November 2, 2016
10:37 a.m.: Sherry Papini texts her husband Keith Papini asking if he’ll be home for dinner. He replies later in the day that he won’t.
Around 5:00 pm, Kit Papini returns to the Mountain Gate home he shares with his wife Sherry Papini and is unable to locate her or their two children. He learns the kids weren’t picked up from day care and uses the Find My iPhone app to track her phone less than a mile from their house to the intersection of Old Oregon Trail and Sunrise Drive. Her headphones are loosely wrapped around the phone, and there are strands of hair.
5:51 pm: Kate Papini reports to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office that his wife has gone missing under suspicious circumstances.
Arriving deputies inspect the area; Witnesses report that they last saw Sherry Papini in a pink blazer while jogging down Sunrise Drive. One recalls seeing her at 11 am and the other at 2 pm.
November 3, 2016
Search and rescue teams with the sheriff’s office are scouring the Sunrise Drive area and the Old Oregon Trail. The California Highway Patrol assists with aerial searches. Patrolmen and detectives begin checking 290 registered sex offenders living in the area. Sherry Papini’s sister, Sheila Kester, says the family believes she was kidnapped.
November 4, 2016
A Shasta County undercover witness is posting a $10,000 reward for information. Volunteers from community groups come to Papini’s house to help with the search.
November 5, 2016
Family members add $40,000 to the award, bringing the total to $50,000.
November 7, 2016
The family is refocusing search efforts to capture the attention of national news organizations and social media.
November 9, 2016
Sheriff Lieutenant Anthony Berten announces that Keith Papini is not in the case after he passed a polygraph test and there is no physical evidence linking him to the disappearance.
November 13, 2016
The family hires a private detective.
November 15, 2016
Kester and Kate Papini attend a Redding City Council meeting to thank supporters and announce that they will release balloons in the future to make Sherry Papini’s face “all over the world”.
November 17, 2016
An anonymous individual creates the website www.sherripapini.com to offer an undisclosed ransom for the immediate release of Sherri Papini, setting a deadline of 5 a.m. on Wednesday, November 23rd. The letter contains instructions to “the person who has Sherry Papini” and names. Cameron Gamble as the go-between. Gamble, who describes himself as a kidnapping and ransom consultant and is connected to Bethel Church missions, says he operates independently of law enforcement and family.
Sheriff Tom Bosenko says there’s still not enough evidence to qualify the disappearance as a kidnapping and warns that this approach could make the family a target for scammers.
November 20, 2016
The sheriff’s office confirms that it has issued more than 20 search warrants and received about 400 leads.
November 22, 2016
Gamble says he believes the alleged kidnappers are “still in decision mode,” while Rod Rodriguez, Keith Papini’s stepfather, warns on Facebook that if the deadline expires without information, the money will turn into a reward after as the deadline expires. Gamble refuses to say how much the alleged kidnapper will receive, but says the informant who helps bring Sherry Papini home safely will receive a six-figure reward.
November 23, 2016
Gamble posts a new video saying the ransom has been withdrawn and the money will be combined with the previously announced $50,000 reward.
November 24, 2016
4:30 am: Sherry Papini is spotted by a motorist on Interstate 5 near Woodland, about 150 miles south of Redding.
10:31 a.m.: The sheriff’s office announces a major break in the investigation, saying she is safe, has received a medical clearance, and has been reunited with her husband.
2:00 p.m.: Bosenko describes his captors as two Hispanic women with a gun, riding in a dark SUV. He says one of the kidnappers left her at 17 County Road next to the freeway, where she was tied up in seat belts. Bosenko said she was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and released from Yolo County Hospital. He refuses to go into details about her injuries or whether she was sexually assaulted.
November 25, 2016
Kester, at a press conference, thanks social media for bringing attention to her sister’s case. Bosenko says his office has no reason to doubt Sherry Papini’s story, and authorities are reviewing security and traffic footage to identify the perpetrators.
November 26, 2016
Audio recordings of the 911 call and response to Sherry Papini’s discovery show that California Highway Patrol officers found her “chained to something” and “badly beaten”.
November 29, 2016
Keith Papini released a written statement in Good Morning America that his wife was branded, bruised from repeated beatings, and starved to death under 87 pounds. Her “distinctive long blond hair was cut off” and she was thrown out of the car with a chain around her waist, attached to her wrists, and with a sack over her head.
Bosenko says that after her release, Papini went to a nearby church. But no one was there, so she walked to Interstate 5 and County Road 17, where she stopped a motorist. His office still doesn’t know if Sherry Papini was targeted or randomly kidnapped.
November 30, 2016
Bosenko holds another press conference. He elaborates on the description of the two suspects and reveals that they put a “message” on Papini’s skin.
One is younger, with long curly hair, thin eyebrows, pierced ears and a thick Spanish accent. Another older woman, with straight black and gray hair and thick eyebrows. Bosenko says he doesn’t have specific information to know if the case was related to a cartel or human trafficking.
Bosenko also told the Segodnya program that Papini’s phone and headphones seemed to lay neatly on the ground rather than get lost in the struggle: the screen was pointing up and the headphones were loosely wrapped around the phone.
Cameron Gamble, in an interview with KRCR News Channel 7, says that “this case has made history” and says that Redding serves as a test case for a model that can be replicated in other kidnapping cases. He says “money never changed hands” but the community and the media played a role in spreading the word about the case.
December 1, 2016
Bill Garcia, a private investigator hired by Sherry Papini’s family, says on The Today Show that he thinks sex trafficking may be the motive. Hostage experts question this theory.
December 2, 2016
Keith Papini is interviewed on ABC’s 20/20 in which he describes the ordeal and, among other things, reveals that the family is not at home but in an unknown location.
December 3, 2016
Residents of the Redding area gather to take a “Welcome Home Sherry” celebratory photo on the lawn in front of the Redding Civic Auditorium.
February 2017
The mystery man who offered the reward for the return of “supermom” Sherry Papini says he believes the Redding woman was kidnapped last year for sexual exploitation.
The man who anonymously offered a $100,000 reward for her return made the claim on Crime Watch with Chris Hansen.
April 2017
Call records obtained by the Sacramento Bee show that Sherry Papini allegedly self-harmed in 2003 and blamed her mother for her injuries. The revelations reported by The Bee were the latest in the Papini saga.
Loretta Graff, Papini’s mother, in a Shasta County Sheriff’s Incident Report in December 2003, asked authorities for help with her daughter, who Graff claimed was self-inflicted and blamed Greff for her injuries, reports The Bee. The Bee received the report after filing requests under the California Public Records Act. The report did not say whether investigators found evidence that Papini self-harmed.
The Papini family, in a statement to ABC News, tore up the bee story, calling it “disgraceful.”
October 2017
Detectives still don’t know who kidnapped Sherry Papini and why, but they do show that texts with a man in Detroit, male DNA that didn’t belong to her husband, and a fight Papini described between her and one of her kidnappers were all part of the investigation. .
Shasta County Sergeant. Brian Jackson says one of the avenues the detectives pursued was Papini’s alleged relationship with a “man I knew from Michigan.” Jackson says Papini planned to meet the man days before she disappeared because he was traveling to California on business, but investigators later determined he was not involved in her disappearance.
Jackson also says officials found DNA from two people on Papini, a man and a woman. Jackson says authorities collected the woman’s DNA from Papini’s body, and the man’s DNA was found on the clothes she was found wearing.
He says the male DNA did not belong to her husband Keith Papini.
November 2017
Shasta County Sheriff’s Office releases video of Sherry Papini shortly after she was released from alleged kidnappers in Yolo County.
The November 24, 2016 video was filmed by a church near the north exit of Interstate 5.
Papini can be seen running north on Highway 99W toward the church and then south on Highway 99W until she is out of sight, heading for I-5 heading north on the ramp.
The sheriff’s office said the date and time of the video surveillance was confirmed by detectives as taking place at 4:15 am.
November 2019
Three years after the Redding area mother disappeared and reappeared, officials say they still have no suspects except for two sketches of Hispanic women who Papini said held her captive for three weeks. .
“When you say something is frozen, (it means) we just don’t have an active version to work with at the moment,” said Shasta County Sheriff’s Capt. Pat Krofoller. But that doesn’t mean the case is closed.
Meanwhile, some experts believe that the truth may lie in DNA samples taken from her clothes and body.
June 2021
The Record Searchlight reports that the alleged kidnapping of Sherry Papini is one of 22 unsolved cases dating back to 1984 in Shasta County.
The Shasta County secret witness continued to offer up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest or conviction of those responsible.