Criminology - Sherri Papini

Episode Date: October 16, 2022

On November 2nd, 2016, Keith Papini of Redding, CA, called 911 to report his 34-year-old wife, Sherri Papini missing. 22 days later, Sherri was found walking along a highway. Her hair was cut short, she was very thin, and she had metal bindings on both her hands and feet. The police believed Sherri's story of what happened, but many in the public were highly suspicious. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance and return of Sherri Papini. The police worked hard to find Sherri, and then after she returned, they worked to find her captors. Sherri told the police that a group of Hispanic women had abducted her, and one had set her free. But, as the police began to dig, they revealed holes in Sherri's story, and eventually, her story completely unraveled. Just exactly what happened to Sherri Papini? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My name is Bernadette, the host of Murderific TrueCrown podcast. Murder plus horrific equals murderific. I cover some cases from the state of Maine in the United States and all over the world. Mass murders, domestic abuse, unsolved cases, serial killers, and mostly lesser-known subjects. We don't shy away from the details, but we do that with all respect. This is an entertainment. These are real people's lives. And I'm here to tell their story.

Join me for my season five reboot. And together, we will be executing podcasts one crime at a time. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Everyone and welcome to episode 228 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, how are you doing?

I'm doing better than I was last time we talked. Things are getting slowly back. to normal and I actually found a little bit of time to binge the watcher on Netflix yesterday, which was awesome, by the way. So slowly back to normal. How about you? No, no, I'm doing pretty good. I know it was kind of up in the air about when we could record, if we could record. And I know that seems trivial in the grand scheme of things, right, with what everybody is dealing with down there. But I hope things are getting closer to being back to normal. I just know it's been a terrible situation. Yeah, it's definitely been hit hard down here, but people are pretty resilient and they're

working together. So I think slowly, but surely we'll get back to, back to normal down here. Yeah, good news, good news. So let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Catherine Haynes and Sophie Proctor. So we really appreciate that. Yeah, thank you so much for that support. It goes a long way to putting out the show. And for anyone that would like to, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology to help support the show. So, Morp, can you believe it? We are officially less than a year away from CrimeCon, 2023. Yeah, and it's going to be down in my neck of the woods here in Florida.

It's in Orlando, September 22nd through the 24th at the World Center, Marriott. So really, no excuse. If you're planning on going, go ahead and make your arrangements early, save a little money in the process. You can use our promo code criminology. to save 10% on standard badges when you go to crimecon.com. So come down, hang out with us in Sunny Florida. More if I even heard a rumor that the crime con after party will be at your place.

Is that true, man? I can neither confirm nor deny that. So you'll have to go to crime con to find out. To check it out. Yep. All right. So we have all that out of the way. It's time to jump into this episode.

And the case we're discussing is one that many people, people followed when it first happened and as it unfolded. It was pretty controversial in the headline grabbing case. It also led to a lot of debate with many people believing from the very beginning that it was all a hoax. But then others, you know, pointed to similar cases where victim was not believed only for their attacker to end up with an even longer list of victims. We're talking about the case of Sherry Papini.

On November 2nd, 2016, Keith Papani of Riding California called 911 to report his 34-year-old wife, Sherry Papanie, missing. At around 5 p.m., after Keith returned home from working his shift at Best Buy, he couldn't find Sherry or their two young children, who were two and four years old. Reports vary as to whether Keith called the daycare or the daycare called him, but either way, he found out that Sherry hadn't picked up their children like she normally did. thankfully, the kids were still safe at the daycare. But this worried Keith, and he used the Find My iPhone feature to find Sherry's phone. The location was pinging near their mailbox, which was about a mile away from their house. When it didn't seem to move and Sherry didn't return, Keith drove to search for her. Keith found Sherry's iPhone and her headphones near the intersection of Sunrise Drive and old Oregon trip.

A few strands of hair that looked like Sherry's were wrapped around the headphones. the phone was about two feet off the road, and Keith felt like it had almost been neatly placed there, but he couldn't be sure. The song, Everything by Michael Bublay, was still playing on repeat. By 5.51 p.m., Keith was on the phone with the police, worried that something bad had happened.

Investigators responded and quickly narrowed down a timeline. They believed that Sherry had been abducted between 10 a.m. and noon. Send dogs were called in, but they could not pick up a trail near where Keith found the headphones. Back at the Pupini home, Sherry's purse and jewelry were found. Although it appeared that Sherry had been abducted, police had to consider all possibilities. They asked Keith Pippini how things were between the couple and how they had been getting along. They wanted to know if it was possible that Sherry may have left voluntarily, perhaps due to marital issues, or a fight.

But Keith didn't believe that Cherry had run away. The last argument they had was over a messy room, nothing major, and certainly nothing that would cause Sherry to leave on her own. They also had to consider the possibility that Keith may have had something to do with his wife's disappearance, but early on, they seemed to rule that out. After shifting focus away from Keith, investigators started to look closely at Cherry's life. They analyzed her iPhone and found that two of the contacts stored as women's names were actually

male acquaintances. Authorities traveled to Michigan, where one of the men was from to interview him and they were able to rule him out. He had been in California just days before Sherry disappeared. He was in San Francisco, which was about 200 miles away from Redding. The man told police that he and Sherry had been talking about meeting up, but they didn't go through with it. And he went back home without ever seeing her. He landed in Michigan on November 2nd. The same day, Sherry disappeared. Later, his DNA would also prove not to be a match for DNA recovered from Sherry's clothing.

Police found that the other man in Sherry's contact list was an ex-boyfriend of Sherry's who didn't have many nice things to say about her. According to court documents, he said Sherry was an attention-hungry person who told stories to try to get people's attention. Both men were cleared by police. But the hiding of these men in her contacts list made police consider the possibility that Sherry may have had a secret side to her life.

Police didn't have much to go on. It seemed that Sherry may have been the victim of foul play, but there was no evidence to back it up. And for three weeks, they investigated her disappearance. Then on Thanksgiving Day, November 24th, 22 days after Sherry Pippini vanished, She was seen running on the side of Interstate 5 in Yolo County, California. It was 4.30 a.m. when a truck driver called 911 to report a woman, chained and hysterical,

running on the shoulder of the freeway near Woodland. Surveillance video from a nearby church also captured her running around 4.15 a.m. first toward the church and then back to the highway. This was about 150 miles away from Sherry's home. Sherry looked to be thin as if she hadn't eaten much, and her hair usually kept very long. cut above shoulder length. There was a chain around her waist, which one arm was bound to, a metal hose clamp on her other wrist, and additional bindings around each ankle. Sherry was picked up and taken to Woodland Memorial Hospital and treated for her injuries. Keith Papini got the news that his wife had been found and raced to the hospital to be reunited

with her. For the most part, Sherry refused to speak to authorities. Keith was given a tape recorder so that he could ask her questions and conduct an interview on his own to see if he could get Sherry to talk. She claimed that her captors implied they had law enforcement connections and she would be in danger if she spoke to the police. According to court documents, one of her captors had said to her, guess what? The buyer is a cop. They're never going to find you. Sherry said that she could not be sure that the officers assigned to her case were not not involved. Keith didn't want to stress Sherry out and was happy to have her home, and he wanted to rest and get better. According to Keith, she weighed just 87 pounds. She was bruised,

her nose was broken, and she had been branded, a design of some sort had been burned into her right shoulder. Investigators couldn't tell exactly what the symbol was. The bruises on her body, her face, her pelvis, the front of both of her legs were at different stages of healing. She also had rashes on her left arm and upper inner thigh. and burns on her left arm. Cherry was able to go home and sleep in her own bed on the same night she was found. All right, Morp,

so let's just take a minute here to kind of talk about what has gone on so far in this case. You have a wife and mother who goes missing. You have a husband who's looked at by police. We know that's going to happen. That happens in most cases where a spouse goes missing or is murdered. that has to be very tough because you find out that your wife is gone. So you're dealing with that. You're also dealing with the scrutiny and pressure by police, probably, that you potentially

had something to do with her disappearance. And then all of a sudden, 22 days later, Sherry is found. And obviously, as we've described, she's in a state where she's been, physically harmed. She's very thin. So Keith, as a husband, he's happy that Sherry's found, that she's alive, but you have to be wondering, as do the police, what in the world happened? Yeah, it had to be a real roller coaster of emotions to have, you know, that police suspicion on him. They're searching. He's got to take care of his kids. He doesn't know where his wife is. And then all of a sudden, she's back. And now you sort of have to deal with that aftermath and figure out what

happened. And I'm just going back to the description of her wandering on the side of this highway with chains on and the poor truck driver that must have found her must have been horrified to see that and had to be pretty shocking for him to find her and report her. Sherry finally started to reveal some of the first details about her kidnapping to Keith. She told him that two Hispanic women driving a dark colored SUV had abducted her at gunpoint. They drove for around two and a half hours before stopping at the location where she would be held captive for weeks. They read her news articles about herself, especially ones implying that she had left on her own. According to Sherry, she said that the women told her, no one believes you. Everyone thinks you ran away. No one

believes you. And the women would laugh at her. Sheriff Bocinco with the Shasta County Sheriff's Office detailed how Sherry ended up on the side of the road. Sherry said that one of the women who abducted her had restrained her arm to a chain around her waist and released her on County Road 17, just off the interstate where she was found. Other than that, authorities were pretty tight-lipped. There was no mention of a motive or whether there could be more victims in the community. On November 25th, Sheriff Bacenko was clear with the press that the department had no reason to doubt the validity of Sherry's story at that time.

He also mentioned the further efforts investigators were taking in their search, looking through surveillance and traffic cameras from the area, in an attempt to identify the SUV that it had transported Sherry. Investigators interviewed Sherry with Keith Byer's side on November 28th and 29th. During these conversations, Sherry noted she watched a lot of crime shows on TV. She also gave more details about the two women who abducted her, and investigators were able to make sketches of the two suspects. But one was wearing a bandana over the lower half of her face, and the other was wearing some sort of cloth mask over the lower half of her face. According to Sherry, they had kept their faces disguised from her the entire time she was in captivity. One of the women appeared to be in her 40s or 50s, and the other was younger, maybe 20 to 30. The two women spoke Spanish for the majority of their conversations so that Sherry couldn't understand.

in Memarro. According to her, the younger woman was nicer to her and almost hesitantly involved, but the older woman liked to hurt her and was more cruel. Analyzing the clothes, Sherry was founded. Investigators noted that they were not what she had been wearing when she was last seen jogging and redding, except for her underwear, which she specifically told authorities were the same ones. She had been wearing when she was abducted two separate unknown DNA profiles were found, one from a male on Sherry's underwear and the other from a female, taken from a swab of Sherry's body. The female DNA was not Sherry's and the male DNA was not

Keith. Shasta County Sheriff's Office Sergeant Brian Jackson told People Magazine that the female DNA may be explained if the clothing that was provided to Sherry or clothes that belonged to someone who was an acquaintance of the captors. Despite Keith Papini seemingly being dismissed as a suspect in his wife's disappearance, he was given a lie detector test and was said to have passed. Sherry's ex-husband was also contacted by police, but claimed he hadn't spoken to her in years. Sherry and her ex had gotten married in 2006 so that Sherry could benefit from his military health insurance due to what Keith said was a heart murmur that Cherry had.

But Sherry's ex-husband said that Sherry needed the insurance due to complications related to regular egg donations. Police continued to dig into Sherry's background and friends told investigators that Sherry had run away from home when she was 16 years old and had stayed with people she knew in Southern California. In early December, Keith spoke to 2020 and ABC News about Sherry's ordeal, spreading publicity of the case even more. And the public began taking sides.

Some people were saying there was no. way Sherry was abducted while others believed her. It wasn't until March 2017 that authorities were able to speak to Sherry without Keith in the room. Since according to Sherry, she continued to fear law enforcement. Suspicion of Sherry's story continued to grow, both on the part of the police and the public. But as wild and unbelievable as Sherry's story sounded to some, a lot of people weren't quick to judge her. Due to a similar recent case, less than 200 miles from Reading in Vallejo, California. In March 2015, a man broke into the Vallejo home of Aaron Quinn while he and his

girlfriend, Denise Huskins, were asleep. The man woke them up by shunning a light in their eyes, blinding them. They could also hear the buzzing of something electric like a stun gun. The intruder knew Aaron's name, but used a different woman's name when he addressed Denise. As it turned out, a woman with that name, who was Aaron's ex-fiance, had lived with Aaron previously in the home. The man ordered Aaron and Denise to lay face down on the bed and told Denise to tie Aaron up with zip ties, both his hands and feet. The man then put Denise in the closet, forced Aaron into a closet, and put goggles with tape over the lenses on him so he couldn't see

anything, as well as a pair of headphones with a recorded message playing. The recording included instructions for Aaron full of threats, to a female acquaintance of his if he did not comply. The intruder asked Aaron if Denise looked like another woman, the one the attacker had called out to the same woman who had previously lived in the home. This is when it dawned on Aaron that the man may have come to the home targeting his ex-fiance and not Denise. Aaron's ex-fiancee did in fact resemble Denise. She had long blonde hair, but she hadn't lived there in almost six months.

The assailant then forced Aaron and Denise to drink something that made them fall asleep, telling them it was diazepam and NyQuil, and that if they didn't drink it, he would inject them. He also demanded 8,500 hours as a ransom and said there would be instructions given on how to pay it. The man then kidnapped Denise, leaving Aaron behind with a warning. Don't call the police. The intruder had put a camera and motion sensor in the living room, told Aaron he would be monitoring him. The attacker also used red duct tape to make lines on the living room.

floor and warned Aaron not to leave that area within the lines. Denise was put in the trunk of Aaron's car, which the man stole. So more if, you know, as we read through this, this is a very scary situation. And it also kind of conjures up to me some notorious rapist, serial killers who we've covered in the past. Yeah, there's definitely some vibes here of maybe the Easter rapist golden state killer. And we also covered. case down here in Florida a long time ago in which the attacker put some kind of weird goggles

on people's eyes. So I think some of the MO here could be from a number of different cases we've talked about in the past. But no doubt, extremely scary, a very harrowing situation. Your girlfriend is kidnapped if you're Aaron, but then, you know, almost like one of those jigsaw movies. You're being monitored. and you're told, don't leave this area, don't call police. Just the whole thing all the way around just really gives you the shivers. Now, of course, Aaron did call the police. At first, authorities were suspicious of Aaron thinking he may have harmed Denise and was

just trying to make up a cover story. And I mean, as we just laid it out, you have to admit, the story did sound very, very bizarre. Two days later, Denise was dropped off near her mother's house in Huntington Beach, California, more than 400 miles away from Aaron's house in Vallejo. Denise told police that she had been held in a bedroom, tied to a bed with a zip tie, and a bike lock. But she was allowed to bathe, used a restroom, brush her teeth, and change clothes. She was given water bottles and even a pair of shoes, but had to wear goggles.

with tape over the lenses so that she couldn't see any of her captors. Denise first said that she had not been hurt or sexually assaulted, as the captors had told her she wasn't the intended victim. And all they wanted was money from Aaron. But later, she admitted to authorities that she had been assaulted. Police didn't believe Denise's account. And the same night she was recovered, investigators publicly announced that Denise Huskins hadn't been kidnapped.

Her demeanor upon return had been too calm and the story too far-fetched to believe for them. At a press conference covered by ABC 13 News, Belayo Police Department spokesperson, Lieutenant Kenny Park, said, Mr. Quinn and Ms. Huskins have plundered valuable resources away from our community and has taken the focus away from the true victims of our community, while instilling fear amongst our community members. He also added that Mr. Quinn and Ms. Huskins owe this community an apology. He doubled down on his certainty in the hoax, calling the entire situation, wild goose chase, and a tremendous loss.

And he also alluded to the fact that we wasted all these resources for really nothing and that it was disappointing and disheartening. So we kind of talked about, you know, what Keith was going through, what Sherry went through. And now we have to talk a little bit about Aaron and Denise. So they go through this harrowing ordeal only to have police. doubt them. And especially when you talk about Denise, they don't believe her story. Really, very quickly, you know, the same night that she's found coming out and telling the press, she wasn't abducted, she made the whole thing up and she's basically wasted time and resources. I mean, Morph, if you're the victim of a violent crime and you hear that coming from the

mouth of a police spokesperson, that has to be soul crushing. Yeah, and it's especially because it was that fast that the police dismissed their claims, you know, not a full investigation, not days or weeks of going through the facts and the details. This is the same night. So a real fast perceived outcome here by police. Well, and let's let's face it, it's not what you want to see. You know, this is why people have issues with police. It's because they do things like this. I understand that police are trying to get to the bottom of things. And you might have an initial thought that, well, is this real or is this not?

Why would you go to the press so quickly with what sounded to be a very sure determination that this thing is a hoax? you couldn't have had time to even really vet it. That part I don't understand. Yeah, I personally think they should work on the assumption that the person is telling the truth until you find something that verifies that they're not. Yeah. I mean, why would you go into it with the assumption that somebody's making it up? Now, if you have evidence, if you have cold hard evidence that the person's making it up, that's a different story. but just what a gut feeling, a thought, it doesn't make sense to you.

It's too bizarre. Hey, bizarre stuff happens and we know it. We cover it. News of the allegations by police made news in the Bay Area. And an email was sent to a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle stating, Miss Victim F was absolutely kidnapped. We did it. And the email noted that they were very impressed with the strength she showed during her

time in captivity. The email also asked the reporter to pass a message along to their victim, as they did not know how to reliably reach her to apologize. Denise was called Gone Girl by people on social media and accused of sending the emails herself for attention. She and Aaron were ridiculed and seen as liars, but as it turns out, the pair had been telling the truth all along. And this mention of gone girl you know that is a great movie i've seen it a number of times and i think anybody who has seen it knows what someone is saying if they're referring to you as gone girl they're saying that you're you have faked whatever it is your claiming has happened to you and again to me i just think about how gut wrenching and her

horrific this must have been to both Aaron and Denise, I think especially Denise, because she's the one that went through most of it. So you have the police not believing her. And then you have all these people in the public calling her gone girl. Yeah, I understand that the public is going to form conclusions. It's human nature. But again, I go back to let all the facts shake out and then see where things stand believe these people that come forward and say, I'm a victim until there's evidence that they're not. And then you can reassess it and say, okay, you know, that this person was lying. And if that's the case, you'd deal with it at that point.

But I think in the short term, they should be believed. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, Moms and Mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for.

Hey, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodunit. We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a motherly touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. An attempted home invasion in Dublin, California, about a 40-minute drive south of Vallejo on June 5, 2015, led to answers and vindication. for Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn.

When one of the suspects left the cell phone behind at the scene, that phone led police to the perp's door and to evidence linking him to the abduction of Denise Huskins. Matthew Muller, an ex-marine and retired Harvard professor, pleaded no contest to two counts of sexual assault and guilty to robbery of an inhabited dwelling, residential burglary, and false imprisonment. He also pleaded guilty to one federal count of kidnapping for ransom.

It was his home in South Lake Tahoe that Denise had, had been held in for two days. A search of his property recovered Aaron Quinn's stolen laptop and found recorded videos of Mueller assaulting Denise. He was sentenced to 31 years in state prison, along with 40 years in federal prison. It later came to light that he had been monitoring Aaron's home for a while with drone surveillance and came to the home with the intention of abducting Aaron's ex-fiance. But when he realized she didn't live there anymore, Mueller took Denise instead.

Denise Hoskins and Aaron Quinn later sued the city of Ler, for their very public ordeal and they reached a $2.5 million settlement. Though Mueller was the only one charged in the kidnapping, it's clear to many that he wasn't acting alone. Others believe he took measures like whispering to himself during the abduction to make it seem like he was part of a larger group. Denise Huskins also said she believed she saw more than one pair of legs and that some of the things that happened would have been impossible for just one person based on what she was hearing and seeing around her. As of now, though, only Mueller has been charged in connection with the attack on Denise and Aaron. So the reason we brought up

Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn in their case is because the facts were bizarre, but they were facts, it really happened. So we wanted to include that in this case about Sherry Pippini, because the details in her case are bizarre as well. It doesn't mean she wasn't telling the truth. So I think police had to tread carefully in handling Sherry Pippini's case because no one wanted to be the person that didn't learn their lesson from the Huskins in Quinn case. They didn't want to be the one to let the next Matthew Mueller get away. Investigators took their time and always publicly treated Sherry as a victim to be believed. Even some of the public who had doubts were clear that they would not fully judge

and would support her until evidence that she wasn't kidnapped was released. And like you said, Morph, I think at the very least, that's what you have to do. How can you call a kidnapping victim a hoaxer with out any sort of proof whatsoever? I just can't imagine doing that, especially if you're the police. But I mean, I'm just talking about the public. And I get it, the public can say whatever they want. You and I understand that as much as anybody. But why?

Why would you want to do that? I guess is the question that I always have. But many were vocal with their doubts of Sherry, especially after a blog entry written by Sherry Graff. Sherry's maiden name came to light. The post possibly from Myspace originally called Keep Walking, was written in 2007. There, Sherry Graff described growing up in Shastelake and being bullied by a group of Latino girls.

She explained that her chief problem was being drug-free, white, and proud of her blood and heritage, and that defending herself against the Latinos was causing her to get suspended from school. The post ended with being white is more than just being aware of my skin, but of standing behind skinheads. Sherry Pupini denied writing the post saying she believed that someone else had used her name. So I just got done talking about how people should kind of reserve judgment until facts come out. Now, I understand when this blog post comes out, why people would start to question her. You know, you're going to talk about standing behind skinheads.

Okay, people are not going to be behind. you, which means they're probably not going to believe what you're saying. Yeah, I think you'd definitely lose some support and some credibility when something like that happens. And while Sherry Papini had her doubters, she also had supporters. A GoFundMe for Sherry raised about $49,000. It was originally intended as a reward to bring Sherry home safe. After she was found, $3,000 of that fund was used to pay off her credit card debt and $8,200 was used to pay off Keith's credit cards. The personal spending added to the doubt in the public eye. When it came to light that the pair had that much debt and money

from a reward fund paid it off, it only raised more suspicion. For years, Sherry and Keith lived as privately as possible, practically recluses, trying to stay out of the spotlight. So now we have even another thing that is causing the public to possibly Dowell Cherry. We have the alleged blog post and now we have this notion that they used GoFundMe funds to pay off their credit card debts. Okay. You could see why after some of that came out, she would have less support. She would have more doubters.

In August 2020, Sherry and Keith were brought in for another interview. Police were still digging for the truth. And they had found a familial DNA match on the DNA. on the DNA found on Sherry's underwear. Investigators laid out a photo and asked Sherry if she recognized anything in the photo. She didn't, but in the recorded police video, Keith prompted her saying to me, I see a table there that somewhat looks like something you've described to me in the past. And then I see wood paneling talking about the room.

In the video, Sherry said, so many memories are so faded now. But Keith was sure that the table and paneling matched Sherry's description that she had given to him before about the room where she had been held. Next, police laid out a photo lineup of six women. An investigator said to Sherry, as you know, women like to change their hair, their makeup, and their weight can change. So that might be a little bit different, but we wanted you to take a look and see if you recognized anyone. Sherry replied, I don't think so. I mean this one a little bit, but a second photo lineup was shown to Sherry, which she replied sarcastically, oh, that's a pleasant group of people.

A third lineup was shown to her, and she didn't think anyone looked familiar. Bits and pieces of Sherry's story were true, and investigators laid it all out for her with photographs. The next photo was a closet, the unique closet with a lag bolt through the shelves which matched when Sherry had sketched for investigators. Keith yelled out, holy shit. Sherry raised her hands and grabbed the back of her neck. Pretty classic stress response, if you believe in body language analysis. She then grabbed the photo and looked closer at it, saying it's a little bit different,

but it's pretty, excuse my language, it's pretty fucking similar, but it's different. Next, a photo of a boarded up window with wood paneling on it was set on the table. Sherry said, I feel like this wood paneling is too thick. She had recalled a bathroom with a unique layout, and it had a cracked, tile in the tub. I don't know. She said in disbelief on the video when shown a photo of a cracked tub. It was then that investigators dropped a bombshell with one of them telling Sherry, we found the house. We found who was involved. On this video, Keith sounds shot like the wind has been knocked out of him and he put his hand on Sherry's back as she covered her mouth with her hands. The police said that

they had even spoken to the suspect's family members. And they knew Sherry was with him during that time. What they didn't tell Sherry was that they knew she was lying and they were about to confront her. They asked her if she wanted Keith to be there or leave the room. And it was at that point. Sherry must have sensed something was wrong. And she asked investigators if she could speak to Keith alone in the room. Sherry whispered to Keith, and he sternly said, you need to stop and tell me the truth right now. Sherry started sobbing and said, I don't want them to find her. I don't want them to arrest her. I don't want them to find her.

Keith said to Sherry, explain to me right now who this guy is, and Sherry insisted she didn't know. Keith tried to convince Sherry to tell the truth, saying, this is going to be really bad if you do not tell the truth. But Sherry just said, you're not listening to me. She reiterated that she didn't want the younger woman to be arrested. She's the reason that I get to hold my children every single day. It was clear to Keith that something was wrong with Sherry's story. He turned to her and said, you're not making sense to me, to the point where I'm getting scared now.

He was ready for answers, closure, and justice. Sherry, however, was not. Investigators interrupted them and came back inside the room. Keith asked them, do you want me inside the room or not. One agent said to Sherry, if he steps out, I can say a name. And Sherry simply said, she was grateful to the woman who let her go, telling investigators, I don't want you to find her. She's the reason I get to see my children every day. The investigator said back to her, I agree, but we're not going to find her. They finally gave her an ultimatum. They gave her one last chance to

ask Keith to step out. Sherry simply said, I don't want her to get in trouble. Finally, the investigator spilled her secret, saying, well, she's not going to get in trouble. The DNA came back to James Reyes. Both sharing Keith were silent. James Reyes was Sherry's ex-boyfriend. They had dated until 2006, almost a decade earlier. Police spelled everything out in black and white, saying, the reason why you can describe the room is because you stayed in the room in the dark for hours and days on end. The reason why you lost so much weight is because you stopped eating. The reason why you got a rash on your arm is because you cleaned his house. The reason for the brand is because he went to the store and bought the branding tools and branded you. The reason why your

nose was broke is because of hockey stick. I know all those things and I know there was no sex. On the video, Sherry Whale saying there's no way it's James. There's no way. She covered her eyes and sobbed, it can't be James. She repeated saying, he loved me. We were friends. There's no way. She refused to recant her story about the Hispanic female kidnappers insisting that one of them was the one who let her go. Sherry cried out, you know who she is. I know you do. I know you know who she is. I'm not saying it. I don't want her to get in trouble. I know you know who she is. But despite Sherry's claims, the evidence proved that she was lying. about the entire thing.

The table she said she was tied to. When her captors branded her was seen in a picture on her ex-boyfriend's brother's Facebook page. The closet matched a closet in her ex-boyfriend's apartment. The boarded-up window of the room she stayed in had been boarded up by him at Sherry's request. The layout of the bathroom was the same. And there was a cracked tile in the bathroom at her ex-boyfriend.

friend's house. Finally, it appeared that reality and the gravity of the situation set in, and Sherry said, I think I need my lawyer. It's not making sense that it's James. Once Keith did leave the room, which he did because he wanted to speak to one of the investigators outside, Sherry admitted that she had flirted with her ex-boyfriend via text message. She said, I made a mistake, and I talked to other men, and I shouldn't have. She told investigators that she used her work cell phone to contact her ex-boyfriend, but that she didn't remember the number. It turned out that James Reyes, Sherry's ex, had folded very quickly. When federal agents arrived at his door, he spilled everything, claiming that Sherry had asked him to pick her up from Reading.

They had been talking again since December of 2015, using prepaid phones to communicate secretly. The male DNA found on Sherry's underwear belonged to her ex-boyfriend, James Reyes. his cousin recalled seeing Sherry at his apartment twice while she was supposedly being held in captivity. She wasn't restrained in any way either time. While Sherry stayed at James Reyes's house, he went to work every day. One day when he returned, he found that Sherry had cut her hair short. He claimed that they talked, hung out, and ate food while she was there. After a few days, Sherry asked him to board up the windows so that the room was.

dark. At meals, Sherry would eat what he did, but not very much of it. In one instance, only eating half a banana rather than eating the whole thing. Though Sherry was tiny by his standards, he didn't question her obvious weight loss efforts. Sherry asked James to specifically go to Hobby Lobby and buy a wood-burning tool so that he could brand her. When he got home, Sherry sat on the floor so that the tool could reach the outlet and told her ex-boyfriend what she wanted the brand to say. He chose Sherry's right shoulder because it was easier for him the reach because it was easier for him to do there as a left-handed person. He wanted to keep the wood-burning tool so he could use it in the future.

But Sherry told him to throw it away. So he did. What's interesting is that James Reyes definitely knew that everything he was doing was strange, but he didn't really care enough not to go along with what Sherry wanted. He told police, there's not too many people that come up and say, hurt me. I'm not physical ever with women. I mean, I just don't. Sherry had asked him to punch her.

And when he wouldn't, she hit her own head on the bathroom floor and on the edge of the bathtub. She was planning to stay at her ex-boyfriend's house longer than she did. But just before Thanksgiving, she started really missing her kids. He asked a friend to rent a car, which he and Sherry used to get back up to Reading. Sherry sat in the back seat the entire seven-hour drive and when her ex-boyfriend dropped her off. on a road near the freeway, according to him, she had stuff in the bag, and that these would be the items she was found chained and bound with.

She threw a prepaid phone out the window on the drive up. Investigators tried to get a reason from Sherry as to why she had done all of this. Various people, including her ex James Reyes, believe that Sherry was being abused by Keith, and that's why she wanted to leave and was hiding and being secretive. Investigators asked Sherry if that was true, if Keith had ever been abusive toward her. She responded by saying,

we're not talking about my husband. I love my husband. I don't want to leave my husband. I want to be with my children. I would never leave my children ever. But investigators counter with the fact that she did leave them. She knew she was leaving them. And she had even told her ex, James Reyes,

that it was hard for her to leave them when Keith wouldn't be able to pick them up from daycare until after he got off work. After they interviewed Cherry, she left the room asking, where is my husband? They brought back Keith into the room to talk with her alone. First, he sat in the same chair.

Sherry had been sitting in for her interview, but he quickly switched to the other chair in the room and scooted in closer to talk to the officers. He said to them, I'm the idiot husband that stayed around the whole time. He asked investigators what he was supposed to do next, saying, now you are telling me, okay, you can go home now.

Well, do you think I want her. anywhere around my kids or around me at all at this point he said to investigators that whatever his next steps were it's not us together i can tell you that much it was clear to investigators that he had no involvement with any of sherry's plan so more if it took us a little bit you know to get to this point in the story because we had to set it up but it comes out that sherry papini had to made the entire thing up because why she wanted to spend time with her ex-boyfriend James this was a real elaborate hoax and you know now it comes out that the gone girl moniker was actually pretty

spot on and you got to feel for keith in the situation because here he is standing by her supporting her and then the police hit them with this gut punch of, you know, your wife left you and put this elaborate plan into motion. As a husband, I don't know how he would deal with that and how he would cope with that. It's got to be really a gut punch for him. Well, it sounds to me as though he was planning on dealing with it by saying, we're done.

You know, whatever I choose to do moving forward, it's not going to be with Sherry. I don't want her anywhere near my kid. But as much as I talked about and you did as well, you kind of have to believe someone who says that they have been victimized in a certain way until you find out that it's not true. Well, now obviously we know it's not true. And so it just happens to turn out to be that the public was right, those that questioned her.

But I still don't believe that that's the right tact to take in every situation. Because not every scenario is going to end up the way that this one did. On April 18, 2022, Sherry pleaded guilty to one count of malfraud and one count of making false statements. Two days after Sherry pleaded guilty, Keith Papini filed for a divorce. In the documents, he stated that his main reasons for filing was that he must act decisively to protect his children from the trauma caused by their mother and bring stability and calm to their lives. A month later on September 19, 2022, Sherry Popini was sentenced to 18 months in prison. This is longer than the prosecution asked for, and certainly longer than the defense was arguing for.

Judge William B. Shubb spoke as to why he was imposing a longer sentence, saying, I don't believe those people who were deceived would believe that one month or eight months is sufficient. Sherry Papini also was ordered to pay restitution to the California Victim Compensation Board, the Social Security Administration, the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, and the FBI totaling $309,902. Sherry responded to the judge by saying, I am guilty of lying and dishonor. What was done cannot be undone. I'm choosing to humbly accept all responsibility. Sherry was charged because she lied to federal investigators in August 2020, when investigators confronted her with evidence.

that she was lying, she refused to back down and kept insisting that she had been telling the truth. She could have stopped and admitted the hoax right then and there, but she didn't. She also could have opted out of victims' assistants under the guise of just not wanting to talk about or remember the ordeal anymore. Keith staying with Shari until she pleaded guilty was assigned to some with lingering doubts that he was in fact involved in the hoax. Why else, they asked, wouldn't he have gotten as far away from her as possible right away? It was actually a good strategy legally, because when filing for divorce, using the information related to that plea was almost a guarantee that he would be granted full custody of their children. In a family court declaration, he wrote the whole problem started in November 2016 when Sherry left our children at a daycare and simply disappeared. Both I, and especially our children, were traumatized by her disappearance.

Keith is ready to move on, recently telling People magazine, the events of the past two months have been shocking and devastating. My current focus is on moving on and doing everything I can to provide my two children with as normal, healthy, and happy of a life as possible. But at some point, you have to think that his kids will begin asking questions related to this whole ordeal. And it's pretty likely that that's going to be. a very difficult conversation. As for Sherry Pupini, we'll have to keep an eye

on what happens with her and what she says and does after she serves her time. But morph, as we wrap up this case, it's such a strange and fascinating one. And it's different for us. There's no murder to talk about. There's no murderer.

There's no killer. There's nothing like that. You know, it kind of went from us saying, you know, this has some G-S-K vibes, some E-A-R vibes to really sounding like it comes straight from a movie script, like a gone girl script. But one of the things I want to focus on is what Sherry was charged with. And it really did seem as though it hinged all on the fact that she lied to federal investigators. It sounds to me as though if she would have come clean at that point and not

taking some of the victim's assistance, I don't know that all that much would have happened to her. Yes, her marriage would have fallen apart. She may have lost custody of her kids, but I don't know if she would have done prison time. But you can't lie to federal investigators. Yeah, that's not usually going to end well. And the whole thing I take away from this is why. There's no real reason. What did she hope to gain from this? Was she looking for some kind of attention? Did she want her husband to be worried about her?

So when she came home, he'd feel a different way towards her. And maybe the relationship would be different in some way, or was she somehow looking to capitalize on this and, you know, get a book deal or a movie down the road about her story? We just don't really have the answers as to the why here. And that's kind of leaves a hole here in the story that is, Yeah, I don't know that she's ever really given the reason why. You know, was it as simple as she wanted to spend time with this man, her ex-boyfriend James Reyes, and she wanted a way to do it

for an extended period of time and have an explanation for it that her husband would believe, the authorities would believe. I just don't, I don't get it. But, you know, the other thing that that really jumped out at me is, is when the facts started to come out was the branding, the wanting to be hurt. What was that about? Was that simply to back up the story that she thought that was needed to sell the story when she got back home? Or was there more to it? I don't know. There's so many strange aspects to this case. It's unbelievable. Yeah, definitely extreme lengths. to go through to spend time away from home with an ex-boyfriend. And I wonder, the one thing we didn't see or talk about is if she's had any kind of mental evaluation to see if she's, you know, mentally ill in some way.

And if that could have played some role in this because to us, it just doesn't seem rational that she would go through these lengths. Yeah, she definitely was not acting rationally. I see where you can ask that question. It does make sense. You know, what, what is the status of her mental health? I don't, I don't know. But that's it for our episode on Sherry Pupini.

It's one that a lot of people find, you know, fascinating just because, you know, in the end, it turns out that she essentially made the entire thing up. But you could also see why police were and should, in my opinion, looked at her as a victim until there was reason not to. And that's why we talked about the case that involved Aaron and Denise. It happened not that long before Sherry Pippini's case. And police had really bungled the first one. There's no doubt about that.

They made tremendous errors. They were probably thinking, we need to go as far the other way as we can when it came to Sherry, and it wasn't until they got the evidence that they confronted her, which again is the way I think it should play out. When you have someone who comes in and says, I've been victimized, how do you not at the very least start from the standpoint of, okay, well, let's figure this out. I don't know how you start from a place of we don't believe you because your story is too bizarre. Yeah, like I said before, we've covered a lot of very bizarre stories, bizarre things happen to people all the time. The fact that it's strange, the fact that it's bizarre doesn't mean it's untrue as police prove that it's true or not.

Yeah, follow the facts and see where they go. And if the facts in the end show that someone's being deceptive, then you confront them. But I think you're right. Start from the beginning as if they're a victim and reach. investigate the case and see where it goes. Yeah, how can you not do it, man? As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute. Go out, give us a five-star rating.

You can leave a review. That helps. And keep telling your friends about the criminology podcast. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast, discussion, and fans. So that is it for another episode of criminology.

But Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.