SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson said Sherri Papini's alleged fake abduction was "driven by her narcissistic behavior," according to an interview with Good Morning America Monday morning.
Sheriff Johnson was interviewed by GMA regarding the Papini case.
"It is a case of calculated deception, I think, driven by her narcissistic behavior and it really had an impact on this community and nationwide as far as that goes," Sheriff Johnson told GMA.
Papini is a 39-year-old mother and wife from Redding, Calif. Her disappearance and mysterious reappearance set off a frantic three-week search more than five years ago. On Thanksgiving Day in 2016, Papini was found with bindings on her body and injuries after weeks of searching in California and several nearby states.
She 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.
However, authorities said she was actually staying with a former boyfriend nearly 600 miles away from her home in Orange County, in Southern California, and hurt herself to back up her false statements.
She was recently arrested on March 3 and accused of lying to federal agents about being kidnapped and defrauding the state's victim compensation board of $30,000.
"Investigations are complex and budgets are tight, so when we put all that effort into such a case and find out that things are not as they seemed and we've been deceived and law enforcement has been duped, it's really taxing on everybody," Sheriff Johnson told GMA.
According to a criminal complaint against Papini, while staying with her former boyfriend, she purposefully inflicted harm on herself and did not eat to lose weight to back up her false statements.
“When a young mother went missing in broad daylight, a community was filled with fear and concern,” U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert said in a statement. "Ultimately, the investigation revealed that there was no kidnapping and that time and resources that could have been used to investigate actual crime, protect the community, and provide resources to victims were wasted.”
Sheriff Johnson said he would not be surprised if more charges would come up and said that covering up a story portrays "selfish, narcissistic behavior."