The break in the case, FBI agents said, was DNA from a tea bottle taken from an ex-boyfriend's trash can.
Her arrest this week returned Sherri Papini to the headlines more than five years after her high-profile disappearance from a Northern California neighborhood.
Papini was missing for three weeks in November 2016 before she turned up on a roadside, with injuries including a burned “brand” on her shoulder. She was 34 at the time, married and the mother of two young children.
She told investigators she had been kidnapped by two Spanish-speaking women who said she was being held for a man who had “bought” her.
The criminal complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court accuses Papini of making false statements to federal investigators and committing mail fraud in connection with receiving money from a state-run victims’ compensation fund.
Papini’s family released a public statement late Thursday that did not address the allegations but criticized investigators for arresting the woman in front of her children. The family made the statement through a public relations firm that previously represented Elizabeth Smart, who as a teenager was abducted from her Utah home by a stranger.
Following are details of the Papini case, from news reports of the time and from the complaint submitted by an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The disappearance and reappearance
Papini’s husband, Keith Papini, called 911 on the evening of Nov. 2, 2016, to report his wife was missing from their home in Mountain Gate, a community along Interstate 5 near Lake Shasta.
He said that after she failed to pick up their two children from day care that afternoon, he used the Find My Phone app and discovered her mobile phone, with earbuds attached and entangled with strands of blond hair, on the roadside near their house. Her purse was left at their house.
For three weeks, Sherri Papini was the subject of an intensive search in California and neighboring states. The sheriff of Shasta County said at the time that all of the department’s deputies were working full-time on the case.
Before sunrise on Nov. 24 — Thanksgiving — a truck driver called authorities to say he had been flagged down by a pedestrian along I-5 near the community of Yolo, 150 miles south of Mountain Gate. The woman was Sherri Papini. She had injuries including bruises and burns, and one of her wrists was bound to a chain around her waist. Her long blond hair had been chopped short; her husband later said she had lost 15 pounds during her absence.
What she said happened
Papini initially refused to talk to law enforcement officers, saying that her captors had told her that it was a “cop” who had ordered her abduction and was going to “buy” her. Instead, she had her husband record her statement. In March 2017, she did speak with FBI agents, and in June 2017 she provided information for sketches of her captors.
As she told it, she was abducted while she was out for a jog, driven for several hours and held captive in a home by two Hispanic women. She said she did not know where the house was. They kept her chained in a closet, gave her “disgusting” food and frequently injured her, including burning a message on her shoulder, she said.
She said she did not know why they decided to release her, but that she was put in a car, where she fell asleep, and then was put out on the roadside in a rural area.
The break in the case
Shasta County sheriff’s investigators had taken possession of the underpants Papini was wearing when she returned home. They asked for help from the state Justice Department in finding possible matches for male DNA that was on the garment.
In March 2020, a result came back for a person who was a “potential relative” of the contributor of the DNA. That person had two sons — one of whom was a former boyfriend of Papini’s. In June 2020, FBI agents took a tea bottle from the trash outside that man’s Costa Mesa home, and found DNA traces that matched those on the underwear.
The man — identified in the complaint only as Ex-Boyfriend — was interviewed in August 2020. He told them that, though their romantic relationship had ended in 2006, he had gotten back in touch with Papini in 2015. In fall of 2016, she told him she planned to leave her abusive husband, and he consented “as a good friend” to help her get away.
What the Ex-Boyfriend said
The man said that, at Papini’s request, he drove to Mountain Gate, picked her up and took her back to his home, where she stayed for three weeks.
During that time, he said, she did not leave the house, partly because she was afraid of being recognized. She cut her hair and ate very little — he said he believed she was trying to lose weight.
She deliberately burned her arm with heated utensils and knocked her head against the edge of the bathtub, and asked him to bruise her by “banking a puck off her leg.” She also asked him to buy a wood-burning tool and burn a phrase onto the back of her shoulder. “Ex-Boyfriend couldn’t recall the phase,” the complaint said, “but it had meaning to Papini.”
(It has never been revealed what the burned message said. During her March 2017 interview with the FBI, Papini reportedly asked her questioner “what it says on my back.” When the agent asked her what she thought it said, she is quoted as responding: “I think it says Exodus, but I can’t read the numbers. … It’s a really confusing bible passage. It’s like a really weird part of the bible.”)
Shortly before Thanksgiving, Papini told the Ex-Boyfriend she missed her children and was ready to go home. He had a friend rent a car, and on the night of Nov. 23 he drove Papini back north. After about seven hours, he pulled off the interstate near Woodland and left her on “a country road alongside an orchard,” then immediately drove back to his home, a round trip of about 900 miles.
The charges
After speaking to the Ex-Boyfriend and his cousin, who confirmed Papini had stayed at the Costa Mesa house, federal investigators spoke to Papini. She stuck to her story of being abducted by two women, which is detailed in a section of the complaint titled “Papini’s Continued Lies Upon Confrontation” and is the basis of the charge of making false statements.
The charge of mail fraud relates to more than $30,000 that she received from the California Victim Compensation Board, to which she applied four days after her return. From 2017 to 2021, she received 35 payments, of which she said $27,700 went to a therapist for treatment of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The complaint also notes that she and her husband received $49,070 from a GoFundMe campaign Keith Papini had set up shortly after her disappearance. That money was used to pay off credit card debt and cover other personal expenses of the couple, investigators said.
