Sherri Papini Is Now Blaming Someone Else for Her Kidnapping: Here's Why

Sherri Papini, the California mom who said she’d been kidnapped by two Hispanic women while out jogging before admitting it was a hoax, is now claiming she was indeed a victim of a violent kidnapping — at the hands of someone else.

In the explosive new four-part docuseries Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie — premiering on Investigation Discovery on May 26 and streaming on Max — the divorced mother of two claims her kidnapper was her former boyfriend James Reyes. (A clip from the show is shown below.)

The bizarre case began on Nov. 2, 2016, 2016 when Papini disappeared while out on a jog in rural Redding, Calif.. Her disappearance was high-profile from the start after her then-husband — Keith Papini — reported her missing after she failed to return home.

Her neighbors banded together on exhaustive searches for the missing mom and formed a tight-knit circle of support around her family. A GoFundMe account for the family raised more than $49,000.

Then, Papini reappeared just as suddenly as she’d vanished, 22 days later and 150 miles south of Redding, stumbling along a highway around 4 a.m. She was emaciated, covered in bruises, burns and rashes. She had a chain around her waist and hose clamps around her wrists. Her long blond hair had been chopped off. Authorities said Papini had been branded on her right shoulder.

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After claiming to investigators that two masked Hispanic women had abducted and tortured her, Papini eventually confessed that it had all been a hoax and she’d been staying at Reyes’ apartment in Costa Mesa, Calif., the entire time she was missing.

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Papini pleaded guilty to making false statements, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, and released early in 2023. She was also ordered to pay more than $300,000 in restitution to multiple law enforcement associations.

Now, a year and a half after her early release from serving 10 months in prison, Papini in Caught in the Lie claims she made up the story about the two masked women to cover up an affair she was having with Reyes because she feared what Keith would do if he found out about the relationship.

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“The truth is,” she said, “I was concealing an affair from my husband, who [was] threatening to take everything from me if he found out that I was  having any involvement [with another man].”

Papini claimed she was in contact with Reyes for much of the previous year, but the relationship wasn’t sexual. “James was someone that was actually listening to me and hearing me, and that’s what I needed.”

Papini claimed Reyes abducted her after she had asked him to come to Redding because — unbeknownst to Reyes — she intended to end their long-distance romance.

“I was abducted,” she insisted. “I remember waking up briefly in the back of the vehicle and not being able to even keep my eyes open. And then the next time I woke up was when he was getting me out of the vehicle to go inside, and it was dark. He had one hand underneath my arm trying to help me walk. And I just remember thinking, ‘This is not where I’m supposed to be. I’m supposed to be picking my kids up from day care. I am not supposed to be here.’ The injuries that occurred… the bites on my thigh, the footprint on my back, the brand, the melting of my skin—I am telling you there was no consent.”

In the docuseries, Papini claimed that the first thing she remembered after arriving at Reyes’ apartment was waking up naked in a tiny room.

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“I wanted to leave,” she said. “So I tried to pull one of the boards off the window and James came in and hit me in the face. And that’s the first bruise that I got . . . And after being knocked out and waking up, that’s when the chain was around my waist, secured with a padlock attached to a cable that was attached to a pole in the closet.”

Shortly before reappearing from her 22-day ordeal, Papini claimed she spoke to Reyes over dinner.

“James had let me off the chain,” she claimed. “I said, my husband’s going to find me. He’s never going to stop looking for you . . . You need to let me go. He was like, ‘Well, there’s too much has happened.’ So it all came down to me. It all came down to my coverup, and that’s [when] I agreed to . . . make up that someone else did it.”

In August 2020, DNA found on the clothes Papini was wearing when she was recovered was traced to Reyes, who told FBI agents — and later passed a polygraph test — that Papini had planned “everything.” Even the decision to use a wood-burning tool to brand her shoulder was Papini’s idea, Reyes said, adding: “I didn’t kidnap her. She was just a friend in need asking for help. She was trying to get away from her husband.” 

Reyes declined to comment about Papini’s claims.

Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie will premiere across two nights on Monday, May 26, and Tuesday, May 27, from 9 to 11 p.m. ET/PT on ID. Episodes will be available to stream on Max.