Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Supermom Sherri Papini Admits to Hoax, Now Demands More Time With Her Children

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Sherri Papini  is back in court fighting for custody of her children.  She wants to be reunited with one child and increased visitation the another.   Her ex-husband, Keith, was granted full custody after Papini was charged with 34 counts of mail fraud and one count of lying to the FBI.  Ultimately Papini  pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of making false statements. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $300,000 Keith’s defense claims Sherri's actions, perpetuating the hoax that she had been kidnapped, put the children through "hell" and "they could not thrive under her "pathological personality." Sherri Papini admits her 2016 kidnapping was a hoax. The 39-year-old mom was reported missing on November 2,  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. When Papini accepted a plea deal, she didn't explain why she created an elaborate kidnapping hoax, but did apologized for her actions.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Sheriff Michael Johnson - Shasta County Sheriff's Office Matthew Mangino - Attorney, Former District Attorney (Lawrence County), Former Parole Board Member, 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,  www.angelaarnoldmd.com, 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.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The so-called supermom turned kidnap hoaxer Sherry Papini is back in court. She is battling for child visitation with her ex-husband. Good luck, Sherry Papini. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

The California mom who pled guilty to charges related to faking her own kidnapping, showing up on Thanksgiving covered in bruises, starved, even branded. She branded herself with a curling iron. Okay, tell that to a judge. He's not going to give you more visitation or custody with your children. Forget it. But that said, she's back in court. She is whining. Quote, for eight years, our family has been followed, stalked, harassed, and bullied by the media. Really? Could it be because you led everyone on a wild goose chase, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money, torturing your family, your husband and children thinking

you were probably dead before you came back like a stray cat on Thanksgiving morning? Ugh! She said this to K-R-C- C R quote. I've done my best to stay private, to focus on my children and healing. What she's healing from her own hoax, healing from the events that transpired. She makes it sounds like something happened to her. Not that she actually did something pretty evil, pretending you've been kidnapped and your children having to endure the possibility you could be dead. For many years after my arrest, I was the primary caregiver of our children before serving my time in prison. You mean before you pled guilty?

My children have always been my primary focus. Oh, was that what you were thinking about when you pretended to be kidnapped? Slung up with your old boyfriend? What, ordering pizza? Watching movies? I guess at that point from Blockbuster? Papini wants to be able to see her children again after an eight-year saga that got worldwide press attention. There was even a Hulu documentary. The ex, Keith Papini, is fighting to shelter the children from their mother. Why is he so hell-bent on sheltering his children? This is why. 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, 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 it's got like hair ripped out of it like in the headphones so i'm like totally freaking out thinking like somebody like what just grabbed her thinking someone grabbed her now take a listen to our cut one from Channel 7, KRCR. 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 the worst thing ever. Time going by slowly and their children don't know their mother is missing. It's hard waiting. You know, you're waiting, you're waiting for a phone call. You're waiting for something to tell us, you know, 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. 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 Pepini, 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 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. And 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 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 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, 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 it 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've 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 expensive pay 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. 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 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. 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.

It just, it was so dark. I barely, barely saw her. 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 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. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace think back it was november sherry pepini left her home for a jog and never came back for 22 days, her family went through hell. She reappeared beaten, tied up with a brand on her shoulder, 150 miles away from home, claiming she was kidnapped at gunpoint by two female Hispanics. Yeah, what if somebody had been arrested based on her big fat lie?

Finally, she was linked to her ex-boyfriend through DNA evidence. He came clean. Her husband, Keith Papini, rightfully filed for divorce and custody immediately. Later that year, she accepted a plea deal, admitted to what she had done. She managed to plead to only one count of mail fraud and to one count of lying to LE, law enforcement. And now she wants the children? That husband is fighting this tooth and nail. You want to know why? Take a listen to Hour Cut 6, the Shasta County Sheriff Presser.

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, in northern Yolo County. Papini admits it's all a big lie.

To Christy Missouri joining us, Emmy Award winning investigative reporter. Do you remember everybody looking for Sherry Papini? The grid surges, 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 today. 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 dry before she took off. But long story short, to go shack up with her ex-boyfriend for weeks on end, starve 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. us that you know at some point we created a uh a code a finance code to start tracking our resources that we had into this investigation it wasn't too well into this investigation that that was done and um 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 uh into the investigation and that's not even counting all the other agencies and that is the frustration nancy is who we put all these this effort into sherry papini and uh trying to recover her and doing wild brat and chasing down false suspects and oh yeah what if you actually made an arrest she tried to blame it on what two two Hispanic females? Yes, she sure did. And 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 are being kind of pushed to the side because the exigency of this circumstance. So we thought. Reminds me of Jesse Smollett, the big race faker and his fake hate crime.

At least we knew he was alive. 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 1, 2 o'clock in the morning, up at 5 o'clock

with my investigator trying to find witnesses in court at 8 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 our own family.

It's, it's, I don't get it, Sheriff. Why am I the only one angry here? You're not the I do feel 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, into place that 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. 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 is.

A religious saying? Yeah, or 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 is 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 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 Mangino, 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 where people, domestic violence, people, 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. Oh, yeah. Two gun wielding Hispanic women who kept her captive for three weeks. Blame the Hispanics. 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're important with me. When the children were abducted, 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? I got a nerve.

What that does in law enforcement is that gives us, you know, she created this, of course. And you know what that does? She's 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 to say she did it for attention. Did we ever figure out why she did it?

Not I you know, that's the that's the one thing that I was waiting for to come out in the trial. No, all I can 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. Oh, yeah. 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.

He just did it for attention. There's something else there. And don't tell me he'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 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. 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. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Sherry Bepini back in court. I recall when she was confronted with evidence of her hoax. Man, this woman can lie. Would you let your children

be with a mom like that? I mean, I'm not the church lady. I'm not making a moral judgment. I'm talking about the safety of children. When you don't know a horse, look at her track record. When you don't know what's going to happen, look at what has already happened. Do you blame Keith Papini for fighting over visitation? Let me refresh your recollection. Sheriff Michael Johnson, the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, 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, 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 five 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 have been 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 and, but we had to keep. I hope it wasn't me. Quiet until we get 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 stumped the whole thing. Something it just wasn't right. The whole thing. And we thought. And then showing up on Thanksgiving Day. What now? I said, yeah.

And there was 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 he did it, but I sure don't want to go to hell for it. Okay, so Chrissy Mazurek, 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 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 Jesse 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 Lila 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. But 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 together in one car or a van to women. To be suspicious.

Yeah, to be suspicious or to be stereotyped or to be insulted. And take a listen to our Cut20, 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 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 it was 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. The ex-boyfriend went along with her tale because she kept telling him her husband was going to do horrific things if she went back home. And she's done this in the past. And Nancy, hate to bring up, you know, the stereotyping, but you and I lived through Jennifer Wilbanks, the runaway bride outside of Atlanta, when she went out for a run and she was kidnapped by a Latino man and turned up in New Mexico.

Oh, I remember it really well. Take a listen to this. Police investigators made an afternoon visit to the Lakefront home in Georgia where Jennifer Wilbanks is now in seclusion. Last seen publicly hiding under a blanket as she left New Mexico. The case of the runaway bride may now lead to criminal charges. And it did. I remember it really well. Chrissy Mazur claiming that Hispanic males sex assaulted her and coincidentally grabbed her the night before her wedding. She was a runaway bride. She ended up cutting grass for

a couple of weeks. That's right. The end of it. She had absolutely no guilt or remorse when we were questioning her upon her return back to Atlanta. She laughed at cameras and she basically, like this young woman, Sherry, thought the whole thing was a game. Well, it's not a game. And it was no game for law enforcement that literally spent blood, sweat and tears trying to find this mom of two, much less what this whole thing did to her family. Here is one final fact in this story. So after this lengthy investigation and all of these lies are uncovered, Keith Panini filed for divorce from Sherry and wants full custody of their kids. His thought process that Sherry was acting erratically for these past few years while telling this sordid tale of lies to her own children about her kidnapping.

Sherry Papini is back in court fighting for more vegetation. And catch this, she doesn't want her ex to show her children the Hulu docuseries about her crimes. After being exposed for her very intricate hoax involving self-inflicted bruises and even branding her own skin, she got 18 months behind bars. Now recall, husband Keith Papini divorced her and got full custody of their two children. He said her disturbance caused, quote, heartbreaking trauma for the children. I guess it did. He reiterated he was unaware of her scheme and even sought help from a hostage negotiator during her disappearance. But now Papini fires back, claiming her ex is, quote, reopening old wounds to the detriment of their children.

According to court officials, Papini appeared in a Shasta County court on issues regarding visitation, child custody and attorney's fees. While she's battling that out in court. Let's don't forget what she put her family and everybody else through. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart podcast