Call records obtained by the Sacramento Bee reveal that Sherri Papini in 2003 allegedly had been harming herself and blaming her mother for her injuries.
The revelations, reported by the Bee last week, are the latest in the Papini saga, the Shasta County woman who told sheriff’s deputies that she was abducted near her home last November and tortured for about three weeks before being released by her captors on Thanksgiving on the side of a Yolo County freeway frontage road.
In the months since the incident, investigators still don’t have a motive for Papini’s alleged abduction and no arrests have been made. Except for a national TV interview, Papini’s family remains tight-lipped about what happened.
Loretta Graeff, Papini’s mother, in a December 2003 Shasta County Sheriff’s Office incident report called authorities to ask for help with her daughter, who Graeff alleged had been hurting herself and blaming the injuries on Graeff, the Bee reported. The Bee received the report after filing requests under the California Public Records Act. The report doesn’t say whether investigators found evidence that Papini had harmed herself.
Papini’s family, in a statement to ABC News, ripped the Bee story, calling it “shameful.”
Family spokeswoman Nicole Wool told ABC: “Sherri Papini and her family are the very recent victims of an extremely violent crime that has painfully and dramatically changed the course of their lives forever. It is shameful that a media outlet would intentionally exploit Sherri and Keith Papini and their young children’s trauma for the sole purpose of clickbait and selling papers.”
Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko did not immediately return a message left Monday afternoon by the Record Searchlight seeking comment.
Papini went missing Nov. 2 when she went for a jog near her rural home northeast of Redding. She was found three weeks later, on Thanksgiving Day, chained and beaten near Interstate 5 in Woodland.
The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office has not released any further details in the past couple of months.
Her husband, Keith Papini, said on the ABC news program “20/20” shortly after Papini was found and returned home that his wife was beaten, tortured and branded during her abduction. He added that his wife did not get a good look at her kidnappers.
During an interview with investigators, Sherri Papini said her alleged captors were Hispanic, and she said one had a gun, Bosenko said Nov. 30 during a press conference in Redding that attracted national media attention.
In late February, a mystery man who offered a reward for Sherri Papini’s return told the TV show “Crime Watch with Chris Hansen” that he thinks she was kidnapped for sex trafficking.
The man, who anonymously offered $100,000 reward for her return, told the show he has never met Papini since she returned home. However, he said he spoke to Papini’s husband, who told him his wife is having a difficult time putting the ordeal behind her.
On the same TV show, Cameron Gamble, the man who worked with the anonymous donor to negotiate Papini’s return, said that he thinks Papini’s abduction may have involved revenge, but he could not give a reason why her captors would want to abduct her.
Papini’s family did not comment after “Crime Watch” aired.
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