SAN FRANCISCO — Three weeks after Sherri Papini disappeared, the question of whether she was dead or alive was answered when the young mother and wife was spotted waving frantically for help along a California freeway early on Thanksgiving morning. But the mystery over what happened to her during those 22 days just seemed to grow stranger.
She was battered and bruised, her hands were chained, her long blond hair had been chopped off, and her flesh had been branded with a threatening message. The 34-year-old Papini told authorities that she had been kidnapped at gunpoint by two women Nov. 2 while she was out for a run near her home.
The bizarre turn of events — with many of the most sensational details released not by authorities but by her husband in an exclusive interview with ABC — has baffled police and set social media aflutter, with armchair detectives scouring the internet’s darkest corners for clues and others arguing that the case is some kind of twisted hoax.
Her husband, Keith Papini, has condemned the rumors as “exhausting and disgusting,” and police have said they have no reason to doubt his wife’s harrowing account. But they have a multitude of questions, among them: Who are these women? Where did they keep her? Was she selected at random or targeted?
And, most of all, why?
No ransom demand was ever received, and neither the Papinis nor their families are wealthy, according to Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko.
Detectives are tracking hundreds of leads but haven’t elicited much information from Papini and have only the sketchiest description from her of her captors, who were said to be Hispanic. Authorities have not divulged the message burned into her skin, and she hasn’t been seen publicly since she was found.
Papini said she was seized about a mile from her rural home outside Redding, 215 miles north of San Francisco. She was found in Yolo County, about 140 miles from home, telling authorities that her captors shoved her out of an SUV near Interstate 5 with a bag over her head. Her hands were bound to a chain around her waist.
Keith Papini said his wife’s nose was broken and she was emaciated, weighing 87 pounds, or 13 pounds less than her normal weight. As for her hair, “obviously, a very sick person who may have wanted to not only to cut it off to change her physical appearance but also as to humiliate them, wear her down,” Bosenko told ABC.
She said her kidnappers spoke mostly Spanish. She said one was older, with straight dark hair and thick eyebrows, while the younger one had long curly hair and pierced ears.
Papini’s husband was considered a suspect until he passed a polygraph test, the sheriff said, and friends and family have described her as happily married and a devoted mother of two.