Story of bride flight captivates nation

When he learned the bride with cold feet was OK, Perry Lonzello hot-footed it to his computer, logged onto eBay and got busy selling runaway bride-abilia — a pair of used running shoes (suitable for fleeing weddings) and a piece of toast, featuring the reputed likeness of Jennifer Wilbanks.

"This is the one and only toast depicting the Scam Artist of the year Jennifer Wilbanks," he wrote in the ad, posted Sunday.

"It was just a joke at first," Lonzello said Monday.

No longer. Lonzello has learned that the story of the woman who ran rather than face a wedding larger than some small towns has touched a national nerve.

"This is crazy," said Lonzello, a Newton, N.J., antiques dealer.

How crazy? His toast, a piece of white bread with a toothy face scratched in its center, was up to $16.65 in steady bidding Monday afternoon. The shoes, a used pair of size 9 Starters donated to the cause by his girlfriend, stood at $5.

That's just one guy, one story. Log onto eBay for a closer look at how paraphernalia related to America's latest obsession is selling.

T-shirts? Yes. "Missing" posters featuring her face? You bet.

And this: the "Jennifer Wilbanks Runaway Bride Wedding Kit! The First and Best!" By Monday afternoon, the bidding for scissors, hair-dyeing kit, sunglasses and toy blue van (all for avoiding detection) had reached $38. An added bonus in the kit: the DVD of "Runaway Bride," the 1999 Julia Roberts feel-good film.

Wilbanks, though, isn't evoking many good feelings, said Pat Frisch, station director at KKOB-AM (770) in Albuquerque, N.M. Wilbanks stopped running early Saturday morning in Albuquerque.

Dialing 911, she told police that she'd been kidnapped by a Hispanic man and a white woman in a blue van but soon gave up the real story: She ran to avoid the stress of a pending, 600-person wedding.

Albuquerque, heavily Hispanic, wasn't pleased that she'd created a bad guy who was Latino, said Frisch. Frisch, who also hosts the station's morning show, opened his lines to callers Monday and got an earful.

"Most people said she was just a mixed-up woman," he said.

Joan Swirsky, a Long Island, N.Y., psychotherapist who took Wilbanks to task in a Web posting, was more withering in her assessment.

"From this distance, Jennifer appears to be an immensely self-indulgent, narcissistic woman," she said in an e-mail to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Others used smaller words to convey comparable sentiments.

"I believe that any money that Jennifer makes from interviews, books, etc., should first be used to pay back the city of Duluth for the time and effort spent on her rescue," e-mailer Deborah Liberatore wrote to an AJC weblog.

A poll Monday afternoon at radio station WSB-AM (750) indicated similar antipathy toward Wilbanks.

In a query titled, "Should Jennifer Wilbanks face charges?," the tide was heavily against the jittery fiancee: 77 percent of the respondents said she should be charged, while 23 percent favored no charges.

A second question, "Should John Mason still marry Jennifer Wilbanks?," drew an even more lopsided response. Fifteen percent of the respondents thought the Duluth man should marry his sweetheart; 85 percent indicated he should call the whole thing off.

Even Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter got into the polling business — in a way.

He said his office had received 386 e-mails about the runaway bride. They favored prosecution by a 7-to-1 margin, he said, adding they will have no bearing on his decision whether to file charges.

Yet, amid all the calls for retribution and e-mails saying Wilbanks should pay for her flight, some took a different view.

"I hope no police charges are filed against her," e-mailer Chrissy Martin wrote to the AJC weblog. "Leave her alone."

By early evening, bidding for the toast had hit $26.54.

Mark Davis writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: mdavis@ajc.com