it is -- she made up this story. She made up a lot of this story, this notion of the blue van, this notion that she was jogging and that folks came up behind her, a woman and possibly a Hispanic man came up behind her and kidnapped her, this whole idea of this clump of hair that was found.

I guess at some point we may be led to conclude that she may have cut that herself. But let's face it, a number of aspects of this story she simply flat out made up.

MOLINEAUX: At this point, really, we're going to have to find out a lot about what could possibly have been her state of mind, fleeing halfway across the country and then, somewhere along the line, when she finally got to Albuquerque, calling the police, calling her family, calling in and saying where she was, for one thing. And then also, apparently, from what we are hearing, telling them that she had, in fact, been abducted, even to describing a Hispanic man and a white woman in a blue van and that they cut her hair.

These things are...

HARRIS: Yes.

MOLINEAUX: ... coming together now in a way that we had not anticipated even just a few minutes ago. And the questions that we were going to wonder as to what it was that prompted this kidnapping that we were hearing about... HARRIS: Right.

MOLINEAUX: ... her mother, for example, she told that they wanted money, they were talking about money. Well, obviously more of this story that we're now trying to process into an entirely different scenario from the one that we thought. What could possibly have been going through her head?

And then ultimately, as she came forward and revealed where she was, what was going through her head now?

And certainly some painful questions. And, again, the family is now being very quiet, all of the friends and people who have gathered here, first for this anxious vigil, then for this joyous celebration, and now suddenly a lot of uncertainty thrown into this.

The fact is she is alive. She is OK. But the circumstances have changed somewhat and...

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: Yes, they have, Charles...

MOLINEAUX: ... that is something of a letdown.

NGUYEN: ... and all morning long, I think the question that I've been asking is why did she call her family first if she was, indeed, released, like she said she was, which we're learning that she wasn't. It was all kind of made up. And -- because she called her family first. She didn't call 911. And -- but we have been speaking with family members and friends, family members who spoke with her on the phone this morning who said that this situation is how it all played out, what we had earlier believed to be, that she was abducted.

So she never told them -- are you learning anything about whether she ever told them the truth on the phone today?

HARRIS: Whether she told them the truth?

MOLINEAUX: We have heard several different accounts from several different family members, her fiance, her father, her mother. Each of them said that what they heard from her was a story about being abducted, being abducted by two people, being abducted by two people in a van who were talking about money. Nothing about her deciding that she had some misgivings or was concerned or was alarmed about the idea of this upcoming wedding, this huge production, to which she had committed.

Again, we're talking about something that involved 600 guests, two, well, very prominent families in this area, 14 bridesmaids and all the works that we have been hearing about all morning, something that she was suddenly so committed to, the idea that she suddenly might have had some misgivings about that was something that everyone that we had spoken to had pretty much dismissed, although we did have that one comment from the police that, well, there are cases of guys who go out for cigarettes and don't come back. Well, if what we're hearing now turns out to be the case, and that's what it looks like may, indeed, have happened, the word is still, of course, that she's OK, but suddenly the circumstances look dramatically different and a little less of the joyous occasion that we were thinking of.

NGUYEN: OK, Charles, we are looking at people really surrounding this tent area outside the house. Perhaps we will be learning from the family, getting some kind of reaction with the family there. They're supposed to be boarding a plane at 11:00 today to meet with this reunion with Jennifer Wilbanks.

But now that we've learned this bombshell from police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that all of this was just a case of cold feet, that, indeed, she may not have been abducted and that this whole story...

HARRIS: Well, she wasn't.

NGUYEN: Yes, that she wasn't abducted.

HARRIS: She wasn't.

NGUYEN: Let's go ahead and just put it out there, she wasn't abducted.

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: This whole story about people, this couple coming up from behind her while she was on a jog, cutting her hair. Maybe she cut her own hair. If it, indeed, is shorter, is what Albuquerque police are saying, then she had to have cut her own hair, unless she got some help with someone else in this whole plot of cold feet here.

And we are seeing people outside the house right now, clamoring around, hoping to hear something from the family, because she called home this morning. She called home and spoke with her stepfather. She spoke with her fiance, telling them this story about how these abductors just somehow saw the information on television and released her at this convenience store. And she didn't know where she was and they had to use caller I.D. to find out that she was, indeed, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So there are lots of thwats. But the latest in this abducted situation is, indeed, the fact that it wasn't an abducted at all, that it was a case of cold feet.

But Jennifer Wilbanks is alive this morning.

HARRIS: All right, and let's take you back just a couple of moments ago and hear the press conference from the chief of police in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

This is how Ray Schultz described the events with regard to Jennifer Wilbanks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHULTZ: At approximately 4:00 a.m. this morning, Miss. Wilbanks informed agents and detectives that she had not been abducted as she had originally claimed. Agents and detectives learned that Miss. Wilbanks had become scared and concerned about her pending marriage and decided that she needed some time alone.

Miss. Wilbanks had traveled from the Georgia area to Las Vegas, Nevada via bus. Earlier today, she traveled from Las Vegas back to the Albuquerque area, again via bus, arriving this evening.

She remained in the Albuquerque area, traveling around the southeast area Heights, until approximately 23:38 hours, when she called 911, at which time officers responded and met her at the 711.

Miss. Wilbanks is being assisted by the FBI and APD victims assistance unit. We have her presently and later today we will be rejoining her with her family, who will be flying to Albuquerque.

As far as the Albuquerque Police Department goes and the Albuquerque FBI office, our investigation is closed. We will be turning this investigation over to the Atlanta FBI office, as well as the Duluth Police Department in Georgia.

Are there any questions?

QUESTION: Are there going to be any charges filed in connection with this or (INAUDIBLE) resources were spent in trying to find this woman?

SCHULTZ: There will be no charges at this time charged here in Albuquerque or the State of New Mexico. That will be left up to the authorities back in Georgia.

QUESTION: Is she saying she just got a case of cold feet?

SCHULTZ: Basically she was just very concerned about the pending wedding and very nervous about it, yes.

QUESTION: Chief, what's your overall (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: She's just, she's obviously very concerned about the stress that she's been through, the stress that's been placed on her family. So she is, she is very upset.

QUESTION: What about the blue van (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHULTZ: There was no blue van involved. She was on a bus.

QUESTION: So did she initially say she was kidnapped? Was that...

SCHULTZ: She originally responded to the 911 dispatchers as well as the responding officers that she had been, yes.

QUESTION: Is she still here at the substation and is she going to be taken to the hospital?

SCHULTZ: No. She is no longer here at the substation. She is in the custody of victims assistance specialists, who will stay with her until her family gets here.

QUESTION: Has she talked to her family?

HARRIS: OK, that is the police chief of the Albuquerque Police Department. That is Ray Schultz describing those events there in Albuquerque. Just a real bombshell now to learn that it appears that Jennifer Wilbanks concocted this story of being kidnapped.

Just a few moments ago -- is this live?

OK, just a few minutes ago, we heard from Randy Belcher, the police chief of Duluth, Georgia.

Oh, I see. OK. This is a tape turn for us.

All right, so, in just a moment, we're going to see that -- Randy is making his way.

OK. Let's listen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... give a statement here in the street, please?

QUESTION: So regardless of what happened, she's safe, she's not harmed and she'll be back (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, watch the car.

QUESTION: Chief?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you hear me?

We've got Chief Belcher. And Chief Belcher here is about to make a statement. I'm going to put the phone up so you guys can hear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. OK. OK. BELCHER: Folks, if you will, scoot back just a little bit, OK, so we can breathe over here?

As you all know, the last three or four days we've been looking for Miss. Jennifer Wilbanks, who came up missing after she had gone for a jog last Tuesday afternoon.

I'm happy to announce that this morning at 2:00 a.m., we located Miss. Wilbanks and she was in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The police, through direction, was able to find her. The FBI then took Miss. Wilbanks and took her to their headquarters and began talking to Miss. Wilbanks to determine what had taken place.

Originally, it appeared that she had been kidnapped. But after talking to the FBI, it turns out that Miss. Wilbanks basically felt the pressure of this large wedding and could not handle it. And therefore she got on a Greyhound bus and she went to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So at this point in time, we're just waiting for Miss. Wilbanks to come back. The family will be making a statement shortly and right now we expect that when she comes back, her and the family will go through a time where they can try to heal one another and put this behind them.

Thank you.

QUESTION: Will there be criminal charges pressed? BELCHER: No criminal charges.

QUESTION: Who is speaking for the family? BELCHER: I don't know, sir.

QUESTION: Did she go alone?

QUESTION: She got a Greyhound bus under pressure of the wedding day?

QUESTION: Did she cut her own hair? BELCHER: That's all we'll comment on.

Thank you.

QUESTION: Chief, let me ask you again. (INAUDIBLE)

HARRIS: And there you have the statement from Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher just a few minutes ago, walking us through the investigative process and the interview with Jennifer Wilbanks that was conducted by authorities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque police and the FBI.

Cold feet, when you get right to the bottom line on this. Cold feet. Jennifer became nervous about this wedding, a huge wedding, a big bridal party, 600 guests.

NGUYEN: Fourteen bridesmaids, what, eight showers in the span of a week or two?

HARRIS: Yes.

MOLINEAUX: And what we have learned -- let's take it a step back so we can help folks digest all of this.

HARRIS: Sure.

NGUYEN: ... because there's been a lot of turn of events.

We were told around 1:40 this morning Jennifer Wilbanks made a phone call to her parents, also to her fiance, saying that she had been abducted, these abductors dropped her off at this convenience store. She was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to caller I.D., because that was tracked to determine exactly where she was calling from. And she, at the time, said she didn't even know where she was.

Well, police came. They picked her up. They questioned her. At 4:00 a.m. today, around, what, two, a little over two...

HARRIS: That's Mountain time. Sure.

NGUYEN: ... three hours later, from when she was picked up. Police determined through that interrogation, that investigation, that, no, this whole story about being abducted was made up. It was a case of cold feet. None of it happened.

But there are still a lot of questions, a lot of questions about...

HARRIS: Well...

NGUYEN: ... the hair that was cut. Did she do it herself? Did someone help her in this? Was someone assisting her in this flee?

HARRIS: OK, let's, let's, for a moment, there is a lot of information we're getting. And obviously she made up a lot of this story, all of this story.

But for a moment, if you try to do a bit of a -- let's take it back to the two shot please.

If you try to do a bit of a perspective shift here, I mean, and try to view this from her perspective, this is a huge event. We don't know if this is her first -- would have been her first wedding, but this is clearly a huge event in her life, anyone's life. Just the size and scope of this wedding, 600 people, invited guests on this. She became nervous. There was a lot of talk and some speculation that, at the very beginning, that this might have been a case of cold feet. And there were a lot of people within the wedding party, a lot of people within the family, both sides of the family, that were quick to dismiss that notion that it was cold feet.

NGUYEN: Right.

HARRIS: But we now know that Jennifer was edgy, nervous, concerned -- the words from the police chief, Ray Schultz, in Albuquerque -- nervous, concerned about the size of this wedding. There was stress, he says, stress in all of it.

NGUYEN: Well, not only the size of the wedding, but also the prominence of this wedding. And I think you can speak to that because you got to know both of these families pretty well in covering the story.

HARRIS: Well, let's bring in Charles Molineaux, who is out in Duluth, who can help us talk through this.

Charles, what we're hearing is the rain, ironically, has started to fall.

MOLINEAUX: Yes, yes. I'll tell you what, Tony, you know, I'm sure there will be a lot of opportunities for people to look at the situation and try to do some analysis. If you talk to someone who's concerned about an upcoming wedding, a lot of people are when they've got one coming up. There's talk of the deep dread. And that is something that you can never predict and it might come along when you're doing something that everybody around you is so excited about.

And there was tremendous excitement here. Once the news came out that Jennifer was OK, it shifted back again to the idea of this huge wedding, this great big party that there was going to be. And you might imagine that perhaps there was a certain level of inevitability to it. And, well, obviously, we can't get into Jennifer's head, but you've got to wonder, perhaps, that if that may have played a part in some of what must have been going through her head as she decided to do whatever it was that she turned out to have done.

The scene here has changed dramatically. In fact, in a bit of an irony, we are now looking at a heavy downpour. The rain has started just in the past few minutes and everyone has run indoors.

HARRIS: Well, Charles, and stay with me on this. We understand that there is a whole investigative process that has to transpire here and still has to be worked through. But if you do, for a moment, try to attempt to see this from Jennifer's perspective, you're right, this was a huge event. And I know we're going to keep saying that. But, you know, folks are going to come back and say hey, look, it's a wedding. She agreed to it, she had been involved in this relationship with this man for a year-and-a-half. She knew the prominence of the family she was marrying into.

And, yes, you can't predict when this kind of thing might happen, but it was a big deal in her life and we certainly don't know now what motivated her to go to the lengths -- and I think that's the thing that's going to be most surprising to folks -- the lengths that she went to to avoid this wedding day.

To concoct this story, to take a bus to Las Vegas first and then another bus to Albuquerque -- and there are chunks of time, periods of time here that are missing. We don't know how long, from the time she left for this run at 8:30 until she gets on this bus to Las Vegas first. We don't know from the time that she gets off the bus and gets on another bus and comes to Albuquerque, how long she's, in essence, sort of wandering around Albuquerque in the southeast area of the city, is what we understand from the chief there. We don't know how long she was wandering around, what she was thinking, what hare state of mind was at this time.

But clearly, as the chief said, she was stressed out, nervous and very concerned.

MOLINEAUX: Yes. And, Tony, if you want to try and throw out some theories, there is the fact that this was a wedding of tremendous magnitude. And if you want to throw in another word, let's try inertia. We're talking about 600 guests. We're talking about 14 bridesmaids, all the showers, the entire community, two very big families. And perhaps only something truly precipitous could derail it the way that it seems to have been derailed. So perhaps there was a sense of inevitability that may have driven Jennifer to, for starters, just flee, and then try to come up with something that would make this right, that would make this make sense. And, of course, what does the fact that she, instead of merely announcing that she wasn't going to go through with it or merely announcing right up front that she had had cold feet, this story about a kidnapping came out. Well, how did that happen? What was the process?

HARRIS: Yes, yes.

MOLINEAUX: And you've got to hope that even as the police are understandably a little perturbed with her, that we get some sort of a handling of this that reflects, no doubt, a very severe emotional situation that she must have been in.

And keep in mind that she did, in fact, talk to her fiance and her parents, who described her as being extremely emotional, very intense, very distraught. Well, that's what you would expect from someone who has been kidnapped. Perhaps it wasn't necessarily the kidnapping that they were hearing.

HARRIS: And it's also something you would expect from someone who has gotten a case of cold feet.

MOLINEAUX: Yes. And has suddenly...

NGUYEN: And, Charles, it's not only...

MOLINEAUX: ... embarked on something precipitous...

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: Yes.

MOLINEAUX: ... and enormous. And we heard about the talk that maybe these kidnappers may have seen some of the coverage of this tremendous effort to find Jennifer. Well...

HARRIS: Jennifer saw the coverage, too.

MOLINEAUX: ... perhaps we may find out that she saw some of it.

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: That's right. And it's not only the kidnapping, Charles. There was also some talk of she may have been possibly sexually abused in this kidnapping. So there are a ton of, a ton of theories that went out there surrounding this abduction, which is now not the case, which is just a case of cold feet. But all morning long we have been getting reaction from family members, from wedding party members.

Now I want to know what is the reaction to this bombshell of information that we've learned from the Albuquerque Police Department that this, indeed, was not an abduction, but a case of the cold feet by Jennifer?

MOLINEAUX: I guess the best way I can sum up the reaction we're getting is stunned silence. And silence is exactly what is coming out right now. The family has pulled indoors. Well, for starters, it's raining. But also when the news came out that what we were dealing with was, in fact, apparently a case of cold feet, from what we're hearing. All of a sudden we were not hearing some very excited people only an hour or so ago talking to us anymore. It was more a case of...

NGUYEN: Right. Well, just an hour ago they were talking about...

MOLINEAUX: ... a blank stare.

NGUYEN: ... the wedding is still on, we're going to bring her back, this wedding is going to be bigger...

HARRIS: In the town center.

NGUYEN: ... than we can imagine. Everybody in town was going to be here. We'll see if that, indeed, is the case. I think a lot of questions still need to be answered in this.

But one thing we do know, Jennifer Wilbanks is alive today. But the whole abduction story, according to Albuquerque police, was fake. It was made up. This was a case of cold feet.

HARRIS: You know what? I sort of, my instinct here is to try to give Jennifer a bit of a pass here. Think about it, if not for all of the intense media scrutiny on this case, what do you have? You have a young woman, 32 years old, who got a case of cold feet, jitters about this wedding, and decided to run. A bit of a runaway bride scenario here.

So, and since my instinct is to sort of give her a bit of a pass and understand that this has been made bigger than life by our involvement in all of this -- let's take a break.

And we'll come back with more of our coverage as CNN SATURDAY MORNING continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

NGUYEN: All right, where do we begin with this story?

It has taken so many twists and turns. We're talking about the search for Jennifer Wilbanks.

Well, we have learned this morning a bombshell was dropped in Albuquerque, New Mexico by the police chief there, that Jennifer Wilbanks made this all up, that she is alive, she is well. She just has a case of the cold feet. And the whole story about being abducted and taken by van to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she may have even been sexually assaulted, all of that fake, made up, a case of cold feet.

HARRIS: And we want to welcome you back, everyone, to CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

Just a couple of minutes shy of 8:00 in the East.

Just a few moments ago we heard from the police chief in Duluth, the City of Duluth, the home of the Mason family. OK, the home of the Mason family. And basically what he told us is, he gave a bit of the insight of the process that went on with Jennifer out in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

This is a case where Jennifer left her home Tuesday evening, told her fiance that she was going for a run. Remember, she was in a sweat suit. There's so many questions here. She was in a sweatshirt, sweatpants, New Balance tennis shoes, did not take...

NGUYEN: No money, no keys.

HARRIS: ... her money, car keys, credit cards, nothing. She took off on Tuesday evening. It's interesting how she was able to purchase a ticket to get on a bus, which is what she did. She got on a bus to Las Vegas first and spent some time in Las Vegas. We don't know exactly how long she was there. And then she took another bus, another bus to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the best we can make out, she wandered around the southeast portion of that city for a period of time before she began to make phone calls.

And one of the phone calls she made was to her folks back here. Was it her stepfather that she talked to?

NGUYEN: It was to her fiance's house, but her stepfather, Roger Parrish, was manning the phone. That was his job, just in case any kind of information was coming in to her whereabouts.

So this family has been really put through an emotional roller coaster. They have been searching and waiting and hoping and praying. Today was supposed to be Jennifer Wilbanks' wedding.

So what we have learned is that she made a call from Albuquerque, New Mexico around 1:40 a.m. Eastern time this morning. Her stepfather, Roger Parrish, answered that phone. And she said I'm cold, I don't know where I am...

HARRIS: I'm thirsty.

NGUYEN: ... I'm thirsty, I've been abducted. And they kept her on the phone as long as they could, trying to calm her down, because she was very distraught. And while they were doing that, other folks in the house were trying to determine from caller I.D. exactly where she was, because when she made that call, she said she didn't even know.

Now, this is a woman who took a bus from Las Vegas, from Georgia to Las Vegas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. So she knew very well exactly where she was. It was just a case of cold feet. She got nervous, but she apparently saw all the media attention about the search for her and decided that she had to at least let her family know that she, indeed, is alive. HARRIS: And what we learned from Ray Schultz, who is the chief of police in Albuquerque, is that she finally told the story. And when we take a break and come back here, we'll recap everything that we know about this and try to bring you the very latest information, the very latest sound bites from everyone involved in this investigation.

We'll take a break and come back with more of CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

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