Quickie on the Wilbanks indictment
First to post about Wilbanks!! HUZZAH!!
In the interest of not merely linking to the AJC article, I will inject my opinion. My opinion is that she should repay all of the costs for the extensive search she caused. If she was going to host a wedding for 600 guests (which is about 575 too many, really), then she can afford to cough up the cheddar she owes Duluth and Gwinnett and Georgia and Me and have a nice little private ceremony in front of a judge. I also think she should spend, like, a week in the pokey for good measure. I understand the seriousness of mental illness and I understand that stress causes people to do zany things they end up regretting, but this line, by Gwinnett DA Danny Porter, says it all:
“There has to be a consequence for lying to the police.”
If Tony Simon caused a few days of anxiety and anguish to the tune of tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars AND lied to the fuzz in the process, Tony Simon would expect to have to write a helluva check and spend, like, at least a week in the pokey. I could argue that extreme duress caused me to take out that student loan, which it did, but that doesn’t make me any less responsible for the debt.
I’ve already typed out my share on this, but as much as I’d like to slap her around for being a wackjob, I don’t think it’s at all clear that she broke any law in Georgia. She didn’t phone authorities before she left in order to trigger the manhunt, her stupid boyfriend — who should have known by then that he was marrying a wackjob with big googly eyes and a penchant for petty theft — did. Once it was all over, she lied to New Mexico authorities (causing Georgia authorities to finally stand down), quickly recanted, and NM isn’t going to press charges against her.
Charging her with a crime now would basically be setting a precedent that none of us are ever free to just pick up and take off on a lark, ever again. As much as it would chagrin my poor worrying mother, I’d still like the freedom to be spontaneous someday.