Episode 8: The Disappearance That Wasn’t — The Sherri Papini Case

A woman goes out for a run… and disappears.

When her husband finds her phone, it’s lying on the ground.
With earbuds and hair stuck in them.

Three weeks later, she’s found on the side of the road. 

Bruised. Beaten. Even Branded.

There's a chain around her waist… and a story about being kidnapped.

But the DNA evidence....tells a different story.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

A woman goes out for a run and disappears. Her husband tracks her phone and finds it on the side of the road along with her earbuds and hair strands caught in it. Three weeks later, she's found on the side of the road, bound up with chains, beaten, and even branded, and a story about how two women kidnapped her and kept her captive. But when the DNA comes back, a different story is told.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Are you excited? I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Excited, yeah. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about this time?

SPEAKER_02 0:48

You're gonna tell me about a crime.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Oh, yeah, good call. Yes. Holy shit, you are a genius. Wow. Tell me about a crime. Okay. Well, let's uh let's get into it. Let's just jump right into it. Cause I know you got lots of work coming up.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

I'm excited!

SPEAKER_01 1:05

No, you're almost done your dissertation.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

So Oh, that's a crime.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Oh, you're excited for the crime. You're like, guys, fuck the dissertation. Yeah, exactly. I get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

So when you talk about dissertations in a Tell Me the Crime podcast, that's a crime.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Oh, that is a crime. That's a good point. That's a very good point. Okay, so let's get this going. So it's 2016 in Reading, California. Now, Sherry Papini or Papiney, I don't know how to press it.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Wait, so what is the title of the Tell Me the Crime episode?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

The title of the episode this time is The Disappearance That Wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Interesting. I know. Disappearance, but that wasn't disappearance.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Maybe that is then.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah, well, I mean, that that's that wasn't, but maybe that is. Well, maybe it I mean, maybe it is, or maybe it isn't. But that's you'll understand when the point wasn't in the past. You'll understand when the episode concludes. It'll make sense then. We can come back to the title then. So the so this let's set the scene. So it's 2016 in Reading, California. And the the the person of interest, or the victim in this case, is Sherry Papini, who is 34 years old. She's married. She has two young sons that are under five years old. I think they're about two and four. So on the surface, a very normal life, um, you know, pretty pretty plain. Nothing crazy or stands out. Um, and one afternoon, she goes out for a run.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Okay, and doesn't come back.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

What happened?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Exactly, right? So her husband notices obviously that she doesn't come back, right? She goes out for a run, and it takes a while for you know him to realize, but she, you know, he's like, wow, she's been gone for a while. So he ends up tracking her phone, right? He uses, you know, find my iPhone or yeah, exactly. Because I mean, you and I share locations all the time, right? So um he tracks her phone and he ends up finding it on the ground, um, with earbuds tangled and hair caught in them on the side of the road.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Oh okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

So it kind of looks like something happened fast.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

What might you assume if you had seen that?

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Well, someone was trying to maybe take something from her when she was running, or maybe she was wearing a necklace or luxurious jewelry or something.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Yeah, but what would you assume that means if you found someone's phone on the ground with the earbuds, with hair in it? I mean, and not the person. Well, you would assume that something happened to them, right? Yeah, yeah. You'd assume that they were maybe taken or kidnapped or something. Or worse, right? Exactly, exactly. Okay. So the husband obviously gets very worried, reports it to the police.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Right away?

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Um I mean, if if I found that, I would probably go to the police right away as well. I mean, it your phone, you're not gonna just leave your phone there uh with your earbuds on the ground. That's very sketchy. So search teams go out pretty um, pretty readily, pretty fast, right? Um, word gets around. Volunteers end up combing the area.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

And that's a very fast move.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

It's pretty fast, yeah. So pretty quickly it gets around. Um the news is is pretty shocking to a lot of people, right? And people are very worried. Um, and especially because her husband ends up going on TV and he's crying and he's pleading and he's begging for whatever happened, for her to come home, or for whoever, you know, captured her to let her go, and you know, and whatnot. So people, of course, you know, um believe his pain because he is in pain, he's crying, he's he's he's pleading. So the story spreads and eventually even gets national attention, right? So it's a pretty big story at this point. And everything is focused on her, okay, on Sherry, right? And this matters more than it actually seems at this point. Because once a story reaches this level, like getting that much attention and national sort of um, you know, national spotlight, it starts generating something pretty powerful, right, for for people.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Yeah, a lot of assumptions.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Well, a lot of assumptions, but a lot of attention, a lot of concern, a lot of sympathy for the the victim, right? And psychologically, right, if you were to see that, that can become pretty reinforcing as the person. If you're still what if you're watching that, right? If you're you're seeing that everyone is is worried about you and everyone is um concerned and has sympathy, it's like wow, everyone cares about me, right? That that can become a reinforcing moment. Everything is about her at that point, right? But again, we don't know what's happened to her yet.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

But did she know though?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Well, this is this is what we'll we'll get to, right? So it's a fascinating case because it's not as straightforward as it seems on the surface level.

unknown 6:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

So three weeks later, okay, three weeks after her disappearance, after finding those earbuds and her phone and the hair on the on the ground on the side of the road, Thanksgiving morning, a driver sees someone on the side of the road. She's disoriented.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Oh, that's her.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Alive. And yes, it's her. Right? So she is alive, but she's disheveled, she's thin, she's bruised up, her hair is cut unevenly.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Her nose is injured, no, and around her waist is a chain. Right? Yeah, not tightly restraining her, but enough to suggest that something happened.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Mm-hmm. Right. So, you know, of course, that is pretty consistent with everything that everyone assumed, right? That she was kidnapped, that she was tortured, that something was going on here, right? So let's get to her particular side of the story, right? So when they they finally get her, of course, the police interview her, you know, the husband gets information. So what she says happened is the following She says that two women kidnapped her. Okay. Um I think she said two Hispanic women or something like that kidnapped her, held her captive, beat her, burned a mark into her shoulder, so they branded her.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Oh. Right?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

With like a metal piece of yeah, uh like a wood burning kind of thing into her shoulder. And they did have that shoulder, like the burn on her shoulder and everything, right? Um, but they eventually let her go. Okay, so wait. Mm-hmm. The kidnappers let her go eventually.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Right. What were you gonna say though?

SPEAKER_02 8:36

No, I was thinking of is that is that the police who let her or let's go.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Well, I mean the police had no reason to hold her, right? I mean she's the victim in this case, right? So let's just listen to how structured that particular narrative is, right? It has a villain, it has suffering, it has survival. So it's not just a claim, it's it's a it's a strong narrative, a strong story.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

She created herself.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

That's a good that's a good that's a good guess. That's a very good guess. Because yes, it does come out that she did create the narrative that entire story.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

So that was not a crime.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

There was not, and that's why I said she, yeah, and we'll get to that. So why the hell would you want to do that, right? So we'll actually get into this psychological pattern that is called Pseudologia Fantastica.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Okay, so it's a that's the first time I heard that.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Exactly. Well, actually, I had to look it up. So yeah. Can you say that again? Pseudologia fantastica. And essentially it's a form of pathological lying. So, so pathological storytelling. It's a condition, it's a real condition that people have, right? Where they make up lies and they can't stop themselves from doing these detailed lies. Right? So it's it's and it's and it's for, you know, it's it's to create that attention to themselves, to make themselves a victim, right? To make them, you know, that to to seem like they are they're creating a narrative for themselves. So when someone creates a detailed, emotionally convincing story, and it's not necessarily for money, but to shape how they're seen, that is what um this pathological lying condition known as Pseudologia Fantastica.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

So does the person know? Like the person with this Yeah, I I mean I don't know psychological disorder, can I say disorder?

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah, I don't think it actually um technically has like a diagnosis in the DSM, which is like the sort of the the book for um for deciding whether or not something is classified as a disorder. So getting back to the story, right? It's um at first, you know, people are are believing this lie, right? She created this lie.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

But here's the thing, right? The injuries were real, right? That's great. Everything seemed like her, she was disheveled, she was thinner, right? So clearly she wasn't eating properly, she had a burn mark on her shoulder, right? Um and but the the thing that kind of cast doubt into people's eyes, right? Because at first everyone believed her, and everyone just thought, oh, thank god she's back. And you know, even a couple of years went by after, right? But the thing that kind of crept up that people kind of came back to was the motive. Like what was the motive of these two captors, right? These two women that captured her, right? Because apparently her stories were, you know, her her lies were um very vague. And, you know, when they tried to piece together why someone would capture her, uh-huh, there was no ransom, there was no explanation for any of it, right? For why it would happen to her.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

So And definitely the bulliers could not get those two women that she was.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Well, yeah, because she made them up. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

But the bullies would try to.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Of course, of course. And they could they they eventually they eventually just stopped looking because you know they couldn't they couldn't find anyone, of course, because uh there was no one to be found. But um eventually, you know, they they started thinking deeper about it and about how it just wasn't adding up. Like some of the details just didn't make sense, her explanations were really vague, and if no one's asking for ransom, like why capture someone and kidnap them, and there's no rationale for it, she had no explanations for anything, it just seemed too random, right? So that's when investigators started digging deeper, and the big piece of information that really got this case back open was they found DNA on her clothing and they tested it. Now, the critical piece of information that came back is that it came from a male. So it was not that that doesn't make sense, right? Because it shouldn't exist in her story.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

According to her story, she was out for a run and then two women attacked her and captured her and kidnapped her and you know, tortured her and whatnot. But the only DNA on her clothing was that of her own and a male that was not her husband. So she was clearly with a guy. Yeah. Some guy, right? And that doesn't make any sense. So they keep looking and they do some digging, and eventually they find out that the DNA that was on her clothing matched her ex-boyfriend. Well, she then ran with ran away with her ex-boyfriend, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

So she went out for a run, basically, right, and got her boyfriend, yeah. So her her ex-boyfriend's name was James Reyes. So it turns out that she contacted him, asked him to pick her up, stayed with him voluntarily for weeks, right? So this was all set up. She asked him to go pick her up. And this is where another psychology concept comes in, okay, that's that's related to what we were talking about before with the pathological line. But this is something that some people have, and maybe she has as well. And and you know, just as a caveat here, this is not me diagnosing anyone. I'm just saying these are things that are consistent with you know her personality, at least just from a quick look, you know. Um factitious disorder, which more people would know it as Monchowsen. Okay, so if you've ever heard of Monchowsen by proxy, I think I think more people are more familiar with Monchowsen by proxy, which is when um someone basically the a caretaker ends up making often their child or something sick purposely. What? Yeah, so that they can um make sure that that person is reliant on them and that they get that reinforcement by being that caregiver for them continually. They don't want, you know, they want that attention and they want that reliance of someone on, you know, to to rely on them.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Wow, even psychology is very complicated.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Yeah, it's a mess. But but so this this Munchausen, and I I guess they've they've renamed that factitious sort of how how is that related to her? So this is related to her because this is when someone doesn't just tell a story, right? It's not just about lying, but they create physical evidence to support it. Right? So in this case, she hurt herself, right? She got her ex to brand her with, you know, like with uh, you know, burn her shoulder. She she starved herself, she like you know, hurt her nose, probably got him to punch her in the nose or something, right? So she had all these injury, real injuries, and it was all so that um she could build this story, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:56

It builds making it real, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

So so what we were talking about before, the pseudologia fantastica is in a sense is the part that builds the story, and then factitious behavior makes the story real. So that's the part that adds that realism to it, right? So in this case, the story is the kidnapping, and then the evidence is the weight loss, the injuries, the branding. And together it just creates something that feels completely believable, right? And that's why so many people believed it, and why it got so much national attention, and you know, it was this big, fantastic national story that um, you know, everyone thought she was just lucky, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Did she get charged though?

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Uh yes, she she did end up getting busted eventually, and that's how we know about everything here, right? But um, but we'll get to that in a sec. So, um so why does the ex go along with it, right? Like that's kind of the part that you know I I started asking myself, like, why would he even agree to any of that? And it's because um he thought that she was being abused. Because she told him that.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Oh, so she is also building another narrative to her exactly about her husband.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

And if he and if he believes that, right, if he believes he's you know helping someone, um, he's not, you know, he's not believing that he's helping to fake a crime. He's believing that he is you know helping her escape, right? In a sense, right? He he's thinking that he's doing something good for someone rather than committing a criminal act of like faking something like that, right? So I can understand why why why he would do that, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:44

But I would also be very suspicious. I mean, maybe not uh being suspicious to the level of oh, she's probably faking it, but maybe I would be more careful in agreeing to do that, because if she stays, if if I were him, right, um that would not be good for me. If her husband knows something, then no, it's not it's not good for him and also for their family.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

No, of course not, no, and and and the husband is definitely yeah, the husband definitely was not very impressed when he found out everything about this, right? So um, so so you know, there's there's a bunch of different sides to this, and and I'm just speculating with a lot of these things, right? Like with those psychological terms and whatnot. And you know, some people say that um the ex was kind of um using this rescue dynamic, right, where he's kind of like the white knight coming in and saving her, right? Which is which is something that gets tossed around quite a bit. Yeah, exactly. Where someone steps in as like a role of a savior, and um, but anyway. But then, you know, once you then you might ask, okay, so didn't a couple years go by? And pro you know, the the ex probably knew at that point that there was nothing really going on. She wasn't being abused, right? She just went back to everything. But he still never told anyone, right? So why wouldn't he keep you know, why wouldn't he tell anyone? Why would he keep it?

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Well again, it's not good for him.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

No, come on, it's not no, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

He would, I want to say something, but it's also not good for me either.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

No, exactly, because it's gonna make you know it's gonna make him look really bad, right? Yeah, but he's also probably thinking in his head, he's like, well, I already got involved, right? And I thought I was doing something right, so coming forward now, no, I actually really did do the right thing. Or maybe he even convinced himself that she was being abused, and you know, people are are pretty our our minds are really interesting that way. We can trick ourselves pretty easily with like what we believe is true and what's not. So anyway, um so why, you know, why did she actually even do all of this? Because it wasn't for money, right? She didn't actually get any money, she there was no ransom ever. It wasn't for revenge, so really, it just looks like she was doing it for attention reinforcement, escapism, right? Escaping maybe her life that she was bored with, maybe she was tired of being in this relationship with her husband and her family, right? People get bored. Um but there's also that that sense of like narrative control, wanting to tell that story and wanting to sort of create this like fictional space in her mind.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Interesting. But how did how did the police um get to her after some years?

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Well, that was because of the DNA, right? So so because they didn't they they just kept coming back to the story. didn't make sense, there was no motive, because in every crime that you have, right, you have to have some sort of motivation to to link you know the the perpetrator to you know the crime, right? And these two w women that she was describing, right, that never existed, they just there there just wasn't any motivation for them to actually commit that crime. Um and her story was always vague, it was the details kind of switched, they weren't consistent with like her with her injuries. And the other thing too is that her um her injuries uh like there there was not even just the injuries, but like the chain around her waist when she got found. It was really loose and it allowed her to like move around. So like it was clear that it was like it was clear that it was staged once they knew that it was fake. It was like, oh yeah, this is obviously like she did this herself. Anyway, um, so years later, you know, after after all this happens, she pleads guilty, admits everything, and she's sentenced to 18 months in prison and order to repay over $300,000. Wow. Yeah. So don't mess with you know the the publics and the the police's time, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

But yeah, but you gotta think about it, right? Like think about how many search parties had to go out, how many resources had to be put into this, like the police had to get in on this, like hundreds of people were involved, and like there's tons of community resources that had to be used for a case like this. So it was uh, you know, any news anchors and news, you know, stations have to like broadcast time on this, and anyway, it was just like a big disaster, and so I guess it's kind of like um you know, a cautionary tale of hey, maybe don't lie and do that, don't do that because you could get not just jail time, but you could have to pay something that will probably bankrupt you for the rest of your life. Like I don't I mean $300,000. I don't know about any of the listeners out there, but that's like life-changing for us. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

That's a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

That's a shit ton of money. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so her family, what happened with her family afterwards, right? Her husband who the kids. Yeah, exactly. Well, her, you know, her husband who he believed her publicly and he backed her up, right, publicly the whole time. He um was obviously super angry and he ended up filing for divorce. And uh he filed for custody of his children as well. Um and they're sort of kept, you know, there's not much about the children. They were pretty young anyway, but they try to keep them out of the spotlight. Which is good.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

But after how many years?

SPEAKER_01 25:09

I don't know how many years it was. It was at least like two or three though.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Um after the uh lie.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

After the lie, and after she got found, quote unquote, right? Like, yeah, when she decided to come back from her little fling with her ex, I guess. Um so the public obviously ends up being super pissed off. Um, it's pretty intense, you know, because people believed it. They followed it, they shared it, and then when they realized it wasn't real, they were just like, This is this is like this is a horrible joke. Yeah, well, you would be if you're like trying to share things, yeah, I'd be so pissed too. Like, even just as a as a viewer, it'd be like, What the fuck? Like, I just got taken for, you know, it's just yeah. So um, but you know, part of the thing about this case is that it's not just that it was that she lied, it's just that how convincing she made it too, right? Like the fact that she went that far and branded herself.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

So she was thinking a lot about that.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Yeah, that's not just a lie. That's like that's pathological, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Like that is leaving the phone and put some hair on it.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

I would not be able to leave it on my phone, I think.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

So she decided to just uh leave it, but yeah, definitely she had probably another bag up though.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, everything was planned out. Yeah, exactly. So at first, you know, it looked like a crime, but in the end it was really just there was no kidnapping, there was no catch. That's still a crime. Still a crime though, right? So it comes back to yeah, was it a crime? Yeah, it's a crime, but it's a crime. But no crime happened in like her story, right? So like the crime was her making up the story about a fake crime. So that's the story of Tell Me the Crime today episode eight.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Yeah. And um yeah, it's uh it's pretty fascinating. I think they even made like a documentary on it too.

SPEAKER_02 27:13

Oh really?

SPEAKER_01 27:14

I think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

But it should be like psychological, not psychological thriller, but maybe.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Well, I would be I would be curious to know like if if people have, you know, diagnosed her with any personality disorders or anything, you know, that I mentioned today.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Yeah, but I was actually surprised though, because if I don't know if her husband did not really know her that well, or she was really good at hiding um her psychology clean hits in that sense, you know, because if you lie, then I think some people could detect that behavior.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Oh, for sure. So Yeah, I don't know, but I mean she was obviously I mean she was she was very she was quite good at it, which suggests to me that she was pretty practiced at that. And like I said, I you know there there are people that are just pathological liars. I've known people that are that oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah. I've dated people that are pathological liars and even admitted themselves that they are. Yeah. What? Oh yeah, yeah, it's happened, yeah, for sure. But anyway, um, yeah, I know. And it's just like about stupid things, and they would just like lie for no reason, and you just like why are you doing attention, I guess, and creating a narrative that makes them a victim, and it's just I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Create a book, write a book, write a novel, sell it.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Oh, I could with all the people, yeah, the the the people.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

I mean the my crazy exes, no kidding, no. Those people with um the tendency of you know getting attention through lies, I think.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Oh, yeah. Maybe the energy could be deported to something. There's a lot more people out there that that do that though than you are. Yeah, you're just a very stable normal person.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

The guild, you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

They that's the thing though, is that these people often, you know, will create these narratives so convincingly that they start to believe them themselves. Right? Like, and it's and and again, it's people have you know, some people just have a need for that attention and they don't feel good enough about themselves, so they have that self-esteem boost by getting all of that attention.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Well, I think it's uh it's about the matter of how far that's it in the dimension, you know? Because um, well, everyone will will have self-doubt once in a while. But if it's you know too much in that in that sense that you start creating lies and just to get attention, then that's a problem.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a problem. Definitely is, and especially in this case, you got a $300,000 problem and 18 months in prison. So so yeah, I guess uh there you go. That's all well, that's all I got today.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

So thank you for uh tell us a crime that was not a crime, but but kind of was ended up being one in the end.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Okay, so all right, well, thank you everyone, and we will see you next week.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Next week