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Sherri Papini is an American woman who was reportedly kidnapped while jogging from her home in Redding, California, on November 2, 2016, as per a CBS News report. The 34-year-old wife and mother miraculously came back on November 24, 2016, and informed her husband that she had been released by her abductors.
As per Sherri Papini's story, her abductors were two Hispanic women who kidnapped her in a dark-colored SUV and returned her a few weeks later near Interstate 5 in Yolo County, California. However, Sherri said she couldn't recognize the faces of her abductors since they were wearing masks. The kidnapping of Sherri soon became a major investigation for the Shasta County Sheriff's Office.
However, when authorities went through the events of the case, they soon realized that the victim was hiding something. The complete story of Sherri Papini's disappearance is documented in ABC's docuseries titled Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini. The three-part series was released on January 30, 2025.
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What is the story of Sherri Papini's disappearance?
As per Sherri Papini's IMDb biography, she was born on June 11, 1982, and got married to Keith Papini in October 2009. The couple eventually had two kids named Tyler and Violet Papini. However, their life took a sharp turn on the morning of November 2, 2016, when Sherri went jogging and didn't come back.
It was Sherri's husband, Keith, who first noticed her disappearance. As per an Inquisitr article published on November 29, 2016, Keith, an employee at the Best Buy store, returned home and found his wife missing. Keith went on to track her phone through the Find My iPhone app and located it along with her earbuds from her jogging route along Sunrise Drive and Old Oregon.
The Shasta County Sheriff's Office was soon informed, and they went on a massive search around the region. The authorities were still in between their investigation when Sherri reappeared a day after Thanksgiving on November 24, 2016.
In a conversation with CBS News, published on November 24, 2016, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko revealed that, as per Sherri's story, she was abducted by two Hispanic women. In a statement to Good Morning America, Keith Papini shared that the abductors abused his wife physically by breaking her nose and cutting her hair.
As per a CNN report dated November 30, 2016, the younger abductor had long curly hair and pierced ears, while the older abductor had greying hair and thick eyebrows. Sherri told them that on November 24, 2016, she was released near a rural road in Yolo County near Interstate 5, where she could ask a passing motorist for help.
The investigation of Sherri Papini's disappearance
As per CBS News, Sherri Papini described her abductors as having a dark-colored SUV, with the Hispanic woman having a handgun. As per an article in The Sacramento Bee, published on July 26, 2022, the authorities attained more than 20 search warrants, detecting dark SUVs and reviewing phone records, bank accounts, and emails. Eventually, the FBI was included in the case.
As per an SFGATE article published on March 6, 2022, the DNA samples retrieved from Sherri Papini's body had both male and female profiles. However, none of them matched with Sherri's husband, Keith Papini. The FBI went on to run the DNA samples through the Combined DNA Index System, but none of them matched.
The biggest turning point in the case happened in March 2022, when the male DNA sample retrieved matched Sherri's ex-boyfriend, James Reyes. Captain Brian Jackson, from the Shasha County Sheriff's Office, said:
"Once we had the DNA, I knew we'd be able to find something, and I just kept telling our guys and our ladies, be patient it's going to happen and we just kept pushing on."
Upon interrogation, James revealed to the investigators that during the time of Sherri's disappearance, she visited and stayed at his home in Southern California.
Sherri Papini was found guilty of kidnapping fraud
As per a CNN article published on March 8, 2022, Sherri Papini was arrested by the FBI on March 3, 2022. According to a Miami Herald article published on April 13, 2022, between 2017 and 2021, Sherri received over $30,000 from the California Victim Compensation Board.
Her disappearance story went into international headlines, which raised $49,000 on her GoFundMe account. She was charged with faking her kidnapping of her family and misleading the FBI. After almost a month of her arrest and investigation, Sherri Papini pleaded guilty to faking her kidnapping and spending that time with her ex-boyfriend.
In April 2022, the U.S. District Court in Sacramento charged Sherri with mail fraud and false statements. As per a People article published on August 28, 2023, Keith Papini filed for a divorce after Sherri accepted her guilty plea. She apologized to everyone in the courtroom, saying she was deeply ashamed of her behavior. Sherri said:
"sorry for the pain I've caused my family, my friends, all the good people who needlessly suffered… I will work the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done."
As per a BBC article published in September 2022, Sherri Papini was sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment and charged with a fine of $300,000 in September 2022. As per the People article, in August 2023, Sherri was released from her imprisonment at the residential reentry facility in Sacramento County.
To learn more about Sherri's story, watch Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini, which is available to stream on Hulu.
