283: Sherri Papini DOUBLES DOWN on Abduction Claims. Says She’s the Victim

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Speaker 21 Hey, True Crime Besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialessly.

Speaker 21 Hey, everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialessly with with me, Annie Elise.

Speaker 21 We have got like the motherload of all deep dives today. It's a case that I honestly did not think that I was going to be revisiting anytime soon.
Not even anytime soon, anytime period.

Speaker 21 I didn't think that I was going to be revisiting it. Yet here we are because this chick, the enigma that is Sherry Papini, just will not go away.

Speaker 21 Now, you might have recently heard that a new documentary came out where Sherry is giving an interview.

Speaker 21 She's retelling her version of events and what happened that day, which if you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry. I'm going to recap it for you.

Speaker 21 But you might have heard how she's like doubling down on her claims. That's not all.

Speaker 21 In addition to doubling down on her kidnapping story or abduction story, she also is making some pretty serious allegations against her former husband and almost as though she's justifying what happened to her and what she did and saying that he is the root of all evil and that he was evil long before the whole hoax thing ever really happened.

Speaker 21 So there is a lot that we need to dissect. There is a lot we need to go over.

Speaker 21 Now, before I give you the very brief recap of who Sherry Papini is and what she did and why pretty much, I would say, the majority of the country dislikes her, I do want to give you some good news, okay?

Speaker 21 You might have heard if you listened to headline highlights last week, but once again, this year, I am heading off to Crime Con. This year, it's in Denver.
Last year, it was in Nashville.

Speaker 21 Last year, about 6,000 people attended. And if you don't know what CrimeCon is, it basically is exactly what it sounds like, almost like Comic-Con, but for crime.

Speaker 21 And it's not some weird, crazy convention. Like, let me just get ahead of it.
It's not like where all these like crazy true crime fans are going and it's all weird.

Speaker 21 It's, I mean, I guess a little bit, but it's more than that. It's basically a convention where, yes, true crime content creators, podcasters, and networks all come together.

Speaker 21 Victims' families also come. Last year, John Benet Ramsey's father was there.
The Petito family was there. Dateline goes.
Court TV goes. Nancy Grace goes.

Speaker 21 And it is just this big crime convention where there are panels, there are live episodes being recorded.

Speaker 21 There are crime scene analysis who are giving you guys tools and tips and things on how they do all the scientific stuff forensically. There's also educational courses.

Speaker 21 And so it's become a pretty big deal. Like I said, last year where 6,000 people went.
And this year, it's expected to be even larger, and it's in Denver. So last year was my first year.

Speaker 21 This year, I'm going back. We're going to have a booth set up again.
I'm going to be doing a live episode from there. I'll be at the booth meeting you.
We'll have exclusive merch.

Speaker 21 We'll have all of the things. But my point in all of that is that I am giving away two free passes to you.
I've partnered with CrimeCon and they sell their passes as like a full weekend pass.

Speaker 21 I think they also sell day passes, but they are giving away two free weekend passes to you. So I'm going to give you some details later on in the episode of how to enter.

Speaker 21 I will announce the winner this Thursday, but give you all those details later on in the episode.

Speaker 21 So if you are interested in coming and you've been thinking about it, but you're not quite sure if you're ready to pull the trigger, just wait and I'll give you the full details.

Speaker 21 And if you know you want to go and you don't want to miss out and you don't want to wait and risk tickets selling out because they definitely sold out last year.

Speaker 21 You can always go to the CrimeCon website and buy your tickets right now. And you can also use my promo code Annie Elise to get 10% off.

Speaker 21 But if you prefer to wait and have the freebies and take your chance at that, totally understand it. And we'll give you the details soon.

Speaker 21 So now let's get into Sherry Papini because, as I said, this woman is like a full-on enigma. I don't even know how to describe her.
I don't know how to get inside her brain.

Speaker 21 There is so much to unravel. And I'm really curious to hear from you after I break down this new documentary.

Speaker 21 Do you think that she was lying all of this time and that it was all some big hoax because she wanted to just run off and be with her ex for a while?

Speaker 21 Or do you think that there is validity in what she is now saying and truth to her allegations against her husband and allegations of the abduction? I'm curious to know what you think.

Speaker 21 So we are going to jump right in.

Speaker 23 I'm Sherry Papini.

Speaker 8 I was abducted and I was tortured, and the FBI said I made it all up.

Speaker 23 I really challenge anybody watching this film.

Speaker 16 How truthful are you?

Speaker 7 Hello.

Speaker 23 I'm Sherry Papini. Nice to finally meet you.
The story that the world thinks they know

Speaker 23 is that I am

Speaker 23 a master manipulator who's fooled everyone.

Speaker 24 That's my magic wand.

Speaker 24 Sorry. I'm going to do ridiculous things because some of this is ridiculous.

Speaker 21 So, this was Sherry's first ever major interview since 2016, since all of this first went down. So, almost 10 years.

Speaker 21 Last year, we did see her husband Keith speak in a docuseries called The Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherry Papini, and he definitely did get to speak his piece.

Speaker 21 We heard some new allegations there and some things that he had to share that were a little bit unsettling, to say the least.

Speaker 21 But now it seems almost as though Sherry's taking her opportunity to not necessarily retaliate, but to speak her version of the truth.

Speaker 21 Now, like I said, I know for a lot of you, the name Sherry Papini is one that you've probably, at the very least, at least heard or are a little bit familiar with.

Speaker 21 But because this case did happen nine years ago at this point, I am going to give a little bit of a brief backstory of just who Sherry is, the main event that had her name and face in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, and just a little bit of the backstory.

Speaker 21 So, Sherry Papini was a 34-year-old mom of two back in 2016, and she was seemingly a very doting and loving wife to her husband, Keith Papini.

Speaker 21 The two of them had married back in 2009, and from then on, it seemed like the rest was history. And I'll be honest, from the outside looking in, Sherry's life was perfect.

Speaker 21 In every single picture of this beautiful family of four, they were all holding each other close, snuggling up next to each other, had these big, bright smiles, just looking as happy and as wholesome, if I'm going to be honest, as possible.

Speaker 21 They were the type of family who people really envied. Keith and Sherry seemed head over heels in love with each other too.
I mean, it just seemed picture perfect.

Speaker 21 They had brought these two beautiful children into the world. They had this amazing love story and perfect connection.
I mean, what's not to envy, right?

Speaker 21 But as we all know, and as I say way too many times that I can even count at this point, sometimes looks can can be deceiving. And what's the saying? He who shouts the loudest has the most to hide?

Speaker 21 And that definitely feels true in this case. And that's pretty much the perfect description of Sherry and her situation.
That is what I will refer to it as. Her situation.

Speaker 21 So on November 2nd, 2016, this petite, beautiful, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, all-American mom went out for a jog, like so many people do in the morning, right?

Speaker 21 It was nothing huge, just a little lap that she was going to make around her neighborhood in Reading, California.

Speaker 21 Something to just get the day started, get the blood pumping, you know, start off the day on a good note, get those endorphins in.

Speaker 21 But not too long into this jog, she was abducted, just grabbed right off the street. She was missing, and it wasn't until later in the day that her absence was even noticed.

Speaker 21 Keith came home from work, and he found it weird that she wasn't there because she typically always was at the house right around the time he got home from work.

Speaker 21 On top of that, the kids were not home either. So, a little bit worried, he ended up calling the kids' daycare to see exactly what time they had been picked up that afternoon from Sherry.

Speaker 21 Maybe he'd get a better idea of what their day had been like, where they could all possibly be. Maybe she picked them up early, took them to ice cream, to a movie.

Speaker 21 But the problem was, the daycare told Keith that the kids had not been picked up at all that day. In fact, they were still there.
So, that is when Keith called 911.

Speaker 25 Hello, can I help you?

Speaker 26 Yeah, um, so uh I just got home from work and uh my wife wasn't there, which is unusual, and my kids should have been there by now from like daycare. So I was like, oh, maybe she went on a walk.

Speaker 26 Um I couldn't find her, so I called uh the daycare to see what time she picked up the kids. The kids were never picked up, so I got freaked out, so I hit like the find my iPhone app thing,

Speaker 26 and it said that her. It showed her phone like at our end of our driveway.

Speaker 27 We don't have really good service. Okay.
Not the end of our driveway, but the end of our street.

Speaker 27 But just drove down there and I saw her phone with her headphones because she started started running again.

Speaker 27 And it's her I found her phone and it's got like hair ripped out of it, like in the headphones.

Speaker 26 So I'm like totally freaking out thinking like somebody like

Speaker 27 grabbed her.

Speaker 28 Okay, what's your address?

Speaker 28 Regina. Okay, what's your last name? Yes.

Speaker 26 Papini, P-A-P-I-N-I. And your first name?

Speaker 25 Keith.

Speaker 28 K-E-I-T-H?

Speaker 26 Yes. Okay.

Speaker 28 Did you go pick up your children?

Speaker 27 No, I'm going to call my mom and have her do it.

Speaker 28 Okay. What's your wife's name?

Speaker 26 I'm going to like knock on every door.

Speaker 27 Sherry. S-H-E-R-R-I.

Speaker 28 And same last name?

Speaker 28 Yes.

Speaker 28 She white female?

Speaker 28 Yes. What's her date of birth?

Speaker 26 It is June 11, 1982.

Speaker 28 Is her vehicle there? Does she not have a vehicle?

Speaker 27 She has a vehicle. It's at the house.

Speaker 28 Okay, the vehicle is at the house?

Speaker 25 She's running. How?

Speaker 27 Okay. Yes, I'm in it right now driving.

Speaker 26 And I took a picture of her phone on the ground before I picked it up.

Speaker 28 Okay, how tall is she?

Speaker 27 5'3, 5'4.

Speaker 28 How much does she weigh?

Speaker 27 100 pounds.

Speaker 28 Eye color?

Speaker 27 Like a bluish blue.

Speaker 28 Okay, hair color?

Speaker 27 Blonde.

Speaker 28 Do you know what she was wearing?

Speaker 25 Is there an outfit she always wears?

Speaker 26 I'm assuming she went running, so

Speaker 27 she's not an athletic textbook.

Speaker 28 Okay, there's not an outfit she always wears or anything like that. Does she run with a dog or by herself?

Speaker 27 By herself.

Speaker 28 Okay. What time are the kids?

Speaker 26 She'll start running again, and we live in a

Speaker 25 last time.

Speaker 25 When's the last time you heard from her?

Speaker 27 She sent me a text asking me if I was coming home for lunch.

Speaker 25 What time was I?

Speaker 26 Give me one second.

Speaker 21 Now, pretty much the moment that Keith called 911, Sherry's case blew up. I mean, not only was her disappearance being covered by local news stations, it pretty much became headline news nationwide.

Speaker 21 All the major programs were reporting on it.

Speaker 21 You were hard-pressed to turn on the TV and not see the photo, the infamous photo of Sherry just big, bright-smiled, smiling with her bangs swept to the side, her long, straight blonde hair.

Speaker 21 It was plastered everywhere.

Speaker 21 And to be honest, the media presence surrounding her disappearance disappearance is one that should probably be studied because I don't know if it was because of her looks, maybe her ethnicity.

Speaker 21 I'm not really sure what. There are a lot of different factors at play.
But for whatever reason, everybody pretty much knew about Sherry and everybody was looking for daily updates on her case.

Speaker 21 Here was this mother, this young mother of two beautiful young children.

Speaker 21 She was happily married, the picture-perfect all-American family, and now she was abducted, ripped away from her family, ripped away from her children.

Speaker 21 Everybody was searching for updates and everybody was praying that she would make it back home to her husband and kids.

Speaker 21 Yet, of course, at the same time, as all of the nation was pretty much praying for her safe return, they also were fearing the absolute worst.

Speaker 21 People were just astounded at the fact that, you know, someone like her, and that's such a cliche quote, but it's true, but they were just shook that someone like her could go missing.

Speaker 21 They didn't understand how a mom and a wife could just be minding her own business one minute, going for a jog in the morning around her seemingly safe neighborhood, and then be abducted the very next moment.

Speaker 21 So maybe part of the public interest and public attraction was because people saw a little bit of themselves in her. I'm not really sure.

Speaker 21 Maybe it made them even more fearful or empathetic towards the situation. I'm not sure.

Speaker 21 Now, as we all know, When somebody goes missing and foul play is suspected to be involved, most of the time, the first person and the first point of contact that investigators will look look to is the spouse, the partner, right?

Speaker 21 And it's all a bit subjective, depending on who you're asking or what video you're watching. But all in all, Keith seemed to truly be a very confused and very scared husband.

Speaker 21 He was doing extensive media interviews. He was constantly pushing for more updates, more information, just really trying to get Sherry's case known and out there.

Speaker 21 And he was just not letting up, which is a good thing, don't get me wrong. And on top of that, he was cooperative with the investigators, investigators, his story completely checked out.

Speaker 21 So now, without the focus being on the spouse, the question really was, and the theory was, you know, where is Sherry? What happened to Sherry? Who could have done this to her?

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Speaker 21 So Sherry was missing. And if you looked at this case from a media perspective, anybody who was watching this case and researching it and just seeing it unfold, she had without a doubt been abducted.

Speaker 21 And a lot of the speculation was that she had been abducted by potential human traffickers. And everybody was, like I said, fearing the worst.

Speaker 21 So although there were some different theories floating as to who could have been responsible, the main root of this that everybody agreed on was that she had been abducted.

Speaker 21 And the same went for law enforcement. Everybody thought that she had been abducted.
And they were not only looking for Sherry, but they were also now looking into any potential avenues of foul play.

Speaker 21 They didn't really have much evidence to go off of, but they were using whatever they had to work with trying to piece this case together.

Speaker 21 Now, what the public didn't really realize at the time was that the FBI was heavily involved with this case behind the scenes, pretty much from the get-go.

Speaker 21 And when it came to the FBI's theories, well, let's just say they were making sure to check all of the boxes. They wanted to just be very, very thorough of all of the possibilities.

Speaker 21 Maybe they were even, I don't know, a little bit skeptical.

Speaker 21 I mean, of course, they were still looking into the possibility that Sherry had been kidnapped because, by all means, it certainly looked like that was the case. But they also had their suspicions.

Speaker 21 Like Keith said in the 911 call, he took a photo of Sherry's phone that was lying on the ground left behind before he picked it up.

Speaker 21 And that picture was a big red flag for a lot of the FBI investigators. To put it bluntly, Sherry's phone just seemed a little too staged.

Speaker 21 It was right there, lying on the ground, face up, no scratches, no damaged screen, certainly not indicative of there being any type of struggle or being thrown out, just almost very carefully and strategically placed.

Speaker 21 So much so, in fact, that the headphones were still connected. They were coiled up together on top of the phone, which if you go back to 2016, that is before AirPods were a thing.

Speaker 21 That's before people were wearing little beats, before any of that stuff. It was when you had the tethered, corded little buds for your ears.
So here it was.

Speaker 21 It was almost like coiled up together, just wrapped like in a circle on top of the phone, almost like somebody laid it on the ground that way.

Speaker 21 And yeah, sure, her hair was also wrapped up inside of it, but it didn't look natural.

Speaker 21 Now, in this docuseries, a woman named Denise Farmer, who was the lead investigator for the FBI on Sherry's case, but has since retired, described their suspicions overall by saying, this isn't our first rodeo.

Speaker 21 Which, that's a pretty bold statement, right?

Speaker 21 Meaning, they had seen kidnapping cases before, they knew what to look for, they had seen some very serious and very gruesome things, and something about this case, it was just off.

Speaker 21 But they couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was.

Speaker 21 And despite all of the extensive searches, despite the FBI being involved, and Sherry's face being plastered nationwide, Sherry stayed missing for three whole weeks.

Speaker 21 But then, early morning on Thanksgiving Day in 2016, Sherry reappeared. Almost as quickly as she had vanished, she was just poof back.

Speaker 21 And she was seen on surveillance footage running through a parking lot almost as though she was running for her life away from her captors.

Speaker 21 She had managed to flag someone down during this sprint, and she had them call 911 for help. And it was truly like a moment out of a movie.
Somebody escapes their captors. She's running.

Speaker 21 She flags down this car. They call 911, and she's saved.
911 emergency. What are you reporting?

Speaker 25 Hi, I have an emergency. There's a lady on the side of the road needing help.
Her name is Sherry Panini.

Speaker 25 Can I talk to her? Here.

Speaker 25 Please, please, Sherry. I need you to listen to me.

Speaker 25 Listen to me.

Speaker 28 Do you know where you are?

Speaker 25 No.

Speaker 25 No.

Speaker 21 I've been in the car. Now, after Sherry reappeared and was discovered alive, there was no question that Sherry was in really, really bad shape.
She had bruises all over her body, all over her face.

Speaker 21 She also looked so malnourished, so skinny. It was almost as though she had been starved for the past three weeks.
And I saw one source that said she only weighed 87 pounds.

Speaker 21 In addition to that, there were burn marks on her skin. Also, her nose was broken.
I mean, it was bad. I definitely cannot deny that.
This woman looked as though she had been put through the ringer.

Speaker 21 Now, one of the darker things on Sherry's body that had been left behind by her alleged captors was a brand on her back, a branding mark right toward her right shoulder.

Speaker 21 It was in the stages of healing. It was scabbing over, but it still looked really rough, really gnarly.
And it was a brand of the word Exodus, like in the Bible.

Speaker 21 The word Exodus just right there burned onto her skin.

Speaker 21 So thinking that's a sign or that it would give the investigator some more information as to who could have been responsible for this, they looked into Exodus.

Speaker 21 But there weren't any verses or anything that really made a whole lot of sense to her situation.

Speaker 21 So it seemed now more almost like a code name or something like that, something more than an actual deeper meaning.

Speaker 21 Now even though this was arguably the most notable thing about Sherry's condition, this huge branding mark on her back, the FBI and the local authorities agreed they needed to keep this branding a secret, at least for the time being.

Speaker 21 Mainly because if it was the work of some sort of human trafficking group or something like that, some type of trafficking ring, they didn't want to alert the ring right away.

Speaker 21 They didn't want to let them know that they were onto them.

Speaker 21 They still wanted to have a chance to talk with Sherry, maybe get some more details about what had happened, maybe learn something that could lead them back to whoever had done this to her.

Speaker 21 But then once they began talking with Sherry, the FBI became more and more skeptical of her story. You see, Sherry seemed to have all of the answers to every single question that she was asked.

Speaker 21 Yet at the same time, it was almost like she had no answers at all.

Speaker 21 For example, she was able to give a description of her kidnappers, who she, by the way, described as two Hispanic women who were wearing masks, but then she explained that they had kept a bag over her head the majority of the time, so because of that, she couldn't really ever see much.

Speaker 21 And Denise, the FBI investigator, noted that she was really descriptive about some of the things, yet never too descriptive about anything of use.

Speaker 21 Like how, for example, she remembered the exact coffee table that she was bent over against when she was branded by her captors.

Speaker 21 She remembered the color, the style of it, everything, yet she could never recall the color of the vehicle that she had been thrown into when she was abducted.

Speaker 21 And Denise almost made a joke about this in the docuseries, kind of being like, you know, I can't exactly find a place or a kidnap her based on the coffee table that they own.

Speaker 21 Like, I need something more, right? And she wondered if that was purposeful on Sherry's part.

Speaker 21 Again, this isn't the FBI's first rodeo, and Sherry's interviews with the investigators just kept bringing up more red flags.

Speaker 21 Denise also noted in this episode that she found the description of the kidnappers to be very odd.

Speaker 21 Because not only do women not typically do the heavy lifting if they are involved in some sort of kidnapping, but in general, women don't really do a lot of kidnappings or abductions.

Speaker 21 I mean, sure, yes, Sherry was a tiny woman, so overpowering her definitely would not have been too difficult, but still, it was just weird.

Speaker 21 I mean, why wouldn't a man be the one doing the abducting and the kidnapping? Why would two women do it? What's the motive there? What's the end game there?

Speaker 21 And it wasn't as though these women were doing the man's dirty work, because according to Sherry, she said that those two women were the only ones that she ever came into contact with.

Speaker 21 There weren't any other women where she was taken to, there was never another man, just these two women that she described. So, what would their motive have been?

Speaker 21 Then there was also the fact that Denise said that during Sherry's interviews with the investigators, she came off as almost flirtatious, kind of like sexual in nature, which that was very odd considering everything that had happened to her.

Speaker 21 But she was smiling and she was laughing most of the time.

Speaker 21 So, again, it didn't seem like the behavior or the mental state of someone who had just gone through hell the past three weeks and finally returned.

Speaker 21 And I gotta say, there are some parallels too with Jodi Arius and how Sherry was acting. And obviously it's very different circumstances, right?

Speaker 21 But in Jodi's interview, in many of her interviews, she did play up the sex appeal, the flirtatious kind of demeanor, almost as though they think their charm and their wit and their personality is going to distract these investigators.

Speaker 21 from the real issue or from identifying any red flags, which spoiler alert, it actually just does the complete opposite. It's not working on anybody and they can see right through you.

Speaker 21 So Denise also thought that it was strange that as more time passed, Sherry still wasn't remembering any new information. And I use the term remembering very loosely.

Speaker 21 Let me just throw some air quotes around it, okay? Because apparently, Denise had worked with many victims of kidnapping.

Speaker 21 And usually, it's very common that as time goes on, the victims will slowly start to remember more and more details. Yet, Sherry never did.

Speaker 21 So when Sherry first reappeared and she was taken to the hospital, the investigators took some DNA samples from the clothing that she was wearing, right?

Speaker 21 Hoping that one day, maybe the results from this DNA would come back and they would be able to really tie this case together. And spoiler alert, it did.

Speaker 21 They did get the DNA hit that they wanted, just not in the way that Sherry was hoping for, I think.

Speaker 21 Now it took years for this DNA to be tested and to get a definitive match, but the match wasn't one that anybody was expecting.

Speaker 21 See, in March of 2022, so six years after this abduction, the DNA came back as male, and it wasn't her husband Keith's. In fact, it was a match to Sherry's ex-boyfriend, a man named James Reyes.

Speaker 21 So when the FBI went to confront James about this and be like, hey, why is your DNA on our victim of an abduction? He pretty much folded like a lawn chair, almost like immediately.

Speaker 21 And what he told the investigators didn't really come as a surprise, but it definitely was a bombshell that nobody in the public, I think, really expected at that point.

Speaker 21 Because James told the FBI that Sherry had wanted to fake the entire thing, that she's the one who orchestrated all of it.

Speaker 21 He claimed he was just trying to help his friend out, this former flame of his, this former fling, and Sherry gave him very specific instructions.

Speaker 21 And according to him, he just played follow the leader. He claimed that Sherry was trying to get out of her marriage, which she claimed to have been miserable in for months.

Speaker 21 So the two of them would text each other on a burner phone, just kind of coming up with the perfect plan, figuring out when they're going to pull the trigger on all of this.

Speaker 21 And sure enough, Sherry did. She had no reservations.
According to her, she wanted to escape her horrific marriage, which don't worry, we're going to get into those allegations here in a bit.

Speaker 21 Now, at first, the FBI wasn't sure if James was telling the truth, because it would have been just as easy for him to say that he went along with this whole thing if in reality he's the one who orchestrated it, right?

Speaker 21 He just as easily could be like, no, it was her idea, it was her, it didn't have anything to do with me. So they needed to vet him.
They needed to vet his story.

Speaker 21 And they were able to do that pretty easily because the FBI became very quickly convinced that James was telling the truth when he told them that he knew about the brand that was on Sherry's back.

Speaker 21 Remember, this is something that they kept very close to the chest. They did not want that detail out.
Yet James knew about it.

Speaker 21 And just like the plan that he claimed Sherry orchestrated, he also said Sherry is the one who branded herself. He claimed that Sherry instructed him to go to a nearby craft store.

Speaker 21 I believe it was a hobby lobby, to be specific, and she had him buy a wood-burning kit. With that, she then had the tools to brand herself, or to have him help her, assist with the branding.

Speaker 21 So according to James, the entire thing was fake. The abduction, the being held against her will for three weeks, being branded by these captors, it was all Sherry's doing.

Speaker 21 Yet, of course, when Sherry was confronted with all this information, she denied everything. She stuck with her story, saying, No, these two Hispanic women abducted me.

Speaker 21 She claimed that she never saw James, she never even came into contact with James. And she even doubled down that she had never come into contact with a man, period, during her abduction.

Speaker 21 No man at all, let alone her ex-boyfriend. But as all of this was happening, simultaneously, the FBI was able to confirm that the two of them had been talking.

Speaker 21 They had been talking for months prior to this kidnapping, all on burner phones, just planning the whole thing, just like James had said. So now it was this back and forth between Sherry and James.

Speaker 21 Who was telling the truth? Surely only one of them could be telling the truth, and it definitely didn't seem like it was Sherry.

Speaker 36 Your presence here is momentary. Yeah.

Speaker 36 You can go at any time.

Speaker 36 And

Speaker 36 all we want is truthful statements because it's a crime to lie to federal officers. Oh, yeah, nice.

Speaker 36 Understood.

Speaker 37 The reason why you got a rash on your arm is because you cleaned his house. The reason why the brand is because he went to the store, bought the branding tools, and branded you.

Speaker 37 The reason why your nose was broke is because of a hockey stick.

Speaker 37 I know all of those things, and I know there was no sex. I know all of that because he passed a polygraph test that said it's not an abduction.
She asked me to come here.

Speaker 36 No.

Speaker 37 I rented a car. I drove up and picked her up.

Speaker 37 He passed the polygraph test, Sherry.

Speaker 37 If that's not what happened, what didn't happen, Sherry?

Speaker 36 I don't know.

Speaker 36 No, there's no way it's changed. There's no way.

Speaker 37 There's no way. The DNA doesn't lie.
His DNA. His DNA was on you.

Speaker 36 There's no way.

Speaker 37 Robert saw you in the house.

Speaker 21 So finally, on March 3rd, 2022, Sherry was arrested for lying to federal agents and for faking her own kidnapping.

Speaker 21 Six weeks later, she pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements and one count of mail fraud. Meanwhile, her husband Keith, he filed for divorce almost instantaneously.

Speaker 21 He also filed for full custody of their two children.

Speaker 38 But now investigators say Sherry Papini made the whole thing up, convincing an ex-boyfriend to take her to Southern California.

Speaker 38 And according to the criminal complaint, her ex-boyfriend said those injuries came from hitting herself to create bruises and burning herself on her arms.

Speaker 38 At one point, even allegedly asking her ex to give her a bruise by slapping a hockey puck at her, telling him, bank a puck off my leg, then telling him to go to Hobby Lobby to buy a wood-burning tool and brand her, which he did, telling investigators Papini never really complained about the pain.

Speaker 21 So Sherry was sentenced to 18 months in prison. However, she only ended up serving a little shy of a year.
Then she was released. Now that is the Cliff Notes version of her hoax, her abduction.

Speaker 21 And this took the media by storm because remember, years had gone by since her abduction, her miraculous return, and then to be hit over the head with the fact that it was all fake, it was all planned by her.

Speaker 21 And she immediately became the villain because now what people were once asking of, oh my gosh, praying that this mother of two and this wife is safely returned home and that she's alive.

Speaker 21 Now people were asking the question, why would this mother of two children and this wife to an amazing husband fake her own kidnapping and leave her children for three weeks, leave her family grief-stricken in turmoil?

Speaker 21 What kind of monster would do something like that? And she was just like the instant villain across every single screen. So that, like I said, is the Cliff Notes version of the hoax.

Speaker 21 It took the media by storm. Now, ever since her release, there has definitely been some chaos brewing in the Papini world.
Because as I said, Keith filed for divorce. He also filed for full custody.

Speaker 21 So they have been in this ongoing custody battle for a long time now over their two children.

Speaker 21 But then in 2024, Keith dropped a major bombshell, one that was going to put the entire custody dispute on its head. Something that literally nobody saw coming.

Speaker 21 Because if people thought that it couldn't get any worse than this mother of two staging her own kidnapping, It was about to get way worse.

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Speaker 21 So now fast forward, two years after Sherry's arrest, and she's also been released at this point.

Speaker 21 And in 2024, Keith spoke out in a docuseries titled The Perfect Wife, The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherry Papini. And in this docu

Speaker 21 Keith accused Sherry of purposefully getting their children sick, making their children sick, sort of like a Munchausen's by proxy situation.

Speaker 21 He was quoted as saying, one day after Sherry was already in prison, as I go and lay my daughter to bed, I push off the bed and I kind of make this little grunt sound like, ugh, you know, I was a little bit sore.

Speaker 21 And Violet, she was like, Daddy, are you sick? And then she goes, why don't you do mommy's trick? So I was like, mommy's trick, what are you talking about?

Speaker 21 And she was like, well, you just breathe in this rubbing alcohol. So I was like, what?

Speaker 21 She then goes to the bathroom and she knows right where the rubbing alcohol is. She wads up a thing of toilet paper, just soaks it in the rubbing alcohol, and then hands it to me for me to breathe.

Speaker 21 Almost like huffing. So he claimed that he then asked his daughter, how often, you know, did Sherry, how often did mommy make you do this?

Speaker 21 Which her response was, well, whenever we got sick, we did it every single day. So he continues this interview by saying, you know, the next thing I know, my kids are getting forensic interviews done.

Speaker 21 We find out that Sherry would soak rags of alcohol and then put it in a Ziploc bag and tie a string to it.

Speaker 21 That she would tie a string around their neck onto the Ziploc bag so that the fumes would just go up.

Speaker 21 so that they would continue to smell the fumes to make them not feel good, so that then she could take them to the doctor.

Speaker 21 Now, I know that that was a little bit of a fractured quote, but I wanted to just recite it verbatim.

Speaker 21 So basically what he's saying is that his daughter confides in him that, oh, you know, every time we're sick, why don't you do what mommy does with us so that you'll feel better?

Speaker 21 You soak the toilet paper in the rubbing alcohol, you put it up to your mouth and nose, and you start huffing it in.

Speaker 21 Then as he tells the authorities and they start getting forensic interviews done, it goes beyond just that.

Speaker 21 It went so far as she would soak these rags in the rubbing alcohol, put it inside a Ziploc bag, open the Ziploc bag, then make that like a necklace that they would wear around their neck.

Speaker 21 So they're inhaling these fumes just all day until ultimately, it of course made them very, very sick. And she would then have to take them to the doctor.

Speaker 21 Now, these are obviously very serious allegations, pretty hefty claims. And I think both sides of the authenticity of these claims could be argued, right?

Speaker 21 Because like I said, they are in an ongoing custody battle. So her reputation had already gone to complete shit at this point.

Speaker 21 I mean, that happened the moment she was arrested, and it doubled when she pleaded guilty, and all of her stories and lies came to the surface.

Speaker 21 So, now you add in that she's potentially abusing her children as well. She would never stand a single chance of getting custody, not parental visitation rights, not shared custody, not full custody.

Speaker 21 I mean, nothing.

Speaker 21 However, like I said, I think you could probably argue both sides because could this just be one more thing thing that proves that Sherry is unhinged, that she's dangerous, and that she, I don't even know what the word would be, not egotistical, but always has to make things about her, her abduction, Munchausen's by proxy.

Speaker 21 Like certainly it could prove that. And Keith may very well just be wanting to protect his kids, especially in a custody battle.

Speaker 21 But it could also be argued that Keith wanted to win this custody battle and that he had resentment towards Sherry for running off with her ex-boyfriend for three weeks, for lying about the abduction, and that he could fabricate a story to make her look worse than she was, which, or more dangerous, I should say, than she was.

Speaker 21 So there was a lot of division as to what was to be believed, although I will say the majority of feedback that I saw in the public was that people were siding with Keith.

Speaker 21 They certainly believed him because I think that it was easy to believe that Sherry would be capable of something like that given her history.

Speaker 21 But there were some people who questioned the reality of it, the truth behind it. So that was aired out in 2024, not very long ago, right?

Speaker 21 And now in comes this new docuseries and it just released and it's being advertised as a type of like Sherry Papini finally speaks or Sherry Papini is ready to tell the truth or tell her truth, which I'm just going to go ahead and lay it all out there.

Speaker 21 I 1,000 million trillion percent believe that this is all part of some greater plan to try and prove that she is not this psychotic monster and that she deserves to see her children, that she is the victim in this.

Speaker 21 I think it is carefully crafted, carefully orchestrated, just like her abduction story.

Speaker 21 Because if it's not part of a plan in the greater scheme to see her children, It all just seems like very coincidental timing, right?

Speaker 21 Why didn't you speak out and share your version of the truth until now? Why have you waited years? It's been almost 10 years since the abduction itself. Why now?

Speaker 21 Why did it have to be when custody was threatened? I don't know.

Speaker 21 And you tell me what you think as we start going through her new claims in this docuseries, which I also just have to throw this out there before we get into it. And I will mention it as we go.

Speaker 21 Her behavior in this docuseries was very uncomfy to watch. It was, I don't even want to say cringe or ick.
There needs to be a new word for it.

Speaker 21 She was like thinking that she was funny and charismatic and like making jokes and flipping her hair and thinking that she was like funny and cute, but to me, it just looked like a woman who was highly disturbed, if I'm being honest.

Speaker 21 And this really kicks off within the first few seconds of the episode in episode one of the docuseries because she's laughing, she's making jokes, and it's really honestly uncomfortable and difficult to watch.

Speaker 21 And if you had no idea what this case was even about, her demeanor definitely wouldn't have even clued you in. She didn't give any sort of indicators, it just felt very performative.

Speaker 23 Hello, I'm Sherry Papini. Nice to finally meet you.
The story that the world thinks they know

Speaker 23 is that I am

Speaker 23 a master manipulator who's fooled everyone.

Speaker 24 That's my magic wand.

Speaker 24 Sorry. I'm gonna do ridiculous things because some of this is ridiculous.

Speaker 21 So the first episode really dives into things like her disappearance, the FBI skepticism, her magical return home, except we already start to see this narrative that Sherry is trying to create through this.

Speaker 21 There's talk about how Keith only cared about his image, how he made sure that the media portrayed their family as happy, whole, and wholesome, and, you know, the perfect all-American family the entire time that she was missing, despite other people close to the family saying that in reality, it was the complete opposite.

Speaker 21 Then, when Sherry sits down for her portion of the interview during this episode, the producers just kind of lay it all out there for her.

Speaker 21 They immediately just say point blank to Sherry, you're a convicted liar. So tell me, why should we believe you now? And her response to this wasn't even trying to sugarcoat it.

Speaker 21 I don't know if she thought that this was going to land. I don't know what she was thinking.
But she asks, Haven't you ever lied? Have you ever lied in your history of existence?

Speaker 21 And then that lie has been blown up and broadcasted around the world. It's so much more complex than just pointing the finger and saying, you're a liar.
I'm sorry, it's not that much more complex.

Speaker 21 You lied about being abducted. You lied about your captors.
You pulled a race card out saying it was two Hispanic women.

Speaker 21 You branded yourself and said that it was your captors who branded you, and you were gone for three weeks. Like, it's...

Speaker 21 The story is, yes, complex, but that is not somebody who tells a white lie. That is not somebody who says a small little lie and then it gets blown up and broadcasted.
That is a diabolical lie.

Speaker 21 So as you can imagine, she now is with this is kind of coming from this angle of, yeah, I lied about some things, but with good reason. And now I'm ready to share the truth.

Speaker 21 So you should just believe me because now I'm going to tell you the truth, which after almost a decade, which again begs the question, why now? Why are you finally ready to share your truth?

Speaker 21 So immediately, she starts talking about Keith, just building off things that were already introduced in this segment. She agreed that yes, he was all about his image.

Speaker 21 The image was so important to him, that he wanted her to be the perfect wife. He didn't want anything to ruin their reputations.
He didn't want this hoax to ruin their family's reputation.

Speaker 21 He was just very much, you know, image, image, image. And I made note of this earlier, of the fact that she talked about how immediately after her arrest, Keith was just like done with her.

Speaker 21 He wasn't even there to pick her up when she got released on bond. He just left her to kind of fend for herself, though she did have some people there.

Speaker 22 I can't just treat them. How do you feel about that?

Speaker 22 Do you want to say anything?

Speaker 22 You think you'll be doing five or twenty years?

Speaker 22 I don't know how to hunt people who've donated money, Sherry.

Speaker 22 What do you say about the site saying that you defrauded $30,000?

Speaker 21 Huh, Sherry?

Speaker 22 Sherry, what do you want to say?

Speaker 21 I was elected gel. Do you cheat on your husband? By the time she made it back to their house, though, her things were all in trash bags and she was told to leave and find somewhere else to stay.

Speaker 21 And look, I'm going to try to not get too heated or opinionated here, but let me just ask you this question.

Speaker 21 If you had supported your spouse and had been writing for them for literal years, backing their story in their corner, totally defending them to anybody who was skeptical of what the truth may be, then you find out that they've been playing you for a fool the entire time and lied to everyone and left you and your children willingly.

Speaker 21 How would you react? I'd probably do the exact same thing. You know what? I wouldn't even put the stuff in trash bags.
I'd probably torch it all, honestly.

Speaker 21 So maybe some people will think that Keith overreacted in that situation. I don't know.
Maybe not. I certainly don't.

Speaker 21 I'm just saying, like, what this man had gone through for six years of just having her back and supporting her, going to PTSD treatments, to just giving her everything she needed and doting on her, then to find out, uh, no, it was all a lie.

Speaker 21 It was all fabricated and orchestrated by her. I would imagine that that sense of betrayal runs pretty deep.

Speaker 21 So then she starts getting into her story, which buckle in, grab your popcorn, because this is where it gets truly unhinged. She claims, she double downs, and she claims that James, her ex,

Speaker 21 that he kidnapped her and that he held her hostage. She says that he beat her and tortured her for 22 days.
And she made a big deal of the fact that none of it was consensual.

Speaker 21 None of the interactions, none of the physical interactions, that nothing was consensual. It wasn't planned.
She didn't tell him to come pick her up. Nothing.
She was basically saying, I was abducted.

Speaker 21 And yeah, it wasn't two Hispanic women who abducted me. It was him who abducted me.
Point blank, period. Which I have to say is pretty rich, right? Maybe there's truth to it.

Speaker 21 Again, I want to know what you think. You tell me if you believe this, but I think that's pretty convenient.
And why are you only saying this 10 years later?

Speaker 21 Why would you plead guilty and have to serve time in a facility in prison or jail or whatever the facility was if this was your truth, if this really happened?

Speaker 21 Why go through all of the public torment and being painted as a liar and all that if this is what really happened? It makes no sense. Now here's how things all went down, according to her.

Speaker 21 She says that there was some type of relationship between the two of them, but around that time when all this went down, she could tell that James was getting feelings for her.

Speaker 21 So she knew that she needed to end things before things got too sticky.

Speaker 21 But when she tried to end it, he apparently got very angry and he started threatening her, saying he would show up to her house or to her husband Keith's job, that he wanted to be with her, that he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

Speaker 21 Yet she says that she still wanted to end things, but because of how angry and passionate he was becoming, she figured that it would be better to do so in person.

Speaker 21 Just a final goodbye, as she described it. So she told him they would get together that day, that she was going for a run, and that was that.

Speaker 21 Only during her run, she says he showed up and that's when he kidnapped her. Which first of all, let me just tell you this too.

Speaker 21 Keith lives in Huntington Beach, or lived in Huntington Beach at the time. She lived in Redding, California.
Those aren't neighboring towns. That is hours of a drive apart from one another.

Speaker 21 So it's not like, oh, he found out that morning they were going to meet up later that day and she was going for a run and he just happened to cruise by the neighborhood.

Speaker 21 Just logistically, it didn't make much sense. Also, why were they communicating leading up to this kidnapping or this abduction with the burner phones? Well, don't worry.

Speaker 21 She had an answer for that too. She then switches gears in order to explain the entire story better and she goes back to her marriage with Keith.
And she starts painting Keith as very controlling.

Speaker 21 She says, things were okay when they were both working, but when she got laid off and became financially dependent on him, he apparently started showing his true colors.

Speaker 21 She claimed that he started isolating her from her friends and her family. So because of that, she basically became just very lonely, very miserable.

Speaker 21 And she also described that Keith apparently came up with a new rule.

Speaker 21 This rule was that Sherry wasn't allowed to talk to him at night, and she wasn't in any position to not obey because she was dependent on him financially. emotionally, lovingly, whatever it was.

Speaker 21 She also told a story that happened prior to their wedding when she had gone to one of those wedding expos. Those used to be really big back in the day.
It was like a big wedding convention.

Speaker 21 I think they still are around a little bit, but certainly not to the degree that they used to be. But it's like where you could find florists, wedding dresses, colors, linens, whatever it is you want.

Speaker 21 I mean, maybe they're still as big, but I have never heard of them. But you get what I'm saying.

Speaker 21 So there's this video that was played during the episode of her outside of this expo, where she's bragging about how Keith showed up to the expo to surprise her and support her, help her plan for the wedding that they were both so excited about.

Speaker 21 Now, she claimed that the video was a good example of how things really were in their relationship. Picture perfect on the outside, but a complete disaster on the inside.

Speaker 21 She claimed that Keith hadn't shown up to surprise her in a supportive way, but rather because he hadn't trusted that she was actually where she said that she was going to be, saying he wanted to catch her in a potential lie.

Speaker 21 And like I said, that was before they were even married, so according to Sherry, apparently it just got worse and worse over the years.

Speaker 21 She even noted that after the abduction, but before her arrest, Keith still continued to control her finances. She said, and I quote, Keith decided that we're going to file for disability.

Speaker 21 So every single month, the social security disability would go into my checking account, and you would see a Zelle withdrawal straight to Keith Papini, including the first deposit of $20,000.

Speaker 21 No Starbucks, no gas, no clothes, no nothing. I had zero control over my finances.

Speaker 21 I used to come over and clean his Aunt Pam's house every once in a while just because I didn't have any access to money, so she would give me cash in exchange for cleaning her house.

Speaker 21 And I will say, interestingly enough, they pulled up picture proof of those withdrawals on the docu series, and they even reached out to Keith's legal team for comment, which his team claimed that the withdrawals were for, quote, shared household expenses.

Speaker 21 So maybe that's true, maybe she has some truth in there, maybe it's somewhere in between. I mean, take that how you may.

Speaker 21 Now, all of that to say, that it was this alleged abuse and control that had been going on for years from Keith that ultimately led her to reaching out to her ex James in the first place.

Speaker 21 She clarified that she was only ever emotional. cheating, because again, she says that she felt lonely and she felt isolated.
She just wanted somebody to listen to her, somebody to hear her.

Speaker 21 And according to her, she knew that James would be that person.

Speaker 21 Now, I do want to just throw this out there, even though I don't necessarily believe everything that she is saying, but I want to be clear.

Speaker 21 If this is all true, it's obviously really, really sad because any case of spousal abuse or financial abuse is incredibly heartbreaking and absolutely unacceptable. It's emotional control.

Speaker 21 It's emotional power. So I don't want it to seem seem like I don't believe that things like this never happen or make it seem like we shouldn't believe women who come forward or anything like that.

Speaker 21 I'm just putting it into context with everything she's lied about already and admitted to lying about and where there could possibly be motive now for this new lie.

Speaker 21 So again, do your own research, come to your own conclusions, form your own opinions. She absolutely might be telling the truth.
We do know that the FBI proved she faked her own kidnapping.

Speaker 21 She admitted to it when she pleaded guilty. Now her story's changing again.
But that's really all we know. Those are the facts that we have to work with.

Speaker 21 And in my opinion, she is a master manipulator. And like most master manipulators, I think that she throws in a bunch of little truths to then make the lies seem more believable.

Speaker 21 But then again, maybe everything she said about Keith is true too. I don't know.
Who really knows?

Speaker 21 So going back a little bit, like I said, she started messaging James, and she said that she didn't want to get caught by Keith because they had a post-nup agreement in place.

Speaker 21 It would essentially leave her with nothing and in a really bad life predicament, so she had to do this under the radar. It had to be in secret.

Speaker 21 And the post-nup pretty much said that if she was ever caught cheating and they divorced because of the cheating, that she would get absolutely nothing.

Speaker 21 And being that she already had basically nothing, she felt like she would be screwed if she got caught doing this.

Speaker 21 So by saying all of this, she's essentially arguing that the whole purpose of the burner phone was to protect herself while emotionally cheating.

Speaker 21 The burner phones weren't purchased or used to concoct this elaborate kidnapping scheme. It was simply done so that she wouldn't get caught emotionally cheating.

Speaker 21 And to be as fair as possible, I do want to mention that during episode two, one of the investigators does say that technically anything is possible.

Speaker 21 They were never able to access all of the messages on the phone to see the full conversations, and I think they worded it somewhere along the lines of, the only people who know what they were talking about all of those months were James and Sherry.

Speaker 21 And they obviously are both saying very different things.

Speaker 21 So as far as all of that goes, we can't say 100% for a fact that Sherry was lying about what the messages entailed, because we just don't know. We don't have them.
We haven't seen them.

Speaker 21 It really just comes down to who you personally believe. Which brings me to my next question.
What if James kidnapping her really was the truth? Why did Sherry not just come forward before?

Speaker 21 Why not tell the truth when the FBI was, you know, breathing down your neck, threatening to arrest you, which they obviously did end up doing.

Speaker 21 But again, according to Sherry, she had an answer for all of this. She knew exactly what to say.
And Sherry pretty much argued that she never came forward before because it was very simple.

Speaker 21 She was terrified. She claimed that James warned her that he was going to be watching the coverage on the case and that he would know if she told anyone, specifically if she ever told on him.

Speaker 21 She also claimed that he threatened her with the leverage that he had against her. AKA, the emotional cheating, the back and forth messages, all of that.

Speaker 21 Now, my only thing with that explanation is why not tell the FBI when they first confront you about everything, or not even when they confront you, right out of the gate when you are rescued and reappear, why not tell them that James was responsible so that they can arrest him and put him behind bars so that he can't hurt you?

Speaker 21 Which I get it, it doesn't always work perfectly like that. Sometimes it doesn't work like that, and that's why a lot of people who are victims do not come forward.

Speaker 21 But my point is, if you even remember back to to what I said earlier on this episode, when they found the DNA that matched him, he, of course, said, no, she orchestrated this. It was all her doing.

Speaker 21 But easily that could have been a lie. He could have just been saying that because he didn't want to get caught as being this kidnapper and this abuser.
But they had the DNA.

Speaker 21 So why not tell the FBI the truth almost 10 years ago now, if that really was the truth? Why now?

Speaker 21 And I guess you could argue that she was still worried about him telling Keith about the cheating and then her being stripped away with nothing if Keith divorced her so that she would just continue this lie.

Speaker 21 I don't really know.

Speaker 21 I get that sometimes with there's a lot of fear and there's a lot of unknowns, you want to pick the lesser of two evils, but it's almost kind of looks to me like she chose the greater of two evils instead.

Speaker 21 So I don't know, just some food for thought. Now her main thing through all of this is that everything was done with her kids in mind.

Speaker 21 She says she survived the kidnapping because she was constantly thinking about her kids.

Speaker 21 She says she didn't come forward because she didn't want Keith to find out about the emotional affair and then get full custody of the kids.

Speaker 21 She didn't tell Keith the truth about this fictitious story because she didn't want to lose custody of the kids, just the kids, the kids, the kids.

Speaker 21 So again, the reason that I believe that this is all coming out now with this motivation of looking good in this custody battle is, once again, because of the kids.

Speaker 21 Especially because she brought up what Keith said about her in that 2024 docuseries. You know, the Munch Hausen by Proxy stuff.
And her explanation for all of that?

Speaker 21 Well, it is something.

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Speaker 21 So now we get to the part of the docuseries where Sherry addresses the Munchausen by proxy claims, to which she claims the idea of her poisoning her own kids is not only insane, but just absolutely untrue.

Speaker 21 She explained that both of her kids have extremely sensitive skin and that they always get rashes whenever they use Vic's vapor rub.

Speaker 21 So she says that whenever they would get sick, she would have to come up with something else to help them feel better, but she would need to accommodate their skin issues.

Speaker 21 If she wanted to give them the vapor and the fumes, but not put the Vicks vapor rub on their skin and cause it to be irritated.

Speaker 21 So according to her, the next best thing is huffing, I guess, because she says that she would take a cotton ball, fill it with peppermint essential oils, then put it in a Ziploc baggie and tie it around their neck like a necklace.

Speaker 21 Very similar to what her daughter claims Sherry did, although now she's substituting that rubbing alcohol for peppermint essential oils, and she also is saying that it's because she didn't use Vicks vapor rub, but that she wanted them to have those fumes.

Speaker 21 She also made it very clear that she never let them go to sleep with it on and that it wasn't ever tied very tightly around their neck.

Speaker 21 She claimed it would always be loose, it would always be hanging down around their chest so that the vapors would just be right there under their nose, almost as if they had Vicks on their chest.

Speaker 21 Now, could that be true? Possibly. Do I think it's true? Probably not.
Even if your child has sensitive skin and you don't want to use VIX, fine, don't use VIX.

Speaker 21 But then put some oil in a diffuser in their bedroom. That's what I did with my daughter.
That's what I still do with my kids.

Speaker 21 I use VIX as well, but you put these oils and these, you know, whether it's eucalyptus, peppermint, whatever you want to use it, put it in a diffuser so that they're inhaling it all night.

Speaker 21 Or put it in a cotton ball and tap it right under their nose. Don't put it in a Ziploc bag around their neck and just have them walk around and lay down with it.
That makes no sense.

Speaker 21 But again, it's almost as though, back to the master manipulator conversation, little bits of truth peppered in with a lie.

Speaker 21 So is this just enough to where it explains the Ziploc story, but in a way that it doesn't make her look as bad? Possibly.

Speaker 21 But then again, remember that that during the forensic interviews, the children said they had to do this so frequently that it didn't help their illness.

Speaker 21 It in fact made them sick and it made them go to the doctor. So what's the truth?

Speaker 21 And just for fairness sake, one of Sherry's attorneys did note in episode three that the allegations that had been made by Keith are completely unfounded.

Speaker 21 She basically says that she's her divorce and family court attorney.

Speaker 21 And if that was something that was proved and actually on the table when it comes to the custody battle, that she would know about it.

Speaker 21 But I just got to say, for not only that allegation that Keith made, because that is a very serious allegation, but also the allegations and the accusations that now Sherry is throwing towards her ex-James, is nobody scared about like slander or defamation?

Speaker 21 Those are very serious things. And you're saying it on a huge national platform, international platform.
Are you not scared of the repercussions if they're not true? I don't know.

Speaker 21 I mean, I would be, right? So then toward the end of episode three, Sherry starts discussing some sexual trauma that she experienced as a child.

Speaker 21 And very similar to the financial abuse that we talked about, this isn't something that I'm going to argue against or really question.

Speaker 21 I want to make it clear that the only thing that I do not believe her of being truthful about is the abduction. I think that that is completely fabricated.

Speaker 21 Other than that, I don't know what is true, what is not true, and I'm not about to question somebody's life story about things like that.

Speaker 21 And the only reason I believe that the abduction story is fake and a lie is because the FBI has also come out saying that it's a lie.

Speaker 21 Everything else in Sherry's life absolutely may be true, and that is her story to share.

Speaker 21 But the reason I even bring this up is because her therapist argued that this trauma from her childhood, as well as her parents' reaction to the trauma, is a huge factor into her diagnosed self-defeating personality disorder.

Speaker 21 And it's a huge factor into everything else that has taken place in in her life.

Speaker 21 And there's one really huge thing in episode three that I want to touch on because it might be a detail that makes your opinion sway one way or another about if James really did commit this kidnapping and abduction.

Speaker 21 Because, like I said, she's retelling this story of how the abduction happened, how she agreed to meet with James. It was going to be sometime in the day.
She went on a run, all of those things.

Speaker 21 So she says on camera, that when she noticed that it was James in the car, she dropped her phone in complete shock. Then, as she bent down to pick it up, everything went black.

Speaker 21 That was the last thing that she remembered.

Speaker 21 But what doesn't equate with that version of her story is that there are transcripts from an interview that Sherry did after her reappearance, where she full stop admitted to her husband Keith that she's the one who pulled out her own hair and that she pulled out her hair and strategically placed it on those headphones because she knew that by leaving that behind, it would indicate that she had been kidnapped.

Speaker 21 And the exact quote in the transcript is: I knew you'd find my phone. I knew you'd find my phone and my hair.
I knew you would find it. I knew you would.
That's why I pulled it out.

Speaker 21 I knew that you would know. I knew that you would know.
So the producers called her out on this, pretty much saying, Okay, well, which is it?

Speaker 21 And I am not joking, you can see her face just go completely, not like ghost wipe, but like shell shock. Just was not expecting it.
She is fully stunned.

Speaker 21 And then she gives some kind of random answer that makes absolutely no sense to the situation, just kind of faking like she's confused about what they're even asking, even though they asked it clear as day.

Speaker 21 They literally said, did you drop your phone by accident or did you place it there for Keith?

Speaker 21 And I don't know what else she could have thought that they were saying, but she was acting confused, acting like she didn't understand the question.

Speaker 21 And ultimately, she ended up saying that she was telling the truth about it falling by accident.

Speaker 21 So apparently she was lying about all the strategy and hair replacement and, you know, placing it there for Keith to find.

Speaker 21 So then in episode four, the last episode of the series, Sherry took a polygraph test.

Speaker 21 Now prior to taking the test, she said that she was not worried about the test at all, that she hoped it would be worth it, but she wasn't concerned in the least.

Speaker 21 Now this test, it came back with mixed results. So if you were hoping for a solid result to maybe sway you one way or another, don't get too excited.

Speaker 21 But there were three questions that Sherry answered no to that came back as truthful.

Speaker 21 And those questions were, at any time between November 2nd and November 24th, 2016, did James tell you that you were free to leave? She answered no, and that was truthful.

Speaker 21 While at James' house in 2016, were you free to leave at any time without fear of violence? She answered no, and it came back as truthful. Did you ask James to brand you?

Speaker 21 She said no, and it came back as truthful. But then there were some questions that came back as inconclusive.

Speaker 21 Those were, did you arrange for James to pick you up while you were out on your run on November 2nd, 2016? Do you remember getting into James's car on November 2nd, 2016?

Speaker 21 On November 2nd, 2016, did you enter James's vehicle voluntarily? So all of those questions came back as inconclusive. So does that polygraph test really clear anything up one way or another?

Speaker 21 Not really, in my opinion, especially because you have 10 years almost to master the answers and the behavior, right?

Speaker 21 It's also important to note that in this episode we also learn that pretty much nobody in Sherry's life, even the ones that she is still close to, believe her entire story.

Speaker 21 For example, her mom Loretta doesn't even fully believe it. She was quoted as saying in the documentary, quote, no, it wasn't a kidnapping.
My daughter was very, very unhappy in her marriage.

Speaker 21 She wanted some kind of happiness. When he showed up and Sherry went with him, it wasn't a kidnapping.

Speaker 21 It was more of a, I want to have a little bit of happiness in my life because it's been very, very hard.

Speaker 21 Even her own sister-in-law, Keith's sister, who let her live with her after she and Keith had divorced, doesn't believe her entire story.

Speaker 21 She told the producers, quote, I think that she thought that she and James were going to go on a daytime date, and he knew that she was going to be in that location because they were in communication.

Speaker 21 But I saw her body. I saw her brokenness.
She doesn't have any sort of historical context of being into physically abusive sexual practices.

Speaker 21 And it's also very problematic to me that if it were to be true that she orchestrated all of this, that even if she were to go to someone and say, hit me in the face, or drug me, starve me, burn me, that he's never had to have a consequence to that.

Speaker 21 So again, it's interesting to me that even those closest to her feel that she often mixes the truth with a set of lies.

Speaker 21 Her mother is saying that she went with James willingly, that it wasn't a kidnapping, that she just wanted happiness. Meanwhile, her sister-in-law says, yeah, they were in communication that day.

Speaker 21 They were going to go out for a day date, then James abducted her.

Speaker 21 Even if he didn't abduct her, and if that was fake, and he was hitting her and branding her at her direction, why has he never had any consequences for that?

Speaker 21 Now, as of when I'm filming this episode, there was supposed to be a court date for a custody hearing on May 20th. However, it was delayed due to flooding at the courthouse.

Speaker 21 And so far, I haven't seen anything about it being rescheduled. So I'm not sure when that's going to take place.
Maybe it will have taken place after the time of this recording.

Speaker 21 But regardless, I will definitely be seeing some updates here soon. I will keep you updated as well because I am very curious to see how all of this plays out.
But my question for you.

Speaker 21 is what do you think of this docuseries? Did it totally blow you away and give you a whole new perspective into Sherry's case? Do you believe her?

Speaker 21 Or did it solidify your opinions about her as being a master manipulator? Thank you so much for listening with me today.

Speaker 21 I know that it was a little bit of a roller coaster, and hopefully, I will not have to talk about Sherry Papini ever again.

Speaker 21 Well, except for the update with the custody stuff, but I'll probably just like bake that into a headline highlights episode.

Speaker 21 Other than that, I will be talking to you again this Thursday with an all-new headline highlights. So tune in for that and keeping you updated on all things Karen Reid.

Speaker 21 The defense is fully underway now, painting their picture of what really happened that night.

Speaker 21 And I'm curious to know where you guys sit with that, too, if you've been following it, because it has been a very wild ride of a trial so far.

Speaker 21 So, all of those updates, of course, get posted every single Friday. So, as I said, thank you so much for tuning in.

Speaker 21 And until the next one, be nice, don't kill people, don't fake your own kidnapping, don't brand yourself, and definitely, definitely, definitely don't make your kids like huff any fumes.

Speaker 21 All right, thanks, guys. Bye.

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