E949 – Going Deeper with Sherri Papini

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Sherry Papini, welcome to the Vile Files.

Thank you for having me.

Well, thank you for coming.

I imagine these must kind of give you anxiety or, you know, you get nervous talking about the story or do you look forward to it because, you know, so many people have doubts.

Talking about the story, no.

Coming on things like this and definitely not used to the microphones and cameras.

Yeah, this definitely isn't normal.

It's not normal.

Our hope is always when we have these, whether it's obviously a more serious, heavy topic like this or talking to our friends, is

to just be people in a room having a conversation, you know, rather than it feeling like an interview.

So that's, you know, ultimately our goal.

So hopefully that can rest you at ease a little bit.

We just got done watching the new docuseries on Macs.

Have you had a chance to see it?

Yeah, and I actually saw it just like everybody else.

You know, I didn't have creative control on

the documentary and wasn't a part of that.

So I saw it at the same time everybody else did.

How did that opportunity uh present itself?

When did you first find out that HBO wanted to do this docuseries?

And why did you decide to be a part of it?

You know, it was a big collaboration with a team that I've been working really closely with, and I really had no idea that HBO was going to pick it up.

I'm just the subject, you know, that's kind of not really a part of anything else there.

But I, it was something that I'm incredibly grateful for.

It was quite shocking.

What was shocking about it?

That HBO was going to be producing it.

What were you hoping that it would be?

What were you hoping to get from deciding to be a part of this experience?

Just knowing that you had no creative control.

You know, working with the director and the producers of the show,

the primary objective for them was to create something that was balanced.

And I think that they did an exceptional, even extraordinary

job at continuing to make sure that it was objective and it was honest and it was steeped in integrity and balance.

And that's pretty terrifying for someone like me because when you have this very biased opinion going into it, when you have to balance something by showing something positive with something negative, but you're already going into it with this very negative bias on me, it kind of already tips the scales.

So it was terrifying for me.

It was terrifying.

The truth is very easy.

And I think a lot of people that are familiar with my story and what happened,

there was a lot that didn't fit.

You know, the primary narrative prior to me engaging in this project, it didn't align.

You know, it just did, there was a lot of things that were left unsaid and a lot of things that didn't fit.

And I think we accomplished that with this documentary.

There's a lot of things that I wish could have been in there.

There's a lot of things that I wish weren't in there.

But primarily, there was this storyline to what happened happened to me that didn't seem to flow.

Everyone kind of saw the news coverage and it just didn't seem to fit.

And now I think we've we've captured that with the docuseries.

Did you watch the one on Hulu that your ex-husband was a major part of?

Sadly, yes, I did.

Unfortunately.

What were your initial thoughts on that one?

It's heartbreaking.

It's extremely difficult to watch your children be exploited in the way mine were.

Yeah.

You know, and not being a part of of it because

that documentary was created while I was in prison.

So there's not a lot of capacity for me to fight for my kids.

And,

you know, it's excruciating to watch both my son and daughter be put in there so much.

And how old were they in that documentary?

Young.

They were, you know, around the age of nine and 11.

And I don't know when it began exactly.

I just know it was primarily filmed when I was in prison, but young enough that they really, it's unnecessary for them to be exploited in the way that they were.

And if you notice in ours, their faces are blurred, their audio is removed.

And, you know, it's as a protective mother and watching the documentary, it did its job in demonstrating that I'm a caring, loving mother to my children.

But of course, you just want to, you know, keep them away from everything.

And they were really dangerously exploited in it.

You mentioned there were things that you wish were in this docuseries and things that you wish weren't.

Can you elaborate on both?

Well, I think first and foremost, there is quite a lot of audio on James's very informal interrogation in the documentary.

And,

you know, there's not to do too much inside baseball, but, you know, there's length of time and there's edits and there's things that we can and can't put in the film due to time constraints and things like that.

I don't really know too much about that process, quite frankly, but there's a lot of that audio that's quite shocking.

And

I think that for me, it's having listened to that audio and studying that audio and listening to law enforcement officers feed him the questions and

him starting to lie in the very beginning and them literally saying, here's what we can offer you and we'll make that go away.

You know, that's not in there.

And it's really valuable and important to the case.

And we're expecting this

experience to be almost like a trial by media, frankly, because I didn't get a trial.

I signed a plea agreement.

And those are really valuable, important pieces of my case.

What are things that you wish weren't in there?

You know, when you go through the filming process, you're in the chair and you're interviewing for hours.

I mean, I...

It was a year process for me.

So it was hours and hours and lots of lengthy interviews.

And while there was a relationship developed with my director, she was still not my friend.

She was there to be objective and she was there to investigate and find the truth of everything.

And so you see little bits and pieces of my personality come out or when I'm nervous or something like that.

And as you know, you guys do this all the time.

There's little things that it's captured on film that you're like, oh, no.

Oh, don't put that in there.

That's really awkward.

So for me, you know, again, I'm under a level of scrutiny that most people aren't.

And I've really, it feels like I've been given this life sentence.

So it's difficult to watch those little bits of things that I have no control of being out there that

get really

humiliated.

And it's, it's quite embarrassing.

And, you know, there's a line, my, my poor mother, my mother tried to explain something.

And when you don't have control over your own audio and it gets cut and clipped and they don't show where someone has the capacity to rehabilitate, it can be taken wildly out of context.

What part specifically are you referring to?

Well, when my mom was kind of stumbling over her words and she was trying to explain what she thought the situation was in when she says it's not an abduction and what she came to understand.

So it doesn't go into the rehabilitation portion where she comes to say, you know, and then I grew to understand what actually happened.

But there's, you know, dramatic effect for everything.

And so you're, yeah, because I think that was a part that, you know, we watched that we was like, oh, her, her mother doesn't think it was a kidnapping.

Well, I mean, it's shocking.

It did its job, you know?

So.

So you're, you're saying that they edited that in the docuseries to make it look like she said that rather than her actually saying that?

Or she said more and they just didn't air the rest of what she said.

Correct.

She was able to rehabilitate herself quite a lot more, and there was a little bit more context surrounding that.

So are you saying that's what they did and they changed the the context or that your mother changed her mind after she said that?

Oh, no.

My mom definitely knows that I was held captive and that I was kidnapped.

And that's definitely the stance that she saw.

And like I said, you know, there's, there's context to be added there.

And while everything was very confusing in the beginning, we have a greater understanding of what actually happened now.

And that is not how my mom feels.

No.

Do you imagine your mom will speak out publicly to clarify that?

I think given the opportunity, opportunity, sure.

Yeah.

Looking back at, you just mentioned you didn't get the trial, you signed the plea agreement.

Do you regret not getting a trial?

Well,

I mean,

if it would have been a trial, Sherry Pepini versus James Reyes,

I would have, yes, absolutely.

But that's not what my option was.

It was Sherry Pepini versus the United States of America.

And it's Sherry Pepini versus the federal government.

That's quite intimidating.

It's not only quite intimidating, but

they make the rules.

And so it's really difficult to win something that's already rigged.

I don't think I would have had a very good opportunity.

And in the end, my options were to take accountability.

I wanted to take accountability.

I didn't want to take as much as they gave me,

but

I wanted to demonstrate my remorse for the secrecy and the cover-up and take accountability for what I did.

Have you been paying attention to the internet and opinions about your case and what people have to say, whether they do or don't believe you?

Um, I do, you know, I've been in this storm for almost a decade now.

So I do a really good job of being able to turn it off.

I don't do the read the comments and things like that.

But what I found is,

you know, generally those that don't believe are heavily defended people people that have been touched by some type of trauma in relation to

a circumstance where there's been deceit or someone has lied to them.

So I'm sure you can recall in your life someone lying to you or someone being dishonest with you.

It kind of gives you this

defensive stance, right?

That's what.

it's made for.

When we create defenses, it's meant to protect us from something.

And so when you're presented with very substantial evidence and then you still turn away and say, well, I'm just not going to listen to her because she's a liar, the chances are really likely that you've been

traumatized or hurt by someone who's caused that kind of hurt or trauma in your life.

And I feel for them.

You know, I feel for those people.

It's difficult to be up against a lot of other opinions when you haven't lived my life and you haven't been through the things that I've been through.

But again, I really see it as like someone else that's been through something that um is preventing them and keeping them in their ignorance and keeping them in some somewhere where they just won't look at evidence and um become unbiased what's some of the evidence that you feel exonerates you or proves your story that you think people are not paying attention to you know i think a lot of people are paying attention to it and i think a lot of people now are seeing that my testimony it fits it tracks you know that's one thing that my director continued to say is my testimony, my evidence, it tracks from start to finish.

There is a flow to it.

It's very simple, and the truth is usually a lot easier to follow, and it's a lot simpler to follow.

Okay.

I think one thing that people who don't or are having a hard time believing your story, I think, you know, you mentioned, you know, I think in the docuseries, you kind of asked that question, like, have you ever lied?

You know, I think the obvious question for all of us is we, we all have, right?

Which I think makes people kind of want to empathize with you and things like that.

I'm sure you know, not all lies are the same, right?

You know, I think, you know, as a young child might lie.

And then there are lies where there's, you know, a lie to cover another lie, to cover another lie, to cover another lie.

And I think, you know, your original story, the story where you, you know, seemed to get caught in the lie and you initially blamed it on two Hispanic women and things like that.

There was a lot of

detail in that lie originally that people, I think, when they look back and see your testimony and the interrogation from the police officers, they seem to have a

hard time

understanding that story.

It's my understanding now that you're saying that your reason for doing it is you're kind of trying to breadcrumb the cops to try to lead them towards James.

Is that yeah, and that's that's an excellent, that's a very valuable bit of information.

I really wish that would have been in the film because the sketch that was created you know these aren't made-up people they were real people and so if you take a picture of James's mother and it was spoken about briefly in the film but they what they didn't do is they didn't show you a picture of her and his mother looks exactly like the sketch.

I mean, if you compare the two, you would be like, oh yeah, that's absolutely James's mother.

Which one?

So the one with her eyebrows?

Yeah.

Yeah, it looks exactly like her.

And, you know, I understand that there is a lot of

discomfort wrapped around that watching that interrogation video.

There is with me as well.

I really,

it's heartbreaking to continue seeing it over and over again and to continue seeing.

what I did to mislead law enforcement officers.

And like I've said in the film and even in my book, going into detail about how painful that was for me and how difficult of a situation I was in, because my intention wasn't to commit a crime and my intention wasn't to try and continue a lie to commit a crime.

It was to, for my own safety and it was to keep being with my children.

You know, I got nearly six years of being at home with my children, keeping this emotional affair that I had a secret.

And as you can see in every interrogation video,

especially that last one, my husband is sitting next to me the entire time.

And so admitting that I was having an emotional affair and that I had any involvement at all meant losing everything, which is what you see now.

Exactly what I was afraid of happening happened.

And, you know, that last interrogation, it was awful.

You know, it was three very aggressive, challenging men.

I didn't have my advocate with me.

I didn't have any.

attorney representation.

I had an angry husband who was figuring out what was going on.

And I had two law enforcement officers who were very much not on my side.

And it's really extremely hard to watch.

Why did you feel like

the

thought of this emotional affair coming to light, your children finding out about it, your husband taking your kids away, was scarier than the law enforcement men saying this is illegal if you lie to us and this is a crime and we'll arrest you.

You know, like, why did the emotional affair seem scarier to you in that moment?

I think that's a pretty good indicator that there were some pretty severe abuse in my relationship.

If I am more afraid of my ex-husband than I am of law enforcement and going to prison, and frankly, throughout the three prisons that I've been in, Victorville Federal Prison was the safest that I felt in 16 years.

What did you make of your sister talking about how in the time in which

before they realized James was involved that anytime you saw an Hispanic woman or even a woman with brown curly hair that you had an emotional reaction or you act triggered essentially accusing you of faking your trauma well I think

everyone is held to a degree in this case and I'm held to a much stronger degree than anyone else you know because I lied and because I have a charge for moral turpitude um I

I have to provide a lot more than most people.

So, when a testimony is found to be inaccurate and untrue, then from then on, you have to provide a lot of backup and a lot of evidence.

And what I found from the Hulu documentary is it's all just a lot of, you know, in court now, we call it hearsay, right?

So, there's not a lot of evidence to back that up.

And there's a lot of emotions that are mixed into it.

So, I can see where she would feel that way and say things like that, but that does not make it true.

Do you think she's lying about that?

Not necessarily saying that she's lying.

I think that there's an over-dramatization about some things and not of others.

What part of

her, I guess, lie or embellishment, where was she even getting that from?

Why do you even think she might have thought that?

Well, after the abduction and after captivity, I was very severely traumatized and I was experiencing quite a lot of PTSD.

There is a lot of relational pieces that have to do with the abduction.

And again, these sketches, they're real people.

This is not real.

This is the other person.

It's

someone that was involved.

So when James would leave, he would have me observed by other people.

He would have me watched.

So he had a family member, two family members that lived in the same cul-de-sac, one of which had a wife.

And then we have James's mother.

So these are not made-up people.

They're real people.

And while I know that it's deeply flawed to create people that, you know, weren't James, I, I didn't really have a whole lot of options.

And what I did, it's very, it's deeply unfortunate.

It's deeply unfortunate.

And I did the best that I could.

And it was interesting to watch my docuseries and listen to.

a little bit of inaccuracies inaccuracies as well.

I did not request the sketch.

I am not the one that requested doing the sketch.

In fact, I didn't want to do the sketch.

It was my ex-husband that was pushing for it.

And you hear the FBI agent say, he was really annoying and he kept getting in the way.

There was a lot of demands on his behalf that were very, very uncomfortable.

Did you,

the people who helped James, his mother and this other person, did you share that story with law enforcement?

Well, no, I didn't share the story.

With law enforcement, everything was a cover-up.

No, I mean after James's involvement at any point, because I don't remember you mentioning that in the docuseries.

No, I haven't spoken to law enforcement about anything.

I took the plea agreement, I went to prison, and this is the first time that I'm speaking about it.

I haven't formally spoken about it.

So, you're saying right now is the first time you kind of mentioning that he had accomplices in your kidnapping?

Oh, no.

I mean, it's mentioned.

It just didn't make it in the docu-series.

It's in the book as well.

Did James ever like threaten you if he were to give you back to your family?

Like, if you tell anyone that this was me, I will kidnap you again.

I will come and find you.

Like, did he ever threaten you with any of that to scare you into not giving his name?

It was 22 days worth of threats, you know, and the negotiation process to

be freed and to be able to go home.

That was a large portion of it.

And during captivity, he said, oftentimes, like, I'm going to be watching you because there was already so much news coverage.

And he'd been telling me about the news coverage, you know, he told me that everyone was looking for me and which was great for me because I got to use that as a negotiation tool with him.

You know, being like, they're never going to stop.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I said that during captivity to him.

And so, you know, I had insurmountable odds against me because I'm in an interrogation room that I know this video is going to be leaked and it's going to be put out there.

And he's going to be watching.

He's going to be watching for me to keep him secret because that was part of my bargaining chip to get home.

Um, so yeah, it was quite difficult.

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You mentioned at the end of the docuseries that

I guess like your one wish is that James be held accountable.

Yeah.

Well, you listened to the FBI agent say, you know, she's the girl who cried wolf.

And that's, yes, that is a tale as old as time, but the person who cries wolf still gets very hurt.

And,

you know, you listen to him say, we need the footprint of the wolf.

There is a literal footprint on my back.

We need a picture of the wolf.

Okay, you know who he is and you know where he is.

We need a written and signed confession.

Okay.

He

has an obligation for himself, self-preservation, to stick to his story.

He

has the opportunity to really heal a lot of people.

You know, if he were to come clean and tell the truth about what happened and his culability in the crime, it would heal an entire community.

It would heal my family.

It would heal my children.

It would heal my friends.

But it's highly unlikely that he's going to do that.

Don't you think telling law enforcement about his alleged accomplices and the possibility that they could find or

question his mother or this other person might lead to him being held accountable.

I had so many moments where I almost broke.

I had so many moments of trying to steal away to tell them more things that would lead directly to him.

I was just really too scared.

And you see that in the interrogation video, you see a very desperate woman in a very difficult situation.

I mean, I suppose even now, though, wouldn't you want them to track his mother down and this other person to, you know, because like what you're accusing them is horrific, right?

Obviously, to kidnap someone and torture them.

They all knew that I was there.

Yeah.

You know, and the people, the people, the

other relatives that were living in the cul-de-sac, they all knew that I was there.

And so

it's difficult because in my case, there's very obvious culpability of other people.

You know, if you knew that I was there, this many years went by, you said nothing.

You had no involvement.

And for James to say, oh, I was just a friend helping a friend.

Like, if I came to you and said, will you hurt me?

Will you brand me?

Will you starve me and beat me and drug me?

You'd be like, money.

Yeah.

I need to make a phone call.

And then also at the end, like, let's just send you home to children.

Like, that, that would be, if I asked you to do that, obviously it would be a deeply wounded person, a deeply

terrible individual.

And he admits that he has culpability in it, but he's not held accountable for it.

So, you listen to law enforcement say, you know, if she asked for it, then it's not a crime.

And if she wanted to go with you, then it's not an abduction.

So, let's start again and let's, you know, go from here because we can erase where we said that you were lying because we know you're lying.

So, they give him an opportunity to rehabilitate himself after already lying to law enforcement officers.

So, when you have two

testimonies that are inaccurate for purposes of deceit, right?

Mine's inaccurate for my deceit, his is inaccurate for his deceit.

What do you have left?

You have the evidence that's on my body, and it's clear that there is multiple injuries, if not most of the injuries that I couldn't do myself, couldn't possibly do myself.

That means that somebody had to do them.

That's not me.

And I am telling you there was no consent and I am telling you I did not ask for that.

So however you take that, that, it demonstrates culpability.

How many people from your understanding knew that you were being held captive by James?

Probably about four, maybe more.

I don't know who he, who else he spoke to, but a handful of people.

Don't you wish they would be

questioned or interrogated?

you know, because I mean, I feel like that would be the best chance of James being held accountable.

I mean, certainly you understand, like, I'm not no expert in law enforcement or anything like that, but I would assume that accomplices would be quicker to crack under questioning and things like that.

You know, they, you know, it can be easy to get caught up on something.

Maybe his mom wanted to help his son and was confused by what James was doing or this other woman that you say was there.

But like, doesn't that bother you that all these people,

you know, witness your abduction and know this truth and, and haven't been questioned that could lead to him being held accountable.

Well, doesn't it bother you?

I mean, if it's true, yeah, for sure.

But I would, I would definitely want them questioned.

But I guess, like, why haven't you tried to get someone to question them?

Well, I don't have a very good relationship with law enforcement at this point.

And it's something that I'm trying.

Okay.

I'm trying to do.

You know, again,

when you have a charge for moral turpitude, your testimony is not taken seriously.

Your testimony is,

you know, I have a charge for moral turpitude for lying.

So as much as I'm trying to get it taken seriously,

it's just not.

And frankly,

I didn't give law enforcement that opportunity.

When we were in the middle of the case, I didn't give them the opportunity to do that.

Do you know their names?

The two women who, like James's mom and his

aunt-in-law?

um it so that there's an uncle and there is a cousin and the cousin has a wife say something sure when they interrupt it it actually the fbi did interview her we have the fbi interview with them acknowledging that they watched it on the news and didn't say anything and yet everybody was granted kind of whatever agreement everybody made but they were certainly interviewed and we have their interview and furthermore for the documentary we hired a private investigator try to do just that but this clan would not break on each other why didn't they include that in the docuseries that's a decision that you have to ask each now wow okay how long did you date james for back in 20 a year or so okay not and had he ever been physically abusive towards you yeah there was a lot of quite disturbing things towards the end of our relationship it's the reason why it ended very abruptly.

In fact, I ended, he was staying late at work and I packed my car and I left.

Can you recount, if you're comfortable, any of the things that he did to you?

You know, James is a really sick individual.

He has a proclivity for violence and he's

he's one of, you know,

it's really difficult for me to talk about.

It's an attachment to

really disturbing things, but it is, it's really uncomfortable to talk about.

He's pretty disturbed.

Okay.

Sadly.

You know, and you watch

in this docu-series, especially, like, I've gone through so, so much scrutiny and so much.

I've had psychiatric evaluations and lie detector tests and interrogations and all of these things.

And they say he's passed a polygraph test, but did he take psychiatric evaluations?

Do we know anything about his mental state?

We know that prior to the abduction, he was very disturbed and he put a lot of very disturbing posts on Facebook.

They don't show that, which I was really disappointed in.

And I think getting to understand his

mental state would be really helpful.

If you had finally broken free from that relationship, you'd moved on, you were in a new relationship, you had children, what

prompted you to spark that relationship back up and start talking to him again, the person who had hurt you?

Well, his brother had passed away and I was really attached to his brother.

He was such a sweet boy.

And so actually my mom and I had sent something to his family and then we just continued talking.

And for me, it was one of those like, he's out of town, so it's safe.

I was so deprived and I was so starving for some kind of a connection because because I just was not getting that

that he had a very easy in, you know, he preyed on something that was really vulnerable to me.

Weren't you worried that a man that you just described as kind of a monster and this kind of very troubled person, like, wasn't that concerning for you to in any way let this person back into your life despite your connection to his brother?

Thank you for saying that because

yes, the reason why I kept it platonic and the reason why I kept it phone and text is for that very reason.

And it's yet another clue, if you could say, that leads one to believe that I wouldn't have left with him and I wouldn't have agreed to go anywhere with him.

And in fact, when he came to Reading, it was to try and end the relationship because he wanted more than what I wanted.

But how did you establish using a burner phone with him?

At what point in the beginning of this emotional affair with James did you guys start doing that?

Um, you know, my husband, my ex-husband, um, he was very controlling, and that means turning over your phone at night and allowing him to check it at any moment.

And there was a lot of restrictions going on in my house, and there was a lot of control going on in the house.

And when they say, well, there was men's names saved under women's names, like I was not allowed to have conversations with whoever he deemed inappropriate, whoever he deemed inappropriate.

And so there was a lot of concealment to even have a standard or normal life.

And so, when there was a moment where

I was caught by Keith talking to someone else in a very platonic way,

I had tried to end things with James.

And so, it was his idea to get these burner phones to keep concealing it because I was really scared.

And he knew that I was really scared of Keith and the punishment and what would happen

if I continued to engage.

How did you guys go about getting those?

He sent me a phone.

How did you send them to you?

To my mom at her work.

Okay.

And you just like, did your mommy have any idea about it?

Or you just like gave them your mom?

No, he just sent a package.

Gotcha.

Back to, you know, you mentioned, you know, you had your fears, but why, you know, and certainly know what it's like for people to feel unseen, but why not literally anyone else?

You know, maybe someone at a coffee shop or, you know, anyone else other than maybe going back to James, even if it was just, you know, over phones.

Well, I think it's, it's difficult to understand the degree of

coercive control that was happening in my relationship.

You know, it's difficult to understand.

With Keith or James?

With Keith.

Oh, gosh, with Keith.

It's difficult to understand when you have a spouse who is eliminating everyone in your life and eliminating all of your friends and your social circle and even alienating you from your own family.

You know, so it was, it wasn't necessarily about me reaching out to him.

It's he found the open door and he found that vulnerability and he completely forced his way in there.

And unfortunately, in the past, I was quite meek and I was very agreeable and didn't have the type of confidence that I have now and was really easy to be taken advantage of.

What name did you have James under in your phone when you originally reached out about his brother?

I don't remember.

That's a good question, though.

Yeah, I don't remember.

When you were in captive,

were you

like, did you have access to the outside world?

Were you watching TV?

No.

No, James would discuss things here and there.

So if I participated in certain acts and I participated in the things that he wanted, he would grant me access to certain things.

Like, did you even know what day of the week it was at any point?

No.

So imagine, right?

You have probably a watch or an iPhone or whatever.

Imagine being in this room without the lights and no access to time.

Pay attention today to how many times you watch the clock, how many times you check the time,

and how easy it is for you to get oriented just even by daylight.

And then imagine that being completely stripped from you.

Your mom talked about your relationship with Keith.

And again, maybe things were context was changed, but it seemed like watching the docuseries that she like understood why you didn't want to be with Keith, like the more that was revealed about that marriage.

And that's why when she, again, allegedly said,

you know,

at least what we watched, is that she didn't think it was a kidnapping, it felt like she was like, I understand why my daughter wanted to leave that marriage.

As if she understood why you might have, as people are accusing you, to fake this kidnapping, you know, and set this thing up with James.

And it felt like your mom was like, you know what, I don't even care what the truth is when it comes to whether this is a hoax or not.

I believe my daughter when it comes to her relationship with Keith.

And I understand, you know, why she wanted to get out so much.

You know,

what are your feelings about that?

You know, we hear so many stories of how scary it can be to stand up for yourself and leave a relationship like that.

That like sometimes the only thing you can come up with is something as crazy as faking a kidnapping or things like that but but you're you're just saying that's not true it's far more simple than that you know i um i was

um i was really struggling in a very abusive relationship that led me to a very dangerous man and that's that's just really as simple as it is and being able to have this relationship that i have with my mom now and finally coming out of everything and then finally telling her the truth.

It was like, oh,

that makes so much sense, you know, because she'd watched everything and she'd watched my relationship and she'd watched my marriage.

And where it makes sense to have wanted to be engaged in an affair, the abandoning my children did not fit.

And the hoaxing, a kidnapping, it didn't fit.

But when you explain it so simply, you know, and you say, this led me to a very dangerous man, and I got involved in something that was, I got in over my head.

You know, talking to James was one thing, but I was not expecting to be held captive and tortured for 22 days and then had no way out.

Your sister on the Hulu dock mentioned about some, I think you told her there were like slits in your back.

You had scars in your back or that Keith discovered some scars.

That ringing a bell or no?

I don't talk to my sister.

I don't have a very good relationship with my sister.

What's your parents' relationship with your sister?

My sister is highly abusive to my parents.

And so they are doing the best they can to manage what they can as her mom and dad.

But she's, you know, just because we're your children, it doesn't give us the right to be abusive.

Of course not.

Just because you're a child, it doesn't mean that you can harm.

your parents.

And she's very harmful and she's very toxic.

Is it more physical or emotional or bad?

Emotional.

I mean, she's just horrible to them.

And it's, it's really, it's very sad to see.

When did the two of you drift apart?

Or had you ever been close?

No, Sheila and I were never close.

We were close for a short period of time.

And when the abduction happened, that's, and she started getting on the news with Keith and started getting highly involved with everything.

That's when she suddenly became a part of my life.

You know, she was very involved with being on camera, just as Keith was.

And then she started developing a really inappropriate relationship with Keith.

And then they got really close.

And they still are really close.

they are still close.

Yeah, they still have a, I would say, is a highly inappropriate relationship.

Do you think there's anything

going on?

Or do you think there's a romantic relationship starting?

I do.

I do.

I think that there's a lot of inappropriate things that have happened between Keith and Sheila and a lot of things that I've seen.

And in fact, I really wish I had this really cool home video that I had that I was hoping would end up into the film where you see Keith and Sheila engaging physically

in a way

that then you hear my dad in the background go, oh God.

Where do you stand with your fight to have custody of your children?

Where do I stand?

Yeah, like what's what is that an ongoing process or are you still in court or?

How's that going?

So we're at the first part of the trial and,

you know, we had the first half of the trial and then there was a continuance and then the Chastity County court flooded and it was closed for a while.

So we have to push it even further.

And now, sadly, my trial is pushed out until July.

So it's a lot of just waiting and waiting and trying to have patience to get there.

But I'm hopeful.

I'm incredibly hopeful.

I mean, you saw my lawyer.

I got a heck of a lawyer.

And we've listened to Judge Barton, who's the judge that I have, say, you know, we don't take children away for lying.

It's not something that we do here.

And so I'm hopeful.

When was the last time?

Or how often do you get to see your children?

Well, unfortunately, right now I get to see them once a month for an hour.

And I'm supposed to have weekly phone calls, but

as you saw in the last trial, Keith said he wasn't going to follow court orders, even if they were given.

And so I'm supposed to have weekly calls, but I get them once a month.

Can he be reprimanded for that?

Yeah, it's called contempt of court.

Okay.

We'll be doing that.

One thing I was really fascinated by in this docu series is your relationship with your sister-in-law, Keith's sister.

Yeah.

And she very much has your back I think that one of the more profound things she said was regardless of what you think about Sherry Papini is that those kids are much safer with Sherry than they are with Keith I mean obviously you opened up about your relationship with Keith but what are her experiences with Keith that caused her to have such a you know definitive opinion about her brother well I can't speak for her okay but um you know she's been a family observer for a number of years and um I think it says a lot about someone who is deeply involved in therapy and therapy modalities and

can see that he is not someone that she can be close to.

I think that says a lot.

Suzanne is a deeply caring person and she's always been open to mending a relationship and working in a relationship.

He has not.

And he's been incredibly unkind.

And the fact that she's she is on the side of the children in my court case, right?

She's remained very neutral, but she's going to be coming in on my side if you were to be on a side.

And because of that, she's been erased from her family.

You know, they've treated her so unkindly.

And same with me.

I mean, in this family, if you don't comply, you are erased.

And it's incredibly harmful.

And so I think when we say the kids are safer with me, There's this relational piece in it that's happening with this alienation.

And it's a type of family where if you don't follow orders and you don't comply and you do something wrong, you're gone.

You're done.

You're annihilated.

It's assimilate or annihilate.

It's a very harsh family system.

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The day you are found, one thing the FBI, like they raised questions, you know, with it being on Thanksgiving.

And it was at the time, it seemed like kind of a beautiful story.

It's, oh my God, she was found on Thanksgiving.

When you were trying to get James to release you, did you, like knowing it was Thanksgiving, were you trying to be home for the holidays, so to speak, to spend time with your children?

No, I had no idea it was Thanksgiving.

I have no idea how that even happened with James.

I would presume it was probably because he had enough time off of work to drive all the way to Northern California.

That's just an assumption of mine, but I wasn't a part of that process and I didn't even know it was Thanksgiving until I was in the back of the ambulance and the EMT said, by the way, happy Thanksgiving.

I had no idea.

How did your relationship with Keith change once you returned to the family and was freed yourself from James?

It was non-stop interrogation.

It was non-stop trying to catch me in something and nonstop trying to pressure me and use me in any way that he possibly could to get accommodations and things like that.

Did you tell anyone or reach out to anyone?

Because it seemed like

from what we saw, and again, we saw limited stuff that it's almost as if you kind of had your family back and seemed like you were trying to heal and mend things with your family.

As much as things were,

I tried deeply to conceal them.

You could see them quite clearly, which is demonstrated by my parents saying, you know, she was alienated from us and it's been incredible to have her back.

And it's also demonstrated in saying that Keith Papini's sister took me in.

What was prison like?

That's a good question.

You know, I...

We didn't really have the opportunity to go into that in the film either.

There's a lot of really fun stories in the book, but it was extremely, it was exceptionally challenging.

You know, I, I was, when I was tackled in front of my children, which was really unnecessary, and taken, I was held at the Sacramento County Jail.

So I spent time in both jail and in a women's federal prison.

But still, it was the safest I felt in 16 years.

You know, I've been imprisoned by James, imprisoned by Keith, and imprisoned by the federal government.

And that was the safest that I felt.

Did you make any friends?

So many friends.

Did you keep in touch with them?

Within the parameters of what's acceptable with my probation yeah okay the prison that they showed on the docuseries was that the actual prison that you were incarcerated at okay because the the one that they showed seemed like a pretty serious facility i've been to one like that okay like what other crimes did the inmates that you were incarcerated with commit like some pretty serious criminals there's a lot of variances there you know there's a lot of different

inmates to different degrees.

When you're sentenced and you're sent to a federal prison, they give you a point system depending on the offense, right?

So we have minimum, maximum, and medium security, and then we have the

women's camp.

So it's kind of a level of degree.

Also, if you've served for an extended period of time, you can transfer from more of a medium security prison to, say, a federal prison camp.

You know, there.

There was a time where I was in prison and documentaries continued to come out, films continued to come out while I was in prison and all of the women were watching them.

And there was this time where there was a show that was on where they said, well, she's just in a federal prison camp.

It's not a big deal.

The reaction from the women in the camp, that was one of the first times that they actually had a little bit more empathy for me

because they were, you know, saying, oh, it's not a big deal.

She's just at a federal prison camp.

And it's a big deal.

It's an absolutely a big deal.

And just because it's a camp doesn't make it any less excruciating to be away from your friends away from your family and away from your children and it was really gruel it was very grueling we heard from one of your friends remind me her name yeah mo mo

um and she kind of mentioned how when you first entered the story kind of came out uh she herself is hispanic and she was saying that you know, kind of a lot of the Hispanic women in the prison were like, you know, kind of raising their eyebrows at you.

Do you realize the impact that saying the two Hispanic women, putting that out there had on the Hispanic community?

Well, I think that that there's a lot of blame put on that as well.

And that's something that's been existing for a long time.

And

it was not my intention whatsoever.

You know,

I was deeply affected by that.

And I have a lot of sorrow for that, but it was absolutely not my intention.

My intention was to find, get them to find James Reyes, who is Hispanic.

And it was just a breadcrumb.

It was not meant to be made into this big race issue.

It was just a breadcrumb to lead investigators to James Reyes.

And like Mo was saying, the women were like, wait a minute,

they're saying you're racist, but you were dating this guy.

So it doesn't, there's a lot of things that don't align that are salacious, you know, that are.

overly salacious.

And I do feel deep empathy and sorrow for anyone that was harmed or interrogated or investigated during this.

That was not my intention whatsoever.

But I also can't take responsibility for how law enforcement handled themselves.

I can't take responsibility for the pressure in which they used to interrogate other people.

I take full responsibility for what I did, sure.

But that

race issue was there way before me.

way before me.

Given you mentioned this

how long race has been an issue in this country and things like that.

Why didn't it cross your mind how damaging that accusation could be given just how popular and just how worldwide your story was?

Like, why didn't you think of that given the historical ramifications of race in this country?

Well, I would hope that if a crime was committed to someone, and you are of a different race, that you would focus on the crime rather than the race of it.

If I'm saying that James Reyes is Hispanic, because I'm white, why is it considered a race issue?

Yeah, but it wasn't, I guess, James, you were accusing two women.

Well, I understand you mentioned that these women were based off of people you had met.

Right.

Couldn't you have given a different description, you know, other than I wish, I wish that that was anonymous.

Because we ended up finding out his mom's not even Hispanic.

Well, that wasn't the point.

The point wasn't to lead them to his mother.

The point was to lead them to James.

So it's not, it wasn't because there was a race-related point.

It was to get them to go to James.

What other kind of clues or breadcrumbs did you offer the law enforcement or anyone else to try to lead them to James after your release?

I described everything with absolute accuracy.

So the only thing that was lied about was the identity of James.

Everything was described with accuracy.

Every injury, every description of the room, everything that I could give them to lead them to where I was without saying where I was was accurate and true.

Did you ever like mention like, because you knew where he lived, right?

I generally knew where he lived.

I'd never been there before.

Okay.

Why didn't you give them like the area or like the neighborhood or, you know, anything like that?

I mean, I didn't know the neighborhood that I was in.

It wasn't until way later that I even knew that I was in Costa Mesa.

Gotcha.

The internet seems to be hung up on

the phone, the headphones, how it landed,

what that whole thing is.

What happened when you saw his car pull up and then back up with the phone and your headphones?

It's and you know, during the process of filming, that was such an excruciating process.

And being in that position, it's difficult to realize and understand that you're on camera, be directed by a crowd of people, and then also reliving everything, not just reliving everything, but it's now eight years later and you're having to relive everything.

So it's difficult to be accurate about that.

Do you remember being like, I'm going to, because your hair was in the headphones, do you remember being like, let me do this so that.

Keith can find me and know that something was wrong.

Do you remember it, you just dropping it out of your hand out of pure like, oh my God, who is that?

And you dropped your phone.

Like, do you remember any of those scenarios happening?

It's, yeah, it's,

it happened in such a, you know, you're asking me to describe a two-second incident eight years ago

in distress.

I know.

I know.

No, it's okay.

Um, but you know, it's from what I remember, from what I can remember.

And it's unfortunate because what I gave law enforcement was the lie, you know, it was part of the lie.

So now it's like, I have to go back and attempt to clean up what I had said.

And, and it's got to be heartbreaking for my husband, too, to

not know which part was accurate and which part wasn't.

But, you know, it's those gummy headphones.

My hair is all over the place.

And it's really easy to get your hair caught in them.

So whether I pulled it out on purpose or whether it was already just kind of in there, I really don't know.

But dropping the phone, the phone dropped and then it was pulling it out because it's a long string.

And then however it laid on the ground, there was no coiling or intention in that.

No.

You don't know how it got wrapped around it.

No.

And I don't think it did.

I think the photograph that they show, it's not wrapped.

It's just kind of all piles on top of it.

What did you mean that it must have been hard for Keith?

Well, given now that the...

the facts of the case are out and he himself is has more access to the evidence i could see where that would be extremely heartbreaking

why do you care Why do I care?

Yeah, I mean, because I'm a loving, caring person.

I'm not outside.

But he also is obviously so emotionally abusive to you.

You know, I guess why were you worried about that?

But just because he is doesn't mean I have to be.

I'm not seeking revenge.

I'm not trying.

I'm not trying to hurt him.

He did try to put out in the media that you were abusive to your children.

Do you think that was part of his tactic to kind of pile on?

Why do you think he would sacrifice, you know, his kids like that?

Well, I think, you know, something like 56% of marriages fail in America.

And so that means that there is a lot of people in the family court system right now.

And there is a lot of people that have to go through separation and divorces.

And I think, unfortunately, I've come to understand that when you get a divorce and false allegations are made, it's quite common.

And that is heartbreaking, but very, very true.

And I think a lot of people that have watched the documentary can really relate to what it's like to separate from a toxic ex and what retaliation looks like, as you can clearly see happening to me, what retaliation looks like, what false allegations look like.

It's really quite common.

And it's unfortunate for him because, first of all, it doesn't add up.

Like it's not even a good lie for him to have committed.

And it's proved, as you can see through evidence, concluded to be unfounded and it's closed.

So it's heartbreaking to watch him use.

I mean, that's where you see me get really passionate about it.

Whenever I talk about my children, I get extremely emotional and I get very passionate.

And you see that in the documentary when I say, you know, this is something you have to live with forever now.

And he's used my daughter as a pawn.

to

make these false allegations.

It's incredibly heartbreaking.

And I mean, in my opinion, it's borderline child abuse to use her in the way that he has and exploit her in the way that he has.

Did your children make any hospital visits or anything like that from any injuries that they sustained from just an accident or anything?

He claimed something about you wrapping alcohol bottles around them.

Oh, it's so absurd.

Yeah, he

what he claimed doesn't make sense.

And generally, when things don't make sense, that means that something is missing there.

There's something that's inaccurate.

So is that that just

it's just wildly made up.

There's no like, yes.

When did he claim that happened?

Okay.

So after,

right, just before I signed the plea agreement, he was having difficulty with me signing the plea agreement.

There's a lot of ego involved in this case.

And so he had gone to my attorney.

And after my attorney had spoken to him, he came to Suzanne's house where I was staying to get me to sign a contract.

And that is yet another regret.

I wish that there was more of that recording with Keith in that documentary because it would really demonstrate quite a lot of what I was going through at the time.

But he wanted me to get a sign to sign a contract.

And if I signed this agreement, I could go home and I could be with my kids and I could live with him and the children and it would be fine.

But he would need to have complete control.

And I was living with Suzanne for months now and I was able to be with Suzanne and able to have safety.

And I was already planning to divorce him anyway.

And at this point, I didn't want to sign the contract.

I didn't want to go back to him.

And he threatened me.

And he said, if you don't sign this contract, I'm going to bring the world down on your head.

I'm going to take your children.

And it's not going to be very hard because have you read a paper lately?

Then he filed for divorce when I decided not to come home.

And false allegations followed that.

And that is what's common.

And that's what you see in family court quite often is you have, you know, the people that you see in family court, it demonstrates that there's toxicity in the relationship.

If there wasn't, they would just amicably split.

They wouldn't end up in court.

And it's very sad to see that it's common.

And that's a common thing to experience that people experience in family court.

And that's what happened to me.

You know, I decided not to go home.

I decided not to sign the contract.

And then right after that, false CPS claims were made.

This documentary was created.

I mean, it's a very clear line from A to Z of retaliation and coercive control.

Just given everything you say he did, I mean, one could make an argument that this all starts with Keith.

Like, regardless of what caused James to abduct you, the emotional relationship that started with James started because of his alleged emotional abuse.

And you mentioned when we first started talking, this life sentence of so many people doubting you, the damage it's caused, not being able to be with your children, having your community kind of, you know, cast you away.

How can you not have more anger towards your husband?

I think that's what was so exciting about me coming on your guys's show because you're so fascinated in these relational pieces, right?

And so being able to have this opportunity to get asked questions like that, like you lose that sometimes.

And there's such a big relational piece to my case.

And

so, you know, thank you for giving me that opportunity.

I'm really grateful for it and grateful to be with people that are engaged in that relational piece of me.

So do you, you really don't have anger towards him?

Oh, no.

You know, I've reached the point of indifference at this point, you know.

I went through a mourning period, you know, of a marriage that ended.

so deeply sad for my children.

That's first and foremost for my children.

I'm deeply sad.

And you have to get to a point where you hate each other less than the love that you, you love your children more than you hate each other.

And I love my children far more than I dislike Keith Papini.

And we have to parent these children.

So yes, as much as revenge and vengeance feels nice and yes, it's very healing and cathartic, like there's two kids involved here.

And when you can demonstrate your capacity for mature growth, and I have worked extremely hard to become self-aware and have this self-discovery process.

It's clear the other side is not, but I think that's the best revenge for me is I've grown and I've changed and I've moved on and I'm not fixated on it because it's so much energy to put into revenge and hating someone, you know, and taking a stand can look very different for everyone.

And for me, moving on and healing and getting better and understanding what I like and what I certainly don't like anymore, that's pretty powerful.

I'm sure also getting your children back will be like the biggest stance.

Of course.

Of course.

Did you ever at any moment?

I don't think he's thought about that.

I don't think he's thought about like the destruction that he's causing because he's still going to have to sit next to me in basketball games and we're still going to have to parent these children.

And I think that's why he's trying so hard to erase me because he can't tolerate that.

And there's so many of us saying you have to you have to and um there's a stubbornness there did you ever at any point ask james to help you get out of your marriage save you from your marriage at any point had you said that maybe you meant something he thought it meant something else i mean there was a lot of complaining yeah sure um and

Like I said, there was really apparent vulnerabilities that he very easily preyed on.

So generally when you're a woman and you're complaining about something to a man, they have these complexes that develop.

It was just

an in for him.

You know, I was deeply affected by how difficult my marriage was.

Which lie that you told do you regret the most?

Probably the length that that

the Hispanic women got carried away.

You know, again, it wasn't my intention to make it about race.

It was my intention to lead them to James.

Yeah, I would say that one probably.

I regret all of them.

They're all, you know, it's all so hard to continue to be faced with, but are we our biggest mistakes?

You know, trying to live through that and trying to rebuild my life and trying to create some kind of legacy for my children.

That's not this mistake.

You know, how do you come back from that?

Do you think you're a good liar?

No, I'm actually a terrible liar.

I mean, you've seen the interrogation video.

Do you think I'm a good liar?

In that moment, I believed your lie, I guess.

There are times I believed your lie.

Well, and that's the part that's this relational piece is there was real danger.

And that's what made it really believable.

It made it believable because there was real danger and there was a real crime that was committed.

And that's what I relied on.

I relied on when I was telling my story to continue saying these pieces about what had happened to me in captivity.

And that's where, you know, you see me suffer from PTSD in the film and you see me suffering from these real experiences.

And that's what I continue to rely on.

Can we talk about your injuries that you sustained while being held captive?

That's a broad question.

We'll see.

Let's move forward and see where I can go.

The bruises on your face, on your eye, that he

had

hit you with his fist, right?

Is that right?

Okay.

We know the branding, obviously.

He had gotten the wood burning tool you had talked to him about on doing your crafts.

The burn marks on your arms, how did that happen?

Well, he had discussed, he has this weird fixation on

people that curate scarring to keloid and kind of look similar to a tattoo.

Does that make sense?

And so that was like a practice run for for to see if your arm would keloid.

Yeah.

And you know, it's difficult because you have a director who has access to all of these photographs.

And again, like I said, I wasn't a part of the edits or anything like that.

So the accuracy in which they depict an injury that I'm speaking about might not actually be the injury that's in the photograph.

And like the photograph that they show in the film in connection to what I'm I'm saying

actually wasn't even the right injury.

So, I mean, I was hit so many times and there were so many bruises and so many things that happened.

You know, people, it seems, are fixated on quite a lot of details in the case, which I actually love because it means that they want to solve it.

Right.

And it's left feeling an unsolved because there really is missing justice in this case.

And so it's like when we get these people that meticulously comb over this, it's kind of heartwarming you know because you're left at the end of this docuseries and going oh my god there's real culpability in this case why hasn't any of this happened what happened with the hockey stick which part there was multiple things that happened with hockey stick i guess

you tell us yeah i

so there's an injury that occurred to my nose that you see and James states that I ran into a hockey stick.

So if you're standing in this room, right, from here to here,

if I stood right there and I held out a hockey stick and I said, Nick, run into this hockey stick.

One, do you think you could accurately do it if you're trying to injure yourself here?

And two, what sort of inertia would you be able to create, given that you have a stride, to fling yourself from one end to the room to the other to cause that type of injury to your own own face.

So did he hit you with...

Absolutely.

But to listen to him in these interrogations say that I did it to myself, it's not only beyond shocking and disturbing, but when you, when I just tell it to you just like now, it's very easy to see like, come on, that's ridiculous.

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What do you make of the Pinterest board law enforcement said that you made that had like a collage of all of the, I guess, products and equipment that was used in your torture, whether it was self-inflicted that the law enforcement claims you did or whether it was from Keith, but apparently this was your Pinterest board?

Well, I mean, do you have a Pinterest?

I don't, but my wife does.

Okay, yeah.

How many pins do you think you have?

I'm sure a lot.

Yes.

So

what would it feel like then if law enforcement tore apart your Pinterest and chose to just grab specific pins that led to some kind of bias to create something

about you?

I would learn that I like terracotta tiles and Brad Pitt with his head shaped.

I mean, I did woodcrafting before.

I mean, it did exist and my crafting skills and things like that.

I mean, I had thousands and thousands of pins in there.

Should we get into the blog post?

Blog post.

The blog post that was under your name that had the story that had racial elements.

Oh my gosh, there's so many things I didn't even remember that have happened.

You know, it's like they take your entire life and try to pull your entire life out.

That's something from so long ago.

And it actually, it was like a mean girl thing that happened to me.

You know, it's not something that i wrote or participated in and my ex-husband my first husband he he gave a statement and said no this was totally a mean girl thing that was um done to her you know he was there when it happened um some of my other friends that i knew back then all knew that it happened as well so yeah it was in relation to an old relationship that i had and an involvement with somebody's ex-boyfriend that I had and kind of a retaliatory mean girl situation.

We've learned obviously with guests that we've had, and just trying to understand trauma that people experience.

But you learn that, and I think they talked about on this docu series.

I think the psychotherapist talked about, you know, victims' reasons for lying.

You know, it's a survival mechanism at times.

Did you use lying as a young adult or in childhood to cope with the trauma that you experienced as a child?

Well, I definitely made my life seem something that it wasn't.

So I was very, you know, bubbly and vivacious.

And my therapist has been explaining to me something called being inauthentically cheery.

So I would definitely utilize that when I was a kid.

So when I was younger, I was trying to manage a lot of things that I didn't understand.

I was trying to manage a lot of things that unfortunately I was immature and didn't have the capacity to have that self-realization that I do now.

I would say the the majority of my concealment was when I became Keith's wife because it was like building this entire fake life.

And so people that knew me back then, they say that I was very fake.

You know, that's why the documentary was called The Perfect Wife.

You know, I built this whole piece on building a life that wasn't real to suit someone else's ego.

So you feel like you started lying once you were married to Keith to kind of

appear to your community, your friends, that y'all were just what they all would strive to be, dream to be.

Absolutely.

We were the perfect all-American couple that had no problems because I was Keith the Pini's wife and his image was incredibly important and very valuable to him.

Why do you think law enforcement has an agenda against you?

I mean, there's a lot of ego in here, you know, and I think one of the one of the worst things you can do to someone that you care about is make them worry and for them to think that that worry was in vain and so i think my community really came together for me and they really fought for me and for them it's difficult because they think that it's all a lie and that i wasn't in real danger and that's heartbreaking and it's it's going to take a while for them to see that i really was and and that i'm deeply sorry that i wasn't able to be more truthful and in terms of law enforcement you know there's a lot of ego and and there's a lot of doubling down that's happening because they don't want to be wrong.

You know, they don't want to demonstrate where their missteps were in the case and what they are themselves accountable for.

And to be clear, I also didn't really give them any options.

So I'm not here to be against law enforcement.

You know, I have my own accountability in what I did there.

I didn't give them much of a choice.

You mentioned in the beginning of the docu series all the theories about who you are, and you mentioned some of the accusations that have been levied against you.

I think one you mentioned like human trafficker or things like that.

Where do these come from?

Well, I mean, you have a lot of access to speaking to people.

I mean, there's rumors start really quickly in this industry and they get very carried away.

Have you ever

Again, then they mention, you know, what's the saying?

Hurt people, hurt people.

You know, sometimes people who are victims of childhood trauma end up being people who hurt other people in the future.

In your lifetime at all, have you had a regrettable moment where you feel like you've hurt someone as a cause of the pain that you experience as a child?

I think I try really hard to stay as deeply rooted in this self-discovery process.

You know, I regularly go to therapy and I've worked really, really hard on myself and I've worked really hard to have

self-awareness.

And, you know, we're all pretty flawed people.

And my deceit was really unfortunate.

And I know that it caused a lot of hurt.

Sure.

What are you doing with your free time these days?

I wrote a book

and it was a beautiful, excruciating, crazy, amazing, cathartic, wonderful experience.

And I'm really proud of it.

And I'm, I'm starting to work

with this exceptional life coach who's considered, you know, a profound recovery expert.

And

what I'm trying really extremely hard to do is build a legacy for my children that is not this traumatic experience.

And this book is something I'm really proud of.

And I put a lot of energy and thought and careful consideration into it and looking how to move forward in my life and how to help as many people as possible, you know, in my community, in family law, in the judicial process.

There's so many places that desperately need our help that I want to get involved with.

Do you think Keith's a good father?

I think Keith has quite a lot of challenges that he would be an even better father if he examined them deeper.

So he's good, but could be better or not a good father?

He has moments of being a good father, of course.

Just given the emotional abuse you say he caused you, doesn't it scare you that he has the custody he has with absolutely.

It's why I'm fighting so hard and I'm not never going to give up.

I mean, they should build me a cot in the back of that courtroom.

Doesn't it make you upset or angry that he's out there and that he could be, I don't know what his dating situation is these days, but do you think it's safe for other women to date him?

No.

Doesn't that upset you?

It's not my problem anymore.

I am focused on getting my kids back and I'm focused on what it's going to be like in the next phases of undoing the alienation that's been caused and surrounding my children with this much love and support and safety.

And, you know, as much as he is deeply invested in his ego and deeply invested in his image, what ends up happening is you see that image that he's so wrapped up in and we're seeing a lot of his behavior speak for itself.

What do you hope people will gain from either watching the docuseries or buying your book and reading it?

What are you kind of hoping?

Is it you want to change everyone's opinion or is there a message that you're hoping people will get from all of this?

Well, first that I am incredibly sorry for keeping the secret.

Incredibly sorry that I wasn't brave enough to tell the truth because I was afraid and that something really bad happened to me and that it was not of my plan.

I did not plan a hoax kidnapping.

And something incredibly dangerous happened.

And that I don't deserve what's happening to me with my children.

I miss them so much.

Are you dating?

Oh, gosh.

Right now, I am so

busy with everything that's happening.

My primary focus is Tyler and Violet.

My primary focus is just getting my kids back.

Do you hope to marry again once you accomplish that?

Oh, goodness.

I hope so.

I'm open to it for sure.

I think,

yeah.

When is the book out?

The book is out now.

So you can go to sherrypapinibook.com.

You can go to Amazon as well.

There are quite a few other books that are written about me.

This is written by me.

You know, this is not somebody creating an exploitative piece.

This is me.

And the book is called Sherry Papini Doesn't Exist.

And the title is quite evocative.

And

it's been an exceptional process to go through writing this book and working on book two, even.

What can we expect to read about in the book?

Everything that you asked me, all the missing bits and pieces, really fun prison stories.

and a lot of backstory and childhood and those pieces that weren't in the film that had you going oh I wish I had more I wish I had more okay well thank you yeah ultimately I think we just want to give people the opportunity to share their story and you know we're grateful for our audience for you know kind of let them just you know I'm sure like you, you got to let people decide what they think.

And I'm sure that's why you did the docu series.

And, you know, it's an interesting opportunity to have almost people feel like they're sitting in a room with people having a conversation and then, you know, get to decide for themselves what they think of that conversation.

It's a blessing that we have to do this show.

And so thank you for sharing your story and talking about your experiences.

And it's been a very interesting ride.

Yeah.

So thank you, Sherry.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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