Sherri Papini covers PEOPLE on Nov. 13, 2017.
For years, conspiracies spread about what really happened to Papinias investigators struggled to find leads and arrest the people allegedly responsible. But this past April, Papini admitted it was all a hoax, and that she staged the purported kidnapping.
As the nation waits to learn Papini’s fate, here’s a look back at PEOPLE magazine’s original cover story on the unusual case, published on Nov. 13, 2017, a year after she was located:
Suspect sketches.FBI
Her spotty memory — combined with inconsistencies in her account — has only deepened suspicions and raised questions on true-crime internet sites where armchair detectives debate the specifics of the case. “If it was truly an abduction, I am concerned for the people of Shasta County,” says Trudy Nickens, founder of the Nor Cal Alliance for the Missing, which organized last year’s massive civilian search for Sherri. “Why would it take a year to release a composite of the presumed kidnappers? I don’t understand it.”
Sherri and Keith Papini with their children.
As far as Keith’s involvement goes, police say he submitted to a polygraph test that found “no deception” and has volunteered for additional lie-detector tests. “Detectives utilized all resources to determine if Sherri Papini’s disappearance was voluntary or involuntary,” the sheriff ’s officesaid. “The investigation is still continuing.”
Keith and Sherri Papini.Courtesy Keith Papini
As for Bill Garcia, the San Diego private investigator who worked pro bono for the Papini family in the search last year, one discrepancy that has since emerged nags at him. On his 911 call Keith said he had found Sherri’s phone on the ground along her jogging route — with torn pieces of her hair tangled in the headphones as if she had been grabbed. “If she was forcibly taken,” asks Garcia, “why were her earbuds rolled up in a little coil and placed on top of her phone?”
Detectives also still struggle to identify what they call the “obscure letters” branded on the back of Sherri’s right shoulder. And they have no explanation for why Sherri told an FBI forensic interviewer that at one point she fought back against her younger captor — slamming the woman’s head into the toilet in an altercation that left Sherri with a cut on her foot—and yet hospital photos from the day of Sherri’s recovery show no evidence of a cut, although it could have healed. “That could be construed as inconsistent,” says Jackson. “If there is no clarification [from Sherri], we take it for what it is worth and go on with the investigation.” As for his own gut, Jackson points out that he was one of the first to interview Sherri last year. “There is no information that would indicate it’s not true,” he says. “I have invested almost a year of my career in this case, and we will continue on until we get some answers and hopefully get some people in custody soon.”
-Retired NYPD Sgt. Joe Giacalone"The police are stuck with a case right now that looks unsolvable."
-Retired NYPD Sgt. Joe Giacalone
“The police are stuck with a case right now that looks unsolvable.”
For all the unanswered questions, those closest to the case are as certain that Sherri was brutally victimized as they are of her great fortune to have somehow survived. Missy McArthur, who was mayor of Redding at the time Sherri disappeared, met with her and Keith shortly after Sherri’s homecoming — just the three of them, at McArthur’s home. “She was really afraid of people and strangers,” McArthur says. “She wanted to be right next to Keith. I think their relationship is real, and hopefully it can withstand this kind of trauma. They are a team and were at that time. I just believe them both.” And then there’s the most fundamental fact: “She was beat to a pulp,” says McArthur. “You don’t do that kind of thing to yourself. I absolutely believe she was kidnapped.” Even Garcia, the P.I. so uneasy about the coiled earbuds, says the open questions haven’t changed his bottom line. “I think it was real, just based on what I saw. There didn’t seem to be tension between Sherri and her husband.”
Friends of the Papinis' also say that no one outside of Sherri and Keith truly understands the horror of what she has faced. “Society crucified her and made her out to be a horrible person when she is a victim in the entire thing,” says Lisa Jeter, a friend of the couple’s. “I just would like people to leave her alone and let them heal.”
But for Nickens, her community’s sense of safety hangs in the margin. “If we had a young woman jogging on a road in Shasta County abducted in broad daylight, how can this not be a public-safety issue? I have five daughters under the age of 22,” Nickens says. “If it did not really happen the way it was presented, the citizens of Shasta County should know.”
Diane Herbst
source: people.com
