Sherri Papini’s husband describes how he learned his kidnapped wife was found alive
In an interview set to air Friday on ABC’s “20/20,” the husband of abducted Redding mother Sherri Papini described how he knew his wife had been freed after three weeks in captivity: He got a phone call from police and could hear his wife screaming in the background.
“It was my wife screaming in the background, yelling my name, and a CHP [California Highway Patrol] officer that seemed somewhat confused at the moment, like, ‘What is going on?’” Keith Papini said. “And [the officer] said, ‘I need you to be calm. I need you to be calm.’ … I already know it’s her. I can tell her voice.”
Sherri, 34, disappeared Nov. 2 while she was out for a jog in the small town of Mountain Gate in Shasta County.
Her husband reported her missing after he came home from work and found that she hadn’t picked up their children from daycare, officials said. Her cellphone and headphones were found near where she had last been seen, about a mile from her home, investigators said.
She was found before sunrise on Thanksgiving on the side of Interstate 5 in Yolo County with a quarter-inch thick chain around her waist, hose clamps around her wrists, her face bruised and her nose broken from beatings she sustained during her time in captivity, her family said. She was emaciated and weighed only 87 pounds when she flagged down a motorist, who dialed 911.
“She screamed so much, she’s coughing up blood from the screaming trying to get somebody to stop,” her husband, Keith Papini said in the “20/20” interview. “And again just another sign of how my wife is, she’s so wonderful. She’s saying, ‘Well maybe people aren’t stopping because I have a chain that looks like I broke out of prison,’ so she tried to tuck in her chain under her clothes.”
‘I love you, I love you, I love you, Oh my God, you’re here. You’re back. Where are you?’
— Keith Papini recounting his conversation with his wife
When the CHP officer handed the phone to Sherri to speak with her husband, he was overcome with emotion, Keith Papini told ABC.
“I get the phone and, [I said], ‘Oh my God, honey.’ And of course she’s screaming,” Papini said. “It’s very emotional. And, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, Oh my God, you’re here. You’re back. Where are you?’ And then the phone gets taken away from her. Like, super quick.
“I’m panicked but I’m happy because at this point this is the first time I’ve heard her voice,” he added. “I know she’s alive.”
Officials said they were not aware of a motive for the apparent kidnapping. Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko also said it was not clear whether Sherri knew her abductors.
In an interview with “Good Morning America” that aired Wednesday morning, Bosenko said Sherri’s hair had been cut off and she had been branded.
“I would think that was some sort of either an exertion of power and control and/or maybe some type of message that the brand contained,” Bosenko said. “It is not a symbol, but it was a message.”
Her kidnappers covered their faces and usually had a bag over Sherri’s head, her husband said. The women freed her by simply kicking her out of their car on the side of the road, he told ABC.
“She was chained anytime she was in the vehicle,” he said. “They opened the door, she doesn’t know [where] because she’s got a bag over her head. They cut something to free her restraint that was holding her in the vehicle, and then kind of pushed her out of the vehicle.”
Sherri described her captors as two women who spoke Spanish most of the time, Bosenko said. She described one of the captors as having long curly hair, pierced ears, thin eyebrows and a thick accent.
The second captor was described as being older, with thick eyebrows and straight black hair with some gray.
Deputies are working with a sketch artist to see if they could create renderings, but only the eyes would likely be shown, Bosenko said.
For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.
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