Sherri Papini

Investigators learned Sherry had married a Marine sergeant in 2006, which he said was because she needed health insurance. He said they never actually lived together and divorced in 2008. And in a quick turnaround, Sherry and Keith married the very next year.

Even after an exhaustive search, investigators still have no solid leads. They're no closer to finding Sherry or figuring out how she apparently disappeared in the middle of the day.

The last major disappearance in this county was of Tara Smith. That's correct.

Sherry Papini, world famous for her disappearing act in California in 2016. First, she claimed she'd been kidnapped and her captors had beaten, bound and unbelievably branded her. Then she admitted she just made it all up. She pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and now after prison, divorce and public humiliation, she has something to say for herself in a new documentary.

They also say they found this four-page letter that Tara had addressed to Troy Zing. To the Smiths, it seemed to confirm that she was involved in an intimate relationship with him. She wrote, It's against God's will, and we both know it. But the letter also makes it clear that Tara had deep regrets and she decided to end the relationship. She wrote, Ask yourself this question.

Are you putting yourself and us before God? I know I am, but not anymore.

Once Troy Zink was named a person of interest, he retained a lawyer and then refused to talk to investigators or submit to a polygraph test. And while that case still remains open to this day, Zink is on the record saying he had nothing to do with Tara's disappearance and he was never charged.

It's called Sherry Papini Caught in the Lie, which premieres on May 26th on ID and streams on Max.

18 years had passed since Tara Smith went missing, a tragedy still fresh in the minds of the Redding community when Sherry Papini disappeared in a similar way.

Now at this point, Keith is contacted by someone who claims he can help as a hostage negotiator.

The Sherry Papini that's out there, it's not me. She's not real. It's just this version of me that has been created.

At the end of the seventh day of the search for Sherry Papini, investigators seem no closer to finding her.

The rule of thumb for criminologists in any missing person's case is that the first 72 hours are critical. And with every passing hour, the chances of finding the victim alive fade. So investigators looking for Sherry are desperate for a break. But still, at this point, the only piece of evidence they have to go on was her phone.

Did they ask you if you had anything to do with Sherry's disappearance? Oh, of course.

How did he do on that polygraph test? He passed polygraph.

In most cases of domestic abuse or disappearance, the spouse or the partner has something to do with it that never bothered you.

police are still no closer to locating Sherry or figuring out why she was taken or by whom.

Now, at this point, Keith is contacted by someone who claims he can help as a hostage negotiator. His name is Cameron Gamble, and he tells Keith that an anonymous donor has offered $50,000 for Sherry's safe return, no questions asked. You don't know who the anonymous person is? No. It's anonymous to you as well?

Who is Cameron Gamble? We know he's a former Air Force senior airman who makes a living training military, law enforcement, even private citizens on how to evade and escape capture.

What made you so confident that this was an abduction and not something else? Everything I looked at fit that bill.

Your critics would say that this is a publicity stunt.

Did you ever expect someone to ring you up and say, I have Sherry. I want the money? I was hopeful. You were so convinced that Sherry was still alive.

Though Cameron Gamble's motivations are sincere for the investigators on the case, his involvement muddies up what was already a murky case.

There were some big opponents to this. The sheriff was adamantly opposed to Cameron Gamble being involved in any way.

How did it come to this? Well, it's kind of a strange story. It all began, naturally, with that once upon a time of crime. A 911 call.

Happy Thanksgiving. It's going to be a cold morning. You've got the turkey trot in Redding.

Bundle up.

In the pre-dawn hours of November 24th, which was Thanksgiving morning, 150 miles south of Redding in Yolo County, a driver spots a woman in distress on the side of the highway.

Very early in the morning, Thanksgiving Day, you get a phone call.

Detective Wallace recorded that first interaction at the hospital with a very shaken sounding Sherry.

she's alive and you just got to be happy and in that recording you can hear how emotional sherry sounds when she's reunited with keith sherry papini is found alive and everybody is ecstatic about her safe return but this story is about to become far more twisted than anybody can imagine.

Investigators also get the DNA hidden.

And Keith Pepini today, in an all new interview, he lays out the whole story for the first time. How did you not pick up on it all those years together?

The story that the world thinks they know is that I am a master manipulator who's fooled everyone.

Sherry Papini, the woman behind one of the most outrageous hoaxes ever, now speaking out with yet a different version of her story. That's my magic wand.

How her then-husband and the world were conned. Everything you thought was true wasn't true.

Is that evil or is it just sick? Now, Sherry Papini's latest claim.

I wish more than anything I could have been more truthful.

she's found alive good morning america a thanksgiving miracle sherry papini the shasta county mother missing for three weeks has been found alive we are very ecstatic to report that sherry papini has been located she and keith have been reunited it was thanksgiving day they just said sherry's back sherry's home

In 2016, I spoke to Keith just days after Sherry returned. What did you see?

Now, the detectives want to talk to Sherry. They're looking for any information that she can give them about the horror that she had just endured. But it didn't really seem like Sherry wanted to talk to them.

I don't want to talk to you. Tell me.

With Keith asking the questions, Sherri begins opening up about what happened to her.

Did she know the people she was with? No. The people who abducted her?

Didn't recognize them?

Did she ever see them?

I'll never forget hearing Keith Papini talk about the moment he got to see his own children reunited with their mother. Four-year-old Tyler went first.

What does it feel like to have that thought that somebody has abducted your wife?

I see a vehicle go past. The window goes down, but it was... It was a woman.

two hispanic females in a dark colored suv in the state of california is not much of a tip no it would be literally a needle in a haystack the investigation is far from over in fact it has only begun a new chapter in this video you see detectives from the shasta county sheriff's office interviewing sherry she was in a ball and a cocoon essentially with her knees up to her chest

I feel like sometimes it's easier with my eyes closed. Is that okay? Absolutely.

I can't be alone with people I don't know. So he's here.

That's another thing I'm scared about. I don't know you guys. I don't know if you're in my corner. I know my husband. I know my husband's in my corner, but... Um, you know, there was a lot of other things, and I know that you guys know everything about everything.

Yeah.

And that's embarrassing, and yucky, and that's weird for me. That's weird for me.

Sherry's disappearance was the start of a mystery. that would grip the entire country as detectives searched for answers in the rural Northern California town of Redding.

Now, Sherry provides these very unique details about the home where she was held captive. And all of these specifics can help investigators narrow the search, especially as they get closer to potential suspects in a case.

There was boards on the windows and I yanked that out of the wall super quick and that's what got her in the room was that noise. The yanking it out was what made the noise. Broke my nail, ripped it off. She came in and then it was lights out.

I can't remember if it was if I was hit with something, if I was stuck with something. And that's what I was asking too, if I was tased, wouldn't I remember?

A metal cable.

I had slack. Slack. Yes. Yes. I could get to the bed. So it reached the bed. I could obviously get to the closet. Couldn't reach the door.

It just was a standard... There was a crack in the tile. It was a light colored tile that was speckled. There was a crack in the tile. It was always hands on the wall. It was a really high pressured shower. That very first shower that I had hurt really bad because the burn was fresh and the water was running over it and there was other open wounds and it just...

But there are others who thought that certain details of Sherri's story weren't actually consistent with sex trafficking.

And there started to be rumors that circulated that Sherry had something to do with her own disappearance. Did that anger you?

sherry has been described as a super mom yeah she's always wanted to be home with her babies and to be an important role in their lives from everyone we talked to sherry who was a stay-at-home mom cherished her family life doting on their four-year-old son tyler and their two-year-old daughter violet i know my sister would never leave her children never leave her babies

And five months later, there is still a lot police don't know.

While the police are mystified, the Papinis go quiet and lay low.

It did seem odd that it took Sherry Papini almost a full year to come up with enough details for a sketch artist to work with.

Haven't you ever lied? And then has that lie been blown up and broadcasted around the world?

Around the same time, investigators also get back results from the crime lab that's been examining Sherri's clothing. And there's a DNA hit, exactly what they were hoping for. But the results are confusing.

I assume you were also looking into Sherry's background. Oh, yeah. What did you find? There's a little bit of red flags there.

Issues with infidelity, issues with lying, and a history of running away.

She told different stories about why she had been branded.

It was hard for investigators to get past the sheer brutality of her injuries.

Four years after Sherry's kidnapping in 2020, investigators decide they need to focus on finding the source of that male DNA found on Sherry's clothing.

They're hoping somebody in this guy's family had used one of those DNA websites. If they find a relative, they've got a lead. And it worked.

It came back to James Reyes, an ex-boyfriend. And you see James Reyes in a photo with Sherry from one of her social media posts.

And it's not until 53 minutes into this interview that they get Reyes to finally come clean.

As Sergeant Kyle Wallace chats up Reyes, his FBI colleague wanders the apartment.

All thread, that's the screw, the metal pole that she described? Yeah, the metal pole and the screw. She said she was chained to that. Chained, yeah.

Sherry told the world that she had sat there locked up, chained, miserable, abused. But Raya says the truth was that she voluntarily spent time alone reading the news about her own disappearance.

I mean, this is like a cosmic connection.

Reyes also says that Cheri slammed a hockey stick into her own face. That's how she injured her nose? Yeah.

Then before dawn on that now infamous Thanksgiving morning, James Reyes says he dropped Sherry off in a remote area.

And when we come back, 2020 takes you inside the interrogation room for that dramatic police confrontation.

I didn't do anything wrong.

Thanks to the cooperation of that ex-boyfriend, James Reyes, investigators now believe they have solid proof that Sherry Papini's kidnapping was a hoax.

Does she have any idea what's about to happen?

So were you able to find Like where that house is. Yes.

Excuse my language, it's pretty similar.

He thinks they found the abductors.

And you can see on that video that the detectives step out to let them decide. And at this point, Sherry tells Keith that she doesn't want police to catch that captor who she claims helped her escape.

I don't want them to find her. You're not listening to me. Because she saved my life and she's the reason why I get to hold my children every single day.

Keith is in the room when they're identifying and talking about the ex-boyfriend who she was allegedly with that whole time. Yeah, and Keith just, he gets up and walks out. Were you surprised that she stuck to her guns even after you presented what, you know, appeared to be this incredibly compelling evidence?

Sherri Papini, what you've never heard before.

They tell her that they have proof of phone contact with her and James, and that sends her spinning off into another direction.

Take me back to that day.

And she's begging police to protect the captor, who she claims let her go. Did a female point a gun at you, yes or no?

Did you ever get an impression from Keith about... He wanted to leave.

On the shot.

What could possibly come next in this never-ending story? Prison, freedom, and for the first time, Sherry Papini as you've never seen her with an astonishing new version of events.

So the story that the world thinks they know is that I am a master manipulator who's fooled everyone. That's my magic wand.

In March of 2022, six years after Sherry Papini vanished while on an afternoon jog.

News breaks that the mother of two has been arrested.

Now being accused of making the whole thing up. A stunning admission. Cherry Pippini has now admitted it was all a hoax. Will plead guilty to lying to federal agents about the case.

Sherry was sentenced to 18 months and was ordered to pay restitution. She served just under a year in federal prison and is now free. After her release, I spoke with her ex-husband, Keith Papini. So many people watching this would wonder, was his spidey sense going off? Didn't he notice that something was off?

So why do you think that she essentially concocted this hoax, disappeared, beat herself to a pulp for 22 days, and then continued to lie about it for years?

Sherry and Keith are now divorced, but they have been engaged in this brutal custody battle over their two children. She apologized in court. But has Sherry ever apologized to you or the children?

Now it's Sherry's turn.

I'm Sherry pepini I was abducted and I was tortured and the FBI said I made it all up.

A new documentary Sherry pepini caught in the lie premieres on May 26 on ID and streams on max.

It gave me the opportunity to finally say, hello, I'm Sherry Papini. Nice to finally meet you.

Sherry now claims she was abducted, held against her will for 22 days, and assaulted, but not by two Hispanic women, as she first claimed, but by that former boyfriend, James Reyes.

The phone, it dropped.

There was no master plan. There was no hoax kidnapping. There was a cover up of what happened. and I participated in the cover-up.

I just wanted to go home. Keep in mind, this is coming from a woman who admitted in a plea agreement she planned the whole thing. Instructed James Reyes to buy phones and meet up with her, got in that car, stayed in that house voluntarily, and made it appear that she'd been abused.

That lie, abducted by a pair of pistol-packing women, now she claims she can't remember how she wound up in the car with James.

Like, I wish I could just say, I don't remember getting in the car. And you're trying to get there, and you're trying to get to this moment where I can't tell you. I can't tell you.

Saying she felt stuck in an unhappy marriage, Sherry says she rekindled a texting relationship with James Reyes, who she now claims showed up unexpectedly one day and kidnapped her. She says she lied to the FBI, lied to the police and the world because she was afraid of her husband finding out about her relationship with James.

In testimony in their custody case, Keith says Sherry's new allegations about James are just more lies. We have reached out to James Reyes for comment, but have not heard back. The Shasta County Sheriff's Office fully investigated James, corroborated his story with a polygraph, cell phone records and witnesses, and has cleared him of any crimes.

The sheriff's office declining to comment on Sherry's latest allegations, saying, quote, we are choosing to focus on current public safety matters. And as the documentary comes to a close, Sherry wonders aloud about the wisdom of doing that interview.

Do you think that this film is going to do more harm than good for me?

Good question.

What she now claims actually happened. Her then-husband speaking his truth. I mean, essentially, you were the target of one of the biggest hoaxes perpetrated on America in years.

Where exactly did Keith find Sherry's phone?

How quickly did public attention start to focus on this case and the Papinis?

branding hockey pucks against her arms and legs.

I wish I could just say, I don't remember getting in the car. And you're trying to get there, and you're trying to get to this moment where I can't tell you.

That page, set up by Keith's friends, promises all funds will go directly to the family to aid in search efforts to bring Sherry home. In total, it raises nearly $50,000.

All this time you're dealing with this, you've still got two little kids to think about.

kept him out of this. Still, Keith knew he had to find a way to explain to his young son, Tyler, why his mom was away from home.

This is very weird for me, because I know that you know everything about everything.

Because you were still eyeing him as a possible suspect.

Basically, there were some inconsistencies in his story It made you a little bit suspicious, huh?

So at this time, you're not only dealing with the disappearance of your wife, having to break it to your kids, but you're also the prime suspect. The sheriff's office thinks that you had something to do with Sherry's disappearance.

No.

No.

I don't know. No, there's no way it's James. There's no way. There's no way.

Hello. I'm Sherry Papini. Nice to finally meet you. The story that the world thinks they know is that I am a master manipulator who's fooled everyone. That's my magic wand. Sorry. I'm gonna do ridiculous things because some of this is ridiculous.

I was abducted and I was tortured and the FBI said I made it all up. I really challenge anybody watching this film, how truthful are you? Hello. I'm Sherry Papini. Nice to finally meet you. The story that the world thinks they know is that I am a master manipulator who's fooled everyone. That's my magic wand. Sorry. I'm going to do ridiculous things because some of this is ridiculous.