I followed this story quite closely, like a lot of people out there. When it first broke out it was huge.

So who is Sherri ? She was born on June 11, 1982. She married Keith Papini in October 2009. The couple have two children together, one son and one daughter. On March 3, 2022, the day on which Sherri was arrested on federal charges, the couple separated. In April 2022, a few days after Sherri pleaded guilty to fraud charges, Keith filed for divorce from his wife and for sole custody of their children.

This story started on November 2, 2016, Sherri’s husband Keith Papini returned from work to find her not at home. He eventually found her cell phone and earbuds at an intersection about a mile away. According to Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko, in interviews Papini said she was held by two Hispanic women who took steps to keep their faces hidden from her, either by wearing masks or by keeping Papini’s head covered. Papini was branded on her right shoulder during her purported captivity with the word EXODUS. According to a statement by her husband Keith Papini, Sherri was physically abused during her captivity, had her nose broken and her hair cut off, and weighed 87 pounds when she was released.

At that time, the sheriff said it was still an active investigation and authorities were “looking for a dark-colored SUV with two Hispanic females armed with a handgun.” Detectives had authored close to 20 search warrants, including some in Michigan, and said they were examining cellphone records, bank accounts, email, and social media profiles. The FBI provided assistance in the case.

Papini was found with both male and female DNA on her, neither of which matched her nor her husband. The FBI ran the samples through the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and found no matches. In March 2022, it was reported that DNA found on her clothing matched that of an ex-boyfriend, James Reyes, who confirmed that Papini stayed with him at his residence in Southern California during the time she was allegedly kidnapped.

On March 3, 2022, Sherri Papini was arrested by the FBI, accused of lying to federal agents and faking her kidnapping to spend time with her ex-boyfriend, away from her husband and family. In April 2022, six weeks after her arrest, Papini pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in Sacramento to one count of making false statements and one count of mail fraud as part of a plea agreement; she admitted to orchestrating the hoax.

After that, the story went pretty quiet and everyone resumed their daily lives and stopped talking about the Papinis. Fast forward to 2025, announced in a Facebook’s ad, was 4 episodes from discovery + with a Sherri, promising to tell us the real truth behind it all. I thought nothing of it and it just left my mind for a while until I started browsing Amazon Prime and saw the 4 Episodes. Curious and an avid documentary, real life drama addict, i wanted to know more about the whole thing and see what Sherri could bring us that would somehow make her look a little less guilty in our eyes.

As the episodes unfold, I started to realize that Sherri and Keith’s marriage did not appear to be as happy as they claimed it to be or showed everyone on their social medias. It started to remind me of a lot of marriages, where people marry and then start to find out toxic traits about each other that eventually leads to a toxic marriage and unfortunately, drama, murders, divorces, jealousy, and bad things. I see it all too often, especially with people who have kids. The couple try to stay together for the kids, but eventually it becomes too much and the parents become toxic to one another. One person is really unhappy, the other doesn’t seem to even acknowledge that there is anything wrong. Some people put on fake facade and appear to be happy or have the perfect life, like Sherri and Keith when it’s actually quite the opposite. It’s sad that people stay in a relationship like that but I guess it can be understandable too. You also have people who marry or are together for the wrong reasons and have children for the wrong reasons too, leading to toxicity all over, everyone’s life.

It sounds like Keith was very jealous that Sherri was talking to male friends and was thinking that she might eventually cheat on him, which is why he made her sign a Postnuptial agreement and threatened her with it if she ever cheated on him. Sherri I believed, was a stay at home mom, while Keith was the breadwinner. It sounds like he was starting to be controlling when he became the only one making money, when Sherri was laid off. Threatening the other person with custody of the children is a very toxic trait. No one should use their children as collateral damage in a divorce.

That becomes very difficult for a woman, as well, when not working, to stay at home all day, waiting for the kids to get back home, it becomes boring, you don’t know what to do with your life, and it feels degrading as well. This seems to be a problem in a lot of marriages. The man works all day, comes back home tired, doesn’t feel like participating in family activities, helping kids with their homework or do much of anything else because he is tired after a day of work. A lot of women who are stay at home mom, take care of the kids, the house, the meals, the laundry, probably don’t want to work on top of it all, mind you, while assisting kids with their homework as well, school activities etc. Stay at home moms sometimes wishes the men would be more involved in the marriage or with the kids. It becomes a routine where both parties get bored, cheating occurs and a vicious cycle ensues and a lot of the time, the kids pay the price in the end.

You can’t have it all, a perfect spouse, a perfect marriage, perfect life, perfect kids, it just doesn’t work like that ! People need to start realizing that life just is not a fairy tale like in the books or movies. We women are emotional and want the fairy tale life, but it’s not realistic, it’s not what real life is. It’s not a rational way of thinking either.

I’m not saying that what Sherri did was ok, but I can somewhat understand why she wanted a break, though i don’t believe her that it was James’s fault. I think Sherri was really unhappy, wanted a break and things didn’t turn out the way she hoped with James and she wanted to go back to her children and Keith, because I think she voluntarily got into James’s car. I don’t believe she doesn’t remember how she got into it, for that to happen, James would’ve had to knock her over the head. I think maybe what might’ve happened is that she wanted a quick break from Keith, have a passionate affair for a moment with James and go back to her life with Keith, but had to come up with an excuse and pretend she was kidnapped. How would James know where she was exactly on that random dirt road ? These are only my assumptions from watching the 4 episodes from Discovery. I don’t pretend to know what really happened.

We, on the internet, are so judgmental and do not easily forgive people who make mistakes. Like Sherri, I was abused as a child, but physically and mentally. This is true for a lot of abused people, we want to please others and never learn to say no, even though sometimes we don’t want to do something and a lot of people take advantage of passive, abused people because of exactly that.

You can push over abused people, you can take advantage of them, over and over. This happened a lot to me. People take advantage of my gentle, passive nature to make me do things that I didn’t want to because I never had the courage to say no and wanted to please them. Also keep in mind that abusers appear one way in public, and completely different in private. Abusers always seem like very nice people in front of everyone and people are often shocked to learn that they were actually abusive. Abuse comes in many ways, sexually, physically, verbally, mentally. Abused people also apologize a lot even though it’s not their fault.

I guess we will never know unless James Reyes comes forward. She might have had 4 years to come clean about what happened, but why would she, if she made everything up ? That would just make her look like a psychopath in our eyes. I think with this docuseries, she intended on people believing her side of the story, and putting all the blame on James. Her interview with the investigators when they found out that she lied about the whole thing is very telling of the kind of individual that she is. I think in the end the real victims here are the children. Having a set of parents who are just plain toxic and narcissists.

So as i am watching the end of the 4th episode, you can finally see the real Sherri when caught in a lie about James’s mother race when she is in fact Irish and not Hispanic… I mean even if Sherri didn’t know that James’s mother was Irish, they usually have very fair skin as opposed to the darker, olive toned skin of Hispanic people.. In the first or second episode, I remember Sherri mentioning that she lied about her kidnapper’s races because she wanted to lead them to James, in reference to James’s mother being Hispanic and she wanted to lead the investigator back to James…Well Sherri seemed very offended and triggered by the fact the producers of the docuseries hired an investigator to find out about James’s mother’s race. Now that she was caught in a lie, she lied again saying that she wanted to alert the investigators about James’ identity without saying his name out loud and not his mother…Then Sherri, proceeds to be rude and says” Quite frankly, i don’t give a f*** is she Hispanic or not, it was about James, it wasn’t about her” .. well that right there, being defensive about it, shows us the kind of character that she is. Her last comment was: ” Do you think that this film will do more harm than good for me ? “

I let you think about that.

What are your thoughts ?