EXCLUSIVE: Parents of Allegedly Kidnapped Bride Speak Out on 'GMA'

ByABC News via logo
January 7, 2007, 4:54 PM

Jan. 7, 2007 — -- A husband and wife who are accused of kidnapping their daughter the day before her wedding expressed regret for their actions in an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America" anchor Diane Sawyer.

Julianna Myers testified that her parents, Lemuel and Julia Redd, kidnapped her on the eve of her wedding, bringing her 240 miles away from her Provo, Utah, home to Grand Junction, Colo., because they thought their daughter's fiancé was "evil, wicked and abusive" for not giving Julianna a diamond ring for their engagement.

"No, I wouldn't do it again," Lemuel Redd told Sawyer when asked how he would handle the situation if he could go back in time.

He added that in hindsight it was, in fact, the "wrong thing" to do.

Watch more of this interview Monday on "Good Morning America."

As Myers and her parents made their way towards Grand Junction, they stopped at a gas station in Salina, Utah, where Julianna used the restroom.

When she was done, according to her testimony in a December hearing, she told her parents, "I'm not going back in the van."

"They grabbed my wrists and put me back against the wall and were shouting all these doctrines at me," she testified. "They told me, 'You're not worthy, you're wicked.'"

The next day, on the scheduled wedding date, the Redds drove their daughter back to Provo after she promised not to contact her fiancé.