Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - GLAM 'SUPER-MOM' Sherri Papini FAKES OWN KIDNAP AND TORTURE, WALKS FREE

Episode Date: September 16, 2023

Sherri Papini admits her 2016 kidnapping was a hoax, pleading guilty. The 39-year-old,  sentenced to 18 months in prison, has been released into a residential management program. Her official release date is in October. The mom was reported missing and told investigators when she was found 22 days later that a pair of Hispanic women kidnapped her at gunpoint.  Papini said her kidnappers abused her and then shoved her out of a car. Papini was emaciated, her hair was cut shorter, and she had cuts and bruises all over her body, but prosecutors said she caused the injuries herself. The case was broken in 2020 when DNA led investigators to Papini’s ex, who told them she had been with him the entire time.  Federal prosecutors charged Papini with 34 counts of mail fraud and one count of making false statements. Papini accepted a plea deal, but didn't explain why she created an elaborate kidnapping hoax, although she apologized for her actions.  Panini's story began to unravel when investigators found male DNA on her clothing that led them to her ex-boyfriend, whom she had been staying with while she pretended to be missing. He dropped her off along Interstate 5 when she said she wanted to go back home. Investigators said that the former boyfriend said that Papini had asked him to hit her but he refused. Instead, he agreed to hold a hockey stick for her to run into and pelted her with hockey pucks. He also said he branded her at her request. Joining Nancy Grace Today: Sheriff Michael Johnson - Shasta County Sheriff's Office Matthew Mangino – Attorney, Former District Attorney (Lawrence County); Author: “The Executioner’s Toll: The Crimes, Arrests, Trials, Appeals, Last Meals, Final Words and Executions of 46 Persons in the United States” Dr. Angela Arnold – Psychiatrist, Atlanta GA. Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women, Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University, Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital Bill Garcia - Private Investigator: "Bill Garcia Investigative Services;'" Part of Search Team for Sherri Papini  Kristy Mazurek - Emmy Award-winning Investigative Reporter & President: "Successful Strategies"  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Imagine coming home and calling out to your children and your spouse and no one answers. You know immediately things have gone sideways. You launch a desperate search, finding your taught children still at daycare, but where's your spouse? Then you find your spouse's cell phone, the cord wrapped neatly around it, attached to earbuds, and some of your spouse's hair caught, tangled up in that cord. You know, everything has gone sideways. Of course, I'm talking about the case of Sherry Pepini, the missing mom who faked her entire disappearance, going so far as to brand herself. Yes, you heard me, brand herself, you know, like with a hot poker, brand herself with something

that looks like hieroglyphics, lose about 40 pounds, beat herself, and chop off her hair to make her disappearance more believable. We find out the entire time her husband is sick, her children are crying for mommy, the whole world is turned upside down looking for Sherry Pepini. She was holed up in her old boyfriend's apartment. Good grief, woman. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. In the last days, a break in the Sherry Papini fake kidnapping case. Sherry Papini, everybody, who cost police thousands of man hours and tens of thousands of dollars in the search has just walked free that's right california mom sherry pepini has been released from prison how did the whole thing

start 9-1-1 what is your hello can i you? Yeah, so I just got home from work, and my wife wasn't there, which is unusual, and my kids should have been there by now from, like, daycare. So I was like, oh, maybe she went on a walk. I couldn't find her, so I called the daycare to see what time she picked up the kids. The kids were never picked up, so I got freaked out, so I hit, like, the find my iPhone app thing, and it said that her, it showed her phone, like at our end of our driveway, we don't have really good service. Okay. Not the end of our driveway, but the end of our street. But just drove down there and I

saw her phone with her headphones because she started running again. And it's, I found her phone and it's got like hair ripped out of it, like in the headphones. So I'm like totally freaking out thinking like somebody like grabbed her. Thinking someone grabbed her. Now take a listen to our cut one from channel seven, K-R-C-R. Keith Papini came home last Wednesday and his wife Sherry Papini was nowhere to be found. In normal days, I would open the door and my family comes and runs and gives me a hug. But there were no welcoming hugs. So he searched in the house and their property, but learned the children were still at daycare.

He found Sherry's phone down the street. That's when I knew she had been, in my opinion, taken or abducted. Now, days later, family, friends, the community and law enforcement are still looking for Sherry. It's the worst thing in the world. It's the worst thing ever. Time going by slowly, and their children don't know their mother is missing. It's hard waiting. You're waiting for a phone call. You're waiting for something to tell us this is the direction or this is the house or this is the car. And that is very difficult right now.

But Keith is determined to find her. She was listening, and I wanted to say that we're trying the best we can, and I'm so sorry that I'm not there. The family believes she was abducted and has this message. Bring her home. Bring her home. Just bring her home. We all know that Papini was on a very tight schedule, that she never missed picking up her children. Take a listen to her sister-in-law, Sherry Papini, our cut five.

There's no way she would do anything to disrupt her children's routine. You know, being that the phone was found and she wasn't on her routine, yeah, there's no way she wouldn't have gone and picked up the children. They're on a very tight schedule and she's extremely close with them. She's here with them every day gardening and doing projects and there's just no way that she would take off. It's terrible. She's an incredible human being. Best mom I've ever seen. You're hearing the sister-in-law, Suzanne Papini, speaking. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Sherry Papini,

a name that echoes and echoes and echoes. She's been in the news so much. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. Matthew Mangino, former prosecutor, highly respected attorney, author of The Executioner's Toll, Dr. Angela Arnold, psychiatrist, joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Mona Kay, private investigator at Mona Kay Investigations, joining us out of Omaha, Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter Christy Mazurek, and special guest joining us, Sheriff Michael Johnson from the Shasta County's Sheriff's Office. To Sheriff Michael Johnson, this case has been hanging around the sheriff's office neck, an albatross, so to speak. Sheriff Michael Johnson, familiar with the extensive search for Sherry Papini.

Take a listen to the Shasta County Sheriff Presser. The deputies last night when they responded, they conducted a search of the area and canvassed the area with local neighbors and residents there. They worked throughout the night and into the early morning hours along with Shasta County Sheriff investigators as well. They were also able to utilize the REACH helicopter as the CHP air operations helicopter was not available and the REACH helicopter came out and illuminated the area and checked the fields and the sides of the roads for her and assisting us in the search operations. Last night they also used search canines for

scent work. Local area hospitals were checked and of course the sides of the roadways were checked as well. Ms. Papini has been entered into a national computer for missing persons. She is considered at risk due to the suspicious circumstances. To Sheriff Michael Johnson joining us from Shasta County Sheriff's Office, it's a real honor and privilege to have you with us, Sheriff. Thank you for taking time away from your extremely busy schedule to be with us. Sheriff, you guys went all out in your search for Sherry Pepini. Explain what your search entailed. Yeah, Nancy, there was three really different parts to this investigation. And when you're talking about the search, that's really like what we call the

phase one of the investigation. She went missing. And immediately you heard there was several different resources deployed to find her. The location of Sherry Papini was absolutely the first phase where we just want to, time's never on your side when somebody goes missing. So the sooner you can locate them or get a lead on locating them, the better chances you are of recovering that person alive. So there was allied agencies asked to lend us resources, and most of those resources were in personnel. As you heard, we had dogs, we had helicopters, we had everything, an all-out search in the community. A community even

joined in, you know, printing flyers and volunteer people coming out and looking for her. It was an all-out effort to find Sherry at the beginning. I remember exactly how this whole thing went down and the sheriff's office and other agencies spared no resources trying to find Sherry Papini. And when I hear about the helicopter, most people have never seen it in real life, but you've seen in the movies, the helicopter flying close to the ground overhead, which, you know, helicopters can be a pretty risky mode of transportation, but if you've got to do it, you got to do it. But in a suburban area, looking for her, flying over phone wires and cell phone towers, looking for her at night with the light shining down. Describe how that works, Sheriff.

Yeah, it's, you know, they have infrared technology. They have a lot of different high-end technology that goes into this, not just in the helicopter, but on the ground as well. There's efforts. There's people wearing night vision. There's everything, all expenses paid to locate this woman. And that's one of the keys here, Nancy, is when you talk about the exhausting efforts of all the agencies into this initial search and throughout this investigation and the resources and time and money spent on this, all to find out in the end that it's a fraud, it's very frustrating. And one thing I should tell you also and should remember that during the time Sherry Papini went missing, I was actually the neighboring police chief at the time. I was not the sheriff.

So I was lending resources from my department to the sheriff's office in the attempt to find Sherry. So everybody was involved. And now to find out it's nothing but a big fat lie. I mean, this woman knows no bounds in her lies. Take a listen to our cut eight, Alison Sutton, a motorist who spots the missing mom on the side of the road. I saw a blind, a blonde woman standing in like that V-shaped area that gets created between the right shoulder and the left side of an off-ramp. But I wasn't quite sure where I was when I saw her. I just caught a glimpse of her. The area where she was is not well lit. So I didn't actually see her until I was right up on her, which really startled me.

And it kind of took me a few minutes to to figure out what I'd seen. And I went a couple miles up the road to figure out where, until I saw a road sign. So I knew where I was. And then I pulled off onto the shoulder and I called 911. Have you ever done that?

You've driven by something and you went, whoa, whoa, whoa, what was that? That's what Allison Sutton is telling our friend, Craig Melvin. Take a listen to our cut nine. I saw her very, very quickly. Her face looked, I thought her face was dirty, but based on what I know now,

I'm guessing that what I thought was dirt on her face was the bruises. But it was very, very dark. I did not notice restraints um it just it was so dark i i barely barely saw her it's and like i said it was a flash because that area is so dark and it was 4 30 in the morning right you called 9- called 911, you didn't go back after that? I did not, no. I had my 14-year-old daughter in the car with me

and we talked about going back, but the 911 operator had me feeling confident that law enforcement would take care of the person that I saw. And so we chose to get back on the road and keep going. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace breaking news in the case of a california mom who faked her own kidnap even going so far as to brand herself beat herself and starve herself to make it all look real then a woman sees her wandering around on Thanksgiving morning, still with chains around

her body. Seriously? It was all a big fake. How much money and man hours did this woman cost us when real people were suffering, real people being kidnapped, real people being aggravated, assaulted, real people being raped, real women being snatched away from their children and vice versa. And she pulls this stunt. Listen, we are very ecstatic to report that Sherry Papini has been located and has been reunited with her husband and family on this day of Thanksgiving. I'm happy to say that Sherry is now safe and she has been treated at a area hospital outside of Shasta County and for

non-life-threatening injuries. At about 4 30 this morning, Shasta County Sheriff's Office was notified that Sherry Papini had been located. We learned that she was released by her captor on a rural road near I-5 in Yolo County. She was bound with restraints, but was able to summon help from a passing motorist on I-5 near County Road 17, again, about northern Yolo County. Papini admits it's all a big lie. I remember when Papini's husbands and friends raised alarms after she goes missing, getting

national attention, when other victims could have used that attention. Well, in the last hours, this woman who somehow masterminds the ultimate kidnapping hoax, I mean, Jussie Smollett can learn a thing from this woman, has walked free. Christy Missouri joining us, Emmy Award winning investigative reporter. Do you remember everybody looking for Sherry Papini, the grid searches, the neighbors in fear, no woman would go for a walk by herself, on and on. And it was all a big lie, Christy Mazurik. It was the face seen around the world on billboards, signs. People were donating to GoFundMe sites to pay for neighborhood searches. And now, unfortunately, people are having to deal with the grim fact that this woman has now been

deemed a master manipulator. I mean, whoa. Take a listen to Our Cut 18. This is Suzy Su, CBS LA. After years of sticking to her story that she was abducted by two women, Sherry Papini is reportedly ready now to come clean and admit that she faked it all. Sherry Papini vanished from her Reading home in 2016. Weeks later, she was found wandering along the 5 Freeway, bruised and branded. Now, at that time, she told police two women had kidnapped and tortured her. But last month, prosecutors charged her with making it all up. They say instead of being abducted, she was actually hiding out with an ex-boyfriend in Costa Mesa. And now Papini has reached a deal with prosecutors and will admit that she planned the entire hoax. Her lawyer says Papini signed a plea deal with federal prosecutors. She will plead guilty to lying to a federal officer

and to mail fraud. You know what? Joining me, Sheriff Michael Johnson. It was the Shasta County Sheriff's Office and your then jurisdiction and so many others that joined together. There is no way to count the man hours spent on finding this spoiled brat mom of two that goes missing on her stay at home day. Both of her kids are in daycare. I don't know what she's doing all day long. She's obviously fabricating a crime in her pink jogging suit. I wonder if she had her hair blow-dried before she took off. But long story short, to go shack up with her ex-boyfriend

for weeks on end, starveve herself? Beat herself? Cut all her hair off? I'm so mad I could chew a nail in half, Sheriff. Doesn't sound much like a super mom to me. Does it to you? Oh, no, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. I mean, there are plenty of times moms feel tired.

They don't want to clean the guinea pig cage or cook dinner or go to work. They're exhausted. But hiding in your ex-boyfriend's apartment for several weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, having your entire family in abject fear that you're dead. I mean, and what it did to the sheriffs and the local police out in a helicopter at night instead of home with their own families or solving real crimes, Sheriff, with real victims that are suffering. Yeah. And you hit all the points. It's frustrating to us that, you know, at some point we created a code, a finance code, to start tracking our resources that we had into this investigation. It wasn't until well into this investigation that that was done.

And it got up to $150,000 for us just as our agency by the time this thing concluded. And I'm sure we had well more than that into the investigation. And that's not even counting all the other agencies. And that is the frustration, Nancy. We put all this effort into Sherry Papini and trying to recover her. Spoiled brat. And chasing down false suspects. Oh, yeah.

What if you had actually made an arrest? She tried to blame it on what, two Hispanic females? Yes, she sure did. And you know what? In the meantime, all this is going on, we have other legitimate cases that are not getting the attention that they should or being kind of pushed to the side because the exigency of this circumstance or so we thought. Reminds me of Jesse Smollett, the big race faker and his fake hate crime. At least we knew he was alive. Okay, we didn't have to worry that he was dead and that his children would be left without a father to raise them. I mean, here's another

thing. It's not just the money. Mona Kay joining me, private investigator, Mona Kay investigation side of Omaha. Mona, when you, or at least me, when I would work a case in the district attorney's office, I worked it. I worked it hard out on the street till one, two o'clock in the morning, up at five o'clock with my investigator trying to find witnesses in court at eight o'clock, trying to get my evidence lined up so there would not be any glitch in front of the jury, writing out my direct and cross examinations, my closings, my openings, getting the law to make sure my evidence got in and to keep their evidence out. Anything I could do to further justice, there was no rest. There were no dinners out. Nothing. It was prove the case, investigate the

case. And by the time you're in it, you're so emotionally attached to it that anything other than a resolution is a personal fail. I mean, that's how I looked at my cases. They were like my children at the time, very attached to finding the truth. Yeah, that's true. I mean, you become very invested in the cases that you work, the people you work for, you know, her family, the community. But you work endlessly and tirelessly day and night trying to track down leads, trying to find witnesses, locate people, you know, walking through the, you know, the ditches,

the area, just looking for any signs. Yes, and it's exhausting, Mona Kay. And to you, Sheriff Michael Johnson, joining us, the Shasta County Sheriff, the elected Sheriff. You know, Sheriff, it's not like on TV and movies where in one scene you're covered in dirt and sweat and blood. The next one you're like lounging in a hot tub. It's not like that. You go days, weeks, months working a case.

I've had cases where I had to go to crack houses with a bunch of crack addicts in there. Got a shotgun pulled on me on somebody's front porch, exhaustive hours digging through glass shards and syringes to try to find a projectile from a shotgun. I mean, I can't even tell you what criminal investigators, lawyers, and sheriffs like yourself go through to make a case and to think the whole time Sherry Papini is propped up on the sofa at her ex-boyfriend's house watching what? Maury Povich? I mean, I don't get it. What she put you guys through and her own family. I don't get it, Sheriff sheriff why am i the only one angry here you're not the uh that i do feel um i do feel sorry for her unsuspecting family because she did dupe her

family as well but when you talk about this woman had a very elaborate deception scheme going. And talking about the investigation, our investigators had to chase down so many leads and vet out so many facts across state lines at times because she had put all these other stories and misdirections into place. That's why it took so much time in this investigation. We didn't want to falsely accuse anybody. But as we started to unfold the mistruths to this and her deception, we had to make sure that we vetted out every single lead. And everything you're talking about is right. It's exhausting.

It's long hours. It's mentally exhausting. Yeah. Do you know how many times that I would comment and send out, please help find Sherry Papini, and I'd read the facts. I still got pages and pages and pages of notes and analysis, and so much of it did not fit together for me. For instance, the fact that her cell phone was sitting there and the earbuds were neatly

folded up and just sitting on top of her phone. And I think the phone may have been found on top of a mailbox or somewhere very, it was like thrown into the bushes. I had so many problems with her story. But then, Sheriff, I kept thinking, well, I mean, would she go so far to beat herself and starve herself, break her own nose, brand herself? Didn't she brand herself, chop off all her hair? Was she branded, Sheriff? Yes, she was.

Oh, dear Lord in heaven. With what? It's never been told what she was branded. What were the letters? What did it say? Yeah, it was a religious saying, and I don't recall exactly what it was. A religious saying? Yeah, or a symbol, yes.

Oh, you know, this is straight Matthew Mangino, former district attorney in Lawrence County, now high-profile lawyer, former member of the parole board, which I don't like one bit that you paroled people, and author of The Executioner's Toll, me and Gino. It's straight out of like a fifth grade girl's novel. Being abducted and branded and your hair chopped off and blah, blah, blah. It sounded hinky at the beginning, but I would not come out and say it because the woman had a broken nose. She was starved. She had cut off all her hair. She was covered with bruises, even branded. And I thought, okay, the facts are off, but would she actually brand herself? Would she go through all that, break her own nose? And that was the other side

of the scale. Well, yeah, that's extraordinary. I mean, you know, she, you know, she went to great measures to make this hoax seem real, you know, to physically harm herself, to brand herself, to have her nose broken, all for the attention that she might get after she comes back 22 days later. I mean, you know, this extravagant hoax is wrong on so many different levels. You know, it inhibits people from wanting to get involved in the future when someone says they're missing. It's a diversion of police efforts. You know, it's costly to the community. Hey, hey, Mangino, I want to analyze something you just said,

a diversion of police efforts. You know, that's really like putting perfume on the pig. You know, it's a little bit of a euphemism. Hey, Sheriff Michael Johnson, did you hear that? Matthew Manginoino police efforts. Think about it. How many women were being raped at that moment? How many stores or homes were being robbed or home invaded?

How many missing children were being abducted at that moment? What other crimes were happening? Were people, domestic violence, women getting beaten, children getting beaten and molested. That's what was happening when Sherry Papini had the sheriffs up in their helicopter and doing grid searches and putting up flyers. Yeah. What about that, Mangino? All right. And I agree with you. And it goes beyond that. I mean, the fear that they created in the community that, hey, you know, this this young woman was abducted and no one knows where she's at. And then when she finally returns, there's this racist element that she creates. Hispanic women who kept her captive for three weeks. You know, I remember when Susan Smith killed her children and blamed the black guy.

Blame the black man. All right. So I was sitting in court, Jackie, with my trial partner who helped me a great deal. Turned into a judge, by the way, Herman Sloan. And the composite of the fake kid kidnapper of the children came out. I'm like, Herman, that looks a lot like you. Look at this. He went, oh, I said, actually, I think you were with me when the children were abducted. So, you know, you're safe. But what he just said, Sheriff Johnson, did you hear that? The element of blaming

the Hispanic women? Yeah, of course. And you know what that does? You got a nerve. What that does to law enforcement is it gives us, you know, she created these sketches. And so now we're contacting people and questioning people that even resemble that falsely. You know, it's unfair. You just gave me a flashback, Sheriff Johnson. You know, the big albums of perps, mugshots. I remember sitting up at like one o'clock in the morning. I found a witness and just going through page after page after page,

looking to see if any of these people look familiar as the killer. It was triple homicide, I might add. But I could just see you putting together those two composites. I remember them well and showing them to this person and that person. Oh, it's so intensive, Sheriff Johnson. I know it is. You know, Sheriff Johnson, while I've still got you, we heard Matthew Mangino, I think it's a pretty good guess on his part, too, say she did it for attention. Did we ever figure out why she did it? You know, that's the one thing that I was waiting for to come out in the trial. tell you is that calculated narcissistic type of behavior that she displayed through this whole

thing is all self-serving right up now until the end when she enters a plea agreement the only reason she pled in this case is because she's trying to save herself it's for selfish reasons again and they put out this statement of remorse by her, which I'm quite sure she didn't say. It was crafted probably by her attorney. And just don't buy any of it. So I was hoping in the trial, we would get a better idea of why she did it. But if I had to guess, I'd just say it's that same typical selfish behavior. Oh, the whole thing about, oh, I'm bored. I'm bored of being a stay-at-home mom. You know how many working moms that have to work would love to be a stay-at-home mom? Because they're trying to be the stay-at-home mom and do all the things that mom does and work at the same

time. I mean, it's hard. Nancy. Uh-oh, here it comes. Dr. Angie Arnold. I don't get this. She just did it for attention. There's something else there. And don't tell me she's insane, because she's not. She's crazy. She's crazy like a fox. I'm telling you that. And she is also not a narcissist. She is a sociopath. She is the definition of a sociopath. She knows the difference between right and wrong, and she has no conscience because this is not the first bad thing that she's done to her family. It has escalated and escalated, and now this. And like you said, how selfish. And then how could you be thinking of anyone? She's not thinking of anyone. And by the way, typically sociopaths and narcissists are not

really capable of love. So she's got this family, you know, that she can portray. And of course, she looks like the best mom in the world because she's not. Her entire life is a act. Okay, you do know that just didn't make any sense at all. She looks like the best mom in the world because she's not. Okay, that did not. I'm not a shrink like you, but I know that didn't make any sense. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Sherry Papini walks out of jail.

What will be her next stunt? Don't think this is over. I mean, when you don't know a horse, look at its track record. And boy, does she have a track record. All kind of family problems way back when, dating back till before she was married. And this poor guy falls for Sherry Papini's line of crap, marries her, they have children, and now this. Well, in the last hour, Sherry Papini walks free.

But how did this whole thing actually happen? Sheriff, do you remember, and you'll have to, or Christy, jump in if you know this, there have been a lot of issues with her before this, in that she had kicked in her family home, like her original family, like mom and dad family, or faked a burglary. There had been some something in her background. It's like waving a big red flag in front of a bull. I mean, you can't help but notice it. What was it she had done in the past, Sheriff Johnson? Yeah, I don't recall that one.

Oh, I recall it. I do. Nancy, rolling back from this case, rolling back from this case, she scams an ex-boyfriend, telling him that her husband is beating her and her family is not helping her. And she weaves this narrative for almost a year before she disappears. That's why he allows her to hole up in his apartment. Hey, speaking of the drama, the story she came up with, take a listen to Our Cut 18, Suzy Sue, CBS LA. After years of sticking to her story that she was abducted by two women, Sherry Papini is reportedly ready now to come

clean and admit that she faked it all. Sherry Papini vanished from her Reading home in 2016. Weeks later, she was found wandering along the 5 freeway, bruised and branded. Now, at that time, she told police two women had kidnapped and tortured her. But last month, prosecutors charged her with making it all up. They say instead of being abducted, she was actually hiding out with an ex-boyfriend in Costa Mesa. And now Papini has reached a deal with prosecutors and will admit that she planned the entire hoax. Her lawyer says Papini signed a plea deal with federal prosecutors today. She will plead guilty to lying to a federal officer and to mail fraud.

You know, what if you'd made an arrest, Sheriff Johnson? What if you actually found a Hispanic woman, or as I believe she said, two Mexican women? What if you actually found somebody that matched that sketch to the point that you arrested them based on what Sherry Papini said. Well, you know what happened then? Then I'd be in a lawsuit for a false arrest.

A big fat lawsuit, too. I found it, Sheriff. Listen to this. When she was 18, her sister accused her of kicking in the back door of the family Shasta Lake home. The same day, her parents, Richard and Loretta, called police to document the incident as vandalism and claimed she had taken off to somewhere in Redding when she was 21. Her parents made another call to cops saying she stole money from the father's bank account. Then the mother reported Sherry was harming herself and blaming her injuries on her, the mother, and the mother was afraid that she, the mother, would get dragged into DFACS, Department of Family and Children's Services.

So she called herself and went, hey, my daughter's hurting herself and blaming me. I mean, Sheriff Michael Johnson, when you don't know a horse, look at her track record. Yes, indeed. And all that was taken into consideration as things started to unfold. And you know what? Another hard part of this was, Nancy, is as we started to unfold this lies that are being told by her, we had to lay silent while we took, you know, some we took some criticism from the media, the family and everybody else. And we were knowing that this was a lie. But we had to keep all the facts quiet until we got all the facts.

No, I mean, at the beginning, Sheriff, I find it hard to believe I would have criticized you because at the beginning, I know, but I always assume it's me. Sheriff Johnson, because at the beginning, her story stunk. The whole thing, something, it just wasn't right. The whole thing. And then showing up on Thanksgiving Day. What now? I said, yeah. And there was little, and you hit on a couple of them, some of the evidence at the front of the investigation. We were scratching our head and not thinking things were right as well. But I mean, what are you going to do? Bad mouth a victim who's had her nose broken and lost all that weight, chopped her hair off and branded herself.

I mean, who would have thought? Then you've got the ex-boyfriend dragged into the whole thing. Hey, another thing, Sheriff Johnson, I agree with you. Her statement says, you know she didn't write this, I'm deeply ashamed for my behavior and so sorry for the pain I caused. Uh-uh. I don't believe that for one minute. I don't think she's sorry she did it.

She's sorry she got caught, Sheriff. Yep, that's exactly right. That's what she's sorry about. She's sorry that she got caught. It's like, I'm not sorry I did it, but I sure don't want to go to hell for it. Okay. So Christy Mazurek, explain to me what her sentence is. She pleads guilty. What's her sentence? She'll be sentenced this summer, but in signing on to this. I thought she already said, oh wait, I see $30,000. You're absolutely correct. Yeah. It's $300,000 in restitution. That's mandated.

Yes, but what I'm saying is the $30,000 she stole from a victim's compensation fund to pay off her credit card? Yes. What? She's lovely. Wait, tell me that.

She had $30,000 of credit card debt and then paid it from the victim's compensation fund. Yes, and GoFundMe sites also that family and friends had set up. So when she returned back home, she had a payday. And again, her story got so insane. Her memory was hazy because her head was covered by a pillowcase, but she heard mariachi music playing.

But maybe that didn't happen because she might have been hit by a pillowcase, but she heard mariachi music playing. But maybe that didn't happen because she might have been hit by a stun gun. Did you just say mariachi music? I absolutely did. Oh, yeah. Mona Kay, private investigator with Mona Kay Investigations Omaha. The not just stereotypes, but the harmful and hateful stereotypes this woman is conjuring up right now. I mean, again, it makes me think of Jussie Smollett. They star an empire who conjures up hatred for black Americans, hatred for gay people, and then claims he was attacked with bleach to make his skin white and put a noose around his neck. Some of the most hateful things just straight out of hell that you could say.

And now you've got this woman claiming to quote Mexican women abduct her, beat her, torture her and play mariachi music. Yeah, that's right. I read that she, I believe she said that she had to listen to horrible mariachi or Hispanic music while she was being, you know, kidnapped and tortured in a closet. That was part of the torture was listening to that type of music. Well, not everyone would think that that was torture. Take a listen to our cut 23.

This is Lilla Luciano at CBS. Sherry described her assailants as two Hispanic female adults. According to the FBI, she accused the women of brutally torturing her. The hunt was on, and new fears settled in Redding, where Latinos were less than 10% of the population. A lot of people would tell me, you know, and they had to be Hispanic and they had to be. I said, well, that doesn't give them a good name either. So there was shame in the community. I guess. She specifically picked out a gender and a race to name as the suspect.

So any Hispanic woman at that time, I'm sure is getting an eyebrow raised and looking in there wondering, oh, I wonder if she could be connected or one of the suspects so people were being questioned and stopped and asked questions by law enforcement Yes, they were afraid to go out and together in one car or a van to women Could be suspicious. Yeah to be suspicious or to be stereotyped to be insulted and take a listen our cut 20 Kaylee Hartung ABC Sherry Papini says she's ashamed of her behavior and sorry for the pain she caused just as she gets ready to plead guilty in court. So the agencies who spent more than five years uncovering her lies, they feel some relief and closure, but also frustration because taking this plea deal means she'll likely spend months, not years, in jail. Sherry Papini back in federal court to waive indictment, opening the door to plead guilty in her own kidnapping hoax. She had no other choice because she's caught and she knows if this thing comes to, actually goes to trial and we start parading in the witnesses and all the evidence that we've got, she's got nowhere to go.

I'm very confident we would have got a conviction if that went to trial. Facing trial for 35 felony charges and the possibility of as many as 25 years in jail, the mother of two accepting a plea deal, her recommended sentence reduced to no more than 14 months. Through tears in the courtroom, Papini dabbing her eyes with a tissue, her attorney consoling her as she nervously answered the judge's questions to ensure she understands what happens next. Dabbing her eyes in the courtroom. People are consoling her. I mean, Sheriff Johnson's the one that needs to be consoled and everybody that spent their time, blood, sweat and tears trying to find Sherry Papini. Now she's like dabbing her eyes in the courtroom. You know what? Just stop, Papini. You've done enough.

Angie Arnold, for Pete's sake, is this Sherry Papini's world and we're just living in it? Is it all about her? Well, she thinks it is. And she's creating this world that she wants to live in. She feeds off of this chaos. And she creates more and more chaos

to keep us all wondering like we all are on this show, right? I'm wondering, this is terrible. This is a terrible thought I'm going to share with you. Oh boy, go ahead. Don't hold back now. I'm wondering how much fun her and her boyfriend were having, shaving her head, giving her bruises. I mean, I wonder, oh my gosh, we're all going, oh my God, this poor woman, her beautiful blonde hair was shaved and everything.

They were probably enjoying every minute of it. They were getting some sort of odd satisfaction out of doing this to her on top of everything else. In the last days, the ultimate hoaxster, kidnap mom, Sherry Papini walks free. There was no kidnap. She faked the whole thing. And I'm still to this day, not entirely sure why she did it.

Then she reappears three weeks later on Thanksgiving, wearing a chain around her waist and arm, claiming two Hispanic women kidnapped her at gunpoint. That's right. Blame the Hispanic women. Her lies all fell apart after investigators found her DNA on a piece of clothing that led back to her ex-boyfriend, who dropped her off there in Woodland when she decided to reappear on Thanksgiving.

I bet that was some Thanksgiving meal. Cherry pepini. Let me tell you, it ain't over yet. Goodbye, friends. This is an iHeart Podcast.