Sherri Papini Story: A ‘Super Mom’ Vanished In Broad Daylight And Mysteriously Reappeared, But The Details Don’t Add Up

Immediately after Sherri disappeared, her husband Keith grew dissatisfied with what he felt was a slow-moving case, so he started a GoFundMe page to help finance an independent investigation. The money was purportedly supposed to pay two private investigators who Keith felt would dedicate every waking moment to finding his spouse.

Local law enforcement largely disapproved of this plan, but all they could do was continue their own investigation and hope for the best.

The GoFundMe page remained active for a year – even though she was found three weeks after its launch – and garnered nearly $50,000. The Papini family never disclosed what they did with the money they raised, despite concerns from those who had left generous donations.

After Sherri reappeared, she shared a harrowing – if not confusing – story: According to her, two Latina women captured her while she was jogging and kept her blindfolded for the entirety of her three-week confinement. In some of her accounts, she instead claimed that they wore masks, which is why she never saw their faces.

The Shasta County Sheriff’s Department has remained silent on the matter, but Gamble believes that Sherri was indeed taken by traffickers. He said that these people will often torment a captive to break their will, hence the branding and burn marks that covered Sherri’s body.

Kay Buck, Chief executive of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking in Los Angeles, said that most of the information they have about the methods of sex trafficking is incidental and that most women follow traffickers because they’re promised a better life – information which contradicts parts of Gamble’s theory.

Following Sherri’s return on Thanksgiving Day, 2016, the family essentially shut down. The newly found mother went unseen for another year, foregoing the media barrage that wanted an inside scoop. According to neighbors, the Papinis holed up in their Shasta Lake home and became reclusive.

Aside from the question of whether or not Sherri was actually taken, many online sleuths want to know why the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department’s investigation was seemingly so slow. According to the police, they didn’t release many details because they were investigating a link between Sherri’s disappearance and that of another woman.

In 1998, Tera Smith disappeared under oddly similar circumstances. The 16-year-old homecoming queen went jogging near Redding, CA in August, but unlike Sherri, she was never seen again.

Almost a year after Sherri returned to her family, police discovered “male DNA” on the clothing she was wearing when she disappeared. Shasta County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Brian Jackson told People that “The male DNA was compiled from the clothing Sherri was found wearing,” and that it was put into the CODIS DNA database in mid-2017; however, so far, there have been no matches to known offenders.

The male DNA found on Sherri’s clothing directly contradicts her story that she was taken by two women, though the DNA may have been on the clothing before it was given to Sherri. Jackson told People, “Hopefully down the road, once we get these females identified, we will get the answers for that.”

After the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department released the information that male DNA was found on Sherri’s clothing on October 25, 2017, they also discussed the existence of a man in Michigan with whom Sherri had been in contact prior to her disappearance.

The Sheriff Department’s press release said that Sherri and the unnamed man were in an “online/texting relationship,” but they didn’t state whether or not Sherri and the man were romantically linked. The Sheriff’s Department noted that Sherri and the man had been messaging each other for months prior to her disappearance, and he did visit California from Michigan a few days before she went missing; however, they stressed that he was not in Redding the day she disappeared.

This information does indirectly support the theory that Sherri may have been trying to uproot her life and make a new start. Without knowing who the man from Michigan is and why they were communicating, this information can only be circumstantial evidence.

The press began leaking information about Sherri’s alleged mental illness following her return. First was a transcript of a 911 call that her mother made after a 21-year-old Sherri allegedly attempted to harm herself in 2003. Sherri’s sister then went on to claim that Sherri once kicked in her back door. Sherri’s father also claimed that she vandalized his home.

None of these stories wholly suggest that Sherri fabricated her tale, but they do further muddy the perception of the case’s central figure.

Following Sherri’s return, police released sketches of the women who Sherri claims took her. There aren’t any distinguishing marks beyond the large hoop earring one of them is wearing, and Sherri’s claim that the eyebrows of one woman were thin, while the other’s were thick.

The biggest piece of information released with these sketches was that the police no longer believed Sherri was taken by traffickers. Sgt. Brian Jackson told People, “Just on the facts that we know it doesn’t seem to be a $ex trafficking or a sexual abduction in nature, and that is what we are trying to figure out: What was the purpose?”

He concluded his statement by saying how hard it is to “keep somebody in captivity for 22 days.” These new facts about Sherri only deepen the mystery surrounding her disappearance.

On March 3rd, 2022, close to six years after Sherri Papini’s supposed kidnapping, police arrested the California woman for allegedly faking the entire incident. She is officially charged with “making false statements to a federal law enforcement officer and engaging in mail fraud,” according to Rolling Stone writer Jon Blistein. If convicted on both charges, Papini could face a maximum of 25 years in prison and half a million dollars in fines.

In August 2020, authorities again questioned Papini regarding the kidnapping, at which time she reiterated her original story, despite being presented with contradictory evidence showing that the incident did not occur.

Chris Thomas, a spokesperson for the family, criticized the “dramatic” nature of Papini’s arrest, stating that she would have complied with any police request in a quiet manner. He also stated her charges were confusing and hoped to receive “clarification in the coming days.”

Police said she made up the whole story to get attention and was staying with her ex-boyfriend for the 22 days she went missing.

The mother of two convinced James Reyes, her ex-boyfriend, to pick her up and drive her to his Southern California apartment after telling him her husband Keith was ‘abusing’ her.

Reyes, 37, previously confessed to the plot after being identified by DNA found on Sherri’s clothes through a familial match.

He told police how he and Sherri dated in 2006 and ‘loved’ each other. She randomly got in touch with him in 2016 again, he said, and told him that her husband was abusing her.

Papini and Reyes then spoke on pre-paid cell phones, arranging for her to run away for months before November 2, when he collected her from Redding and the alleged hoax started.

The ex-boyfriend admitted to investigators that he thought their relationship would become romantic once they were back at his apartment in Costa Mesa, but that it never did.

Instead, Sherri took over his bedroom and he slept on the couch. She locked herself away in the room, starved herself and cut off her hair then started inflicting injuries on herself.

In Octover 2017, authorities discovered the presence of male DNA on Papini’s clothing, contradicting her claims that she was abducted by two women. In 2020, the DNA sample reportedly led police to Papini’s ex-boyfriend, a man who at the time of the incident lived in Costa Mesa, California, several hundred miles from Papini’s home in Redding, CA. When questioned, the man allegedly admitted that he helped Papini fake her kidnapping, stating that she told him she “needed to get away.”

The man went on to state that Papini stayed with him throughout the duration of her three week disappearance, and that when she was ready to return, she requested that he brand her with a wood-burning tool, which he did.

Reportedly, the man claimed that he decided not to alert authorities himself, but if the truth ever came out, he would cooperate with authorities.

In the absence of any real answers, multiple conspiracy theories have followed Sherri and her family. One suggests that her disappearance was just a way to promote Cameron Gamble’s business, but no evidence has been presented to support this claim.

In an even more controversial theory, some internet sleuths believe Sherri faked her kidnapping so she could spark tensions between Caucasians and Latinos. Theorists point toward a post on a “skinhead website” under her maiden name that lauds her alleged pride in being white. The account responsible for the post has never officially been tied to Sherri.

One theory initially supported by the Shasta County Police is that Sherri simply tried to skip town before losing her nerve. For a while, Sherri was listed as a voluntary missing adult, and it wasn’t until the public spoke out that law officials changed her case to one of “disappearance under mysterious circumstances.”

The lead investigator on the case, Lt. Bertain, didn’t think Sherri had been taken and declined to comment on the issue further.