Crime Weekly - S2 Ep74: Sherri Papini: Lies Unraveled (Part 2)

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

Laci Peterson, Suzanne Morphew, Gabby Petito, Jennifer Dulos these are all names that we unfortunately only know because they vanished mysteriously, and under very suspicious circumstances. In all of these cases, the world held its breath and watched, hungry for every breaking news story and piece of newly uncovered evidence, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. The disappearance of 34 year old Sherri Papini was no different. Her name and face could be seen on every major newspaper and news network after she vanished on November 2nd, 2016. But unlike these other women, Sherri Papini made it home, worse for wear, but alive and able to return to the loving embrace of her husband and their two young children. Another difference between Sherri Papini and someone like Laci Peterson, or Gabby Petito, is that it now appears that she was never missing at all, and last month, in March of 2022, Sherri was arrested and charged with faking her own kidnapping. We can all acknowledge that if this is true, Sherri did a horrible thing. Not only did her plan cost the public hundreds and thousands of dollars, but it may cast a darker filter over any women who genuinely do go missing in the future. But what led up to her decision to do this, and why did she do this? Those are some of the questions we will be exploring during our breakdown of this case.  Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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one pound increments as you get stronger, so you're always challenged. Tonal lets you choose from a variety of expert-led workouts, from strength to aero hit to yoga and mobility to keep you coming back for more. For a limited time, go to tonal.com to get $500 off your tonal purchase, plus a free four-year warranty. That's tonal.com for $500 off, plus a free four-year warranty. Tonal.com. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we are finishing up with the Sherry Papini case, which, as you know, some of you probably know, and as we figured out after we recorded last week's episode, some developments have happened. New things came out, you know, nothing that I nothing that I personally didn't think was already kind of going to happen. But Derek had texted me or called me the day after we recorded and he was like, oh, do you see this?

And I'm like, yeah, but i feel like we already knew we already knew she was you know guilty yeah it you know where we talked about it too like where i'm coming from on the episode is i'm trying to remain objective like there hadn't been a confession yet so i'm like let me just look at that this through the eyes of someone who may think she's innocent. But it gets really difficult to do that when, unfortunately, you're scrolling through Twitter and it literally says, this woman admitted to lying. So I'm glad we got the first part of it done because that's really where we were going through the foundation of it. And I know we have a lot more to go. But as I said in the end of last episode, I felt like part two was really going to start to change the way we were going.

As far as the information you were going to be relaying, it was going to be hard to be devil's advocate at that point. So what I'm hearing is you no longer have to remain unbiased and you can just rip into her with me now. I think as much as I always try to stay, yeah. Yeah. I think at this point when she comes out and says, I lied, I lied. It's hard for me to still kind of be on her side or even pretend like I am. Listen, we knew she was arrested, but the cops sometimes do get it wrong. And that's the direction I was coming from.

And when she comes out and says, no, I was lying, that goes out the window. Yes. This is going to be very cathartic because she's a messed up person. Okay. And I do want to discuss as we go through this, because even I think I read an article today where even her lawyer, they were like, why does she do this? And the lawyer was like, I don't know, man. No one knows. I don't even think she knows. But I want to really dig in and figure out why may she have done this? What would her possible motives be? Because this is some messed up stuff that she pulled, right? Very messed up. And it gets worse. Part one, yeah, that was bad. Now, especially that we know and we have confirmation that she just lied about everything,

but it gets worse here. And it's kind of like this time where she was really faced with all of these lies and she still denied it and she still decided to die on that hill. So I really would like to try and get into the head of somebody who does this. So let's kind of just dive in and kind of get started because I think it's going to be a longer episode. Let's do it. So on March 2nd, 2017, Sherry Papini was interviewed again by law enforcement. This was an FBI agent. We talked about that at the end of the last episode. But this time she was interviewed without her husband, Keith, present. And this would be the first time that she talked to law enforcement without her husband there. Now, Sherry made many of the same claims during this interview, but she did change some details and she added more details, which is what we're going to talk about.

So this time, Sherry was able to remember what clothes she was wearing on that fateful afternoon that she was snatched off the side of the road. She was wearing on that fateful afternoon though she was snatched off the side of the road. She was wearing black leggings, a Nike jogging hoodie with thumb holes, and a black and white checkered under armor tennis shoes. She was also able to remember some details about her kidnappers like what they were wearing, details about what they looked like, details that she would later use to create a composite sketch. So she said the younger abductor had dark curly hair that was kind of short. Sherry also mentioned that if this woman didn't use product in her hair, it would probably be really frizzy. This woman was

also wearing brown shoes and what looked like knockoff Guess blue jeans. She wore big hoop earrings and her eyebrows were very thin, mostly like they were drawn in. And this is, you know, big time stereotyping that she's doing here because as we now know, these women do not exist. So she's very much stereotyping Latino woman at this point. Yeah, we had some comments about it and rightfully so you know people people who are of mexican descent were very offended by it and as they should be can't disagree with them at all i of course she didn't say they're a mexican though

well it was like the the um the mexican music oh yeah the mariachi music yeah yeah yeah and there was a couple people commented about it and I completely understand where they're coming from. And I mean, listen, I love Mexico. I go there all the time. Like if somebody says, let's take a vacation, I'm like Mexico because it's a beautiful place and the people there are beautiful. And I don't just mean inside because they're very warm and beautiful, but the Mexican women are some of the most beautiful women on earth and you can't convince me otherwise. They are gorgeous. So this is just very much like something she saw on earth. And you can't convince me otherwise. They are gorgeous. So this is just very much like something she saw on TV, maybe. What was that show back in the day, like the prison show Oz, where it was like in the 90s. And, you know, that's like what every woman used

to do back then is like wear big hoop earrings and draw on their eyebrows and stuff. So she's very much stereotyping here. But Sherry also said the older woman, remember, she was the mean one. This woman had dark eyes with really thick eyebrows. Once again, Sherry said she didn't know exactly how she got into their vehicle, but she remembered falling asleep during the drive. And she said this was a yucky feeling kind of sleep. And the next thing she knew, she was waking up in a room on a bare mattress, which was

on the floor underneath a window. Now, at this point, Sherry's legs were not bound together, but her wrists were zip-tied. But Sherry said now they weren't zip-tied behind her, they were in front of her. So she was actually being interviewed by a female FBI agent. And we remember that Sherry said she didn't trust law enforcement, which is why she hadn't wanted to talk to them. And specifically with this female FBI agent, Sherry made a big show of like not looking at this woman in the eye, staring at the ground, you know, answering very softly in a way that she claimed she had to behave with her female kidnappers. So Sherry is dedicated to her role at this point. And this woman asked Sherry, well, how did your zip-tied arms move from being behind your back to in front

of you? And Sherry said she couldn't explain it, but she did mention that she and her husband Keith had watched a YouTube video about how to break zip ties. Unfortunately, the method that she had learned in this video didn't work. So she just, quote, chewed the hell out of them until she broke them. Do you think you could chew through those zip ties? Like, do you think you could actually do that? I'm sure you could.

Oh, yeah. Really? Oh, yeah, you definitely could. It would take a little bit, but you definitely could. I mean, if you have nothing but time and you're sitting there chewing on it, you could definitely break through them or you could just have a keep you safe kit. Don't talk about the keep you safe kits. You're not selling them anymore. I know. I know. I will eventually again, but no, I'm not. But yes, you definitely could.

So in this new version of events, Sherry, she became even stronger and braver. During her first shower, she was told that she was being sold to a cop, so when the two women were distracted and talking amongst themselves, Sherry jumped on the older woman and shoved her face into the toilet. Unfortunately for Sherry, though, the floor was slippery, and so she slipped and cut her foot on the side of the bathroom cabinet. She was then dragged back into her room by her hair, at which point the older kidnapper shoved a bitter liquid down her throat, causing Sherry to choke and gag. The two women beat her and then left the room, leaving Sherry to get dressed in clothes that had been laid out for her. And she also at this point laid her underwear out to dry. Because

remember, Sherry claims she's wearing the same underwear this entire 22 days. And so she has to like wash them in the shower, even though she couldn't remember or keep her story consistent on whether she washed them by taking them off or if she just kept them on while she was in the shower. But either way, she laid them out to dry. Sherry also gave more description about the closet and the metal pole inside the closet. Sherry said she liked being inside the closet because it was warm, and when the doors to the closet were shut, the chain that was attached to the pole didn't make any noise, so she was free to move around and exercise without her captors running in and beating her. Even though she was sore and her body hurt all over, all the time, she needed to stay alert and strong. So Sherry did yoga and stretching in the closet.

This must have been a big closet, right? Like a walk-in closet. I mean, you would think with the pole and all the things you're describing, it would have to be at least one of those like double door type closets where they kind of extend the length of the wall. Definitely not the little pantry closet you're thinking of. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of, though. I'm not thinking of like a big closet. This doesn't seem like the kind of house where you've got California closets coming in and like, you know, redoing the closet. Well, when you're when you're writing your own script, you can have as big of a closet as you want, right?

It's like Narnia, like Sherry's closet brings her into a different land where she can do as much yoga as she wants. She's in like a one bedroom apartment place, but her closet is, you know, the size of some people's rooms. That's what I'm saying. I'm imagining like an apartment closet, you know, not big. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's common sense, right? Yes. But during her time in captivity, Sherry mentioned that the younger kidnapper was changing a lot, as if she was warming up to Sherry and feeling badly for her. Even sometimes getting in between Sherry and the older kidnapper, who was always mean and cruel during Sherry's time with her. Sometimes the younger woman would pull the older one off of Sherry while the older woman was beating on Sherry. And this would cause the mean

old woman's fury to be directed at her younger accomplice. And Sherry said that, you know, she would hit the younger woman and Sherry felt grateful that somebody was standing up for her, things like that. Sherry also added some details to the events of her branding, including a description of the table she was strapped to, which was a marble laminate table with dark brown underneath. And the reason that Sherry was able to see under the table was because she'd been placed face down on the table with her hands wrapped around the front of the table as if she was hugging it, and both her hands and legs were tied to the table. She said at this time she was wearing a t-shirt,

which was cut up the back in preparation for the branding, and during the branding, Sherry said she couldn't really describe what it felt like, but every time she moved, the branding tool made an awful popping noise when it was put to her skin. After she was branded, Sherry was untied, and the younger woman kicked her off the table. I thought the younger woman was warming up to her and being nice, but now she's kicking her off the table. Like, what's going on? It does seem like this whole thing, though, is a movie plot we've all heard, right? Where, like, there's a group of individuals.

There's, like, the main aggressor, the boss, if you will. And there's, like, their subordinate whoordinate who's like confused and impressionable and knows that this is wrong and at moments shows some sign of you know being more understanding to what's going on and wanting to help them but they're always being controlled by the older boss the aggressor this is literally straight taken right out of a movie many movies yeah yeah exactly and it's almost like um you know the younger one hasn't been in it long enough to be hardened yet. And she still has some morality and a soul left. And she's still able to tell the difference between right and wrong.

And yeah, this is like every movie, every like action thriller movie. This is integrated somehow. Yeah. I feel like this is the plot for Ransom. I don't know if you've ever seen that. Of course. Mel Gibson. Yeah.

So on the day that Sherry was released, she said she was in the room, on the bed, wearing sweatpants, a sweatshirt, socks, and of course her original underwear. When she heard the gunshot from somewhere in the house, Sherry said she got really scared and she thought she even peed her pants. And because she was scared, she hid in her closet. Sherry said she heard the sounds of shuffling and of keys being grabbed off a table before loud music began playing, at which point Sherry began yanking on things and screaming until she fell asleep. She was woken up when the younger kidnapper came into the room with food, which Sherry ate, but after eating, she felt dizzy, sick to her stomach, and yucky. And then she fell asleep again until the younger woman came back into the room and

woke Sherry up by hitting her in the face, giving her a bloody nose. So this thing where she never can explain why she keeps falling asleep whenever she goes on drives. So she has to put in some place where they're feeding her something or giving her something, which she is then suggesting makes her sleepy. So she's being drugged. In the first couple of stories, she was being injected with something. She felt like she got pricked with something. And now it's obviously in the food that they're giving her. I don't know what they're giving her that just makes her fall immediately asleep, but they're giving her something in her food. They're shoving a bitter liquid down her throat.

You know, she's just very much ad-libbing as she goes along, I think. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, now that we know more of the context of this, we can poke holes in it very easily. And we did have some commenters from our previous episode talking about, well, you know, this is before she confessed, obviously, but they're like, you know, there's been situations where the drugs, you know, certain drugs will dissipate from the body very quickly and they would have to check their hair in order to figure out what they had. And you know what? You're not necessarily wrong.

But when we're talking about this specific case, we know the backstory. We know what we're up against here. No, I disagree. I disagree with those people. I'm sorry. She's saying she's being drugged on the day she's brought home. Right? That's right.

The day she's brought home. So by the time she gets home, just a couple hours, and then she's brought to the hospital, just a couple hours. We're talking not even 12 hours that she's being tested for this stuff. It would still be in her system. Ain't no drugs dissipating that fast. None. That's fast. None. That's true. Yeah.

And I think this person was more referring to like the initial, you know, because I had said something about track marks and things like that. So I'm not saying I agree with them or disagree with them. I'm just saying that if there were if she had been given something, if she had ingested something, if she had been injected with something, there would be ways to tell just like, you know, hair follicles, things like that. It's just like when you, you know, they, you know, when it was more prevalent, you know, if you smoke weed, even if it's not in your system anymore, it can still be in your hair. So there's a lot of ways where they can tell if you've taken something that, you know, wasn't supposed to be in your

system. So the point we're making here is there would be a way to forensically confirm or disprove some of the allegations she's making. And as Stephanie said numerous times, there was nothing in her system when they found her. But you know what? They'd find, you think they can find cannabis in your hair? They can. Yeah. Yeah. Like play with your hair. Yeah. That's how they did it for the police department. Oh, wow. So like, it was one of those things where because you know a lot of people smoke weed and they told us right at the beginning of the process like listen we're doing a hair test which is you can stay up into your hair don't hold me to it but i think it was like 30 or 45 days it

can stay in as your hair is growing out um so they were like listen it's not gonna be something where we're just taking your blood or whatever. Like if you smoked in the last 30 days, you could have some problems. Oh, you mean when you're going to become a police officer? Yep. You know, if they let cops smoke weed, y'all probably be a little nicer. Okay. Well, I mean, at the time, weed was illegal everywhere when I first got on.

So it's one of those things where they knew a lot of people were doing it but if you're going to arrest people for it you shouldn't be doing it now it's a great question i wonder if i wonder if there's police departments that still weigh in on that i'll even i'll even say this when i was in the fbi's process they said right out like if you had done weed or whatever that was fine you just want to make sure you weren't currently doing it. Like so there was some there was some room there where more harder drugs that you couldn't have done anything in the last 10 years. There wasn't much room there, though. We don't care if you did it. We just don't want you doing it anymore. Yeah, it was like I think it was in the last two years.

All right. That's bananas. That's a conversation for a different day. Another day. But OK, so Sherry's getting beat up by the younger woman for for some reason, even though the younger woman is door behind her. And Sherry's like, what's happening here? You know, because they don't speak the same language. So Sherry can't understand what this woman wants from her. And Sherry felt that the woman was instructing her to put on clothes that were laid out on the bed. So she did. After she was dressed, Sherry got hit again and something was put over her head.

But then she was released from the cable that held her to the pole in the closet. She was walked out to a vehicle where she was laid down on the floor with her arms tied behind her back. Sherry tried to stay awake during the car ride, but she kept falling asleep until the car stopped. And the younger woman ordered her to get out before driving away. Sherry ripped the thing off that had been covering her head and get this, she claims she began running after the vehicle that held the woman who had just held her captive for weeks, who had beat her and like drugged her and told her she was being sold. And she ran after the vehicle when she was set free. And Sherry said she can't explain why she ran after the vehicle when she was set free and sherry said she can't explain why she ran after this vehicle she said simply she just felt like she didn't want the

woman to leave her that's uh that's something i don't really have anything to add to that one i think she's mixing up the plots of like a bunch of different movies like you know maybe she has that uh you know stockholm syndrome now and she's got PTSD and Stockholm syndrome. So she started to identify with her captor. But it's like, you're free now. You've wanted to be free. You fought so hard to get free. You were ripping boards off of walls and slamming people's faces into the toilet.

And now you're like, come back and get me. Don't leave me here. I think she was mixing movies where at this point she's bringing in the plot for cast away where wilson she was like he hated the island and then he didn't really you know he didn't really want to leave it when he was almost sad to leave the island no i think you're absolutely right she's like taking all of these psychological like disorders that somebody gets when they go through trauma and she's just meshing them all together because if she has all of them then nobody can say she's lying right right? If she covers all her bases and checks all her boxes, then, you know, nobody can call her a liar. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back.

So Sherry asked the law enforcement official who was questioning her if they'd been able to figure out what the brand that was on her back said or meant. And the agent asked Sherry, you know, like, do you know what it means? You know, have you like looked into it at all in your time after captivity? And Sherry said, you know, it's kind of hard to see because it's on her back. But she thought that the brand said Exodus with some numbers that she couldn't read. Sherry also mentioned that she knew that it was a Bible passage and she'd read the Bible passage, but it was a really weird part of the Bible and it was confusing and it didn't make any sense. So let's dig a little bit deeper into this. My early Catholic

school education came in handy here. The Book of Exodus, it's the second book in the Bible. It tells the story of, you know, basically the exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Exodus is a Latin word derived from the Greek exodos, which translates to exit or departure. But there's not just one passage. There's a lot of passages. And I guess since Sherry couldn't read the numbers on her brand, she couldn't narrow down which passage her brand may have been in reference to. However, there does seem to be a real world non-biblical connection in Sherry's life to the word Exodus.

And I can't wait to get your take on this because it's kind of a puzzle to me. So more than two weeks after sherry vanished a self-professed abduction expert and ransom consultant named cameron gamble uploaded a video to youtube claiming he had been retained by an anonymous individual who had offered a cash reward as a ransom for sherry's safe return bringing Bringing Cameron Gamble, a self-described kidnap and ransom consultant. Tell us, first of all, how you got involved in this case. Yeah, I was actually, I was out of town most of the time while Sherry was in captivity, but I was brought in by an individual who knew me in the community for speaking on specifically

human trafficking a few years prior to this. She had called and asked she was a mutual friend of the family and asked if I could come in and just consult with the family and just kind of give my opinion as to what I thought had taken place I've given I've covered far too many of these cases and and you really do get to a point you see what the families where they're willing to try anything and you know they tried various non-traditional approaches your name came up this is what Sherry's husband Keith said about all that there I'M NOT GOING TO TRY ANYTHING. I'M NOT GOING TO TRY ANYTHING. I'M NOT GOING TO TRY ANYTHING.

THEY TRIED NONTRADITIONAL APPROACHES. YOUR NAME CAME UP. THIS IS WHAT SHERRY'S HUSBAND KEITH SAID ABOUT ALL THAT. THERE WAS NO IDEA OR THOUGHT THAT IF I THINK IT COULD WORK, THAT I WAS NOT GOING TO TRY.

WHAT WAS YOUR APPROACH GOING TO BE? DID YOU FIND THAT KEITH AND FAMILY MEMBERS WERE SKEPTICAL THAT IT COULD WORK? and that family members were skeptical that it could work. You know, I really only talked to Keith about it. I didn't really speak to any of the other family members. And Keith, at that point, like he just said in the video, he was absolutely willing to try anything. And we felt like this could work because when you get to that point of desperation, you do try to do whatever might possibly work, and it did work out.

But Keith was all for it at the very beginning. As a matter of fact, it was Keith who brought the ransom, kidnap for ransom idea to me via the individual who came forward with all the money. Now, no money ever exchanged hands, correct? That is correct. So why do you think that this was at least part of the reason that she was released? Well, if you just look at the timeline on this, there's a couple things going on here. One, I was the only one willing to go public and put my reputation on the line and call it for what I believed it was, which was an abduction.

Alongside the family, they believed it was as well. So we released the first video. It goes viral both on a social media side as well as just the media outlet. And then that was our point was to get it to go viral to show that there's an option here for these abductors. And then when the ransom wasn't taken up on, we gave them another option and that was just let her go. You can just walk away from this. And if you don't, just so you're aware, there's a bounty now. And as I stated in the video, that's not something I control. It's not a threat, but we are willing to take all this ransom money and add it to the pot

for those who can bring us to you, whoever you are. And then you have less than 24 hours later, these abductors just let her go. All right. A few things to weigh in on here. Before I get into Cameron, I want to go back to the branding because I know what we're dealing with here. I know we have a confession, but as a detective looking at that branding, there's two things that could be going on here. When, as I'm looking at it, either this is exactly the way she's describing it. These two women branded her, et cetera. But if I'm thinking at

all that this could be a hoax, that this could be something that she created, I have to be thinking to myself either, you know, is it possible that she could have done the branding herself based on the positioning? Yes. But it's also very possible that she had a co-conspirator. She had someone helping her. So this is something that as a detective, you may not say to her, but if you're starting to consider the idea that this could all be some story she's making up, you also, at at that point when she's having branding on her back, consider the idea that she may not be working alone. That's one. Now, as far as Cameron, this is clearly, I would assume, very early in the process because he's taking a lot of credit for this, saying he was willing to go on the line. No, this is after she's returned. This is after she's already been returned. After she's been returned, but well before people started to question her publicly, because it seems like he's saying, hey, listen, I was the only one willing

to go on the record and say this was an abduction. I don't think he would have done that if he knew what he knows now. And secondly, it feels like he was kind of brought in by other family members or friends of the family members. So I feel like there probably was an emotional connection. So I think he had good intentions, but it feels like he was kind of bamboozled by the whole situation and how it was going on. But this is something that I'm really interested in hearing about as you continue, because I really want to know if Keith or one of the other family members were involved. Because if they weren't, then it makes more sense how Cameron could be under the same mindset as them, because they truly did believe that Sherry had been taken.

So I'm going to go on the record and say, in my opinion, allegedly, there's something sketchy as hell about this Cameron fellow, okay? And we're going to get more into it. But according to the way he said it went. Is he still around? Yeah, he's still, he's around, I guess, but. He looks familiar to be honest with you. I don't, I hope he does not look familiar to you. I don't feel like you would run in the same circles, but listen, he says that this anonymous benefactor contacted the family of Sherry and then through them, he was able to locate Cameron. We'll talk about it. Okay. Because it seems very sketchy. So who is Cameron Gamble? According to military service records, Gamble enlisted in the Air Force in 2002 and he was discharged in 2005 with the rank of just above Airman First Class. The Air Force

did not provide the terms of his discharge, but bankruptcy filings show that Gamble received disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. In his online bios, Gamble gives some of his skills, including survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training, and he claims to have trained special forces soldiers at Fort Rucker in Alabama. After leaving the military, Gamble started multiple companies that all had military-sounding names like Catalyst Advanced Training Group and Project Taken, which was advertised as an anti-abduction training program. What is this thing? Well, it's a cell phone tower.

So while we're on the topic of cell phones, I thought it would be pertinent to talk about how you and your family can use your cell phone as a tool to aid in your family's safety and also how others are using that very same tool against you. See, every cell phone has something we call geotracking. And if you look at a file that's on a desktop of your computer, within that file are little tiny things called data. And that data identifies that file like a fingerprint, just like you and I have. And so geotracking is something similar to that, but it has to do with our pictures that we take on our cell phones.

There's a group of guys from ICanStockYou.com who are bringing this awareness to the general public and what they do is they take your picture that you take with your cell phone, they extract all the fingerprint data from it called geo-tracking, it gives them your lat and long in terms of where you are when you've taken the picture. That's a very scary thought to think that by the time you snap a picture and upload it to Facebook, you have already blasted yourself across the Internet and people can identify where you are and what you're doing. If you visit project taken dot com right underneath this video, you're going to see the step by step instructions that the guys from I can stalk you dot com have given us to disable this mode in our phone so we can remain safe. So, I mean, it's good information that he's giving, I think. It's kind of something that we do sometimes is we say, you know, these are the

places where you might not be as secure as you feel. And this is how you might want to, you know, cover your bases. But I just played you a small clip from one of his videos. There's a like a trailer kind of for Project Taken. and I wanted to play it, but for the audio listeners, it would not have impacted them as much because it's very quiet. It's just a lot of scary music and images of a girl walking by herself at night. She looks over her shoulder, and then somebody approaches her, and he's like, I can take you. Very creepy. And it feels very much like scare tactics. Like I want to scare you into taking my courses, which will teach you how to protect yourself. That's just the impression that I got from from a very casual glance. is a non-profit, and in a newsletter sent out in July of 2021, he described traveling to Kansas City to work with a girl who was allegedly saved from sex trafficking by Exodus Cry Ministries. Now, in this newsletter, Gamble says, quote,

So, as you are aware, we came here as a result of a very significant event that had taken place within the Exodus Cry Ministry. They had rescued a young girl out of the horrific sex trafficking industry, and as a result of this, they came under attack. Our deciding factor in coming to help was based on the single event that had turned their worlds upside down. It was a death threat against many staff members and their families due to them rescuing this young girl. The first thing I heard the Lord saying was to call the FBI. What? Seriously, Father? The FBI? So I did. I had no peace regarding the way they were getting ready to approach the situation, and so I delayed their involvement until I could determine a better course of action. End quote. So Exodus Cry Ministries. This is very much prevalent. This is sort of a success story

that he uses, that he lists on his social media, on his business profiles and things. And he claims he was contacted by a mysterious donor. And this mysterious donor had allegedly put up $50,000 for Sherry's safe return. And the donor claimed to be from outside the Shasta County area. And this person communicated through a burner phone. They also communicated through the website sherrypopini.com, and on that website, they said, quote, my hired negotiator has negotiated hostage releases all over the world, so he will determine immediately if you are lying. A note to the Reading Police and Shasta

County Sheriff's Department, please don't threaten me. I have received legal counsel and what I'm doing is within my rights, end quote. So I'm just going to say it right here. Once again, allegedly, this is my opinion. I think the anonymous donor and Cameron Gamble are the same person. Okay. I'm just going to say that. I think this was a ploy to get attention, to get media exposure, which he did. I mean, he was on every show. I think he was on like True Crime Daily. He was, as you clearly saw, I'm like, I think it was MSNBC or something. Like he was doing all the media spots he could get. And I think a couple of days after he posted his first video, he bought the domain name, CameronGamble.com. I think he was sort of setting up to become famous from this. And we don't really know if any of this stuff happened.

The media did reach out to Exodus Crime Ministries to ask them about this alleged young girl that was saved from sex trafficking that Cameron had assisted them in doing, and they had no comments. So I'm not exactly sure what's going on here, but we'll continue, and I'll tell you the connection. Because in an email to the Daily Beast, using an anonymous email set up specifically for Sherry's recovery, this anonymous donor talked about potential tipsters, saying, quote, these people are also felons, drug addicts, and people with warrants out for their arrest. They aren't going to go to the police with the hopes of getting reward money. Offering these people cash without them having to reveal their identity is attractive. End quote.

We'll talk about this in more detail later on, but where Sherry actually was when she was claiming to be held in captivity, she would have had access to a cell phone. Not her cell phone, but a burner cell phone. And so she would have had access to articles and YouTube and not her cell phone, but a burner cell phone. And so she would have had access to articles and YouTube and news sites. And she would have been able to watch news coverage on her abduction, including Cameron Gamble going on any news show that he could talk about her to and get exposure for his companies. So it has been speculated that she may have gone to the internet and checked him out. She may have read that he had worked with the Exodus ministry to help an alleged victim of sex trafficking. And she claimed the word Exodus was branded into her back, either because she was attempting to, like, move suspicion towards Cameron Gamble or maybe because it was just there and she couldn't come up with anything better. From what I can tell, what was branded on her back wasn't super clear what it meant.

But, you know, obviously if Sherry and the FBI agent are talking about what does the brand say, it's not very legible what it says, right? Yeah, no, I think that's fair. And as far as Cameron's concerned, I mean, everyone's entitled to their opinion. I will say, unfortunately, he's not the only person, if he did in fact do it for this reason, who gets involved with these types of crimes that are more popular to give themselves some free advertisement. Right. Like they want to show through the solving of a case or their involvement with this type of an abduction that they bring value. And it's unfortunate because you have to ask yourself, are they in it for the victims or are they in it for themselves? And I can tell you firsthand without naming names, there are definitely people that I've seen that I think get involved in these types of crimes for the notoriety that comes with

it. And maybe not to be famous, but to turn it into a monetary element where they can then charge others for similar services which is unfortunate but it's a real reality and i don't think most people who are listening or watching this are unfamiliar with this people call them out all the time on social media and especially in the true crime you know genre a lot of people who listen and watch this stuff all the time, they know when someone's being disingenuine. I mean, Sherry was released and he's on the TV taking credit for it, even though we know, we know, and everyone knows now, that had nothing to do with it. Because they said they were going to offer a reward. And then if the reward didn't

work, they were going to offer it to a bounty hunter hunter, you know. So like if you guys don't take us up on this reward, then this money is going to go to a bounty hunter who's going to find you. And apparently that was the ultimatum that Cameron had given, like either, you know, take this reward and get your money or just let her go. And because of the power of his words, they just let her go. You know, let me throw this at you for a second. You say it didn't help, but did it? Was she watching or listening to this guy from her burner phone and realized, oh, this is a good opportunity for me to come back now because they're putting pressure on my abductors.

Maybe they got nervous and they did release me at this point. Maybe she saw that as her avenue to come back because he's out there saying, you know what? Just return her. You still have a chance to get out of this. And if you don't, we're going to put that money towards your bounty. And maybe she's thinking, okay, this is the pressure I needed. Now I'm going to escape. Now I'm going to get away. Right? Could that have enticed her to come out? Yeah. I don't want bounty hunters sniffing around. She don't want dog the bounty hunters sniffing around. You know, she don't want dog the bounty hunters sniffing around, man.

Oh, this is getting serious now. I got to be found again. The FBI is involved. Who cares? But the bounty hunters, we got to end this. I don't need dog knocking down my doors. No. And I think you might actually be onto something. And when we come to that part in this episode, I'll bring it back and I'll say that maybe these certain things made her feel that she wasn't as protected and she was a little bit more exposed than she would have liked to be. So after her interview with law enforcement on March 2nd, the FBI received a few calls from Keith Papini with additional information. Keith claimed that he and Sherry had taken a trip to Ashland and Medford, Oregon, and Sherry was fine until they went into a Dick's Sporting Goods store, at which point she saw a gun

display and she got scared and shut down. Sherry pointed to a black Ruger revolver and told her husband that this was the gun her female kidnappers had used to get her into their vehicle. Keith also said that Sherry was seeing a plastic surgeon to have the burns on her arms repaired with laser treatments, and during one of the treatments, Sherry had smelled the burned hair from the laser on her arms, and she shut down, causing the treatment to come to a halt. Keith also told the FBI that Sherry was ready to sit down with a police sketch artist to describe her captors, which she did on June 22, 2017.

During that meeting, Sherry described the older woman as roughly 2 to 3 inches taller than herself with long, smooth hair that she usually kept braided or in a ponytail. This woman had fat hands and fingers, and she had coffee breath all the time, like she drank sweetened coffee. Not sure how that will help a sketch artist, but okay. And the younger woman had coarse curly hair with no bangs. She was shorter with a muscular build, hairy arms, and wide hips. When these sketches were released to the public, it was not lost on anyone that the sketch of the older, mean woman ended up looking like a masked version of well-known actor Danny Trejo. And keep in mind, these sketches that she gave that people legitimately thought were like these mad women out on the loose, they were sent out.

They were placed on wanted posters that were distributed and posted worldwide. And when Sherry came home, the fear didn't end, right? Because now people in her community were like, oh, this young mother was just snatched off the street. And now these crazy women are on the loose. And they couldn't sell Sherry to the buyer. So who are they going to get next? Right? That's what everybody was feeling. And this is the panic, the chaos that this one woman and her lies caused. Let's take a quick break. And it is our last one for the episode. So we'll be right back. In the following months, Sherry was very helpful, calling the FBI and sending them pictures that she thought resembled the two women who had kidnapped her. On March 16, 2018, Sherry told the FBI that she had remembered more information during a session with her therapist.

She now believed that the burns on her arms had been made with the back end of a heated-up kitchen utensil, like a spoon or a knife. She said that she had silverware at home that matched the scars on her arms, but when she was asked to provide pictures of these utensils, she said she couldn't at that moment because she and her husband Keith were getting ready to take a trip to Platina, California, and the hunting cabin they would be staying in did not get cell phone reception. However, she did send the FBI a picture of a spoon on March 21st, saying, quote, I don't recall seeing anything other than the shine, but now that we look closer, you can see the first spot she touched it to my skin when I jerked away and that it appears to

be drag marks. The second time when I flinched and the deep mark when she held my arm and pressed it in there and held it there, end quote. On May 7th, 2018, Keith Papini called the FBI and said that Sherry had remembered more during sessions with her therapist, including that one of the women had tried to pour a sticky substance into her mouth, and Sherry had wiped it off her mouth with her underwear, leaving the sticky substance on the underwear before she fell asleep. Now, keep in mind, they did not find any sticky substances on the underwear before she fell asleep. Now, keep in mind, they did not find any sticky substances on the underwear, at least not the kind that she's referring to, but they did find DNA on the underwear that was not Sherry's, and we will talk about that in a minute. So let's go back quickly to the weeks before Sherry was missing, allegedly in captivity. Law enforcement

had analyzed Sherry's phone, and they had found two numbers in her contact list that were stored under female names, but they ended up belonging to two men. There was also a text conversation between Sherry and one of these men, who we will call Mark because he's not identified in the affidavit. The conversation took place on November 1st, 2016, and Sherry and Mark discussed meeting in Redding, California. Travel records showed that Mark flew to San Francisco on October 29th, 2016, and he returned to Michigan on November 2nd, 2016, the day of Sherry's alleged abduction. So obviously that timeline was suspicious. So the police flew to Michigan to interview Mark, and he told them that

he and Sherry had met in 2011 when Sherry was in Detroit for work. At that time, they'd spent the weekend together, and they continued to text and flirt over the following years. Mark said that he and Sherry had been planning to meet up while he was in California in November of 2016, but he hadn't seen her. The police also questioned another man who had been listed under a woman's name in Sherry's cell phone. We'll call him Tony. Tony said that he had met Sherry in either 2000 or 2001 while they were both involved in a Friday Night Live youth group program. Tony and Sherry dated for several years, and Tony described Sherry to the police as an attention-hungry person who made up stories

about being the victim of abuse from her family and father, and also she made up stories about being abused by Tony after they'd broken up. On that same vein, after Sherry returned home from her kidnapping, an ex-boyfriend of Sherry's named Shaheen Daivari came forward and talked about his experience with her. Daivari was 15 years old when he was with Sherry, like dating her. And she was, at that time, 20 years old. He dated Sherry Papini and says he knows firsthand that she's a world-class fantasist. She's a compulsive liar. She would, you know, not talk to you for three or four days.

And then all of a sudden there'd be some fantastical story about what happened. Shaheen Davari says he dated the mom when she was a 20-year-old youth counselor. Get this, he says he was just 15. In retrospect, sure, tons of red flags, right? But she was a counselor that was going out with a 15 year old ki of communications says sh ending. For example, she was a skilled surfer. I s when I was 15 16 years ol

I really enjoyed doing an she surfed as well. There as to why she couldn't go surf and she had to have her surfboard that was at her house but didn't have any pictures. He says there was also a mystery medical condition. She was faking a heart condition at one point and eventually like not only me but a bunch of people figured out that that was not true. What did you think when you heard that Sherry Papini was kidnapped? I was like, there's no way. She's fine. I promise you she's fine. There's just no chance that she got kidnapped. So what do you make of this so far?

Well, I mean, considering what we're talking about here, sounds like this guy's pretty spot on. I mean, it sounds like he's describing the person that would make up an elaborate story like we're discussing, right? So, you know, this usually doesn't happen overnight unless there's something in her life, whether it's financial or whatever, that occurs where she becomes desperate and needs to do that. You know what she did? It seems like this is something that from a very early age, she was someone who liked to elaborate on things that weren't true. What do you think about her dating him when she was 20 and he was 15?

Oh, I mean, yeah, that's a whole different problem, right? A whole different problem. She, obviously, not right, illegal, and definitely an issue, never mind unethical as far as being a camp counselor, you know, supposed to be watching this child. So big, big problems, big red flags, definitely shows some issues probably psychologically that are going on in her head and things that unfortunately were uncovered until much later in life, until this all unfolded, you know? But I don't think that they were uncovered much later in life, until this all unfolded, you know? But I don't think that they were uncovered much later in life. It feels like everybody who knew her knew she was just a compulsive liar, like up there in the ranks of Casey Anthony and Scott Peterson, like that kind of compulsive liar and clearly a complete lack of a moral compass,

in my opinion. Oh, yeah, 100%. And when I say uncovered, I mean at the point where we're hearing it in the interview. That's when it's been exposed because it doesn't seem like he went public with this until this moment. It doesn't seem like he, even later, when maybe 20, 21 years old, reported it. Nothing. He just probably kind of internalized it, kept it under wraps. And then when he saw this go, obviously get some exposure on the news, even then he said to this reporter, oh, I knew she was lying. But did he go tell law enforcement that? I don't know. I don't think so, but maybe, maybe he did. He may have.

But- I would hope so. I mean, it can't hurt. It wasn't in the affidavit. And there was a lot of stuff in the affidavit. Like, for instance, director at the Friday Night Live youth program that Sherry worked for, she or he told police that Sherry was, quote, good at creating different realities for people so that they would see what she wanted them to see, which got her really good attention. End quote. There were other inconsistencies that showed Sherry sort of changed her story depending on who she was talking to. She had told her husband, Keith, that she'd gotten married to her first husband that she'd had from donating so many eggs. And I mean like donating eggs, like eggs that make babies, not eggs that you buy from the store, just to clarify in case that needed to be clarified. David also stated that he and Sherry had never lived together and they had never traveled together besides one time when she visited him in Japan. And then when he returned from deployment, Sherry told him that she'd met someone else, a.k.a. Keith, and she wanted a divorce, which he agreed to. Now, during Sherry's absence, when she was allegedly kidnapped, the police spoke to some of Sherry's friends who described her as being crazy and wild when she was young. And multiple friends stated that Sherry would often make up

lies, especially about being the victim of abuse as a child. When she was 16 years old, Sherry had run away from home and she began living with friends in Southern California. And we're going to talk more about what she did when she was younger, because in some of these things she did to her family, she wasn't even that young. She was like 20 at that point. So yeah, this has been going on for a while. When the police talk to her friends and they're like, yeah, Sherry's a liar. She lies about everything. But then you see like Keith's sister and Sherry's sister talking to the cameras and saying she is the best mother. She would never leave her children. She is the absolute super mom. She is like the perfection incarnate. You wonder, like, did they know the same person? Did they know who Sherry actually was or was she just very good at hiding her true self at that point? So let's try to put ourselves in their position for one minute because unless you're going to tell me differently, I don't think the family

members, especially the sisters, you know, the ones we saw in last episode were involved. So let's play this out where it's me and you. And we have, you know, we have a friend of ours who we know is a pathological liar, has a couple of kids, you know, has moments of being a good person. grain of salt because they're constantly exaggerating stories and making full out lies about what they're doing and, you know, all those things. I think we all know some people, maybe not to this extreme, that embellish their life, right? So then this happens where it appears on the surface that this poor woman has been abducted. Now, although you might think to yourself, is she capable of creating and conjuring up this whole thing? I don't know, but you're damn well not going to say that publicly because if you're wrong, you are done. You're done. So you can't say it out loud. Would they maybe have been saying it behind closed doors or even to themselves questioning the validity of

this whole thing? Possibly. But I think even the most extreme pathological liar, there's even a cutoff for them, you would hope. And you would think that it would be before staging your own abduction. I mean, you got to be a really sick individual to do something like this. This is a whole different level of lying, I would think, for even the worst liars. So that's kind of where I am with the family members as they're going out there and speaking publicly, you know, it might've crossed their minds, but they can't, they're, they cannot in that position, make it, you know, diminish how the severity of the situation, just in case it is true. So I'm going to, I'm going to agree with

you, but I will say like, Whoa, I would, But I'm also going to disagree with you in a point where. Oh, all right. Yeah. Sorry. Sherry was clearly a really sick individual who made up stories about being abused. That's a really sick individual. There's a very small leap. I would call it a tiny hop between making up stories about your family, your own family abusing you and staging your own

kidnapping. Not even a hop. And then no, if I'm her sister or her sister-in-law, I'm not going to go on the cameras and be like, this bitch is lying. But I'm also not going to stand there and be like, Sherry is amazing. She would never leave her kids. She's definitely abducted. I'm going to be like, yo, we need to find her. We need to find out what's going on, but I'm not going to also sit up there and put her on a pedestal and make her seem like this perfect person. Because either way, if you're saying she's a liar and she's not, then you look bad. You look like a fool. But if you're over here singing her praises and saying she would never absolutely leave her children of her own free will, then you're going to look like a fool if you're proven wrong and if you know sherry you know that there

might be a chance you're going to be proven wrong so i could probably keep it like you know copacetic keep it like in the middle like sherry's missing we're really worried let's find her guys but i'm not gonna sit there and spend time you know saying that she's this absolutely perfect angel who would never leave her children of her own free will because, well, now how do you feel about that? Well, just so you know, you've lost the privilege of being in the running for the family spokesperson if I go missing. So keep that in mind. I'm going to be honest, Derek. No, no. We need a little bit of emotion. You're out. You're off the list. I'm taking you off the list as we speak. Fair enough. I don't want to lie. I mean, listen, he could be missing. We just want him to get back sooner than later. Cause you know, we got, we got an episode to record. Okay. I mean, he can be dramatic sometimes,

you know, so. Oh my God. You so would. Yeah. You're off the list. I'm sorry. I cannot tell a lie. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. And then we're going to talk about this in a little bit. Cause I definitely think her family knew more things about her than they claimed to. But when the police confronted Sherry with the fact that she'd been like communicating and flirting with other men and I shouldn't have. End quote. Sherry claimed she had made mistakes and she felt that this made her a horrible person. So when Sherry had been brought to the hospital on Thanksgiving morning, the clothes she had been wearing, they were obviously collected and tested, including her underwear that she'd had on for 22 days. And the clothing was sent to the California Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services. It had been processed and they found a mixture of Sherry's DNA, along with the DNA from a male who was not her husband. And this DNA profile was found on

multiple places in her underwear and one spot on her sweatpants. Now, this unknown male DNA sample, it was uploaded to CODIS, but there was no match initially. On September 26, 2019, detectives contacted the lab and they asked that a familial DNA search on that DNA sample be done. And on March 19, 2020, they received word that a potential relative had been located. This person had two sons, and one of them was identified as 37-year-old James Reyes, an ex-boyfriend of Sherry Papini's. James and Sherry had known each other since they were 13 years old. They'd been friends for a long time. They'd also dated, and then they'd even gotten engaged for a bit. But after they broke up and Sherry got married and had kids, the two lost contact

until she reached out to him out of the blue in December of 2015. Now, apparently, you know, James had been like cleaning out his house and he found this box of personal items and photos that had belonged to Sherry while they were together. So he sent the box to her parents and he called them to let them know that it was on his way and they should be looking for it. Not long after this, he was at work and he got a call from Sherry who told him that her husband Keith was abusing her and raping her and she needed James's help to escape. And so James had agreed to help Sherry get away from her abusive, horrible husband. I mean, we've seen him in interviews. He's the worst, right? He seems to hate her. He seems like he has no concern for her at all. Keith just absolutely sucks. I can see why she would want to get away from him. And, you know, as a good friend would,

James agreed to help Sherry get away from Keith. Now, it's worth noting that law enforcement was unable to locate any evidence of domestic violence reports that supported Sherry's allegations that her husband Keith was abusive, and she did tell James that she had tried to contact the police, but they weren't helping, and they weren't doing anything about it. Sherry told James that she wanted to run away with him, and she had put money aside that she was going to send him for their escape. Sherry told James to get a prepaid phone so that they could communicate, and he got her one as well, so their calls to each other could not be tracked. Investigators discovered two prepaid phones that were in

communication with each other prior to Sherry's disappearance, and both of these phones were near the location of her disappearance at the same time on November 2nd. AT&T records showed that James' prepaid phone was purchased in December of 2015, and he used it almost exclusively to communicate with one other prepaid phone, and that would be the one that Sherry was using. In the summer of 2016, James was in the hospital for a medical issue, and when he got home, he found a care package from Sherry, which included a piece of paper with the location of where Sherry wanted James to pick her up on November 2nd, the day that she would stage her own abduction. That morning,

James drove a rented Dodge Challenger from his home in Costa Mesa to Redding, California, where he would wait for the green light from Sherry. While he waited, James did some shopping at Trader Joe's, he had breakfast, and then he hung out at Starbucks until Sherry sent him a text telling him she was ready for him to drive to the predetermined location where she would be waiting for him. He spotted Sherry walking on the road, he pulled over, and he let her get into the back seat, claiming that at this point she was wearing athletic clothes and she was sweaty from running. Sherry laid down in the back seat the whole trip from Redding back to Costa Mesa, and during the ride, James said that Sherry mentioned being worried about her kids and having a hard time, you know, leaving them, but they didn't talk much other than that. Law enforcement would discover that both prepaid phones used by Sherry and James traveled along Interstate 5 on the afternoon of November 2nd, the entire time the world was looking for Sherry Papini.

She was holed up in James's apartment. Okay, so take out the confession that we have. Yeah. If we had just, if you'd just gone over this part. Now, this was from, I'm assuming, from James, right? This was his account of it. Okay. So great police work, you know, getting the DNA sample from the underwear from the sweatpants, asking't a direct connection. James might never have been in prison before or entered into CODIS. So they do the familial DNA test. They find James. Now, one of two things could be happening at that point. This could be something where they've already found out that Sherry has spoken to other men, had relationships with other men while with Keith. Are these sweatpants and underwear something that she

was wearing during an affair before she was abducted? Maybe. But when they go speak to James, that's where they put them under the lights and he folds like a deck of cards from what it sounds like. So then they get the real story. And by the way, when they start to tell the real story, it starts to make a lot more sense about some of the questions you have, the things that the inconsistencies that don't make sense. Well, when someone tells you the truth, a lot of those questions get answered, right? So take out the confession at this point in the story, we're about a little more than halfway through this week's episode.

This is a point where it's clear and convincing evidence to me that you have a person who is basically incriminating themselves, although they're putting it under the shadow of, I didn't know, right? I didn't know what was taking place here so far. This is the point where I would have transitioned from, okay, clear and convincing evidence that it was not a kidnapping, that this was a planned and orchestrated abduction for whatever motive that we're going to find out as we go. Yeah, I definitely think it's clear and convincing, but Sherry didn't think it was.

No, really? Okay. So anyways, listen, James lived in a two-bedroom apartment, and he claimed that when Sherry arrived, she chose one of the bedrooms for herself, which he claimed was the room that had the least amount of exposure. Now, law enforcement went into his apartment, and they noted that the room Sherry had stayed in, it had a closet in it, which looked very much like the closet she had described being chained to. James claimed that he ended up putting three sheets of particle board over the windows in this room because Sherry wanted it to be dark. And James showed the police that there would have been no other reason to board up the windows because no one from the outside could have even seen inside the room even before they were blocked. During her time with James, he went out and bought Sherry clothes

from TJ Maxx, Target, and Ross, mainly sweats, t-shirts, and grazed arcs, whatever they had. James also claimed that Sherry seemed to be purposely trying to lose weight because whatever food he brought or prepared, she only consumed a small portion of it. For instance, instead of eating a whole banana,

Sherry would only eat half. James acknowledged that Sherry was already tiny, but she wanted to lose weight, and he didn't question her about it. One day, James came home from work to find that Sherry had cut off her own hair, but he didn't know what she had done with the hair she had cut off. As for the injuries that Sherry sustained while she was missing, James claimed that Sherry had done everything to herself, enlisting his help with various injuries. James said that Sherry would hit herself to make bruises and she burned her own arms. And although he never physically hit her, Sherry told him to do different things to create bruises on her, like throwing a hockey puck at her leg. James told the police that he wasn't sure why Sherry wanted to injure herself, but she had not started doing this until the end of her time with him.

As far as Sherry's brand, you know, the brand on her back that said Exodus, apparently, James admitted that he did do this to her within her first week with him. He said that he went to Hobby Lobby in Huntington Beach and purchased a wood-b. So a wood burning tool, I actually have done wood burning in my time. I'm quite good at it. It's like called pyrography and it's like, it kind of looks like a screwdriver and it's got a handle on it. And the screwdriver thing, it gets very, very hot. You can put different tools on to get different effects and it gets really hot and you can literally burn wood with it and make designs and things. So this is what he used to make this brand in her. Sherry sat on the floor next to an electrical outlet because this tool needs to be plugged in and she pulled up her shirt and took it off so that he could make the brand with this hot

tool. James claimed that Sherry had a specific phrase she wanted burned into her skin, which she told him had meaning to her, but he couldn't remember what that phrase was. James wanted to do a good job with the branding and make it straight, but he also knew it probably hurt Sherry, although she never complained about the pain. Afterwards, James told Sherry he wanted to keep the wood-burning tool to use for other projects, but she told him to throw it away. And investigators would find a picture on James' Facebook profile, which was taken in his apartment, and it showed a coffee table that matched the description of the table Sherry had claimed she'd been, like, tied up to and branded on. Additionally, according to Pinterest records, Sherry pinned photographs of a wood burning tool on or before November 6, 2016 to a board she titled Gift Ideas, which she had made a secret board, meaning it was not publicly viewable. So there's a lot here that I just told you.

And I saw your face sometimes when I was like, James says he doesn't know why she was trying to lose weight. James says he doesn't know why she was trying to lose weight. James says he doesn't know why she was trying to hurt herself. Listen, I feel the same way. Like this dude's supposed to he's telling us he doesn't know why she was doing all of these things. It's hard to believe that she lived with him for 22 days. And during this time, she's purposely losing weight. She's cutting her hair. She's like beating the shit out of herself.

She's having him burn something into her back. And the whole time he's just like, well, you know, that's what she wanted. She's cutting her hair. She's like beating the shit out of herself. She's having him burn something into her back. And the whole time he's just like, well, you know, that's what she wanted. I didn't question it. Stephanie, let's take it a step further. Okay. Let's say that he's just a moron. Okay. Does he also not own a phone or a TV?

I mean, how far away was his apartment from the area where she was abducted? He said he does not own a TV. Okay. Okay. Yeah, no. He's lying. The apartment is. It's Costa Mesa. I believe it was like a seven-hour drive from Reading.

But still, this was nationwide. Yeah. I'm not buying it. I'm not buying it. And there had to be something in there that would have, for a reasonable person, raised a couple red flags. That, listen, she had me take her down the end of the road where we escaped. Now she's almost making it look like she was abducted. Could she be setting me up here? Could she be planning to set me up as her abductor? That's what my concern would be. So I would think most people would do a quick Google

search to see if anything's popped up with her name in the last 20 days. And if he had just searched her name, everything that he wanted answered would have been answered if he was truly not involved at all. I mean, he was involved, right? He was involved, but he's claiming complete ignorance. And even if you don't think she's trying to set you up for an abduction, you could say this woman claims she's being abused by her husband. She gets to me unabused, and now she's making it look like she's been abused. As a man, I'd probably be like, yo, is she trying to set her husband up? And I don't want to be a part of this, right?

Right. There's so many things that should run through your head and cause concern. And he might have really been desperate, wanted to appease her. I don't know. I don't, you know, I don't know what he's thinking at the time, but I would still think he would have clicked on a, you know, his phone or, or something. But also I think about all the evidentiary value of everything that you're explaining here. You know, she had said, Hey, throw out the wood burning tool. That's fine. You told me in this little small segment, he bought it at Hobby Lobby. There's cameras at Hobby Lobby. There's receipts that are saved digitally. You

talked to him about some of the different things that he went and did while with her TJ Maxx going to buy clothing as well. These are all things that can be corroborated. So if there's proof that he went to Hobby Lobby to buy a wood burning tool, that's a problem for her. Going to TJ Maxx or Marshall's wherever he went, and buying women's clothing that would be similar to the size she wears, again, corroborating evidence. So if she comes out and says he's lying, these are things that you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law by showing this man going into these stores and backing him up with the receipts, literal receipts. He brought the receipts.

Yeah, man. How did he not? Oh, and listenipts. He brought the receipts. Yeah, man. Like how did he not? Oh, and listen, it gets better because you'd think like, OK, maybe he's not an idiot. Maybe he was just truly in love with her all of this time. Right. Truly in love with her. And he he would take any chance he could to just be with her again. But according to James, they weren't even having sex, which I don't know how his DNA got in her underwear then. But he said they did not have sex., there's got to be another person here. And now we're getting that answer that in fact, she did have another person do it so that it would be something believable because I would imagine if she tried to brand herself behind her back, it would be even worse than it was. It had to be a second person, whether they were knowing what they were doing or unknowing to them, somebody else

participated. And now we have at least that answer so far. And that's most likely why she chose that area on her body, because she knew it would be virtually impossible to brand herself there. Although she thought it was virtually impossible to chew through zip ties on your wrist when they were behind your back. But, you know, whatever details. So, yeah, James Reyes, he told police that he and Sherry had not been intimate at all during the 22 days they had lived together. Now, James had felt initially that things might have turned like romantic between himself and Sherry, but he didn't know how long she planned to be there with him or if she was going to return to her family. So he gave her space and they just chatted and hung out. He said Sherry mainly stayed alone in her room and he slept on the couch and she would do other things around the apartment like clean in order to be helpful.

For instance, there were stains in his carpet and so Sherry gave him a list of cleaning supplies to buy from the store. She then used these cleaning supplies to scrub at the spots in the carpet, which caused her apparently to develop a rash on both of her arms. After this, Sherry gave him another list of different medication and ointments to pick up from the store for her rash. But James said that although she used these things, Sherry had the rash, which must have been hives from an allergic reaction, the entire time she was with him. And they never like say, and it sucks because we're not going to trial. You know, she made a plea deal. We're not going to go to trial. Why did she have these rashes? I feel like as calculated as she is, she found a way to purposely give herself these rashes. Like maybe she used those very harsh chemicals on her own

skin to cause those rashes. And then she was just like, oh, give me medicine. And maybe she never used the medicine because it just seems kind of random. And it was in the affidavit. So I feel like anytime something's in the affidavit, it means something and it's meaningful because they're not just going to pull like everyday activities in there. Like Sherry had oatmeal for breakfast and it means nothing else. You know, it feels like it means something. And she did seem to be so manipulative and so calculated. So I think she probably did that

to herself just to add, you know, a little bit more depth and reality to her story. No, I'm on board. I'm on board completely. I think she knew what she was doing. And I will say this, you know, I know that we have a confession, but it would be interesting. This is what this is the dilemma that we're in as we're going through these cases because I'm sure an extensive background search was completed on James as far as his social life, his mental stability. choose from? Or was this something where he felt very fortunate to be in her presence? Because if that's the case, there is a world where he felt like this could be romantic. And although there were things that were off, he was blinded by the idea of them being together. So not a hundred percent that he knew like you or I, or most people would know that, Hey, something's not right here. You know, there are people out there that can be easily manipulated and controlled and

used for nefarious purposes. So I know we have something from her as far as what she was doing and her admission to this. I will. I wonder if there will be charges brought against him. If not, maybe there is some truth to the to the story he's giving. Maybe. So I know he was arrested, but then he was released.

Apparently, the police believe him. And I mean, it's very likely that she could have been the whole 22 days leading him to believe that they were going to have sex. You know, like, oh, I just need some time. I just need some time. And then never planning to follow through. But that little carrot that she dangled in front of him, it gave him enough motivation to be like, oh, in my gut, this feels weird, but I'm not going to question it because I wanted to eventually eat this carrot. You know, I don't want to just have it dangled in front of me. So I'm going to ignore it. And we've seen that a lot in these cases where people are like, yeah, that felt wrong, but I ignored it. They don't want to believe that there's something nefarious going on. He probably wanted to believe that Sherry truly wanted to run away with him and be with him. And this was this, you know, this like young love that was reignited. So because he wanted to believe that he ignored all the things that didn't fit

that narrative. Of course. And we've seen that a lot, not even in stories this severe. And the DNA for anybody who's thinking it, you know, you didn't say semen, you just said DNA. So it could be as much of a transmission as far as his clothes on her clothes or him touching her sweatpants while they're watching a movie. You know, oh, they didn't have a TV, so they weren't watching movies. But, you know, also their clothes being in close, you know, his underwear near her underwear. He had went to the store and bought her some clothes. So we don't believe that she had the same underwear on all 22 days, do we? I don't think so. I hope not.

Right. So they could have been in the laundry together. There could be an easy explanation for the transmission of that DNA if he was in contact with those items during that 22, 23-day stay. That would explain how it got there. So now if we had semen, it'd be different. But it does seem to line up with the idea that they didn't have any type of sexual relationship during her time at his home. Wouldn't his DNA have been on her sweatshirt and everything too? Because he would be touching that. He bought that. It's fickle how that stuff works, right? It could explain some of it and then just simply washing it or doing something. no means am i a dna expert

but there have been items where you would expect to find dna from a person who recently held the knife or whatever and there's nothing there and then conversely there's something else where they only kind of grazed across it and yet you have this this evidence that's been left behind this trace dna that you can find so know, it's probably a better conversation for someone who does this all the time, but I've had cases where like even Rebecca Zahau there, you know, there's DNA on, on certain items of hers that, you know, unlike the cap of the paint. And for anyone who doesn't know this case, this won't sound familiar to you, but this is the thing that's been argued about for years now. How did her DNA get on this thing, but not that? And people have different explanations for it, but none of us really know exactly, even

though it is a science. So it's just it stuck out to me that there was like, I believe I'm just ad libbing here because I can't remember exactly, but there's like eight spots of DNA on her underwear and one on her sweatpants. So I guess the location of where the DNA was would sort of like send me in the direction of semen. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, what is he doing?

Is he sniffing her underwear when she's not looking like what's happening? That's possible, I guess. Possible. Yeah. It could be him. If it's just trace DNA, it could be even just him holding the underwear, you know, playing with the underwear. I don't want to go too far down this road, but it could be a lot of ways of explaining, or it could be him doing her laundry for her. It could be as innocent as that. Okay. We'll go with that.

Folding her underwear afterwards. Folding them multiple times over and over again. And then refolding them. While he's naked. So just before Thanksgiving, Sherry told James that she missed her children and she wanted to go back home. Before leaving, Sherry went around the apartment and she bagged up everything that was connected to her. And she threw this bag into the dumpster behind James's apartment. But still, he's like, she's just really clean.

You know, she's just really thorough. Like, this is not a red flag at all. Now, James once again got a rental car and drove Sherry seven hours to a road off the freeway, a road he described as not being well lit and in a pretty barren area. Sherry had a bag with her that contained items she used to bind her own wrists and ankles. And on the drive back, Sherry had tossed her prepaid phone out of the window of the rental car. Okay, so listen. James drops her off. He watches her tie her ankles and her wrists together.

And in my opinion, I don't know how easy it is to tie your own wrists together. So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that she might have enlisted his help in the tying her up thing. You know, like she did with the branding. So do you still think that he might be just thinking this is completely innocent, not nefarious at all? I just can't wrap my head around it. I cannot wrap my head around. I don't care how in love he was or how, you know, maybe not intelligent he was. At some point, you're going to be like, this girl's kind of weird. What's going on? Yeah, I know. My initial gut was that he knew more than he's telling police

and that still may be the case. Maybe Sherry's keeping him out of it. Right. For whatever reason, because it could make her even look worse, you know? So I don't know why, but yeah, I would think most people, 95, his jacket, his folder and see like what the mental capacity is of this guy, you know, and actually have an interview with him. That might tell me some things because it's one thing for us to talk about him where I'm just seeing a name on a piece of paper. It'd be another thing to interview him. And these detectives and FBI agents have had the opportunity to sit down with him for probably hours and break him

down. And they might be saying behind closed doors, yeah, this guy doesn't pick up on things very quickly. You know what I mean? There might be something about him that in person would become very obvious to you and I that, you know, this guy's, he's not dealing with a full deck, you know, maybe, but you know, on paper, just looking at it as a normal person from our own perspective, I don't see how he wouldn't know something's off here and that this could be really bad for him down the road. Yeah, I agree. And I think it's more like 99.9% of the population would say something. Yeah, I agree. I mean, you're not giving people enough credit when you say 95 99.9 i've in my days of interrogations you'd be surprised some of the people i've had the privilege of uh interviewing you'd be surprised at how dumb some people can be

where they you know they're involved in things where it's like you really didn't know uh that your boyfriend was selling heroin out of your apartment and i there's no way i can believe him but sure enough everything starts to check out it's it check out. It's not something I'm proud of, but it actually does happen. I'm going to have to take your word for it. But I will also tell you, I can't count on my hands, on my fingers, how many cops I've convinced that I'm just a stupid woman who doesn't know how to drive. And I didn't mean to speed officer. I didn't know that was the idea. It wasn't even thinking. I'm just I'm so I'm really bad at driving. So maybe, you know, people are lying to you about how stupid they are. Maybe they're just being nice. You ever think about that, Stephanie?

Yeah, but they shouldn't be nice. Like if he had something to do with this and he's acting like he didn't like he needs to see some sort of like consequences as well that's my thing like oh yeah i'm not saying the police are being nice to him i'm saying to you and your traffic stuff you think the police are being nice to me oh yeah of course you got the you're driving around with the car seats in the back seat and they're like you know they're going easy on you and you know i do look frazzled most of the time i i would i would love to see an interview with james i wouldn't be able to judge him completely but but we'd probably be able to get a pretty quick read on James if we had some TV interview or something we could watch.

All right. Well, there's more. Okay. So apparently there were people who knew that missing supermom Sherry Papini was staying at the apartment of James Reyes during the 22 days she was reported missing. James's cousin and James's cousin's spouse lived across the road from James. And I don't know anything about these people because once again, they're not identified in the affidavit. So I don't know if they're men or women or what their

names are, but we're going to call James's cousin's spouse, Max. And Max told the police that James had told them Sherry was in an abusive relationship and she was trying to get away. Now, Max. And Max told the police that James had told them Sherry was in an abusive relationship and she was trying to get away. Now, Max never saw Sherry. And for the time that Sherry was with James, James kept to himself, which was not normal as he was usually visiting with his cousin and playing hockey with his cousin's children. James's cousin, who we'll call Marty, they told detectives that a week before Sherry's disappearance, James had told them that Sherry, who Marty knew from when James was dating her, was in an abusive relationship and the police were not doing anything about it. James told Marty and Max to stay away from his apartment while Sherry was there, and if anyone else happened to visit James during that time, James would call Marty and Max and ask them to get the person to leave. Marty claimed that they had run off several people at this time, including neighbors,

delivery drivers, the landlord, and maintenance workers. Unlike Max, though, Marty did see Sherry twice while she was hiding out in James' apartment. The first time, Sherry had been looking out a window of the apartment, and when she saw Marty, she threw herself away from the window. She quickly hid. The second time, Marty had entered James' apartment, and he saw Sherry, or they saw Sherry, in the living room, at which point Sherry got up and ran into the bedroom. Marty told the police that Sherry had asked James to punch her in the face, but James had said no. And James had also told Marty that Sherry had purposely hit her own head on the bathtub and the bathroom floor. So if you're hiding a woman in your apartment who's just trying to get away from her abusive

husband, are you like, don't come in my apartment. Don't let anyone come near here. Don't see what's happening in here. I don't think so. This is what's making me feel like James is a little bit suspicious. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. That's why I've said it initially. I don't see a world where if this guy's a functioning human being living on his own, I don't see how he wouldn't understand what's going on here.

And then more importantly, he's telling outside individuals who may have a TV and may know that this woman is actively all over the news as someone who's been abducted and her family's looking for her. Her husband's on TV crying about it. I don't see a world where he wouldn't relay that or these individuals wouldn't relay that to James. I guess you could make the argument that James might've responded with. Of course, she just left without saying anything. And this abusive husband's just trying to get her back because he knows what she's doing. So you could make that argument, but there's no doubt that James would be aware that the narrative being told to everyone is that she was abducted. And when she eventually comes back out into the public again, James is

going to be someone who's going to be questioned because he's the person that she's with. I don't see how he wouldn't see that, but love is blind. I don't know. It makes you do crazy things. Love is blind. Okay. On August 13th, 2020, agents from the FBI and from the Shasta County Sheriff's Office confronted Sherry with the informationasta County Sheriff's Office confronted Sherry with the information they'd gotten from James while Sherry's husband, Keith, was present. They showed her, they kind of started it out like trying to lead her into it. So they showed her a picture of James's apartment, but they didn't say it's James's apartment. And they showed her a picture of that closet, you know, with a pole running through the shelving, which coincidentally perfectly matched a picture that Sherry had drawn of the closet she'd been chained to. Sherry responded, quote, It's a little bit different, but it's pretty excuse my language. It's pretty fucking similar, but it's different. It didn't look like that. It didn't look like that. End quote. Oh, my God. This is brilliant, by the way. This is absolutely brilliant. So you're telling me they come and go, hey, we think we might have a place. Yeah. Yeah. And they start showing her. Oh, man, she must be absolutely in and taken a shower. And the wood paneling

in the bedroom that she'd slept in at James's apartment was the exact wood paneling she had described about the bathroom. Sherry said, quote, I mean, this doesn't look like the bathroom to me, but the order is, yes, this is the type of order, but this is not what it looked like to me. There was a tile in the tub. There was a crack, end quote. So she was then shown a picture of a cracked tile in James's bathroom, and she had no response to that. About the wood paneling in the bedroom, Sherry said, quote, I feel like this wood paneling is too thick. I remember it going all the way up to the window, end quote. Finally, Sherry was told that she was being shown pictures of the apartment that they knew she had been staying in while she was pretending to be missing. And they asked her, like, do you want your husband to leave the room

while we continue to talk? And Sherry asked the detectives and the agents if they could leave the room so she could speak to Keith privately. And when they returned to the room, they continued on with the interview while Keith was present after Sherry would not respond when asked if she wanted Keith to remain in the room or leave it. So basically they were like, okay, we're back. You guys talked. Do you still want him here or not? And she just didn't answer. Sherry said that she did not want the police to find her kidnappers, specifically the younger one, because, quote, she's the reason I get to see my kids every day, end quote. Sherry was told that they were never going

to find this woman, to which she responded, good. And then they were like, no, like, we're not going to find her because she doesn't exist. And we know you've been staying with James Reyes, which Sherry completely denied. Sherry also said she had not talked to James since before her kidnapping, which the police knew was not true because they had evidence from phone records that Sherry had contacted James on September 18, 2020, from a phone number connected to a business owned by Sherry's parents. On the 18th, Sherry had called James four times, and four days later, she called him again twice. On October 30, 2020, Sherry called James four times from her own house,

the house she shared with her husband and two young children. They also mentioned that James' DNA was found on her underwear and clothing, and they reminded her that lying to federal agents is a crime, but Sherry continued to deny having anything to do with James Reyes until Keith Papini left the room, at which point she admitted that she had been in contact with James and other men, but she could not possibly believe that James had done this to her because he was her friend and he loved her. So basically, you know, like you kind of mentioned, she's trying to set the narrative that she was still innocently kidnapped. And although she doesn't want to believe it, James may have been the one responsible.

You know, they're like talking to her and they're like, we know you were with James. And she's like, no, not James. He would never do this to me. I can't believe it. Was he the one that kidnapped me? Do you guys think he's the one that kidnapped me? And they're like, no, man, we know you were there.

And she's like, I don't believe he would have done this. Like she's completely ignoring the fact that they know what's happening. And she's continuing to, I guess, you know, Casey Anthony, basically, that's exactly what it reminds me of. Like they're facing her with all this evidence. And they're like, basically saying you're lying. And she's like, no, no, because this could have happened. And she's just going to keep lying until I don't know when. They'll just keep lying if they can, right? You know, it's a type of person. I know you mentioned Casey Anthony. There's been others

where these individuals, you could literally show them a video of them doing something that they've alleged they didn't do. And they will try and find a way to frame that video as if it's a good thing that you found it. Because it proves that they are innocent. That's just what they do. Their mind works differently than you and I. Their mind is always from the perspective where they truly, in some ways, believe their own bullshit. And that's why, even though it's very unconvincing and unreasonable to you and I, in their mind, as they're saying it out loud, it makes sense.

And it almost seemed like she had James set up his apartment to almost mimic the story almost as if she wanted to believe it or she wanted to almost be like you know when when actors are playing a certain character and they like get into the role and they go and talk to the actual person they're playing and they start like acting like them just to get into that role like this is what sherry's doing she's committed to her role to the point where she's got james putting up boards on her window so that she can get into the headspace of somebody who's trapped in a room. It's probably why she stayed in the room most of the time. So she could be like, I'm in the room and there's boards and I got to get out of here. And maybe she even tried yanking the boards off just to maybe have those

fingernails broken just to see what it would be like so that she could appropriately describe it to law enforcement, which is bananas. can see her reaction because when this is all you know adjudicated and done and i believe that she actually you know went into court today and and you know and pled guilty this will be a special or docs a docu-series on netflix or something where they're gonna have all this and it's gonna be something that we can all watch and i'm hoping this is part of it because that's gonna be a fun part to watch she's like she's realizing very quickly we're screwed. I bet you she was not shook at all. She probably just went with it seamlessly, which is scary. That's a pathological liar for you.

That's a sick individual. So let's talk about the financial aspect of this case because remember, there had been a GoFundMe set up to help get Sherry back home safely and it brought in about $50,000 in donations. So on December 6th, 2016, after Sherry was back home, Keith Papini withdrew over $31,000 from the GoFundMe account, and he deposited that money into his personal bank account.

That same day, Keith withdrew $1,160 from the GoFundMe account. That check was endorsed by Sherry and placed in her personal bank account. The affidavit says that Keith used roughly $8,000 of this money to make payments toward his own personal credit cards. And on December 13th, Sherry also used $3,000 of that money to pay off her personal credit cards. The rest of the money was transferred into Sherry and Keith's bank accounts, and that was spent on personal expenses. Now, they don't ever say what the personal expenses are. Once again, this is why I wish there was a trial and we would know, but, you know, personal expenses. And that's not all. On November 28th, 2016, just four days after being released by her

violent kidnappers, Sherry applied for financial assistance from the California Victim Compensation Board, which provides assistance to victims of violent crimes. This money is supposed to be used for things like medical expenses, relocation expenses, mental health treatment, home security improvements, and these were the crime-related expenses that Sherry checked off on her application. On December 9, 2016, her application was approved. Sherry had already been seeing a therapist who had diagnosed her with acute PTSD, stating, Due to the dramatic nature of the crime and the fact that the client had multiple interviews with law enforcement agencies, the trauma has been reactivated on multiple occasions. One of the greatest factors affecting this client's treatment include the fact that her captors have not been End quote. Now, according to the affidavit from 2017 through 2021, Sherry's request for victim assistance funding caused 35 payments,

totaling over $30,000, including to her therapist and the ambulance provider that transported Sherry after her return on Thanksgiving Day 2016. There was also a $1,000 payment so that Sherry could purchase new blinds for her home. So looking at this, it does seem like there might have been a financial incentive for this whole thing. I also do think that this was for attention, just based on the person that you've been describing this whole time and the past history we have involving her. When she was a kid making up these false allegations, it wasn't for money. It was for the attention. It was for people to feel bad for her and feel sorry for her and want to be with her and console her because she yearned for that type of attention. So I do think that's a strong component to the motive behind carrying out this abduction. Because I believe if it was something that

was purely financially motivated, Keith might have been involved with it. Keith would have been more involved with this whole process to say, hey, we need the money. This is why we're doing it. But it seems to me like at first it was more about the attention, making people appreciate her more, you know, when she gets home, wanting to, you know, give her that attention that she wants because they realize how precious she is and how quickly she can be taken from them. But I do think when she got home and realized the financial elements to this that can come into effect, the GoFundMe, this victim's advocacy fund where she can get money for other things. She realized, hmm, not only am I going to get that attention that I was seeking, but I can also increase my financial status as well.

As far as Keith spending some of the money for his own credit cards, maybe I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here, but maybe he was using that credit card to pay some bills while she was gone because I'm sure he wasn't working as much and paying off expenses that he couldn't afford while he was looking for his wife that now he was taking some of that money to pay down those credit cards that he had used while she was gone. For Sherry, I don't think that's the same case, but I'm hoping you don't tell me anything that contradicts the idea that Keith was using this to pay off the expenses accrued during her disappearance. Yo, it's crazy. Don't tell me, Stephanie. It's crazy. Don't tell me. Our brains work exactly the same way because I was reading it and I hadn't really... So before when I was writing this and researching it, I was like, yo, Keith is guilty AF, man. Like he's spending this money. But as I was reading it, I was like, well, what if he was like paying off expenses that he incurred while she was missing, like not only missing work, but, you know, maybe you're making posters, you're, you know, hiring private investigators, things like that.

Maybe those were crime related expenses because to Keith, he thinks this is a crime still. So it's not going to be weird for him to do that. Maybe those were legitimate expenses. Our minds work exactly the same. And exactly when you said like, maybe it's not financially motive because I definitely or motivated, I definitely think it was attention. And I think the money was just a happy accident. You know, she got home and she was like, oh, damn, we got money from this? Oh, happy day. And it just happened to be something that she took advantage of, exactly the same page as you are. It's crazy sometimes. All right. And no, I'm not going to

tell you anything about Keith, man. As far as we know, he didn't know. No, thank God for that. And I'm saying it more so for the kids. Absolutely. But I mean, at least while she was missing, I don't think that he knew. He may have figured it out kind of like afterwards when she started talking to the police, you know, in 2020, like what does he feel now is what I'm interested in knowing. Because if he felt that he was just believing her and I mean, you heard him in those interviews. He's like, I can't believe what happened to her. I'm so angry. I can't believe this. And now he finds out she's lying the whole time, and she's seeing these other dudes behind his back. How's he feel now is what I would like to know. Yeah, not good.

So in March of 2022, Sherry Papini was finally arrested for faking her own kidnapping, but obviously not after some of her trademark drama. The week before she was successfully arrested, Sherry ran away from FBI agents who were trying to arrest her while she screamed no and threw her phone like 20 feet in the process. Well, you know, there's three stages to the investigation and one when she went missing and the search for Sherry and deployment of resources for that. The second stage was actually trying to locate the perpetrators, the suspects that were described and the sketches that were drawn. And then the third phase is where it really started to come to light. And that was when Sherry Papini reappeared. The evidence was starting to be collected and all the facts were being vetted out and that's when things really started taking a turn in the investigation. You know without getting into the details of the case

it's it is a case of calculated deception driven I think by her narcissistic behavior and it's really it really had an impact on this community and and nationwide as far as that goes and you say that one of the big problems here is the resources that were diverted to people and from people who really needed them yeah and that is the big problem there there was a lot of time effort resources money multicies coming together, putting forth this effort to try to, you know, help a victim and solve a case that was tragic. Human trafficking is a real thing and there are victims out there

that need our help. Investigations are complex and budgets are tight. So when we put all that effort into such a case and find out that, you know, things are not as they seem and we've been deceived and law enforcement has been duped, it's really taxing on everybody. is pretty stable and feels safe. Well, they suddenly didn't feel safe to walk the river trails and to go out and be alone. You know, you have a story of a typical American mom who was just abducted by what seemingly is a cartel type of human trafficking operation, which is just not true. And that disrupted a lot of things for a lot of people

around here. Do you have any idea why she did this? I don't. Again, you know, that's probably going to come out and unfold in the trial and we'll figure out what those particulars are with that. But covering up a story and again, you know, selfish, narcissistic behavior. But like we said, there is going to be a trial. And Sherry Papini, she didn't stay behind bars for long. Sherry's attorney, Michael Borges, requested that she be released while she waited for her arraignment due to the fact that she, quote, has allergies that affect her ability to eat the food that's been provided to her in Sacramento County Jail,

end quote. Borges said that Sherry had told the authorities at the jail about these allergies, but she was not provided with any food that she could eat besides an apple. So, I mean, what do you think about that? Like the balls, man, the audacity on this woman to pull this off for years. I mean, this happened in 2016. She isn't really arrested. Nothing really happens until 2022, six years. And then she has the balls to complain about the food in jail. Like, I can't, it's like she learned nothing.

She has no remorse. She learned nothing. Oh yeah, I mean, are you surprised by this? Because I think at that point, she was still playing up the notion that this was all a misunderstanding and that the police were wrong and that she was abducted and now they were coming after this poor victim. I don't think it wasn't probably until she's come out publicly and said, no, I lied. She realized there was nothing else you could do. But at this point, when she's in

prison, she's still playing it up as if she's the victim here. But you know, you know that one way or the other, whether you make a plea agreement or you go to trial, you're going to be found guilty. The truth's going to come out one way or the other. So you'd think you'd try to show some humility at this point, right? Like you'd think. No, you think that she does not think like that. She thinks she's going to be able to lie to everyone, including a jury of her peers, and convince them that she was abducted because she is convinced herself of that situation. That's what pathological liars do. So I think in her mind, she feels like she has it all worked out. And if she can just get a good lawyer she's gonna walk out a free woman

i honestly feel that she's not right man she's not right in the head well casey anthony is walking around amongst us today right don't remind me am i right yeah and you would have thought that if she was you know tried under the circumstances that we know to exist she would be in prison right now or or even worse but yeah but yeah here we are casey anthony was tried basically with with you know with with circumstantial evidence there's a lot of circumstantial evidence there i agree where a jury would be like ah we don't know how we feel about this with sherry it's like laid out man i mean everything it's like you don't go to trial with it. And I mean, obviously, she knew it was in her best interest to not go to trial with what they had because it's ridiculous.

I mean, the jury wouldn't even have to leave the room. They'd be like, Your Honor, I mean, I think we can give you our decision right now before we even deliberate. Like, it's pretty clear what happened here. So it's crazy to me but sherry she was let out of jail on 120 000 bail after surrendering her passport i wonder if she used the gofundme money to pay for that that bond i'm oh god so well sherry walked out of the jail to her waiting family and also a waiting mob of journalists the dramatic dramatic moments yesterday, Sherry Papini released from the Sacramento County Jail and making a dash for it. She's out on $120,000 bond five days after being

jailed on accusations of faking her own kidnapping. Two women covering her head as they run to the minivan trying to escape questions from the assembled media giving chase. So here you go. Here's a classic situation that I was just referring to where at this point when she's being released from jail, I'm assuming those two women, probably her sisters, you know, are still on her side or still picking her up from the jail and trying to shelter her from the bad journalist and get her to the car as quickly as possible because there's still part of them that believes she's innocent and she is the victim here. So I truly do believe that was the mentality at that point that Sherry was operating under. She had people around her still convinced of her lies.

And as long as she had that, she was going to continue on with this narrative. Yeah, but I mean, this is like, I feel like last month or this month, even after all that, even after. Listen, well, it wasn't until when that she confessed. But it doesn't matter. The affidavit came out. Like all that information, the affidavit had already been made publicly available. Like, I feel like at this point, come on. Yeah. All right. Well, after her arrest, the family of Sherry Papini gave a statement saying, quote, we love Sherry and are appalled by the way

in which law enforcement ambushed her this afternoon in a dramatic and unnecessary manner in front of her children. If requested, Sherry would have fully complied and come to the police station, as she has done multiple times before, where this could have been handled in a more appropriate way. Sherry and Keith have cooperated with law enforcement's requests despite repeated attempts to unnecessarily pit them against each other, empty threats to publicly embarrass them, and other conduct that was less than professional, end quote. So yeah, the family is just not appalled by the fact that Sherry lied about being kidnapped, that she falsely accused two Hispanic women that did not exist, that she was, you know, seeing other men behind her husband's back, that she did, in

fact, leave her own children of her own free will. They're not appalled by that. They're appalled that the police arrested her in front of her children. So, I mean, I'm not like a super huge fan of that either, but I do have a sneaking suspicion that based on what they had and what Sherry knew they had, she may not have been so cooperative and just come into the police station to be put under arrest or else they wouldn't have felt the need to do it. was wrong. And then when she showed up, that's when they tried to arrest her that one time. Or maybe they tried. Yeah, I think it was the previous week they had tried to arrest her and she screamed no and ran away. And then I think they realized at that point, like, okay, she's not going to cooperate because she ran away from us and screamed no and threw her phone. So we're going to have to be a little creative to get her in here. And I just don't understand. And this may be like a Casey Anthony sort of situation. Like we don't know who the

family is. Maybe they are enablers like the Anthony's were with Casey. And maybe that's why Sherry feels so vehemently that she can just lie and deny and get away with everything. No, I agree with everything you said. And, you know, law enforcement probably tried to take the easy route, but as you said, you know, she wasn't going to go down that way. So they had to, as you again said, be a little bit more creative. And when you're dealing with a person like this, that's what you have to do. And you have to know, and I'm sure they did that as soon as they arrested her, the narrative would change and it would go from, you know, police are helping us find my captors or, you know, to the police are trying to, you know, take me down and arrest

me for something I didn't do. And they're the bad guys. And that does happen. So I'm sure they were prepared for it, but they backed up what they did with facts. And I said it in part one, if you're going to accuse a quote unquote victim of faking their own kidnapping, you better be damn sure that you're right. Because if you're wrong, the careers of everyone involved are over. And they seemed very confident in their decisions, even through the clip that you played with Good Morning America. They knew what they were dealing with to the point where he was calling her a narcissist. They knew exactly the person that they had in their custody and that they were going to have to go to trial against. And he seemed very confident about how it would all play out in court. I think there's also, and I'm not going to lie about this, I think there's an element of being embarrassed too. There was a good long time that I think law enforcement truly believed her and did everything they could to like locate these people that had kidnapped her and come to find, you know, they were basically played for fools. And so, yeah, I don't think that they're

going to be super like respectful. They're not going to take into consideration like Sherry's feelings when they're arresting her. And you can tell. And that was the sheriff who was speaking when he called her a narcissist. Like he's pissed. You know, it's not right. Like they're out there taking resources away from people who are actually missing, taking resources away from doing actual police work. And for what? There's not even a clear cut motive. There's not even any good reason for it. So I do think there was an aspect there of like, yeah, you made us look stupid.

Like we're not going to treat you with kid gloves now. No, he said a lot of resources, a lot of time they duped, you know, she duped them for a very long. So I'm not saying it's personal, but now the shoe is on the other foot. And now it's our turn to show you what we're capable of doing when we have all the facts as far as the investigatory process. And we're going to build a strong case against you to prove that you wasted not only our time, but you put a lot of fear and a lot of community members all for your own narcissistic, selfish purposes. And now you're going to pay for it. So you think you got us, but we're going to show you that you didn't. Yeah. And I think it

might have been a little personal and I understand why, you know, it's personal for a lot of people. It's never personal, Stephanie. We can't make it personal. Okay. It was personal for a lot of people out there. And police officers are people, which means they are persons. But just today, the day we're recording this on a Monday, Sherry formally pleaded guilty and admitted that her kidnapping was a hoax. She entered her guilty pleas via Zoom to one count each of lying to a federal officer and mail fraud. and her sentencing is scheduled for July 11th. Last week, she signed a plea agreement that mandates she pay more than $300,000 in restitution to various government agencies, and in a statement, Sherry said, quote,

I am deeply ashamed of myself for my behavior and so sorry for the pain I've caused my family, my friends, and all the good people who needlessly suffered because of my story and those who worked so hard to try to help me. I will work the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done, end quote. Now, most people believe that Sherry's husband, Keith, was just as fooled by his wife's antics as everyone else. And Victoria MacArthur, she was the mayor of Reading at the time of Sherry's hoax. She had spent some time with both Sherry and Keith, and she felt that they were both genuine in their distress. MacArthur had actually worked as a physician's assistant for 25 years, and she said that she felt Sherry's behavior exhibited all the signs of someone suffering from PTSD. MacArthur said, quote, I truly felt she had been traumatized and believed she'd been

through this awful thing. I worked in an emergency room for 12 years, so I saw some people go through some very traumatic things. I felt that she was legit. She was so good. I don't know if she'd studied how someone with PTSD acts, but she was very convincing. She had a good act going, end quote. But Victoria MacArthur claims she always believed Keith and she still does, saying it's clear that he had no idea either. Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson does not believe Sherry's apology is genuine, saying, the various stages of this investigation and she never did it. Now all of a sudden we're supposed to believe she's remorseful for what she did? Well, I just don't believe that, end quote. Heath himself has made no public statements since Sherry's arrest, but Sheriff Johnson feels that he was tricked, saying, quote, I have zero sympathy for Sherry Papini. I do, however, have compassion for her husband, the kids, and her other family members that were duped and unknowingly victimized by what she was doing, end quote. But like I said, and I've kind of alluded

to this, it does seem as if some members of Sherry's family had knowledge that she wasn't the most honest or stable person. 13 years ago, Sherry's mother, Loretta Graff, called the police and asked for help after Sherry was allegedly self-harming and then trying to blame her injuries on Loretta. So this was 2003. Sherry was 21 years old and apparently Sherry had moved out and then she was moving back in. And Sherry's mother was like, listen, she's moving back in. She hurt herself before. She tried to blame me for it.

And now she's coming back. And I need some advice on like how to progress. It was probably more than likely a heads up to the police. If my daughter Sherry comes to you saying I hurt her, this is the kind of context we're dealing with. There were also two other incidents where Sherry's father and sister claimed that Sherry had damaged their property. In 2000, Sherry's father Richard claimed his daughter burglarized his residence, and at the same time, Sherry's mother Sheila alleged that her back door had been kicked in, and she felt that Sherry was the one who had done it. In October of 2003, Richard Graff, Sherry's father, also told the police that an unauthorized

withdrawal was made from his bank account, and he suspected Sherry of doing it because she was living with him at the time. But, you know, we were talking about that blog post that Sherry had written, the very racist one that, you know, somebody had written under Sherry's maiden name. And I said, like, I wish that I knew what her father thought about this because he was supposedly the one she was defending. They were at this homecoming game. And I did find a very small article where Richard Graff claims that that blog post was all garbage and it never happened. And he claims she didn't write it.

And this whole scenario that she described happening or whoever described happening, it never happened. And it was all a lie. So I don't know, man. Like, it seems that that many people of her family were victims of of sherry but also they they sort of like enabled and covered up for her too so very much like casey anthony right casey anthony stole from her parents lied to her parents did things to her parents but then when it came to like outside they showed a united front yeah i think it was a couple things i think one you nailed then when it came to outside, they showed a united front.

Yeah, I think it was a couple things. I think one, you nailed it where it's like there's these parents that are enabling their child's behavior because they're covering up for it or making excuses for it, which we see in a lot of family dynamics. But I also think there's an element where internally the family members knew that maybe Sherry wasn't the best person in the world. She had definitely made some mistakes, definitely had some strong character flaws. However, this was something that was even above what she would ever do. And, you know, when abductors take someone, they don't check their background first. And so she was just as susceptible to being taken as anybody else.

And they felt like even though maybe Sherry had done some things in the past that were not with the best intentions, she was genuinely taken by someone and they just wanted her back, even though she had many flaws. And I think that they really, really believed that she was gone and that they probably were never going to see her again because you don't always have a happy ending. So when they got her back, they were so appreciative to be able to see and hold her again because they never thought they would have that chance. And they really wanted to believe that what she was alleging occurred had happened

because they couldn't even fathom a world where she had conjured up this whole thing for the simple purpose of getting more attention. It was probably unreasonable to even assume that from people from what we know are somewhat normal and don't operate the way she does. But it's a really sad story all the way around because as the sheriff said, a lot of people affected by this, not just the immediate family members, not just Keith, but also the community. You have moms with their children walking the area of that community

and now being seriously fearful of even leaving their homes out of fear that they could be next. And that's not something that you get over overnight. Even though she's back, you find out it's not true. It's traumatic to think that I could have been her. And so there was a lot of people affected by this, not only the police department, not only the community, not only Sherry's family, but from a national level, there were a lot of people who came and donated their money and their time to try to find this woman all for nothing. And the fact that she's getting what she's getting, which I totally understand because that's really it, right? Lying to a federal agent. That's what she's going to be. She's not going to do life in prison for that, obviously. So she's going to be back out there. She's going to be on

the streets. And I hope, I'm not very doubtful, but I hope that she learns from this and maybe goes on to live a somewhat normal life from this point forward. She clearly needs some therapy. She needs mental health help. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. More than therapy. Her sessions with her therapist, I believe, that basically were not even paid for by her. She most likely was just keeping up that whole facade. So she wasn't being honest with her therapist. So probably nothing was accomplished. No progress was made in those therapy sessions.

So she needs to do some deep, introspective looking inside. And hopefully she does come up with some sort of semblance of a normal life for her children's sake, because no matter what we think of her, I'm sure to her children, she is super mom. She is everything to them. She probably was a very good mom. But also, I think that there doesn't seem to be any real motive or any good reason and i think that sherry wanted this fairy tale life she wanted this fairy tale proposal the fairy tale marriage and then you know life's not like that um especially after you have kids you know you're working so much your husband's working you're cleaning the house you're exhausted you got like little kids running around all the time it's's very not fairytale like at all.

And I think maybe she wasn't getting as much attention from her husband as she as she wanted to get at this point because he's working and now they got kids. The kids are probably getting a lot of his attention. She's texting him asking him to come home and have sex with her on his lunch break. He's saying no. She may be like, well, I got to do something drastic. I get to get that fairy tale back. Just like you said, I got to make him happy and make him realize how important I am to him so he remembers that and he starts treating me that way, that I am important, that I am irreplace Sherry, I feel is a person that would fake having cancer so that she's getting attention, so that her husband's like, oh, no, let me take care of you. But instead of doing that, she did this. It's one in the same. And I think that's really her

only motivation, which makes it so much worse because that's some very twisted stuff. You're very damaged at that point. You need a lot of help and I hope that she gets it. But I also hope that she pays her dues and she faces whatever repercussions she has to, which I do hope includes some prison time. I read an article where they said that her attorney was probably going to argue for house arrest, which I guess probably is what will end up happening. I mean, do you see her going to prison for doing this when she's got two young kids at home? You know, do you see her actually doing any prison time or do you think she'll get house arrest and have to pay that $300,000 in restitution? Yeah, definitely going to have some heavy restitution.

I think she could do some time. You know, it's a federal offense. And so there's usually in a federal court, there's minimum sentencing. So I do think she will do some time. I don't know how much. I don't think she walks away from this without doing any prison time, though. But it's going to be in. What if the prison doesn't follow her dietary restrictions though? I mean, this is a big deal. Well, then she's going to have to get used to it. She's going to have to get used to it. But it's one of those things where if you ask me the question, do I think she should go to prison for the rest of her? No, I don't.

Not for the rest of her life, but. Right. No, I don't. And I honestly don't even think, I mean, we're getting deep in the weeds here, but I don't even think she should be in prison for, you know, 10 years for this. I mean, the only ones being really affected by this are her children and her family. So I don't think she's a danger to society. You know, nobody's going to trust her from this point going forward. She could be like, hey, supposed to be sunny tomorrow. They're going to pull up the weather app and check on their own because they ain't going to trust her. So it's one of those things where she's completely branded in a different way now where nobody's going to trust anything she has to say. And that's something she has to deal with. So I do think that prison is supposed to reform you and teach you that what you did was not right and come out of there a better person.

So I do think some time away from the public would do her good and maybe can let her know that this can't happen again. But how long she's going to be in there, I don't think very long. I'd like to see some sort of a clause put into her plea agreement where she can't write a book and make money off of this though. Because I can see her doing something like that, man. I mean, she's probably loving the attention, you know, because it's attention in some form. And that's what she wants. And I can see her like writing a book like Sherry Papini, the true story, and again, going into all this stuff. And who's going to read that book? Because you can't believe a word that this woman says, but I'd like to see something in writing where it's like, you can write a book if you want, but all the proceeds from that go to like a woman's shelter or, you know, some sort of foundation that helps

and supports the people you victimized, which is, you know, in my opinion, the Hispanic community at this point and, you know, other women out there who are actual victims. There was another woman who went missing while Sherry was going through her whole trauma or her whole ordeal. And this woman's case didn't get even an iota as much attention as Sherry's did. So it's like you have to give back to the people. You said you're going to spend your life working it off and maybe that's how she'll make the $300,000 to pay her restitution. But I don't want to see her make a cent off of this. No, I don't think that. I don't think anybody's picking up her book or publishing it anytime soon, but sad story all the way around. I'll keep following on a personal.

Obviously, this is the end for us as far as Crime Weekly is concerned, but just out of curiosity, it'll probably happen pretty quickly. She pled guilty today. It won't take long for the judge to come back. Sentencing is not till July. Okay. So by July, we'll know. Yeah, we will know. Thank you guys so much for being here. Any final thoughts? No, everyone stay safe out there. All right, we'll see you soon.

And we will be seeing you at CrimeCon. Those of you who are going at the end of this month cannot wait until next week. We're starting a new case. That's right. It's going to be a good one. Tell them where they can follow us on social media. You can follow us on Crime Weekly Pod on both Twitter and Instagram, or you can go to crimeweeklypodcast.com to check out our website.

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Thank you guys so much. We'll see you next week. Bye. Later.