More Sex, Lies and Depravity

Where would you like to start?

I... have no idea.

Okay. So on November 2, 2016,

what happened?

- The missing mother of two, Sherri Papini,

went for a run, and she didn't come home.

The community of Redding, California,

is still very much on edge.

- Police in California are working around the clock

to get to the bottom of an alleged kidnapping.

Several experts tell us

that this has all the telltale signs of human trafficking.

- Until we identify the suspects,

the public should remain cautious.

On November 2nd of 2016,

we received an email from a family friend

that Sherri Papini was missing. A mother went on a jog and never came home.

Well, in the newsroom, you get a lot of missing people reports

and initially, it felt like the other missing people cases,

But after a few hours, it seemed different.

More people were calling the newsroom,

and it was being spread like wildfire on social media.

People were coming forward and telling us

that Sherri was someone who was devoted to her husband,

she was devoted to her children.

- Sherri used to work in telecommunications,

but she ultimately decided to leave work

and stay at home and raise their two children.

- They're a working-class family. Keith works at Best Bu

He was part of the computer squad there, the Geek Squad.

- It looked like Sherri had a great life.

Those photos of her with her children,

and her and Keith lovingly looking into each other's eyes,

they painted a picture.

They painted a narrative of somebody who did have it all.

- Sherri fit the profile of who the media and the public

often "care about" when it comes to missing people.

She was white. She was blonde.

She seemed to have this perfect life,

a perfect marriage, perfect children.

- Some members of the community say

they aren't taking any chances and safety

is at the forefront of their minds.

- The FBI was involved from the very beginning.

We had multiple agents that were working hand in hand

with the Shasta County Sheriff's Office.

- We just tried to figure out, was it a kidnapping?

Did she run off somewhere?

- We do not have any persons of interest or suspects

that have been identified in the investigation so far.

- We all know, watching the news,

that many times, when a woman disappears,

it's her significant other.

It's her husband or her boyfriend.

So people did have questions about Keith.

What's their relationship like? Have they been fighting?

Have they been separated?

Initially, yeah, I think everybody wondered,

was Keith involved?

- So police, when they examined Sherri's cell phone,

discovered that there had been some angry texts back and forth.

There had been arguments,

and they'd been through a rough patch a few months prior.

- Everybody had an opinion on what their relationship was.

There was just so much information that--

that it was good, and it was bad.

- So of course, when Sherri went missing,

they wanted to talk to Keith and find out

whether he could have anything to do with her disappearance.

And they had Keith take a polygraph test.

- He was very cooperative in that respect,

and his information was checked out.

- There's something really innocent, in a way, about Keith.

You see him in interviews with law enforcement,

kind of making jokes and having a little bit of this

"aw, shucks," folksy personality.

It really makes you think that he's just--

he's just a regular guy.

- So I'm going to go off script just a little bit here.

We have a mini crisis in our town.

This doesn't happen, where somebody comes and pleads

with the city council to help find their loved one.

So it was unusual.

He would like to reach out to see

if there's anybody who can help him find his wife.

Mr. Papini.

- Thank you for giving me this opportunity.

Um, I'm Keith Papini. Sherri is my wife.

And I'm just trying to do everything I can

to get her face everywhere, her name out to everybody.

- The community really rallied around Keith

and the entire Papini family. They went out on search parties

People donated money and really tried to help

as much as they could to bring her home.

- Obviously, a lot of tips started coming in,

from all aspects ranging from

"Was it a convicted sex offend that may have abducted her?"

"She just left willingly?"

- Sherri and Keith, on the outside,

seemed to have this perfect marriage.

But there was a lot more going on than met the eye.

- The investigation definitely started to turn,

because they were starting to get things from her phone.

They found a lot of text messages

with people who were not her husband and men's names

that were concealed under the name of women.

- The first person that investigators wanted to speak to

was a man named Donovan Miske.

And this was a man Sherri had been texting

for the previous five years.

- He said Sherri was very forthcoming

about complaining about her husband.

- She was painting a picture of Keith

that would cause others to be empathetic towards her.

- The law enforcement looked into some of these stories

that were told about Keith's abusive nature.

No evidence was ever found.

- Every person had a different opinion of Sherri

that we talked to-- all of her close friends,

all of her acquaintances.

- So behind the scenes, the clues were really starting

to stack up for investigators. As a member of the media,

that information was not shared with us.

For us, she was still the supermom,

and everyone was concerned about her safety.

We waited for some clue, some development,

and it came...

Out like a lightning bolt. No one saw it coming.

for a missing Shasta County search

mother continues tonight, and Action News Now

has live team coverage. - Sherri was gone for 22 days.

Her community came together to try to find her,

but they also were living in fear.

As far as they knew, Sherri had been kidnapped,

and did this mean that there was an active ,

you know, kidnapper and criminal

at large who could come after other people?

- Several people are calling 911, saying,

"There's this crazed lady along Interstate 5.

She needs help. We need some help out here."

- The people calling were reporting

that she looked frantic.

This was someone desperately looking for help,

for someone to stop along the side of the road.

- Keith called me about 4:00 that Thanksgiving morning.

He was frantic.

He was yelling, saying that Sherri had been found.

Very, very excited.

- We are very ecstatic to report

that Sherri Papini has been located.

We learned that she was released by her captor on a rural road

near I-5 in Yolo County. - It was a Thanksgiving miracle

People had gotten the holiday miracle they were looking for.

- When she was initially found on the side of I-5,

there was a chain around her waist,

and she was zip-tied to the chain.

- The California Highway Patrol, Yolo County Sheriff's Office,

and medical personnel responded to assist.

Sherri was freed from her restraints,

transported to an area hospital, and treated for her injuries.

- Every mark on her body was a potential clue.

All of those clues in those first early moments

at the hospital were really, really vital.

- She looked dramatically different.

She had bruises upon bruises. She had a burn on her arm.

Her long hair had been cut off.

And she just looked so frail sitting there.

- At that point, what changed for investigators is,

now they had-- this missing person shows up,

and she has this incredible story.

So that changes everything.

- So we contacted her at the hospital.

She was very emotional, upset, crying.

- So Keith came into the room, because at that point,

we weren't able to interview her based on her emotional state.

- Having a family member participate in an interview

is not standard procedure for police investigations.

But they didn't have a lot of options.

She was not going to talk to them,

but she was willing to talk to Keith.

- She said that she was on a run in her neighborhood

when an unknown-type SUV

drove in front of her, turned around, came back,

and she was confronted by two Hispanic females,

one of which had a handgun, ordered her into the vehicle.

Her conversation with Keith--

I wouldn't even describe it as a story.

It was more just kind of throwing out

little bits and pieces.

So she kind of would give a little bit of information,

but she would also give, like, why she couldn't remember.

- The reason that she had been taken,

which she had overheard the kidnappers say--

someone wanted to buy her, and she had been taken

to be delivered to a buyer. In essence, human trafficking.

Perhaps most terrible of all,

she had a branding on her right shoulder,

where her skin was seared with a branding iron,

the word "exodus."