Why Did Sherri Papini Fake Her Kidnapping? People Still Want Answers

The story of Sherri Papini is widely known and depicted in the Lifetime original movie Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papini and the Hulu true crime docuseries The Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini.

Sherri’s now ex-husband, Keith Papini, realized she had disappeared on Nov. 2, 2016, when she failed to pick up their two kids from daycare. He later found her phone and headphones about a mile from their home in Redding, Calif. — she had gone for a jog and never returned.

Then, 22 days after she went missing — on Thanksgiving Day 2016 — Sherri was spotted about 150 miles from Redding. Authorities were alerted, and she was taken to a hospital with cuts, bruises, and a broken nose. Sherri claimed she had been kidnapped at gunpoint by two Hispanic women who held her hostage and abused her before finally letting her go.

But as it turns out, Sherri wasn’t kidnapped at all. She faked the entire ordeal. So, why did she do it?

It wasn’t until more than four years after Sherri Papini was found and taken to safety in November 2016 that authorities uncovered the truth — she had faked her entire kidnapping. The zip ties on her wrists, the hose clamps around her ankles, the bruises — it was all a sham.

Though Sherri has never fully explained why she staged her own abduction at 34, theories suggest she did it either to escape her life or for attention and sympathy. The latter seems more likely.

Sherri had a history of troubling behavior. When she was 21, her mother, Loretta Graeff, called Shasta County detectives — the same agency that later investigated her "kidnapping" — claiming Sherri was harming herself but trying to blame it on her, per The Sacramento Bee. Loretta reportedly contacted the police multiple times between 2000 and 2003, filing complaints about her daughter.

One came from Sherri’s father, who accused her of making unauthorized withdrawals from his checking account. Another came from her sister, Sheila Koester, who claimed Sherri had kicked in her back door.

Some might think Sherri staged the abduction to cover up her time with ex-boyfriend James Reyes, avoiding the guilt of stepping out of her marriage. But the physical injuries she inflicted on herself suggest something deeper — she wasn’t happy with her life. Sherri had been working as an account executive for AT&T before becoming a stay-at-home mom. Maybe that shift triggered something in her.

Now that Sherri Papini is out of prison, she likely has a lot of debt from the restitution she owes for the massive expenses her faked kidnapping caused, and she could use a financial boost. She just might be getting one.

Sherri is set to appear in an Investigation Discovery docuseries slated for release sometime in 2025. In it, she’s expected to share her side of the story — and our fingers are crossed she will give us a clearer understanding of why she staged her own abduction in the first place.