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Ron Jackson's Perspective
The Sunday Journal -
Think
Kankakee, Illinois
June 12, 2005
She didn't really
run away |
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"I'm a-walking
in the rain
Tears are fallin' and I feel the pain
Wishing you were here by me
To end this misery
And I wonder
I wa wa wa wa
Wonder
Why
Why, why, why, why, why
She ran way
And I wonder
Where she will stay
My little runaway
Run run run run runaway”
When Del Shannon took those words from his hit record
“Runaway” to the top of the pop charts in 1961, Georgia’s runaway
bride Jennifer Wilbanks was just a gleam in someone’s eye. But
her disappearance just days before her wedding left a nation wa wa
wa wa wondering why she ran away.
After she was discovered alive and well, it was very
easy to jump to conclusions and demand an explanation from Wilbanks
for captivating our minds for a few days. After all, hadn't
the nation barely moved on from the recent kidnappings and murders
of two young Florida girls? It was downright cruel of this
32-year-old to play with our emotions.
Upon further review of this case, should we really be
upset with Jennifer Wilbanks? As an adult who some experts
reported was very unlikely to be a kidnap victim because of her
advanced age, wasn’t she entitled to go where she pleased? What is
the law regarding the right just to walk away?
Every state has an age when a person can legally
consent to have sex. Why is there no legal age when people can
do as they please and go where they wish? In light of the report
that Brandi Stahr, who was missing since 1998, has been found alive
and well and happy, it should make us reconsider our posture
towards missing adults.
Stahr, now 27, left college seven years ago because she
was upset with her mother. She didn’t run away; she just left.
Authorities invested a lot of man-hours looking for her. Some
have called her irresponsible for not telling anyone she was not in
harm’s way. Stahr had moved away and started a life on her
own. At age 20, was she legally responsible for telling anyone
where she was going? That seems to be the latest question of
the day.
Even after she was discovered, Stahr still had no
desire to be contacted by her family. She wasn’t hiding.
She continued to use her own name and Social Security number.
She had simply moved on with her life without giving notice.
Because no one can find that either Wilbanks or Stahr
broke the law by just leaving, other charges may be filed.
In Wilbanks’s case, she is being charged with lying to
authorities by telling them she had been kidnapped. She later
came clean and said she fabricated the kidnapping story and staged
her own disappearance.
One municipality, Duluth, Georgia, is asking to be
reimbursed $40,000 for the cost of searching for her.
(Editor note: The city has since settled for about $13,000.00.)
That seems fair. Almost. The city used a lot of
resources to look for her. Now that she has safely returned
and was never in harm’s way, why shouldn’t she cover the city’s
expenses?
For starters, maybe she should not be held responsible
for the search expense because she didn’t ask anyone to look for
her. She hopped aboard a bus and let them do the driving all
the way to Vegas.
Now lying to the police about being kidnapped is a
punishable offense. Then again, do we arrest any of those
folks way out in the middle of Idaho who claim to have been abducted
by aliens? |
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