The California mother of two eventually admitted to fabricating her November 2016 abduction and pleaded guilty to multiple felony charges
AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
Sherri Papini
On Nov. 2, 2016, Sherri Papini, then a 34-year-old mother of two, claimed to have been the victim of a violent abduction after going on a morning jog in her Redding, Calif., neighborhood.
Her husband, Keith Papini, reported her missing that evening, after he came home to find she wasn’t there and had not picked up their kids from daycare.
After more than three weeks missing and an extensive search, a motorist spotted Sherri on Thanksgiving morning walking along the side of the road in Yolo County, Calif. — about 150 miles from where she’d disappeared — and alerted authorities.
She looked malnourished and badly beaten. Sherri told police that she was abducted at gunpoint by two Hispanic women in a dark SUV and that the women tortured her and branded her skin.
When Keith received the news that she was found alive, he rushed to a Woodland, Calif., hospital to see her.
“As soon as I saw her face, the way she looked up at me in that moment, I just felt, this is fake, this is not real,” Keith previously told PEOPLE.
Sunday, Nov. 24, marks eight years since the day Sherri Papini was found. After several years of investigation, the truth about her purported abduction was revealed, and Sherri eventually admitted to making the entire story up.
Despite his initial gut feeling, Keith, who helped authorities in the investigation, stood by his wife for years and believed that she’d been taken against her will.
“I was constantly trying to solve the case,” Keith told PEOPLE in June 2024. “I always was reaching out to the FBI. Every time she would tell me something, I was writing it down or trying to find a picture of it, and I would give that to the FBI.”
However, the case was seemingly going cold, with no leads on the suspects who Sherri said abducted and tortured her. During the investigation into her disappearance, investigators began poking holes in her claims. Authorities learned that during the 22 days she was missing, Sherri was willingly at the Costa Mesa, Calif., home of her ex-boyfriend.
Sherri was arrested in March 2022 in connection with the hoax. After Sherri’s arrest, Keith told police he was “blindsided” and “in shock” at the fact that she faked her own disappearance.
She pleaded guilty weeks later to one felony charge each of making false statements to federal agents and mail fraud. She was also ordered to pay back more than $300,000 in restitution for government funds expended on her after her self-inflicted disappearance.
Related: Where Is Sherri Papini Now? What to Know About Her Life After 2016 Kidnapping Hoax
After the truth came out, she said in a statement through her attorney that she was “deeply ashamed” of what she did, adding, “[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. I will work the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done.”
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Sherri was sentenced to 18 months in prison and was released early in 2023. After Sherri’s guilty plea, Keith filed for divorce and stopped communicating with her. He told PEOPLE earlier this year that he now has sole custody of their two children, and Sherri sees them once a month during supervised visits.
“And ever since [cutting off contact with Sherri] it’s been a lot easier, because now I just get to focus on the kids,” he said.
