REDDING, Calif. — A new documentary detailing a 2016 hoax where a California woman faked her own kidnapping and disappeared for 22 days is now out.
Sherri Papini disappeared in 2016 after going on a run in Shasta County. Her then-husband, Keith Papini called the police and her disappearance kicked off a weeks-long search costing thousands of dollars. The story is being retold in a new three-part series "Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini."
A Hulu documentary series premieres Thursday, June 20 sharing a behind-the-scenes look into Sherri and Keith's relationship and her disappearance.
The trailer for the limited series starts with home video footage of Sherri and a track of her singing "I got the world's greatest husband, his name is Keith... It's a wonderful, wonderful life with you."
Episode one is called "It's a Wonderful Life With You," followed by the second episode "Smegma was Relentless" and culminating with the third episode "You Never Found Me."
Keith talked to ABC10 ahead of the series' release and said he's excited about this project and for people to see the truth.
"Trust is going to be something I'll be a little more cautious of going forward but luckily I met Allison Berkley and she was amazing and she really understood the message that I wanted to get across — thanking the community, friends and family. But also I wanted the truth to be out there and the lives my family and friends lived with Sherri doing her beck and call the last six years helping her get through this tragic event that never actually occurred," Keith Papini said.
WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW: Keith Papini tells Mark S. Allen all about Sherri's kidnapping hoax, his new series and has one warning for the audience about his ex-wife:
Keith also did an interview with ABC where he discussed why he participated in the new series.
"I wanted to get the truth out there and really wanted to let everybody know how convincing Sherri was all those years and how I believed everything that she was telling me," Keith Papini said.
Her fake kidnapping and years-long hoax didn't just impact her husband, but her two children too.
"The amount of fear that our family lived in that was fake is excruciating, I mean the security at our house, new doors, new locks, new lights, new cameras," Keith Papini told ABC.
Keith Papini and Sherri Papini were divorced in 2023 and he has sole custody of their two children.
Watch the trailer: Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini | Official Trailer | Hulu
CASE HISTORY
Papini was sentenced to 18 months in prison in Sept. 2022 after pleading guilty in April.
In a court filing, Papini’s defense attorney said the married mother ran away to an ex-boyfriend in Southern California about 600 miles south of her home in Redding. He later dropped her off on Interstate 5 about 150 miles from her home.
Passersby found her with bindings on her body, a swollen nose, a blurred “brand” on her right shoulder, bruises and rashes across her body, ligature marks on her wrists and ankles, and burns on her left forearm. All of the injuries were self-inflicted and were designed to substantiate her story that she had been abducted at gunpoint by two Hispanic women while she was out for a run.
The kidnapping hoax led to a three-week multi-state search back in late 2016.
She received an 18-month sentence due to a plea deal with prosecutors, down from the maximum 25 years she could’ve received for the two charges. She never said why she did what she did.
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Watch more on ABC10 | Sherri Papini Interrogation by Shasta Co. Sheriff's detectives | Raw video