Going West: True Crime - Sherri Papini // 32

Episode Date: July 22, 2019

In November 2016, a mother of 2 from Northern California doesn't come home after her usual jog. Her husband tracks her cell phone only to find that it's located in a patch of grass with the headphones placed on top along with strands of blonde hair, but she is nowhere in sight. After a few weeks of searching, she turns up alive in the early hours of Thanksgiving morning- but incredibly injured. As police try to find her abductors, the investigators begin to see holes in her story, making them wonder what really happened to her. This is the case of Sherri Papini. Do you have anxiety, stress, insomnia, or lack of energy? You need to try Lumi! Get 10% off your order at lumicbd.com using promo code goingwest. OR click this link! https://lumicbd.com/?afmc=3m&utm_campaign=3m&utm_source=leaddyno&utm_medium=affiliate Get 20% off your first Hunt a Killer subscription box using promo code going west at huntakiller.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Heath, and I'm your other host, Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. The case we're going to talk about today has a lot of controversy to it and there's two very opposite sides to it so we're going to try our best to remain unbiased and let you guys decide what happened. But before we get into that we want to talk about the lovely reviews that we got this week from Apple Podcasts. So thank you so much to Katie from Philly and Tyson from Buffalo, New York. In a big thanks to Hugo from the Bay Area and Brandon from Fort Worth, Texas. Thank you so much to Lisa from Salem, Oregon and Lele from Columbia, South Carolina.

And then we have Ashley from Charleston, South Carolina and Allison from Puealop, Washington. And thank you so much to our latest Patreon Max. And if you guys want to sign up for our Patreon, just go to patreon.com slash go and west podcast. We're about to release our fifth bonus episode, so for all of you who sign up, it's just $5 a month. And as of right now, you'll have five new episodes to listen to, so go check it out. And don't forget, if you guys want to shout out on the show, make sure you go over to Apple Podcast, leave us a five star review, but don't forget to leave your name and location.

Alright guys, you know what it is, this is episode 32 of Going West, so let's get into it. So I just got home from work and my wife was in there, which is unusual. And my kids should have been there by now for my daycare. So I was like, oh, maybe she went on a walk. I couldn't find her, so I called the daycare to see what time she picked up the kids. The kids were never picked up, so I got freaked out, so I hit like a fine my iPhone app thing. And it said that her, it showed her phone like at our end of our driveway, when I was really good service. Okay. Not the end of our driveway, but the end of our street. So it just drove down there and I saw her phone with her headphones because she started running again.

And it cracked down her phone and it's got like hair ripped out of it. Like in the headphones, so I'm totally freaking out thinking like somebody like... What's your... Okay, what's your address? Right. Okay, what's your last name? Yes. Papini, P-A-P-I-N-I.

In your first name? Keith. K-P-I-N-I. And your first name? Keith. K-E-I-P-H. Oh, yes. Okay. Did you go pick up your children? No, I'm going to call my mom and have her. Okay.

What's your wife's name? I'm going to, like, you knock on every door. Siri, at H-E-R-R-I. I'm St. Last name? Yes. Two whiteR.R.I. I'm St. Lassam. Yes. She white female? Yes. What's her date of birth?

It is June 11th, 1982. Is her vehicle there? Does she not have a vehicle? She has a vehicle that is at the house. Okay, the vehicle is at the house? She's house? Yes, I'm in it right now driving and I take the picture of her phone on the ground before I pick it up. Okay how tall is she? Five, three, five, four. How much does she weigh? A hundred pounds. Eye color? Like a blueish. Okay, hair color?

Along. Do you know what she was wearing? Because there are a few showers. No idea, I'm assuming she went running. Okay, there's not an alpha-cho. Is there anything like that? She run with a dog or by herself? By herself.

Okay, what time are the kids looking? We just start running again and we live in a... When's the last time are the kids looking? We just start running again and we live in a... When's the last time? When's the last time you heard from her? Alright, she sent me a text off and I was coming home for lunch. What time was that? She got one to meet. Give me one second. She sent me a 1047 after the event of coming home from lunch from work.

I said sorry, long day, and that was the last. I never spoke to her on the phone or any other conversation. Okay, and what time are the kids supposed to be picked up. Way before 530 usually goes to like 445. 435. Are you headed back to the house or where you at right now? I'm at the end of the driver. I'm at the Old Oregon Trail sunrise where they meet because that's right where I found her phone on the ground.

You tell me that something happened to her. Where I'm looking at it. There's like, then there was hair in the headphones. Like, it got ripped off and like, the ground. Yeah, no, I am. I am. There's stands, I understand. Okay, I'm sorry.

I know you're going to give me calm about it I'll see. Yeah. What kind of view? I'm going to see a black sea off the mud. Oh, yeah. And I live, I mean, we live down kind of a sketchy street. So I definitely, I don't know if I'm allowed to knock on the door but I will. Let's have the officers contact you so they can start processing everything, figure out what's going on. I understand you're freaking out a little bit. We want to make sure we get your kids. Make sure they are okay.

Yeah, I am going to call my mom and have her. Yeah, they better try to put your phone in. Yes. Do you want me to wait right here for a manager? If you want to head back to your residence so they can contact you there in case she does return. Okay. We'll have a contact to address your residence.

Call us back if anything changes, all right? All right. So they're going to call the number you've picked down. They'll probably call you when they're on their way, and they're going to come out in person. OK. OK, thank you. You're welcome. OK, bye.

Bye-bye. Sherry Papini was born on June 11, 1982 in the town of Redding, which is a very scenic place in Northern California, with the maiden name Grafe. In 8th grade, she had her first kiss to Keith, who was a grade below her, and Keith actually ended up becoming her husband later on. Sherry ended up moving out of Redding years later and got married to a man named David Dreifus, who was a platoon sergeant in the Army, and they got married in 2006. Their marriage only lasted two years because in September 2008, the two divorced. Sherry then decided to move back to Reading where she ran into her eighth grade crush, Keith. She and Keith reconnected and went on their first official date,

which was a candlelit dinner by Whiskeytown Lake. The date went amazing and the two fell deeply in love and they ended up getting engaged soon after. The two went to Vegas for Sherry's 26th birthday in the summer of 2008 and had a blast. They went to different shows and both families came together so everyone could meet. Then Sherry and Keith took a trip to Half Moon Bay, which is a coastal town in northern California, and on the night of her birthday, he proposed to her by the ocean. So there's some confusing

information available online because according to marriage documents, we know Sherry was married to David until 2008, but in Sherry's wedding blog that she wrote in 2009, she states that Keith moved in with her in December 2006. So it's possible that Sherry and David had separated very soon after their wedding, but that information isn't clear. It's extra confusing because she also states in her blog how weird and foreign it was, living with a guy when Keith moved in because she had never done it before. Many people theorized Sherry hadn't told Keith that she was married to this other man at all.

So her stating that it was weird living with another man for the first time was a lie. For anyone who wants to read this blog, it's up online and she gets pretty specific about the little love stories between her and Keith. She even has bios of everyone that was in her wedding party, basically explaining who they are as a person. The blog gives you a pretty good impression of what Sherry was like. Sherry and Keith got married in October 2009 in Half Moon Bay. Again, in the blog, she keeps a very detailed account of everything, that they changed the venue a couple times in all the reasons why when she got her wedding dress everything. But her last blog post was in the end of January, almost nine months before her wedding.

After Keith and Sherry got married, they had two children within the next few years. Their first was a son named Tyler, and their second was a daughter named Violet. In late 2016, Tyler was four, and Violet was two. Sherry worked as a national retail account executive at AT&T, and Keith worked at the Best Buy in Redding, California. At this point, Sherry was 5'3", 105 pounds and 34 years old. She was very athletic, she would go on a lot of jogs every morning, and usually went down a mile long dirt road that led to their mailbox. Remember, they lived in a very rural area, so she would use this two mile round trip jog

as her daily exercise. She was actually training for the Cossus Superhero Run in Redding, which was a 5 kilometer race to benefit abused and neglected children, and she and her whole family had planned to dress in superhero costumes and run it together. Sherry Papini was very into the Christmas holiday and just after Halloween, Sherry immediately began decorating the house for Christmas. She brought out all the boxes of decorations and was working on putting all the Halloween stuff away. On November 2nd, 2016, Sherry had been in the middle of wrapping presents when she decided to go for her morning jog. And there are witnesses who saw her jogging around 2pm that day. That night, her husband Keith

returned from his job at Best Buy and Sherry wasn't home. The children weren't home either. The last time he had spoken to her was earlier that day, when Sherry asked him if he was coming home for lunch and he said no. She then told him that she would pick up the kids from daycare that afternoon. He didn't have any idea where they'd be, as they were usually home when he got off work, so he called his children's daycare where he discovered that Sherry hadn't picked them up that day. Keith had a relative pick up the kids while he tried to figure out where Sherry was. He used the Find My iPhone app to track Sherry's phone and saw that it

pinged about a mile away from the house. He walked down to the spot which was near Sunrise Drive and Old Oregon Trail and Redding and found Sherry's cell phone with her headphones with strands of hair attached to them. After taking a photo of it, Keith immediately called police, which was at 7.51pm and the search began with sent dogs and helicopters. But it appears Sherry vanished out of thin air. Next, the detectives decided to question registered sex offenders in the area. There were allegedly 25 sex offenders within just 3 miles of the Papini's home, but nothing came up in their searches.

Keith called his family and let them know what was going on, and obviously they were all incredibly concerned. Keith then had to tell their kids, and he explained to them that the kids' mommy was outrunning and didn't come home, but that they were looking for her and that they would find her. Keith's sister Suzanne, as well as Sherry's sister, described her as super mom on TV and said that Sherry would never leave her children, so they knew that something bad had happened to her. Sherry was officially considered at risk. A ton of volunteers showed up to search various creeks and trails in the area to see if they could find her. They searched and searched, but no evidence was coming to fruition. Police investigated Sherry's ex-husband, who said he had no idea where she was, and

in fact, they hadn't spoken in over six years. Since there wasn't any progress being made by law enforcement, Keith set up a GoFundMe page to help raise money for his own private investigators within just two days of her disappearance. He raised nearly $50,000 for reward money, but was also offered almost $10,000 from an anonymous donor. This donor actually hired a hostage negotiation expert named Cameron Gamble and Cameron posted a video on YouTube claiming that the donor would offer up to $50,000 for the safe return of Sherry Papini.

The whole idea was that whoever abducted Sherry would contact Cameron and work out in exchange, which he stated in the video hoping that the abductors would see it. The name of the donor was never released, but a lot of people are very suspicious of this. Keith states that he doesn't even know who the donor is. But the donor says that he was passionate about the case when he saw Keith pleading on TV, and as a successful entrepreneur, he just wanted to help. But he says that he keeps his identity a secret for the safety of his family. Keith came into contact with Cameron, the negotiator, 12 days after Sherry disappeared when Cameron asked him for his permission to post the YouTube videos.

But police were really not happy that Cameron Gamble was getting involved in the case because of the potential that it would mess up their own investigation. Which I can kind of understand to a certain extent, obviously they don't want somebody in there that could potentially mess up their leads, but at the same time I feel like this is just extra help in trying to find Sherry at this point. Well, that's why Keith wanted to go along with it and agreed to do it because if there was ransom money involved that he couldn't put in himself and some kind Samaritan is willing to give up that much money just from the kindness of his own heart, like why not? Because that could work.

Yeah, absolutely. And Keith is just doing what he can to make sure that he finds his wife, so I understand that as well. Keith got on TV and did numerous interviews and press releases to try and get his wife's story out there, all of which he appeared very emotional. Keith Papini was given a lie detector test to see if he had anything to do with Sherry's disappearance, and he passed the polygraph, so he was officially ruled not a suspect. They also went through his phone, computer, and house to see if he had been involved in any suspicious activity, but nothing surfaced. Sherry's sister publicly stated that Keith was the kind of man you wish to be married

to your sister, because he was so incredibly caring and loyal. So she knew from the beginning that there was just no way that Keith would ever be involved in doing anything to put her in harm's way. And besides, he was very active in trying to find her alive. He was trying every possible avenue at this point. A lot of different theories were buzzing around during this time, and mostly that she was sold into sex trafficking or was involved in a drug deal gone wrong. Other people thought she was just in a drug deal gone wrong. Other people thought

she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Days and weeks went by and there was absolutely no sign of her, but just three weeks later, on Thanksgiving Day, at 4.30 a.m. Sherry Papini was found alive, wandering along County Road 17 near Interstate 5, which was about 150 miles south of where she lived. She had been bound with clasps and chains around her ankle and she had zip ties on her right wrist that connected to a chain around her waist. Her nose was broken, she had bruises all over her body and was branded on her shoulder. Her previously long blonde hair had been cut unevenly and she had lost 15 pounds. She was found on the side of the highway waving her arms in the air and a woman driving

a car who was driving to visit family for Thanksgiving saw her and dialed 911. And there's actually a video of her running that we'll put on our Instagram. Since it took place at 4.30am, it's very dark and you can't really tell that it's her, but the police were able to confirm that it was. All you see is her running past a church, looking for help before she turns around and runs the other way before running up to an on-ramp on the interstate 5. And this part isn't seen on video. So the woman who saw her said that she was incredibly startled by her because she seemingly came out of nowhere and it was so dark outside.

She said that Sherry was frantically waving around what looked like a shirt or a cloth and that she was very wide eyed. She said she looked really scared, so the woman figured that she really needed help and she pulled over up ahead and called 911. The restraints on Sherry's body were consistent with pain compliance, according to the Sheriff's Office. Her bruises ranged from yellow to black,

which proved that these bruises had been done at different times throughout her disappearance and that she was beat repeatedly. Sheriff Bazingko of the Shasta County Sheriff's Office said that Sherry had some kind of message burned into her skin, but they wouldn't release what it said because they believe that it's the key to finding who abducted her. They did, however, say that the message has obscure letters and that the quality of the branding was poor. FBI special agent Brad Garrett stated that he believed the branding was done to make Sherry a part of her

captors group. He thought that they wanted to eliminate her past, so they cut her hair, starved her, beat and tortured her, and branded. Sherry told Law Enforcement that she had not been sexually assaulted and they didn't find any evidence that she was anyway. So we know that this wasn't a sexually motivated crime. The first that Keith heard about this was that Thanksgiving morning, when the California Highway Patrol officer, who had reported to the scene, discovered that the woman who flagged down the car was indeed Sherry Papini. Keith says he had originally missed the call because he was shaving and didn't hear it, but when they called back, the officer was telling

Sherry to calm down because she was screaming to talk to Keith. Sherry didn't know what time it was or what day it was. Keith rushed to the hospital immediately to see her and he was completely taken aback by her appearance. He explains in an interview how horrifying it was to see her in that kind of state because she was so battered. He said they just hugged each other and cried for a long time. When Sherry was well enough, she was questioned about what exactly happened to her in those three weeks that she was gone.

She stated that while she was on her jog, two Hispanic women, with their faces covered with bandanas, jumped out of a dark-colored SUV and abducted her at gunpoint. They'd thrown a bag over her head so she couldn't see where they were going and they drove her to an unknown location. She said that she didn't remember much of what happened after that. The last thing she remembered about the whole ordeal was being put back in the car and driving for a while before being pushed out of the vehicle with a bag on her head that Thanksgiving morning. So that's likely what she had been waving when the car found her. She couldn't remember what the women or the car looked like or even the place she was

being held. So without virtually any information of the attack or attackers, law enforcement had a very hard time trying to figure out how to even solve this case and catch who did it. She was however able to slightly describe their appearance, which led to a composite sketch of each woman, which you can find online or on our Instagram page at Going West Podcast. They both have long dark hair with covered faces except for the eyes. One is younger with dark curly hair and pierced ears and thin eyebrows. The other is older with straight black and gray hair and thick eyebrows.

They were able to get DNA off of Sherry's clothes, but two DNA profiles were created, and one was a male and the other a female. So automatically this didn't add up to Sherry's story, since she had stated that the abuse had been done by two women and didn't mention a male being involved at all. The DNA was run through every single database that authorities could find and not a single match turned up. The male DNA was tested against her husband Keith, but it wasn't a match. Sherry had also mentioned previously that before she was released, she got into a fight with

the two abductors because they wouldn't let her shower, and she ended up getting a cut on the side of her right foot. But when they examined her feet, there were no cuts whatsoever. So none of this was really making any sense to investigators. But they kind of just figured that she had undergone some serious trauma and that she was maybe remembering things incorrectly. But regardless, there was little they could do about the situation. But regardless, there was little they could do about the situation. So she was actually found in a dark colored sweatshirt and light gray sweatpants. And they are not sure if these were her clothes, but they also theorized that the male DNA could have come from the fact that maybe this outfit belonged to a man previously and the her captors had put her in these clothes and so that's where the male DNA came from and only one of the abductors DNA had gotten on the clothes after that so it's kind of hard to determine. Right, they can't, they can't fully determine if a male was actually involved because like

you said this could have been one of the attacker's boyfriend's clothes that she had stolen from her boyfriend and put Sherry Papini in. I mean it's very hard to tell. Basically going off of just the fact that there is male DNA found on the clothes, that's not sufficient enough to say that there was a male indeed involved. And we've talked about this in previous episodes how easy it is to get DNA on your clothes. You know if somebody passes you or if somebody touches you, so it might have even been one of the cops or something, it's just, it's so hard to say.

Yeah, I kind of wish that I knew how much DNA was found on the clothes so that we could kind of determine whether or not these clothes had been worn by a male or if a male had touched them. Yeah, and was it DNA, male DNA like sweat or was it a hair or was it like what kind of DNA would also be helpful? Right, I think that would kind of help us out with knowing what these clothes were about and why Sherry Papini was wearing them. And just to clarify, I don't know what kind of pants she was wearing when she went jogging that day, but witnesses did see her jogging in a pink jacket, so she wasn't wearing the same outfit from the day she was jogging, so it's very possible that these were not her clothes. Police were able to come up with photos of different dark SUVs that were in her neighborhood around the time of her

disappearance using various surveillance cameras, and they questioned her to see if she recognized any of them. But she said none of them looked familiar, but like we mentioned, she wasn't able to describe the vehicle other than just saying that it was a dark SUV of sorts. People started getting very suspicious of Sherry's kidnapping altogether because of the fact that there was no clear motive for Sherry's abduction, especially since Sherry had not been known to be involved in drugs or crime. There also wasn't any mention of ransom money demanded of Sherry's abduction, especially since Sherry had not been known to be involved in drugs or crime. There also wasn't any mention of ransom money demanded of Sherry or her family. So why would these women abduct her, torture her for 22 days, and then just let her go?

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That's promo code GoingWest for 20% off your first box. Happy hunting guys! Detectives had nearly 20 search warrants and examined bank accounts, cell phone records, email and social media profiles trying to find anything that they could that would be relevant to the investigation. The following year in 2017, some new information was released. Investigators found that Sherry had been texting a man living in Detroit, Michigan. She had actually been planning on meeting up with him in person around the time of her

disappearance in 2016, since he was going to take a business trip to California. Apparently, the two had known each other for years prior, and had gotten back into contact. They'd been texting for multiple months, but it's unknown if their relationship was romantic or not, as police wouldn't release this information. Days before her disappearance, this man visited California, but not redding. According to a law enforcement, there is no indication that they met up at any point during the trip to California. Investigators went to Michigan to question him and ruled him out as a suspect, saying

that they were confident that he had nothing to do with her abduction. Many assumed Keith didn't know about them talking, because the Michigan man's name was disguised under a woman's name and Sherry's phone. So it's possible that this man was someone that she wanted to have an affair with. That or it was strictly platonic, but she didn't want her husband thinking otherwise, so she disguised the name so there wouldn't be any questions. There are speculations that Keith knew about her talking to this man, and that they may have argued about it the day that Sherry vanished. But other people claim that Keith didn't know about this Michigan man at all. People started saying all kinds of things online and claiming that this entire case was just a hoax.

A big reason why people started to think this case was fabricated is because of the details given by Sherry and the fact that none of it made very much sense. As we said a minute ago, there doesn't appear to be any motive for this crime at all, but does that mean it didn't happen? Also, Sherry doesn't remember barely anything about what happened to her and she can't explain where she was or any real details

about her abductors who she spent three weeks with. It's absolutely possible that she had endured such intense psychological trauma that she's unable to remember this information, but then why did the captors let her go? It seems so incredibly unlikely that someone would do that because it's really rare that we see that in cases at all. I mean, it happens, but it's so rare. A lot of people also point out that Sherry and Keith were a very attention-seeking couple. They supposedly seemed like the kind of couple that would be on a reality TV show. Of course, we don't know them personally, so it's hard to confirm or deny this fact,

but if you read the wedding blog that Sherry ran in 2008 and 2009, you'll be able to tell that she seems kind of over-the-top and kind of like a perfectionist and a little bit dramatic. But again, why put yourself through brutal torture just for attention? Investigators started believing that the sex trafficking theory was false, considering Sherry was badly beaten, starved, and had her hair cut poorly. They claimed that this is exactly what a sex trafficker wouldn't do, because they want them to look good

so they can market them. Police started thinking these people were trying to brainwash Sherry to potentially convert her into their cult because her injuries were more consistent with a cult abduction. But again, that's just a theory. There's two very different opinions on this story, so we're going to do our best to stay in the middle of the road and just present the facts. Here's what we know about Sherry before the incident. In 2000, for unknown reasons,

Sherry burglarized her father's house, then later that year allegedly kicked in her sister's back door trying to break in. Her father had reported the incident to the police as a burglary, but it was charged as vandalism. The incident at her sisters was cleared because nothing appeared to have been stolen. In 2003, when Sherry was just 21 years old, she started harming herself. We're not positive exactly how, but she started blaming her injuries on her mom. And by the way, her mother was the one who provided this information. It doesn't make much sense for her mom to have brought this into a discussion just to make it up. But this is just what we read.

Also in 2003, Sherry's father reported that she made an unauthorized withdrawal of money from his checking account. Although these incidents could potentially show her character, they also occurred over 13 years before Sherry's disappearance. So if she is indeed a victim, we don't mean to bring these facts into exploit her. Yeah, and apparently her family is very divided on this case because some of them think she's completely fabricating this whole thing and some of them believe every word that she's saying. And this has a lot to do with the fact that she was a bit estranged

from her family because of several differences. Another big reason why people think Sherry could have fabricated this attack is in part of a big race war. In 2003, an essay was posted on a white supremacist website called Skinheads.com where the writer described that she got into two fights with Latinos who targeted her because she was a drug-free white woman who was proud of her blood and heritage. The post was signed Sherry Graif and remember Graif is Sherry's maiden name and this was posted before she was married. Sherry's friends and family have stated that this post was not written by Sherry and her husband Keith even stated that it was written by a jealous friend who was trying to smear Sherry's name at the time. And police are

actually unable to confirm or deny whether or not this was written by Sherry, but Sherry denies ever writing it. After Sherry's return, the family moved to the nearby town of Shasta Lake, which has a population of around 10,000 people. Neighbors state that they never see Sherry, not jogging, nor in town, but that once in a while they see Keith outside the house or around the community. So it appears that Sherry turned into a recluse after her abduction. She has also never been interviewed or appeared on TV to discuss what happened to her. So this kind of puts a hole in the theory that if this was indeed a hoax, that it was done for attention,

because she became an absolute shudden who didn't want to be involved in any kind of media. A lot of people compare this case to the best-selling novel and Academy Award-nominated film, Gone Girl. If you haven't seen the movie or read the book, cover your ears because here's a spoiler. It's about a woman who is married to a man and becomes so resentful of him that she creates a false account of domestic abuse and then fakes her own abduction, rape and attack. Her original plan was to kill herself and have her husband blamed for the murder, but then she changes her mind in the narrative of her story. She then escapes her attacker and hopes of rebuilding her marriage. She appears on TV and gains success and attention for this fabricated story.

So a lot of people see potential similarities from this story and sherrys, but again, she didn't seek attention at all after her disappearance and she actually did the opposite. I feel like a lot of people in her position, they write a book about what happened to them or they go on Dr. Phil or they go on Oprah, but she didn't do anything like that. And hearing this, it kind of makes you lean a little bit more towards her telling the truth and we're actually going to get into some theories right now. One theory is that she wanted to get away from her life and skip town so she faked her own abduction so that she could start a new life and potentially be with the Michigan

man. Without having to deal with the consequences necessarily, which is potentially why she asked Keith if he was coming home for lunch the day she disappeared, so she knew she would be alone to stage a disappearance. But during her time away, she changed her mind and created the whole abduction narrative to save face. Another theory is that this entire charade was in hopes to start a race war, and this theory is mostly based on that blog post that Sherry may or may not have written regarding

her being attacked by a gang of Latinos. So a lot of people connect this potential post that she wrote 13 years prior to her attack with her describing that she was abducted by two Hispanic women and they kind of make it seem like she could potentially have some kind of racist agenda which is not uncommon in this world, obviously, but to me, it just maybe that sounds ignorant. I just, I don't think that's likely. Yeah, and to be honest, we haven't seen any other information that would lead us to believe that she had an racist agenda, so I think this one is pretty unlikely, like said and obviously racism exists and it's fucked up So if that's her agenda then that's awful

But I'm just looking at it in the sense of if she did in fact write this blog post then what are the chances that 13 years later she carries this hate so deeply that she breaks her nose and Brands her shoulder for life just to make a point. That just seems insane. Yeah definitely. I mean if you think about breaking your nose, that's an extremely painful thing to do to yourself, which honestly kind of tips the scales for me a little bit and makes me believe that maybe she is telling the truth because like I just she's not Tyler Durden this isn't a fight club she's not just gonna punch herself in the face and break her own nose I mean that's extremely painful and then to brand yourself on top of that I don't

know. Next we're gonna talk about the theory that she did this for money and this doesn't make much sense because the family didn't gain anything financially from this. There is a possibility that the anonymous donor that was going to provide the ransom money gave a donation to the family to help them get through the hard time they were experiencing once Sherry was found. But this has not been confirmed. There's also no theory that the family was struggling financially. Both Sherry and Keith worked and lived in a modest house that was under $200,000 in rural California. And after the attack, they moved to an even

smaller part of the state. So it doesn't seem like they gained anything from all of this. Since we're on this topic of money, it doesn't make a lot of sense that such a large ransom was set up and instead of taking it, her attackers let her go free. But if it's true, maybe their motive wasn't related to money. But you think about the case is similar to this where someone is abducted and kept alive, they usually seek a ransom. But this wasn't the case here,

which really perplexed law enforcement. People are also very skeptical about the Go Fund Me page. Within just two days, Keith wanted to hire private investigators, and part of this makes sense because every minute counts and the fact that Keith found her phone on the trail automatically led people to believe that she had been abducted and not gone on her own free will. But what Keith actually did with the reward money is unknown.

We aren't sure if he really did use the money for private investigators, but what we do know, according to the bottom of the GoFundMe page, which is still up online, it states, please note that Keith's sister Suzanne Papini is withdrawing the funds from this campaign. But they never updated the kind people who donated money or what the money was going towards. They also didn't post any updates on the case or thank people for donating. They didn't even post to say that Sherry had been found.

When Sherry's phone was found, please see it looked like it was very neatly and purposefully placed there. It was sitting on some grass with the headphones placed on top. It didn't look like it was thrown or dropped necessarily, but placed. The headphones were very lightly coiled on top of the face-up phone screen. The police were skeptical of this, but they fully believe that what happened to Sherry really did happen. They can't find any reason why she would make this whole thing up, but they agree that a lot of the information just doesn't line up.

Police believe the biggest piece to this puzzle is the DNA that was found on Sherry's clothes. Whether or not this story is a hoax, the answers lie in the DNA. The police are keeping a lot of the details of Sherry's disappearance under wraps so that they can eventually solve the crime. If Sherry is innocent and is indeed a victim of such details of Sherry's disappearance under wraps so that they can eventually solve the crime. If Sherry is innocent and is indeed a victim of such a terrible crime, our thoughts go out to her and her family. Regardless, we hope this case is one day solved. I don't necessarily lean either way, but the biggest thing to me is that I just don't understand why she would have broken her nose, branded her shoulder with a burned message,

and had herself beat severely. And I know I've brought this up, but it's just like mind boggles me. Especially because there doesn't seem to be any possible motive to do so. Or at least one strong enough to do so. And again, she didn't get famous from it, because although a lot of people know her name, she didn't go on to do anything from it. And if she did get money, it probably wasn't very much. Not enough to put yourself through all that horror. It's possible that she had met up with someone for a hookup or that she was involved in drugs as some theory state she was

and made up the Latina abduction to cover up what actually happened to her, so that her family wouldn't know that she tried to cheat or that she was involved in drugs, so maybe in a fair with a stranger or a drug deal had gone wrong. It just seems like there's too much information hidden to have an actual theory here, and for the people who thoroughly believe that she did not make any of this up, again, we're just stating the possibility that it's a hoax, because we want to expose all angles of this case, since no one really knows what happened. There's a lot of people who are divided

on this case, but we've stated the facts, and I wish we had more information for you guys. I wish we knew about the brand and what it says, and I wish we knew about the DNA, but we just simply don't. We don't have that information, so we can really only go on what we know. Right, and what I think is really interesting about this case is I've known about it for years,

and I hadn't really done any thorough research on it, but just because of the headlines, I believed this case was fake. And when I started researching it for this episode, I started thinking like, wait, why do people think this is a hoax? It didn't really make sense to me. And I think once a big statement like that gets made, then people just start looking at the basic facts and thinking, oh, it's all a lie. So maybe just because some people thought it was a hoax, it was this big downward spiral, but I don't know.

And right, and you know, this is the internet. We live in the day and age of the internet, and when something happens, when something is said, it can spread like wildfire, and it can kind of create a spider web of falsehoods. So what do you guys think? Is this all just a hoax or did this really happen to Sherry Papini? Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West.

Yes thank you so much everyone and make sure you guys let us know about your theories and what you think happened to Sherry Papini over on our Instagram, which is going West podcast. Or check out your boy Heath on Twitter at Going West Pod. And don't forget to check out the amazing companies that support our show, Loomy CBD and Hunt a Killer, and you can find those links below. So for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you.

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