On November 2, 2016, Sherri’s sudden disappearance made headline news, though things were far from what they initially seemed.
What began as a kidnapping investigation soon became an inquiry into a trail of lies and deceit.
On that fateful day, the 34-year-old mother of two had headed out for a morning jog but only got a mile from her home in Redding, California. When her husband became concerned about Sherri not returning home, he used Find My iPhone to locate her.
He was alarmed to see she was just a mile from the home, though she didn’t appear to be moving.
When he arrived at her location, she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. She’d simply dropped her cell phone and earbuds by the side of the road and seemingly vanished into thin air.
A frantic search for Sherri ensued.
Weeks passed, though the panic and widespread media attention didn’t waver. Sherri’s husband, Keith Papini, was fraught with worry that he and their two children would never see her again.
After all, most missing people are found within the first 48 hours of them vanishing, whether something bad happened to them or they are found alive and well.
Keith knew the more time passed, the less likely it was that Sherri would be found.
Then, by some miracle, she reappeared three weeks later, bound and bruised by the side of a highway. Against all odds, she was alive and had an almost unbelievable story of survival to tell.
Sherri told a tale of being taken by two masked women and held captive under barbaric conditions. Upon hearing the story, the local community rallied behind her, even offering donations to aid in her recovery.
Behind the scenes, however, law enforcement was dubious of the whole event. In fact, they were so suspicious of Sherri’s story they began looking further into it, finding numerous cracks in her narrative.
As the investigation unfolded, so did her web of lies.
What began as a kidnapping and subsequent escape quickly became a whole new true crime case entirely.
The truth was far stranger than anyone could have imagined.
The Ominous Disappearance
On the evening of November 2, 2016, Keith Papini returned home from work to an unsettling scene—his wife wasn’t home, and she hadn’t picked up their son and daughter from daycare.
Knowing something was up, Keith used the Find My iPhone feature, which led him to discover Sherri’s phone and earbuds abandoned along the side of a rural road. Alongside her belongings were tufts of her blond hair.
He immediately called the police, and news of Sherri’s unsettling disappearance spread rapidly.
While the police launched their investigation, hundreds of well-meaning locals offered to volunteer and join the search party.
Family, friends, and volunteers conducted search efforts across Redding’s rural areas. Flyers with a clear photo of Sherri’s face were printed, laminated, and posted all over Redding in the hopes that someone had seen her or could offer clues to her whereabouts.
Thanks to social media, Sherri’s story quickly became worldwide news, and a substantial reward fund was set up for anyone who could come forward with any information leading to her discovery. A distraught Keith made public appeals asking for his wife’s safe return.
She was painted as a loving mother who would never walk out on her kids, and despite having no known enemies, her family had to concede that it seemed probable that she’d been abducted.
As the weeks passed, the mystery of whether Sherri was alive or not intensified. The odds didn’t appear to be in her favor.
By week three, though still making public appeals, the Papini family must have felt like any hope that Sherri would be found was quickly evaporating.
The authorities didn’t appear to make any developments, nobody came forward with any information, and the lack of physical evidence made any meaningful investigation difficult.
Then, on Thanksgiving morning, the Papini family received the news they’d been waiting for: Sherri had been found alive.
She was discovered more than 100 miles away from Redding by the side of a Yolo County highway. She had been bound with zip ties and was noticeably bruised and disheveled, her once-long blonde hair crudely cut off.
More shocking than her appearance was her story of what she’d endured for the past 22 days.
According to Sherri, she’d been taken by two Hispanic women while out jogging. The pair held her captive and tormented her relentlessly for three weeks.
Less than a month after her much-publicized disappearance, Sherri was making headlines once again. What started as a terrifying tale of kidnapping had now become one of survival.
While the public showed immense support for Sherri and her recovery, the police were still conducting investigations in the background to determine the true criminal in the case.
The Investigation Into The Real Incident
Sherri’s dramatic return undeniably intrigued the nation.
The terror she described was the stuff of horror movies: she claimed two masked women kidnapped her at gunpoint.
Once bundled into their SUV, she was driven to an unknown location while her head was covered to prevent her from memorizing the route.
Once there, she said the two women began a campaign of terror toward her.
Sherri claimed she’d been beaten, tortured, and even branded with a bible verse. She said her captors forced her to use a litter box as a toilet and hacked her hair off, telling her she was going to be sold to law enforcement as part of their human trafficking ring.
After almost three weeks of being beaten, barely fed, and emotionally abused, Sherri was eventually tied up and thrown on the side of the road without warning.
Naturally, her account was met with empathy and concern, though not necessarily by law enforcement. They soon noticed inconsistencies in her version of events that raised questions about what really happened.
The investigation into the abduction—which was now being referred to as “alleged” in most news articles—became more intense, and the FBI was eventually called in to assist.
Her story simply didn’t match the evidence available.
The condition of the clothes she was wearing when she was found didn’t match the tale she’d given. There was also the distinct lack of DNA evidence at the supposed abduction site, which also threw her version of events into suspicion.
Sherri had also unknowingly left clues behind on her phone, which raised red flags; she’d been talking to another man before vanishing.
Investigators just couldn’t find any plausibility in Sherri’s supposed timeline of events. There were no confirmed sightings of the two women she described, and security cameras in the area did not capture any unusual activity indicating that the crime ever took place.
Police struggled to find physical evidence of the injuries Sherri said were inflicted upon her—in fact, any wounds on her body looked self-inflicted.
While Sherri was noticeably much thinner than she was prior to the alleged abduction, the branding and other injuries were not consistent with the events she’d described.
Still, despite their unease about Sherri’s version of events, the police had a duty to investigate her claims. They issued twenty search warrants, some as far away as Michigan, to examine potential leads’ cell phone records, bank accounts, and social media profiles.
Their efforts produced no answers, only more questions. Still, they were sure one person could answer them: Sherri Papini.
While there was no DNA left at the abduction site, the police did take Sherri’s clothing from her for forensic analysis.
As expected, there were other DNA samples aside from Sherri’s on there, but not of two other women: the sample belonged to an unidentified male.
This discovery caused investigators to reconsider everything they thought they knew about the case.
A search of the DNA on the DNA profile system didn’t come up with a match. It also didn’t match Keith Papini or any of Sherri’s male family members. She couldn’t offer an explanation for the unknown sample on her clothing, either.
Years passed, and though suspicion clouded Sherri’s story, there was no way to disprove it.
Then, in 2020, investigators made a break in the case: the DNA found on her clothing finally had a match.
It was linked to her ex-boyfriend.
The Lie And The Fallout
The police immediately got in touch with the man, who was identified as James Reyes. He told the truth almost straight away.
James confessed that Sherri had stayed at his home voluntarily during the time she was “kidnapped.”
He told officers she had asked for his help to escape her unhappy life and fabricated the abduction to escape her husband and to court media attention.
Once this shocking information made the news, the public’s perception of Sherri and her supposed ordeal shifted completely.
The locals of Redding, who had once supported her entirely, began to realize they’d been duped by Sherri’s tall tale. They rightfully became enraged at the way she’d accepted their financial support despite not being a victim at all.
Still, Sherri continued to deny any wrongdoing, even with the incriminating evidence presented to her.
In 2022, she was charged with making false statements to authorities and committing mail fraud related to the financial support she received after masquerading as a victim of a violent crime.
Six years after the kidnapping hoax, the legal consequences finally came down on Sherri.
At her trial, prosecutors detailed how she had fabricated the entire kidnapping, going as far as harming herself to look like she’d sustained injuries at the hands of her captors.
They noted that she had taken advantage of the public’s empathy afterward, knowingly wasted the resources of law enforcement, and milked the financial assistance provided by the Victim Compensation Board.
Sherri’s tall tales ended up costing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.
By April 2022, Sherri knew the jig was up: she finally pleaded guilty to the charges against her.
Her eventual admission of guilt came after months of public backlash and widespread condemnation.
Sherri offered up a defense for her actions, citing mental health issues as contributing factors to her crime.
That September, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison, followed by supervised release.
Keith filed for divorce and sole custody of their two children, only speaking to Sherri during mediation.
She was released in August 2023 and, since then, has been the subject of documentaries and a made-for-TV movie about the hoax.
In 2024, Sherri claimed to be an author who was in the process of writing two books.
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