An anonymous Reddit user, claiming to be a realtive of Ms Papini claims Ms Papini's alleged addiction to prescription medication as a possible catalyst for the abduction. Photo / Facebook
Sordid allegations of Sherri Papini's battle with prescription drugs and mental illness have emerged online as insiders - including at least one claiming to be a family member - join forces with online sleuths trying to solve the case.
With no new updates from law enforcement, the unofficial investigation into the bizarre kidnap is going full throttle as conspiracy and rumour continue to dog the 34-year-old mother-of-two from California, reported News.com
Now a Reddit user claiming to be a relative of Ms Papini and her husband Keith has dropped a series of bombshell allegations about the couple's lifestyle, claiming Ms Papini's alleged addiction to prescription medication as a possible catalyst for the abduction.
The user, posting under the name marijuanapapinis, was granted "verified insider" status after providing identification to the moderators of a subreddit called ThePapinis before deleting their account.
Online detective communities such as Reddit and Websleuths require participants claiming familial or official links to a subject or police investigation to pass a rigorous identification process before allowing them to comment on a case with authority.
"I want to remain anonymous and out of the drama going on in the family right now, but I wanted to comment on something I know about Keith and his wife," the user wrote.
"Maybe it can shed some light on the case for you guys in some way. I'm hoping this gets solved too. I'm a family member of Sherri and Keith. Just to put this out there, Sherri isn't a trimmer, as far as I know anyway (99 per cent sure not), but her and Keith use Kratom and smoke a lot of marijuana right now.
"Sherri had a really bad benzo addiction for a few years, I'm absolutely not sharing this as gossip but because I'm worried maybe she relapsed and was hanging around the wrong people and that could be the explanation behind the kidnapping.
"Sherri was getting a prescription for a drug called Diazepam when she started having panic attacks a few years ago. She went into the hospital and got off of it," the Papini family relative continued in the post.
"They stopped prescribing it to her and she's relapsed a few times by buying other anti anxiety pills off the street. The last time this happened was 2014 or so, so she has been clean for a while. They say that they use pot and a drug called Kratom to keep her off the drugs.
Ms Papini made world headlines in November last year when she was abducted while jogging near her home in the small town of Redding in northern California's Shasta County.
She was found beaten, branded and half starved on the side of a highway in Yolo County - more than 200km from where she was last seen - in the early hours of Thanksgiving Day.
Ms Papini told police she had endured repeated abuse at the hands of two Hispanic women during her 22 days in captivity.
But the petite blonde has been unable to provide a detailed description of her attackers, making it impossible for police artists to render composite sketches - fuelling widespread speculation of a hoax.
The Shasta County Sheriff's Office has stated investigators have no reason to doubt Ms Papini's story and confirmed the case remains active and open. Yet investigators have also reassured locals they do not believe her assailants pose a threat to anyone else while they remain on the run.
"But as soon as this all happened it's what a lot of us thought of. Maybe she made someone mad and they beat her up and kept her for a few weeks? I'm also not against thinking it's a hoax for the victim assistance stipend."
Another Reddit user purporting to be a Shasta County local with a friend in the Sheriff's office claims investigators are sceptical of Ms Papini's story. Officers have been tasked with hunting down the abductors, yet many believe they don't exist, the user said.
"People in their inner circle know (Sherri) to be unstable and a bit of a whack job (sic) and narcissist and (Keith) is the enabler of her strange behaviour," the user said.
Ms Papini's credibility took a massive hit last month when documents obtained by the Sacremento Bee revealed her dark history with law enforcement.
The documents included Shasta County police logs of complaints from various family members accusing Ms Papini of self harming and breaking into relatives' homes.
A log dated December 2003 details a call from Ms Papini's mother Loretta Graeff, who told police her daughter had been harming herself and blaming the injuries on her.
The report did not say whether police found any evidence of self harm.
In 2000, Ms Papini's father Richard Graeff and her sister Sheila Koester made separate complaints accusing her of breaking into their respectives homes on different occasions.
Three years later Mr Graeff called police to report that his daughter had been making unauthorised withdrawals from his bank account, the documents show.
The family issued a fiery response to the publication of those documents through their new spokeswoman, Hollywood publicist Nicole Wool, who called the reports "clickbait"
"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," Ms Wool said.
"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."
Ms Papini's reputation was also damaged after white supremacist site Skinheadz.com published an essay under her maiden name, Sherri Graeff, where she details violent high school altercations with Latino students who hated her for being "drug-free, white and proud of my blood and heritage."