Investigators release interrogation video of Sherri Papini, mom who faked her kidnapping, breaking down
SHASTA COUNTY - The Shasta County Sheriff's Office has released interrogation footage of Sherri Papini, the mom who was convicted in connection with her faked abduction.
The video, which was released Tuesday, shows the 40-year-old Redding mom breaking down in August 2020 as deputies laid out the evidence against her and her now made-up kidnapping. The video shows Sherri sitting in a small room with two deputies -- her husband seated by her side. Investigators then tell her that they have DNA and polygraph evidence showing that, rather than being kidnapped, she had been with her ex-boyfriend in Southern California.
"It's not like we don't know the answers to these questions," said an investigator.
"And fear of...fear of Keith's reaction. Obviously now he's in the room. The fear of...the fear of all of these things are coming...are coming forward and they're in front of you now," said an investigator. "The only way to get a hold of it -- the only way for everybody to come together and heal -- the whole community has to -- is for us to be able to say: 'When we presented all of the evidence -- all of the stuff that came forward, she told us the truth.'...Those are all things we can verify, Sherri. The car rental, the fuel, the mileage, the calls from you to him, the burner phone -- all that can be proven."
"(Inaudible) I'm horrible," Sherri replies, bent over with her face in her hands. Despite this, she doesn't admit to any criminal wrongdoing.
The video release comes after the soap opera event in 2016 when Sherri was discovered on the side of a freeway in the community of Yolo and said she had been kidnapped and tortured by two Hispanic women.
Following the criminal investigation, she was arrested in March 2022 and later pleaded guilty to mail fraud and making false statements. under a plea bargain.
On Monday, Sherri was sentenced to 18 months in prison,
Prosecutors said Papini's ruse harmed more than just herself and her family. "An entire community believed the hoax and lived in fear that Hispanic women were roving the streets to abduct and sell women," they wrote.
