20/20 - The After Show: Sherri Papini: Where the Truth Lies

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Deborah Roberts talks with 20/20 Senior Producer Sean Dooley about the latest developments in the story of a California mother who once falsely claimed she was abducted, held hostage for 22 days and branded against her will. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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all around the country. A young mom claiming that she had been abducted, held hostage, and even branded during her captivity. Well, then her story fell apart. Cherry Pappini arrested on charges that she allegedly lied to federal agents about being kidnapped. News breaks that the mother of two has been arrested. Now being accused of making the whole thing up. A stunning admission of Cherry Pappini

is now admitted with all the hoax. We'll plead guilty to lying to federal agents about the case. What's the murder behind your back? There's a plea deal. She's avoiding trial entirely. As part of this agreement, she has to admit, which she did in writing and through her attorney, that she made the whole thing up. Sherry was sentenced to 18 months and was ordered to pay restitution.

She served just under a year in federal prison and is now free. in federal prison and is now free. Now, nearly a decade later, Sherry Papini is the subject of a new documentary where she gives her account of what she says happened. So joining me now to dig into the story and 2020's long reporting on it is senior producer, Sean Dooley. Hello, Sean.

Hi, Deb. Good to be here. Good to be with you. You've been with us obviously here at 2020 for so long. You and I are always catching up in the hallway on all these different stories, but now we get a chance to talk face to face about this story that you senior produced along with Matt Gutman. Correct. Who reported on it. Sean, people, I just remember when this story happened and I think I remember, of course, my jaw dropping at the whole prospect of it, but when you think about

a story like that, right, that a mom has been abducted, and although we've seen a lot of stories where things have gone sideways, so I sort of wondered about it, but we were following it from the very beginning, and I don't know, I mean, were there doubts in the beginning? I think there were, Deborah.

I mean, one of the things I think that's great about a show like 2020 is that we've been on for so long, we have such an incredible archive, and we get to follow stories for a long time. So as you said, this one's been going on for almost a decade, and we were there at the very beginning. And so when it first happened, as you say,

it was a shocking story. I mean, a mother seemingly snatched off the street as she's out for a jog in the middle of the day. She's got young children at home. She's got young, yeah, it was certainly a story that caught everyone's attention. And so of course we were following it as well. She ends up showing back up in sort of a seeming miracle

on Thanksgiving morning. Weeks and weeks later. Weeks later, yeah. And we did our first show on this in 2016, just days after she had gotten back. Matt Gutman sat down with her husband, Keith Papini. weeks and weeks later. Weeks later, yeah. And we did our first show on this in 2016, just days after she had gotten back. Matt Gutman sat down with her husband, Keith Papini. She, we had been told at the time,

well obviously he was not in any condition to do an interview herself, but her husband came out and spoke to us and told us how he was so, I remember at the time, he was so emotional and talked about having her back, that this was a, you know, a miracle. He was so thankful to all the people who, I mean, because her community had really come out and

searched for her, raised money for her. I mean, everybody was concerned about this mom. And what did people say about this mom? I mean, she was, I guess, known to be a doting mother, right? They seem to have a solid marriage from what friends told us. Yeah, at the time it was this, it was almost, you know, everybody referred to her as sort of a picture perfect mom. I mean, there were these gorgeous photos of her and her family and her two young children and, you know, clearly they'd had some really nice photos, professional photos taken of their family that were out at the time. And so, yeah, everybody just thought she was this perfect mom who had this horrible thing happen to her. And her husband actually told us that too. Well, let's play a clip from that 2016 show

when Keith, her husband, describes reuniting with his wife Sherry at the hospital. I just ran past everybody and I, you know, throw up in the curtain and she was there in a bed, in her poor face. And I just hugged her, I just held her. I felt like I hugged her for like 20 minutes. I was so happy that she was there and I was just kissing her all over and then I got like nauseated just looking at her. It's so hard for me to see her like that. Keith, a couple of times you said her face, her poor face. What did you see?

The bruises were just intense, the bumps from you know, being hit and kicked and whatever else. Everybody gets a bruise once in a while, but not these types. I mean, these are hard to look at. Her hair, she's always had very long, blonde hair. You know, they chopped it off. I just need to know, because I was worried that when you first said her face, her face, that they didn't brand her face, right?

I will say that no. It's not on her face, no, she lost almost 15% of her body weight. Oh, yeah in 22 days. Oh, that is traumatic physically Oh, yeah, it made me sick That there is People out there That could do something like this I Just wanted to hold her. And we just had her, we just embraced each other and cried together and I mean I was so happy though.

I mean how do you explain it? You're upset and everything. What happened? But you're happy. I mean, I was so happy though. I mean, how do you explain it? You're upset and everything, what happened, but you're happy. His voice is just dripping with emotion. Sean, at the time you couldn't talk to law enforcement, but we had heard the story from her and he talks about how could people do this to people. And she had told a story that she had been abducted

and that these two women had held her and she was sort of somewhat still kind of bound when she was found. That's right, yeah. So her story was that two Hispanic women abducted her while she was out for a jog, that she was held for 22 days. She was starved, she was beaten,

she was, as Keith was just talking about, she was branded. I mean, that was the thing I think that really took people back, that she had a brand on her back. We did eventually do another show on this story and we did get to speak to law enforcement. And so, as you were kind of alluding to early, even in the very first days,

there were questions out there. People kind of thought parts of her story didn't seem to add up. Well, the two women abducting her, that sounded a little strange. I remember thinking that. Right. And so law enforcement kind of just dug into the case, but it was sort of on peril tracks. You know, on one side, I think they were treating her as a victim, believing her story, because, you know, there was another story that we covered here at 2020 that had happened just a year before this in California. It was the what was known at that time as the Gone Girl case, the Denise Huskins case where... Like the book, like the famous book. Exactly. And

in that case, Denise Huskins was abducted out of her home in the middle of the night. And when she came back, police sort of very publicly questioned her. And it turned out that her story was true. She had been abducted, she'd been held by this man, Matthew Muller. And so when we talked to the law enforcement in Sherry Papini's case, they talked about that. They said, you know, we were, as everybody in the country was,

we were aware of that case and we didn't wanna look like we were gonna do the same thing and have egg on our faces. So they wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Exactly. While at the same time saying, there are definitely questions about this case. So they wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Exactly. While at the same time saying there are definitely questions about this case. So on that other parallel track, they are looking into it.

And they're trying to sort of verify what she's told them. And it's not all checking out. And so a year goes by, and then another year goes by. And clearly, people were sort of wondering what happened here. And then all of a sudden, Sherry Papini goes from victim to suspect. What specifically did you start to find out that didn't add up?

Of course, the whole notion of maybe she was, there was a cult or something. That's what you think about when there's branding. What kinds of things didn't add up that police began to question? Well, I think the biggest thing in the case was when Sherry came back, she was wearing sweatpants and she did have a chain around her. And so, of course, authorities collected all of that as evidence, including all of her

clothing. And they were able to determine that there was DNA on her clothing. The first thing that they determined is that it was male DNA, which didn't make sense because she said two women, two women, it was two women, two women held her the whole time that it was these, according to her, two women who had abused her. So that was a big red flag for authorities. And it began a very long process of them, I think, trying to figure out who that DNA belonged to. They used what we now kind of hear about all the time,

genetic genealogy to trace it back. And they found that that DNA belonged to a man named James Reyes, who Sherry had actually dated at one point before she was married to Keith. So that was another huge red flag. Oh, the plot thickens. Exactly. And over the next six years, investigators would piece together

how Papini had lied about everything from her fictional abduction to injuries which were largely self-inflicted. DNA from her clothing eventually leading them to her ex-boyfriend, James Reyes. I didn't kidnap her, you know, I just... Friend in need asked me for help. And that was that. What did she say? She was trying to get away from her husband.

Like her husband beat you, your husband raped you. I don't know what her deal was. Is it okay if I go look in that room, the closet? I'm curious if it's the same as she described it. Ding ding ding ding ding. This apartment, this closet, and this bathroom look just like the place that Sherry says she was held captive. Authorities say Pepini's allegations of abuse against her husband were unfounded and that James Reyes had no knowledge of her plan. And with Reyes' cooperation, investigators now believed

they had solid proof Sheriff Pepini's kidnapping was a hoax. The reason why you lost so much weight is because you stopped eating. The reason why the brand is because he went to the store, bought the branding tools and branded you. The reason why your nose was broke is because of a hockey stick. It's not an abduction. She asked me to come get her. No! I rented a car. No!

Drove up and picked her up. He passed the polygraph test, Sherry. That's not what happened, what didn't happen, Sherry. Well, we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, Sherry's confession. But it's not the end of the story. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink.

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which Sean worked on along with correspondent Matt Gutman. Many times police have a suspicion. I've covered stories where they kind of didn't really believe the alleged victim and then maybe within a year or so, this took six years to figure out that she wasn't truthful. Why so long? It took a long time. Yeah, the authorities when we were able

to finally interview them, which we did the piece again in 2022 and we got a chance to talk to some of the lead investigators. And they basically just said, we wanted to be absolutely sure of ourselves. Again, kind of referencing back to this Denise Huskins gone girl story. And also, they wanted a bulletproof case

so that when they took it to her and confronted her, they were able to say, we know this happened. We know this happened. And poor Keith, he really was standing by her. Well, we've got a clip from the 2020 that aired in 2024, where Keith talks with Matt Gutman about feeling that something wasn't quite right about his wife's story.

I sat down with Keith Papini nearly eight years after I first met him to hear how he says he was fooled by Sherry's lies for so long. So many people watching this would wonder, was his spidey sense going off? Didn't he notice that something was off? Of course I felt that way. There was always something that wasn't right. No one found me and I want me, and I want my husband. I want my husband.

When you first encountered her in the hospital, what was your first instinct? When I pulled back the curtain and I saw her and I saw the look in her eyes, I felt in that moment that she was lying. And it wasn't until I went to her to embrace her and I could just see the amount of injuries, bruises, burns to her body. And it was a shock to me.

And I remember thinking how horrible of me to even think that she could have done this to herself. Such a confusing mix of emotions for this guy and the mom of his children. She presents as somebody who had been abused. Clearly now police are starting to think she did this to herself. That had to be really difficult for him. Yeah. And I think you can understand where he was coming from, right?

Something in his intuition told him in that moment that this didn't seem right. But as you say, this was his wife, the mother of his children. And she, you know, we did get to see these images of Sherry Papini, what she looked like when she came back. And the investigators say the same thing. It was the extent of her injuries were so extreme that any doubt that I think popped up in his head,

he just immediately said, how could I even think that? How could she possibly do that? How could she do this to herself? And I think he felt a sense of guilt at the time, even for having that thought. So, you know, and again, it took years for him to understand what really happened to his wife.

And I think that it was a very, very difficult process for him to accept. Let's talk about the lie that she told. I mean, police at this point are starting to believe that there are lies here. Two Latino women, you know, we've all heard these stories before where a person of color was fingered as the perpetrator and it turns out somebody completely lied. This really was a very upsetting moment for those in the Latino community, right? Because she just

completely made this up. And why would she mention two Latino women? Exactly. And I think understandably so. There were many people in the Hispanic community who, especially in that area of California, who were offended by this. Once they found out that this was a hoax kidnapping and that she had participated in this herself. The fact that, yes, that she blamed it on two Hispanic women, it just, you know, it didn't sit well with people. Yeah, it didn't sit well with people. And what about just the other fallout?

Because she's got children, I'm sure the community, her, their neighborhood. I mean, what was that like the fallout for their family? Well, yeah, you have to think about what an enormously public story this was So there was fallout for her family. There was fallout for Keith. They had also Sherry had applied for You know victim assistance funds that exist in in states when something like this happens to you when you're the victim of a crime So she had taken money from these funds that eventually is she's charged with that. That's eventually part of what she's ultimately charged with is taking money that she shouldn't have taken that's intended for victims of crime.

What's the status? So they divorced, they still have children together, Keith and Sherry. Have they found any way to get along? What is the latest between them as a family? Yeah, and when we spoke to Keith last year, you know, I don't know that he would use the term get along. I think they were, you know, they were divorced. They were in court. They are still in court. I'm going back and forth about the custody agreement. Keith remains the sort of primary custodian of his children. And I think Sherry is fighting to get expanded rights. But I think as we could all understand, Keith was dealing with feelings of incredible betrayal.

And I think he didn't, he wanted to just focus on his children and move forward. And we're learning too, and we do learn in our 2020 episode about why she would do this kind of thing. I mean, what was going on for her? Well, so this is the latest chapter of the Sherry Papini story, right? Is that in all these years, you know, we did get the opportunity to talk to Keith several

times. We did get to talk to the law enforcement about how they really unraveled this story. But the person everybody I think has wanted to hear from now is Sherry Papini herself. And that's the reason why we're doing the story again. Well, you just teed it up perfectly for me, Sean, because just ahead, a new chapter in this ever changing story. Sherry is the subject of a new documentary. So the person at the center of this story is actually finally going to speak out. the story is actually finally going to speak out. Actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy zero dollar delivery fees on your first three orders.

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Save time, eat better. Suvi.com slash abc. I'm back now with Sean Dooley, our senior producer here at 2020 who worked alongside Matt Gutman on this story with Sherry Papini, nobody had heard from her. We all wanted to know her story. Of course, police at that point, when we started working on this story for the second time,

strongly felt that her story wasn't true. People have wanted to hear from her for a long time and now they're going to hear from her in a documentary, Sean. That's right. That's right, Deborah. So Sherry Papini did ultimately plead guilty to making false statements and to mail fraud. The mail fraud was in connection with that. The victims funds that she took that she shouldn't have.

So she went to prison. She served 10 months, was released. She and Keith divorced. And yes, people have always wanted to hear from her. What would she say about why she did this? And now she's speaking out in this documentary. Her story is surprising, I will say. Discovery ID has a four hour doc coming out and it launches on Memorial Day.

And 2020 got a chance to talk to the filmmaker, Nicole Rittenmeier. And this had to have been really interesting to you to hear her story. Definitely. So, you know, they spent a lot of time with her. They clearly shot several interviews with her. I think the headline of their documentary is that

her story has changed from when she pled guilty, when you plead guilty, you sign a form. You own up to it. You own up to it. And there was a document that laid out exactly what happened and she signed that document. Well, she now says that the majority of that document is not true.

Oh. And that the only thing that she lied about was that two Hispanic women abducted her. She now says that her ex-boyfriend, James Reyes, who she readily admits that she was speaking to, they were talking, that he, she was out for a jog one day, he showed up and he abducted her. And she says the rest of what she originally told was true,

that he held her, he abused her, he branded her, he starved her, and then he let her go. And we should clarify that police believed that she willingly, you know, stayed with this guy, and then at a certain point said she missed her children and wanted to leave. Correct. You know, police, when they were doing their investigation, they found James Reyes, and they spoke to him. They interviewed him. They recorded that interview. That interview is a part of our reporting on the story.

She instructed James to get a rental car, leave his cell phone at his house, and drive the nine hours or so to get to Redding, California to pick her up. He gets her down to his apartment, gives Sherry the bedroom, and he sleeps on the couch. Sherry asked him to put up the plywood to block out the window. I think James thought it was strange, but he was also just helping a friend.

He said, you know, I thought I was helping a friend. You know, she asked me to come get her. I got her. She stayed with me for a while. He says she did the majority of the things to herself. She cut her own hair. She didn't eat a lot. She, you know, hit herself in the face

with a hockey stick to, you know, break her nose. He does say she asked me to help her with a few things and I did that, but this was Sherry's idea. And he was not charged. He was never charged with a crime in connection with this. And we should also point out that he took a polygraph administered by the FBI and he completely passed that. We have reached out to James Reyes for comment, but have not heard back.

The Shasta County Sheriff's Office fully investigated James, corroborated his story with a polygraph, cell phone records and witnesses, and has cleared him of any crimes. The sheriff's office declining to comment on Sherry's latest allegations saying quote we are choosing to focus on current public safety matters. So the authorities stand by their investigation and believe that Sherry Popini was the mastermind behind this not James Reyes., she finally speaks out to the filmmaker with this documentary. So let's listen to 2020's conversation with Nicole Rittenmeyer about what she said

about interviewing Sherry Papini. The first thing I felt when I met Sherry Papini was that I wanted to check myself. When you're dealing with an unreliable narrator, which she is, by even, you know, her own account, you have to bring an extra level of scrutiny to every single exchange, every single conversation. The person that I met is not the same person

that I think people believe they are familiar with. What the public knows of Sherry is, you know, home movies where she's being a mom or being a wife, or, you know, more significantly, the interviews that she did, the police interrogations, where she is very actively misleading. She is very actively lying. She admits that now. She pled guilty to that in court. So the Sheri I met, and I think the Sheri viewers are going to see, is a very different

version. She's been through therapy. She's been through prison. She's hit rock bottom. And we really put her through it. I mean, I was challenging her constantly. She's never spoken for herself. I think she just wants to be heard. One of the things the film does is to have Sherry take a lie detector test.

Correct. So, you know, the filmmakers have asked that we not reveal what happens in that test. But yes, they brought in a legitimate polygrapher and they hooked Sherry up and they asked her these questions. It's definitely an interesting part of the documentary. And it'll be interesting to see now that she is going back on the story that she told, whether there could be some repercussions because of that. Now she's saying she signed a document and admitted to something that she says isn't true. So yeah I think we'll have to

wait to see how the authorities handle it. We did get it. We did reach out to the Shasta County Sheriff's Office who we spoke to and they said that they consider this case closed. So that may be the end of it but not the end of the fascination with this case. Well that's it for the 2020 After Show. Sean, such a pleasure to have you here. I love talking to you anytime. It's always fun, right? So for once we took our hallway conversation to the actual microphone and you all got a

chance to hear how we report these stories. That's it for the 2020 After Show. Thanks so much for listening. Don't forget on Friday nights, you can catch all new broadcast episodes of 2020 at 9 p.m. Eastern on ABC. Our podcast is produced by Amira Williams and Sasha Osslanian with Brian Mazursky and Alex Berenfeld of 2020. Theme music by Evan Viola. Janis Johnston is the executive producer of 2020. Josh Cohen, director of podcasting at ABC audio, and Laura Mayer is the executive producer. Hi, I'm Brad Milky, and the host of the crime scene weekly, a

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