Episode 12: Sherri Papini

Listen in to the story of the fake kidnapping of Sherri Papini!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Hey, true crime divisions.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

And dudes. I'm Sarah. And I'm Tina. And today we are talking about one of the most bizarre, manipulative, and frankly infuriating hoaxes in recent true crime history. This is the story of Sherry Papini, a woman who claimed she had been abducted, tortured, and held captive for 22 days by two mysterious women, only for investigators to eventually uncover that the entire thing had been staged. And when I say staged, I mean painstakingly planned, calculated, and executed, all while an entire community poured their hearts, time, and money into trying to find her. But what makes this case especially wild isn't just the hoax itself, it's the layers and layers of lies. And if you listened last week to Casey Anthony. Now we've got an even more even more layers.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Layers and layers and lies and lies and layers and layers of lies.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

So the contradictions, the manipulation, and the way Sherry still, to this day, tries to spin herself as the victim. Also sounds familiar. Very familiar. So today, you guys, we are gonna walk through what actually happened start to finish. Hit me with it, Tina. I'm gonna hit you with it. Okay, so our story begins on November 2nd, 2016, and it started off as a completely ordinary day. Sherry Papini made breakfast, got her kids ready, and dropped them off at daycare. She got some housework done, texted her husband at lunch, and then she went out for her usual afternoon jog. So by the time evening rolled around, something was wrong. Sherry hadn't picked up the kids and she was not answering her phone. And her husband, Keith Papini, reported her missing. Soon after, Keith found Sherry's phone and earbuds neatly coiled around a lock of her hair lying on the side of the road along her normal jogging route. That was it. No signs of a struggle, no witnesses, and no other immediate evidence. Just that pair of neatly placed earbuds and her phone. But immediately, the story absolutely exploded in the media. Because let's be honest, a young blonde, white, conventionally attractive mother of two disappearing in broad daylight, that is exactly the kind of case that the media loves to sensationalize. So the media framed Sherry as the perfect victim, and Keith Pippi and Keith Papini began doing emotional interviews on national television, pleading for the safe return of his wife. Meanwhile, the community mobilized in a massive way. Search parties were organized round the clock. Thousands of flyers were printed and distributed, prayer groups were held, and a GoFundMe quickly raised over$50,000. People spent countless hours combing the wilderness looking for any sign of Sherry. And I want to pause here and say this because it matters later. The community showed up in a huge way for this woman. People genuinely believed that she had been abducted and they willingly sacrificed their time, their comfort, their money, and in some cases their sanity because they wanted to help bring this wife and mother of two home.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

And you would. I mean, and any decent person, especially in your community, you're going to want to make sure that that person's found and get to the bottom of it. I mean, you would, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yeah, you would want to get her home to her kids, and you would want to catch the person who did it so that they're not offended.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

In real community, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Yeah. So early on, there was a small number of people who had doubts. And they pointed out things like the earbuds being placed perfectly neatly on the roadside. There was the lack of any struggle, and the police were not really releasing many details at all. But those voices were definitely the minority. Most people believe that this was a legitimate, a legitimate kidnapping. And the theories started flying: sex trafficking, drug cartels, serial killers. But there was one big problem with those theories, there was no ransom demand. And investigators couldn't find any evidence supporting any of the other theories either. So while the public speculated, investigators were quietly digging deeper. They pulled Sherry's phone records and discovered something interesting. Just weeks before her disappearance, Sherry had sent deleted text messages to an unknown contact, and one of them read, I can't live like this anymore. We need to talk. That unknown contact would later be revealed as James Reyes, Sherry's ex-boyfriend. Now, the sheriff's office did not release that information to the public at the time. They were worried about public backlash and didn't want to compromise their investigation. But behind the scenes, investigators were already starting to feel like something about this case just did not add up. For example, Sherry's earbuds weren't damaged, they weren't tangled, they weren't scattered all over the place, they were carefully placed on the side of the road, even perfectly wrapped around a strand of her hair. And to investigators, that looked staged. And then things got even stranger. On November 3rd, Sherry's phone pinged a cell tower in Costa Mesa, California, which is nearly 500 miles away from where she disappeared. That obviously made zero sense. How did her phone travel 500 miles overnight? And the FBI actually traced that signal to a burner phone purchased at Walmart. But again, police kept that information from the public. From the public because they were trying to build the case quietly.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

And this is what they should have done in the Casey Anthony case, but with that Florida law about having to release everything, which state was this? California. Yeah. Oh yeah, I bet their laws awaited for Florida. Holy street. Whole different side of the planet.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Right, yeah. So then on Thanksgiving Day 2016, everything changed. A truck driver called 911 after spotting a bloody and battered woman shivering on the side of the road in the early morning hours. It was Sherry. She claimed she had just escaped 22 days of captivity, and her appearance seemed to support that story. She was extremely thin, covered in bruises, and she had been branded on her shoulder. Sherry told investigators that she'd been kidnapped by two Hispanic women driving a black SUV. She said that they chained her in a basement, starved her, beat her, and kept her and kept her captive for weeks. And this is where the story starts to really fall apart because the details did not make sense. Experts examining her injuries said many of them looked self-inflicted or staged. And for someone who supposedly spent 22 days chained in a basement, Sherry was remarkably clean. There was no dirt, no grime, no pollen, nothing that suggested she had actually been confined in the conditions that she described. But investigators did not have enough evidence to prove she was lying at that time. And given the enormous public attention on the case, they wanted to proceed carefully.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

My question would also be why? Like what what would two Hispanic women gain from keeping her captive for 22 days? Right. I mean, if if you were selling somebody for sex trafficking or you were gonna ransom them, like, but none of those things happened.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Right. So it it made no sense. Like there was no reason for somebody to hold her 22 days.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

That would cost you money and time and make it more likely that you would get caught.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Exactly. And the cops knew that, and that's why they were such a big. Sherry had purchased a burner phone weeks before her disappearance. Security footage showed her buying it while wearing sunglasses as a disguise. And that burner phone traveled 500 miles overnight on the day she vanished. Its destination? James Reyes' house, her ex-boyfriend. The two exchanged hundreds of text messages in the months leading up to her disappearance. One message sent the day she disappeared said, I need you to hurt me. Make it look real. Now, according to investigators, Reyes initially resisted, but Sherry threatened him. She allegedly told him that if he didn't cooperate, she would accuse him of rape. She even asked him to write a ransom note to her husband. So now let's get into the money because this is the really infuriating part. After Sherry's return, she was receiving victim compensation money, a taxpayer-funded benefit in the state of California. And that is for victims of crime to help them like rebuild their lives. And she had the GoFundMe, right? Right. And the GoFundMe. So she got about$30,000 from that. And guess what she spent it on? What? Designer handbags and sunglasses, luxury vacations, spa days, and cosmetic procedures. She was even online shopping while staying at Reyes' house. At one point, she ordered a bikini and had it shipped near his home. This was while she was in captivity, right? Right. This is the woman who claimed she was being held captive and tortured during that period.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

That is torture ordering a bikini.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

No, actually. So now let's fast forward a few years. Because for a long time, this case just kind of sat there. Sherry was home living her best life, spending all that free money. Most of the public believed her story. But investigators kept quietly working in the background. Then, out of the blue, on August 13th, 2020, Keith Papini gets a call from investigators. They tell him they've gotten a familial DNA hit from the unknown DNA that had been found on Sherry's clothes. And that DNA leads them somewhere very interesting. But not that surprising. Right? James Reyes. So three days before that call to Keith, investigators had actually gone to Reyes' home to ask him some questions. And this part of the story is honestly kind of bizarre. So while officers were there, Reyes' pet bird escaped. And one of the cops goes outside to help him catch this bird. And then the other officer does a quick walkthrough of his apartment. And as he's walking through, something clicks because the inside of this apartment looks exactly like the place Sherry had described being held captive. The layout, the furniture, the closet, the walls, all of it matches the descriptions that she had given to investigators. So now police are thinking, okay, we might actually know where she was during those 22 days. So armed with this information, investigators bring Keith and Sherry in for questioning. They show them the photographs of the inside of Reyes' apartment, and immediately they recognize things the closet, the table, the walls. The detectives tell them that witnesses have confirmed Sherry was seen at that location. And they explain that none of this points to two mysterious Hispanic women. At this point, investigators ask Sherry if she would like Keith to step out of the room while they continue discussing this evidence. But instead, Sherry asks the detectives to step out so that she can talk to Keith privately. So she doesn't realize they have capital equipment in the room. You have no privacy, Sherry. So this is where she continues lying, literally up until the very last possible moment. Like the audacity of this woman knows no bounds. You have literal police presenting you with DNA and photo evidence, and you are still refuting it. Wow. So she tells Keith that she doesn't want police pursuing this lead because she doesn't want to get the woman who saved her life in trouble. Like, what, Sherry? Obviously, that's bullshit. Whatever. So the detectives come back into the room and they tell them that James Reyes has already given them his full story. And according to him, the entire kidnapping was a farce. At that point, Keith is crushed, of course, and he assumes that they're about to arrest Sherry. As you would, yeah. Right. But they don't. Instead, they send both of them home. And they told Keith that they would be in touch soon. So Keith initially sides with the investigators and he tells Sherry she should go stay somewhere else for a while. She goes to stay with Keith's aunt. But then something strange happens. Days go by. Now something strange happens. Right. So days go by and Keith never got a call from the police. And meanwhile, Sherry is texting him constantly, love bombing him, telling him how much she loves him, how she would never lie to him. And she uses the fact that the police haven't contacted him as supposed proof that she didn't do anything wrong, which is classic Sherry manipulation. So Keith, confused, bewildered, and traumatized, he confides in a close friend. And the friend gives him advice that, I mean, is kind of infuriating, but also I understand the friend tells him that he should continue supporting his wife just in case she's telling the truth.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Right. And I did get that. Like, what if you accuse your wife of lying and all this stuff really did happen to her? You'd feel like a right asshole, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Exactly. Yeah. The friend told him not to risk taking the kid's mother away from them again. Um, if even if there's a small chance that she's innocent. So, and I get that, but like, why in the world would the police make this up? But anyway, Keith, he got sucked back in. And I'm just like, oh my God, Keith. It it seems so obvious from the outside, but I guess when you're inside, it's your wife, the mother of your kids. He's emotionally attached. Right. Love is blinding, y'all. We've all been there. So, anyway, the reality here is investigators thought Sherry was gonna confess when they confronted her with that evidence. Again, just like Casey. Right. They thought Sherry was a reasonable human being. But boy, were they wrong. Uh, she did not confess. She doubled down and stuck to her original story. And without enough concrete evidence to charge her at the moment, they could not move forward, which is why Keith never got that phone call. But the FBI wasn't done, not even close. Good. They kept digging. They discovered a Pinterest board. I know. Oh, a Pinterest board. Oh my god, Sherry. Where Sherry had saved images of different branding tools, which is good job, Sherry. Yeah, extremely suspicious for somebody who supposedly had no idea she was going to be branded by kidnappers. What a coincidence. Mm-hmm. They also went back through all of Sherry's previous police interviews, combing through every statement she'd made, looking for inconsistencies and clues. And slowly, piece by piece, over two years, they finally put together a big picture. So in 2022, they uncovered even more evidence. Using advanced fingerprint technology, they matched a partial print on the ransom note to James Reyes. Reyes eventually told investigators that Sherry was the mastermind and he simply followed her instructions. He struck a deal with authorities and handed over evidence, including photos of Sherry smirking in his bathroom, clearly not being held captive. Reyes claimed he repeatedly begged her to stop and turn herself in, but she threatened him and his family. And I like I want to say really quick, and and like I understand James was manipulated by this woman. He was kind of a victim too, but at any point he could have gone to the cops in those 22 days.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

I don't think James was very bright.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

I don't think James was very bright either, but like, come on, this is egregious. Like she's all over the news, her kids are crying, her husband is crying.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

I mean, I I and but I also say that because even if somebody's begging you to beat them and brand them and bruise them that badly, if you've got a brain cell, you're going to refuse to do that because you know it could backfire. This woman's a liar, and she could go to the police and say, he beat the crap out of me, and you could end up in jail for something she asked you to do. I I just don't think that a smart person would have gone through a dead love is blind and maybe he's in love with her, but if he's in love with her, it should have been almost impossible for him to do that. Right. But as a more intelligent than James Royus person, which is what I consider myself to be, if somebody said, Hey, beat the crap out of me, I want you to do it, I'd still be like, Well, no, because that could fall back on me and I don't want to go to jail.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

And also, I don't like hurting people. So it's not my job, honey. Yeah, I mean, and I think that's I think that's valid. I think you might be right that he he's just not all that smart and in no shade because obviously he suffered consequences from this. Not legal ones because he did receive immunity, but he lost his job and his reputation. And they actually also found a document where Sherry had itemized the costs of staging her own kidnapping. She literally made a budget.$200 for duct tape and scissors, which that's a lot of duct tape and duct tape and scissors.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

I thought that was a good one.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

She must have had the fancy stuff. And then$19.99 for a soldering iron and a dollar and 20 cents to mail the ransom number.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

She really did work it out to the T, didn't she? She did.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Right. So she even kept the receipts, and those receipts matched purchases from a hardware store in Costa Mesa. Her fingerprint was also found on the duct tape. So at this point, it was obvious this was not a kidnapping. It was a performance. Maybe she thought they were tax deductible. She probably did. So on March 3, 2022, the FBI surrounded Sherry's home. Agents smashed through the front door with a battering ram, and they arrested her for mail fraud and making false statements to federal investigators. Surely she's guilty of more than that. I know, right? Inside the house, investigators found a Louis Vuitton trunk filled with cash.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

I always hope I find one of those. Me too.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

It never happens. Never. They also found a binder documenting her media appearances. They found the burner phone hidden in a jewelry box, and the outfit she was kidnapped in was displayed like a shrine. Oh my god. She's unbelievable. And like, this does not sound to me like somebody who was traumatized, traumatized by this ordeal. It sounds like somebody who profited and who is proud and who wants to relive it. Relish, innit? Yeah. So when she's confronted with all that evidence, of course, she denied everything because that's what she does. She's Sherry Papinied. So eventually she did accept a plea deal and she pled guilty to male fraud and lying to federal agents. Eight other charges were dropped. Prosecutors wanted 30 months in prison, but the judge sentenced her to 18 months, followed by three years of probation. She was also ordered to repay$300,000 restitution, which, by the way, is only a fraction of the one and a half million dollars spent searching for her. Did she have to pay back the GoFundMe? I think that was part of that$300,000 restitution, and I hope all those people got their money back. They should. Anyway, so the damage to her family over this obviously was enormous. Keith Papini filed for divorce days after her arrest, and he later revealed that Sherry had drained their children's college savings accounts, leaving them overdrawn. He had to sell their family home to cover the legal fees. And their children who were very young at the time of the disappearance now have to attend intensive therapy and have horrible nightmares and severe trust issues. And honestly, that's the part that makes me the angriest because she did not just lie to the police. She traumatized her own children. And I want to know if you watched this part. I want to specifically bring this up. So in the Perfect Wife documentary on Hulu, they show a video of Sherry doing like one of those hot sauce challenges. And she tries it, the hot sauce, and she starts coughing a little bit. But she's also like laughing, showing that, oh, it's all in good fun. But her son is nearby and he just starts absolutely freaking the fuck out. Like crying and hugging her and holding on to her for dear life. And Sherry and Keith are consoling him and telling him that, like, mommy's okay, don't worry. But he's just absolutely losing his mind over a fun thing. And he's saying he's scared and he's sobbing. And it looks like he's having a panic attack to me. And like, no child that young should be having a panic attack over a fun thing. But that's what Sherry has done to her children.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

She's yeah, traumatized them to that point where the slightest thing and they're worried about mommy's well-being. I know. Yeah. It's so sad. It was when he burst into tears. It made me sit. And it takes them like a hot minute to realize that he's actually upset and not laughing. And yeah, I felt so bad for that. But I think she likes that.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

She wants that. She did kind of laugh it off, didn't she? She did. Sicko. Sicko. So anyway, here's where things get even more ridiculous. Years later in 2025, Sherry participated in a documentary where she attempted to tell her truth. AKA lies. And according to Sherry, even though she literally already confessed and signed her name to a plea agreement that stated she did, she says she didn't fake the kidnapping. She claims that James Reyes actually kidnapped her. She says the only lie she told was saying the kidnappers were two Hispanic women. She says everything else was true. But this explanation completely falls apart when you look at the evidence because Sherry had a phone the entire time she was gone, and she exchanged hundreds of messages with Reyes beforehand. And investigators found that Pinterest board where she'd saved the branding tools, which is extremely suspicious. And her explanations constantly contradict themselves. So, for example, in one interview, she said she left her phone and hair on purpose as a clue to Keith, I knew you'd find it. Yeah, but later she said she dropped it accidentally during the kidnapping. So which one is it? And at one point, she even claimed she described the described the kidnappers as Hispanic because James Reyes' mother is Hispanic and she was trying to leave breadcrumbs for police. Except investigators later confirmed his mother is actually Irish. So that explanation completely collapses too. She also says James had neighbors watching his house to make sure she didn't try to escape. Thanks. Like, come on, Sherry. Come on. And I want to quickly address the therapist from that documentary. This is my opinion, which I am allowed to have, but Sherry's therapist is a friggin' crackpot. He claims that Sherry really was kidnapped and that she's now mostly honest. What exactly does that even mean? You can either be honest or you can't be honest. Yeah. And in my opinion, he's just yet another man who chose to overlook egregious lies, logical fallacies, and cold hard facts because he sees an attractive woman. He believes that Sherry used to lie a lot, but now she's healing. Oh, she's turning the corner. That she is now, most of the time, quite honest, his words, not mine.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

But I also do believe that people that compulsively lie all the time, their whole lives, like Sherry Clippini and Casey Anthony, actually convince themselves that their own lies are true. So sometimes they can come across to even the best experts as telling the truth because they believe it's the truth.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Right. Yeah. And I I get that, but she still sucks. Oh, absolutely. Anyway, so he also says that therapy in prison have healed her and taught her a lesson and that she's done telling the big lies because of the consequences.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Yeah, but she is because of the consequences. So it's basically um, I'm not sorry I lied. I'm sorry I'm not sure. I got caught.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Exactly. She's not she's not done because she hurt people. She's done because she's hurt. Anyway, so he suggests that her lies were caused by a personality disorder where she sought attention and validation. And I absolutely believe that. I believe that she has psychological issues. You don't need to be a professional to see that. His diagnosis is probably correct, but you can't heal and grow until you take accountability. And to this day, she hasn't. So the reality is that her behavior and her lies caused enormous harm to a multitude of people, to her family, her community, and even to the Hispanic community that she falsely blamed for the crime. Her story fueled racist fear in the area. Hispanic women were reportedly afraid to go out together because they didn't want to be mistaken for the supposed kidnappers. And that is a direct result of Sherry's lies.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

She actually had them do sketch artists. Yeah. When there was actually a s a sketch of these two people released that she must have totally fabricated. Yeah, she did. That's uh that's in-depth. That's wicked.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

That is really sticking to your guns. Now, surprise, surprise, y'all. Even after everything was exposed, Sherry still refuses to take accountability. She insists that the media created a false narrative about her. She claims she was misunderstood. She also claims that she was pressured into that plea deal. But the evidence against her is overwhelming. Receipts, phone records, text messages, fingerprints, witnesses, DNA, and ultimately her own freaking confession. And Sherry's own mother said she did not believe Sherry was taken against her will. And multiple of Sherry's friends and family said she has a history of lying, exaggerating, and disappearing. Like, what more do any of us need to know that this woman is just totally full of shit? So to end this story, the Sherry Papini case is a reminder that sometimes the most shocking true crime stories aren't about kidnappers or killers. Sometimes they're about manipulation. And the supposed victim. And the supposed victim, and about the damage that one person can cause when they're willing to lie without limits. An entire community rallied to find Sherry Papini. They spent time, money, energy, hope. And in the end, the person they were trying to rescue was the villain all along. And I have a quick little update. So in 2025, Sherry released a book called Sherry Papini Doesn't Exist: The Lie That Defined Me, The Media That Destroyed Me, and The Truth That No One Heard. It currently has a 2.9 star rating on Amazon. I have not read it, and I will not read it because I will not give her a dime of my money. From what I've heard, it's just more BS. Do they class it as fiction? They should. And I did look to see if there were any more recent updates on Sherry, but I couldn't find anything. So maybe she's finally learned her lesson and will fade into obscurity and stop trying to grift people out of their money. We can only hope. So final thoughts on Sherry Pabini.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

So I do have a couple of things that you didn't touch upon. Yes. Do you want them here or in the after show? Ooh. Let's save them for the after show. Okay, Dok. Yeah. Um, and just to tease tease people about the after show. One of them was about Keith and how he acts in the beginning and why the police treat him the way they do, and some more lies that she had told. And then the other one is about in that later documentary, she finally takes a lie detector test. Yeah. And they ask her the same questions that they asked Jimmy on his lie detector test. And Jimmy passed his and the results of hers. And I thought it was very interesting that during the documentary, she specifically says, I'm I would I wanted to make this documentary to clear my name, but she looks at the girl interviewing her and says, Do you think it could hurt me?

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Let me let me find that exact quote, you guys, because that was just beyond. They all kind of look at her. So at the end of the documentary, Sherry says, Do you think this film is gonna do more harm than good for me? And then there's just the longest awkward silence and the credits roll. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

All of all of the uh, you know, the interviewers and the documentarians are all like, um Yeah. Yeah, well, maybe I shouldn't have taken the lie to take the test, honey. Yep. So, but let's cover that in the after show. Otherwise, we might not have anything else to talk about. But yeah, I've got a few things here about her being laid off and spending the money and on a boob job. And how she lied to neighbors about how pull um Keith would beat her and stuff, and that's what he was looking to.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Every single boyfriend, husband, whatever that she ever had, she says was abused her. Every single one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

And the people I know, you're always like, do you just accuse everybody of that?

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Or do you just have like bad taste in the right? Right. And also that's not something that you just would share in casual conversation. They always just share it with anybody and everybody. Oh, by the way, I know we just met five minutes ago, but my boyfriend beats me. Which, like, if your boyfriend really does beat you, tell somebody and get out of that, please. But like, these are this shouldn't be a pattern of of behavior, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:52

True. All right. Well, let's save the rest for the after show. But thanks for listening, everybody. What do we got coming up next week? Who knows? Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 33:02

But when we pick out the hat. Yeah, no, you're gonna do Skylar Needle. Sky's and I'm gonna do Corey Richons.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

I'm gonna wait till uh trial thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Yeah, if the trial's over in time. And if not, then I'm gonna do the Amazon review killer. To be determined, don't hold me to that because I'm indecisive.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

She decided yesterday she was doing Sherry from Feeby. Yeah. All right, guys. Well, hope you enjoyed it. And tune in again next week for the next exciting episode of Deadly Divas.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

And until then, be divas. Not Deadly or Lie.