In the annals of true crime, the Sherri Papini case ranks as one of its most jaw-dropping. Now the woman at the heart of a headline-making kidnapping gives her first on-camera interview since admitting it was a hoax — and what she says in Investigation Discovery’s two-night Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie is truly stunning.
The mother of two reverses herself, insisting she was abducted, and that the man to blame is the one who hid her for the 22 days she was missing.
Papini vanished November 2, 2016, while out jogging near her Redding, California, home. She resurfaced that Thanksgiving, bruised and branded, with a chain around her waist and a horrifying story of being taken at gunpoint by two Hispanic women. Authorities dug into the claims, which ultimately led to Papini’s confession that she’d faked the crime.
Keep scrolling for more revelations from the ID doc:
Papini, 42, accuses ex-boyfriend James Reyes — with whom she was having an emotional, not physical, affair — of being her captor: “There was no consent. And he still did it. The injuries that occurred. The bites on my inner and outer thigh. The footprint on my back. The brand. The melting of my skin. I can’t do that myself, and I am telling you there was no consent.” (Reyes previously denied any wrongdoing, saying, “I’ll be honest. I didn’t kidnap her.” He characterized Papini as a “friend in need asking for help.”)
During the investigation, male DNA was found on Sherri’s clothes — a crucial clue that led to Reyes. When he spoke to authorities, he said that many of her wounds were self-inflicted, although he did acknowledge branding her and throwing a hockey puck at her leg, both at her request.
Papini was ultimately arrested in 2022 for allegedly orchestrating her abduction. She pleaded guilty to a federal judge later that year, explaining in the doc that she took responsibility because she believed she would be charged with further offenses and receive even more time behind bars. She was sentenced to 18 months in jail for committing mail fraud and lying to a federal officer about being kidnapped. (She served just under 11 months.)
“[I am] so sorry for the pain I’ve caused my family, my friends, all the good people who needlessly suffered because of my story and those who worked so hard to try to help me,” Papini said in a statement at the time, noting she was “deeply ashamed” of her actions. “I will work the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done.”
Papini was also ordered to pay more than $300,000 in restitution for losses incurred by the California Victim Compensation Board, the Social Security Administration, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She was released from prison in August 2023.
Keeping MumWhy did she lie in the first place? In the new interview, Papini says she was still afraid of Reyes, who warned her he’d be watching the coverage to see if she pointed the finger at him: “Keeping his identity concealed was keeping me safe.”
But she did try to drop bread crumbs, she says: She described one of the so-called kidnappers in a way that would resemble Reyes’ mother: “Doing the sketch of James’ mom was like trying to lead them right to James without revealing James’ identity.”
She was also concerned that husband Keith would find out that she was having an emotional affair with her ex. (They initially dated in 2003, long before Papini’s 2009 wedding.) The marriage was rocky — ”We had both participated in some pretty toxic behaviors” — and she used a second phone to conceal this reignited relationship.
Image was everything to her husband, she claims. “But just because you can smile for a picture doesn’t mean that you’re not dying inside. Just because you look glossy on the outside doesn’t mean that that’s not what’s going on behind closed doors.” Their divorce was finalized in May 2023.
During the kidnapping ordeal, Keith was a very sympathetic presence on the news, doing tearful interviews and expressing how much he wanted her to be safe. But Papini recounts one incident — and turns on the tape she secretly made — of him wanting her to relinquish all rights regarding their son and daughter before she signed her plea deal. “If I feel like it’s not good for you to be around, for whatever reason I deem as the sole person, that I will exercise that right and say, ‘No, you are not allowed to come see them.’”
Comments Papini: “Just because you’re saying it’s not a threat doesn’t make it true.”
Support From a Surprising Source, Part 1Papini’s therapist, Dr. Stephen Diggs, who specializes in the treatment of personality disorder (for her, that’s self-defeating personality disorder and dissociation), is also interviewed — and says he stands behind her latest version of events. “I absolutely believe she was abducted,” he states. “I believe that she has broken through a very difficult defense mechanism of lying and she is now, most of the time, quite honest.”
Diggs believes her relationship with Reyes stemmed from wanting “a fleeting moment of getting her needs met.” While she anticipated returning to her “subservient” role, he says, that’s not how it turned out. “I absolutely believe that Sherri did not ask for this. She did not want this to happen.”
Support From a Surprising Source, Part 2
Mo de la Mora, a friend of Papini’s at the Victorville, California, federal facility where she was imprisoned, said no one liked the new inmate at first. Papini herself admits, “I came in very shut-down and very protected and very meek and very scared.” Things changed after the Lifetime movie Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papini, starring Jaime King, aired January 28, 2023.
“Everybody was up in the TV room,” de la Mora remembers, “and she was just horrified because everybody was talking s*** about her … especially the part about the racist angle.”
Scenes where the TV Papini accused Mexican women of her kidnapping incensed the population. “You’re talking about the majority of the Hispanic community in the prison,” de la Mora adds. “So they came up to her, ‘Bitch, what the f*** you got against Mexicans?’”
Papini defended herself and told her story. “And that’s the thing: It’s a tall order if you’re lying. It’s a tall order for somebody to make up something. But she wasn’t. She came at them with the truth… The ones that heard her story, by the time they left that conversation with her, they understood that all that s*** was bulls***… And they knew that what they [the authorities] were trying to say about her did not fit. It does not make sense.” Papini left the confrontation with actual friends.
Although Papini’s parents, Richard and Loretta Graeff, did not appear in Hulu’s popular 2024 documentary Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini, they did agree to be interviewed for Caught in the Lie.
Papini talks about a trauma that made her who she is: “Really early on in childhood, someone who is not my mother or father sexually abused me, and that, I would say, is the early stages of where my personality developed,” she confesses. “It really led to this shaping of, OK, if I can just please this person and if I can placate or make them calm down or make them be OK, I’ll get hurt less.”
Papini’s mother acknowledges, “There was inappropriate sexual behavior that I really don’t want to get into.” Then Papini goes on to share a turning point — that when she was in her early double digits, “someone was caught sexually abusing me by my dad, And it was a big family deal.” Nobody talked about it.
“I understand it a lot more now and how things happened,” says Loretta, who notes that her relationship with her daughter has been rekindled since Papini’s release. “It’s been very good.” Richard chimes in: “It’s been awesome.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Diggs points to the parents’ behavior as another factor in putting her in harm’s way.“They failed to really take care of this kid…and in the end, the failure of the parent is what set the stage for all of Sherri’s current problems to happen. That secret second life was built by the neglect.”
In the show’s final hour, Papini takes a lie detector test, and some of the questions she’s asked are truly incendiary — for example, regarding the time she was missing, “At James’ house in 2016, were you free to leave at any time without fear of violence?” and “Did you ask James to brand you?”
The administrator is clear that the test does not indicate truth but whether her body has a “significant response” to a statement, indicating she has failed the polygraph. While some questions did get that response — and she explains her thoughts — ultimately, the test indicates that the essence of her new account of being held against her will is indeed true. “I do believe you. I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says.
Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie airs on Investigation Discovery Monday, May 26, and Tuesday, May 27, at 9 pm ET. Episodes will also be available to stream on Max.
