Spooked Bride May Face Charges

Prosecutor Mulls Charge For Reporting A False Abduction

(CBS/AP) 
"Law enforcement is really making a major move to deal with people in crisis," Albuquerque Police Chief Ray Schulz said Sunday. "Miss Wilbanks was definitely a person in crisis."

But the Gwinnett County district attorney noted that vast law-enforcement resources were used to look for the missing bride.

After she disappeared last week without her keys, wallet or diamond ring, more than 100 officers led a search that involved several hundred volunteers, including many wedding guests and members of the bridal party.

In an area with one of the lowest crime rates in the state, the disappearance of Wilbanks was big local news, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.

Live trucks from Atlanta arrived within hours. Before long it was national news -- and reporters from the networks, cable stations and newspapers began arriving.

Porter said he had no jurisdiction over the woman's initial 911 call in Albuquerque, in which she told an operator she was kidnapped by a man and a woman in their 40s who were driving a blue van. Through sobs, she told the dispatcher they had a small handgun.

But Porter said Wilbanks could be charged for reporting her kidnapping story over the phone to Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher.

Last year, a Wisconsin college student who faked her own abduction and turned up curled in a fetal position in a marsh was given three years' probation for obstructing police and was ordered to repay police at least $9,000 for their search.