Upon first questioning, she provided police with little detail, which Bosenko attributed to her still recovering from the experience. She said they wore masks over their faces and spoke almost exclusively in Spanish. Sherri told police that her abductors had been two Hispanic women driving a dark SUV. Whatever injuries she suffered, overnight hospitalization was not required, and by Thanksgiving night she was back at home with her family. When she was discovered, Keith said, Sherri was bruised, had lost 15 percent of her body weight, and had a broken nose, "severe burns, red rashes, and chain markings." Police, however, have been less forthcoming with details about Sherri Papini's condition. Keith Papini has said that his wife's captors beat her, cut off her hair, and "barely fed" her. She was "taken to an area hospital, and treated for non-life threatening conditions," according to Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosekno. She was quickly dubbed a "supermom" in headlines.Ĭalifornia State Police found Papini roadside in Yolo County, near Sacramento, with one hand chained behind her waist.
The story seemed to have legs both because of the mystery surrounding Papini's disappearance and because of who Papini is: a pretty, young, white woman with a photogenic family and a Pinterest-perfect collection of hobbies: crafting, baking, exercise, home decorating, party-planning, and prayer. Papini's disappearance, and subsequent return, earned ample national attention. She has since been reunited with her family, the Shasta County Sheriff's Department is investigating, and the Papinis are taking some time away from the spotlight in an undisclosed location.
The case came to a happy ending on Thanksgiving day, when Papini was found on the side of a rural road a few hours from her home, malnourished and knocked around but not severely injured. And the latter explanations certainly make more sense than the former when taken with the facts that nothing else about the abduction belied an intent to force Papini into commercial sex and, in fact, Papini's assailants eventually just let her go, according to what she told police.įor those unfamiliar with the case, Papin i-a stay-at-home mother of two living with her husband in Shasta County, California- disappeared on November 2 while Keith was at work and the kids were in daycare.
Police later confirmed that Sherri did have something burnt into her skin, specifying only that it was not a "symbol" but a "message." But even accepting the premise that sex-traffickers frequently "brand" their victims-a common claim also utterly lacking in evidence-Papini's burns could just as easily have been an act of torture or a way to relay a message to Papini, police, or the public. The whole theory hinges on the fact that Papini was "branded," as her husband Keith initially put it. Yet there is almost nothing to support the idea that Papini's disappearance was related to sex or prostitution. Other wide-reaching media outlets-NBC News, ABC News, Us Weekly, the Sacramento Bee-have likewise floated the idea that the mysterious duo of Hispanic women Papini fingered may have been part of a sex-trafficking ring.
#Super mom disappearance case serial#
I first learned about Sherri Papini, the 34-year-old California woman who went missing for 22 days in November, from a Today Show headline asking: " Was Sherri Papini kidnapping linked to sex trafficking?" In People magazine's December 9 issue, John Kelly, "a noted serial killer profiler," said Papini's abduction had all the hallmarks of human trafficking, with her mistreatment typical of the "shaming and degrading" of victims that traffickers deploy.
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