CALIFORNIA, USA — Sherri Papini, 39, of Redding, was arrested Thursday on charges of lying to federal agents about being kidnapped and defrauding the state's victim compensation board of $30,000.
Below is a timeline of events related to the case:
- Nov. 2, 2016 — Sherri Papini is reported missing by her husband, Keith Papini at approximately 5:50 p.m. She was last seen jogging alone on Sunrise Drive, according to an ABC article.
- Nov. 3, 2016 — The Shasta County Sheriff's Office and search and rescue teams investigate the area of Old Oregon Trail and Sunset Drive, where she was last seen.
- Nov. 24, 2016 — Papini was found Thanksgiving morning around 4:30 a.m. standing or running in the middle of Country Road 17 and I-5 in Yolo County, near the Woodland area. She was given medical treatment and reunited with her husband. According to ABC, Sheriff Tom Bosenko said Papini was bound with restraints and had a message branded on her. “No, I read it, but it’s a really confusing bible passage," Papini said, "it’s like a really weird part of the bible...it doesn’t make any sense.”
- Bosenko believes the people who abducted Papini were two Hispanic female adults who were driving an SUV and armed with a handgun.
- Nov. 30, 2016 — Sheriff Tom Bosenko mentioned in an interview that Papini’s phone and earbuds appeared to be neatly placed on the ground rather than lost in a struggle, with the screen facing up and the earbuds loosely wrapped around the phone. Her husband found this detail "strange" when presented.
- March 30, 2017 — ABC reported that on Dec. 17, 2003, the Shasta County Sheriff's Office got a call from Loretta Graeff, Papini's mother, that her daughter was 'harming herself and blaming it on [her].' However, the 911 log did not fully indicate Papini was harming herself at the moment.
LISTEN TO FULL 911 CALL HERE.
- Oct. 2017 — Sergeant Brian Jackson with the Shasta County Sheriff's Office also says officials found DNA from two people on Papini, both from a man and a woman. Jackson says authorities collected the woman's DNA from Papini's body, while the man's was found on the clothes she wore when found. That DNA was not of her husband's, Keith Papini.
- Nov. 7, 2017 — Video evidence from a Jehovah's Witness Church in Woodland was released, showing Sherri Papini walking in the area of the Highway 99 and the Interstate 5 northbound interchange. This video was taken around 4:15 a.m. on the day she was found, courtesy of the Shasta County Sheriff's Office.
WATCH HERE: New footage: Sherri Papini surveillance video
- August 2020 — She is interviewed by a federal agent and a Shasta County sheriff’s detective, providing details of the two Hispanic women who allegedly kidnapped Papini. However, according to a criminal complaint against Papini, this was false. Papini was staying with an ex-boyfriend and inflicted harm on herself to back up her false statements. Her ex-boyfriend also believed Papini was purposefully trying to lose weight while she was staying with him. The DNA on the shirt she was wearing was her ex-boyfriend's, and phone records show that Papini and her ex were seeing each other, sending flirty text messages dating back to 2011. However, she continued to deny when questioned, sticking to her story that she was abducted by two Hispanic women. When interviewed, the various men found saved in Papini's phone talked about her history of lying.
- Mar. 3, 2022 — Papini has been arrested on charges of lying to federal agents about being kidnapped and defrauding the state's victim compensation board of $30,000.
Papini told authorities at the time that she had been kidnapped at gunpoint by two Hispanic women, even providing descriptions to an FBI sketch artist along with extensive details of her purported abduction.
In reality, authorities said, she was staying with a former boyfriend nearly 600 miles (966 kilometers) away from her home in Orange County, in Southern California, and hurt herself to back up her false statements.
Papini's preliminary hearing will be held some time in mid-March.
WATCH MORE ON ABC10: Sherri Papini is accused of faking her kidnapping and defrauding the state
