There is nothing that is going to get the national media and the police attention than a white woman going missing.
So, when they thought Sherri Papini was kidnapped, they had ALL HANDS ON DECK.
One problem.
She faked it all.
A Northern California woman whose disappearance and mysterious reappearance set off a frantic three-week search more than five years ago was arrested Thursday on charges of lying to federal agents about being kidnapped and defrauding the state’s victim compensation board of $30,000.
Sherri Papini, 39, of Redding, was found on Thanksgiving Day in 2016 after weeks of searching in California and several nearby states, with bindings on her body and injuries including a swollen nose and a “brand” on her right shoulder.
She had been reported missing November 2. She told authorities at the time she was kidnapped at gunpoint by two Hispanic women, even providing descriptions to the FBI along with extensive details of her purported abduction. Sketches of the alleged captors were even released by the FBI.
In reality, authorities said, she was staying with a former boyfriend nearly 600 miles away from her home in Orange County, in Southern California, and hurt herself to back up her false statements.
She also was reimbursed more than $30,000 by the California Victim’s Compensation Board based on the false story, the charges said. They included money for visits to her therapist for “treatment for anxiety and PTSD,” according to a court filing, and for the ambulance ride to the hospital after she surfaced near Sacramento.
If you are curious, and I am sure you are, Papini is actually married, and the former boyfriend is who she was cheating on him with.
This is a wild story.
Before she disappeared, Papini had gone jogging near her home about 215 miles north of San Francisco. Her husband, Keith Papini, found only her cellphone and earphones when he went searching after she failed to pick up their children at day care. She left her purse and jewelry behind.
She had both male and female DNA on her body and clothing. The DNA eventually led to the former boyfriend in 2020, according to a court filing.
The former boyfriend told investigators that Papini stayed with him at his house during the time she was gone, and said she had asked him to come to Redding to pick her up, though he said they never had sex.
His account was verified when authorities tracked the locations of two prepaid cellphones that they had been using to secretly talk to one another as early as December 2015, according to a 55-page affidavit filed in court to support the criminal charges.
At the time, she was a stay-at-home mom and her husband worked at Best Buy. There was never a ransom demand, and the family wasn’t wealthy, officials said at the time.
She also scammed $49k from GoFundMe donations.
The people who donated won’t get their money back.
Flip the pages for the video of her “faked” disappearance.
