Sherri Papini’s Kidnapping Hoax: Everything You Need to Know

On November 2, 2016, Sherri Papini went for an afternoon jog in her neighborhood of Redding, California, and didn’t make it home. Her then husband, Keith Papinirealized something was wrong when the matriarch didn’t pick up their children, Tyler And purpleof childcare.

Keith attempted to track her location via her phone and earbuds, but she was never found at the detected location near the intersection of Old Oregon Trail and Sunrise Drive.

When the missing person case became a national story, investigators and the Shasta County Sherriff’s Office conducted a search. Authorities initially assumed Keith had something to do with Sherri’s disappearance when rumors spread that he would hire a lawyer. The buzz was debunked by a self-identified family member Rod Rodriguez III.

“As for the hurtful rumors about Keith, anyone who actually knows him knows of his and Sherri’s wonderful loving relationship and dedication to their family and knows that he had nothing to do with Sherri’s disappearance,” Rod said. “That’s why everyone was searching last weekend. One notable family rented search helicopters and another couple cut their vacation short and flew home across the Atlantic Ocean, while another couple flew home from Idaho.”

Keith passed a polygraph test and his alibi proved he had nothing to do with Sherri’s disappearance.

At the time a lieutenant in the Shasta County Sherriff’s Office Anthony Bertain noted in a Nov. 11, 2016 statement that detectives were trying to determine whether Sherri’s case was voluntary or not.

In her statement, included in the 55-page affidavit, Sherri alleged that two Hispanic women forced her into a dark SUV while she was running. She said she was chained to a metal post in a bedroom closet for three weeks and heard her alleged captors speaking in Spanish.

According to Sherri, she tried to escape several times until she was reportedly able to run away. She told the therapist that she was “physically and emotionally tortured, beaten, burned, branded and drugged.” After the incident, the specialist diagnosed her with acute post-traumatic stress disorder.

However, researchers who interviewed her repeatedly found errors in her story.

In August 2020, authorities determined that Sherri had made up her story after hearing her interview with the FBI. They received a tip that her ex-boyfriend was picking her up and taking her to Costa Mesa, California, where she was reportedly staying voluntarily.

Researchers also had her clothing tested for biological material and soon discovered a man’s DNA. They tried to run a search on the criminal database, but found no positive hits.

Later it was agreed James ReysSherri’s ex-boyfriend.

“There were some infidelity issues in her background that even Keith had told us about,” the former Shasta County sheriff’s deputy captain said. Pat Kropholler told ABC News.

Detectives said Sherri lied to James when she told him she was being abused by Keith. James added that he had no idea about the two Hispanic women and the alleged gunshot Sherri was talking about. He said she also cut her own hair and inflicted most of the injuries on herself, completing the kidnapping story.

Despite the findings, Sherri stood firmly by her story, which involved unidentified Hispanic women.

In July 2023, Lifetime released the film, Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papiniof Jaime King as the protagonist.

“Honestly, it made me angry,” King said of the story. “You could see this woman who is seemingly beautiful and perfect, and the way they told her story was basically that she is a horrible person who did something horrible to her family and the community. And she definitely made some horrible choices. “