Sherri Papini is now living her life as a recluse in the same community where she was kidnapped as neighbours poked holes in her story. Photo / Facebook
Sherri Papini is now living her life as a recluse in the same community where she was kidnapped as neighbours poked holes in her story. Photo / Facebook
Tucked away down a dirt road, littered with pine trees and perilous potholes on the outskirts of a small community in California lies one family with an incredible story.
They just don't want anyone to know about it.
You would never know by the looks of it, but the tiny house with children's toys scattered through the yard and several worn out cars out the back is the home of the "super mum" who made global headlines after she was allegedly kidnapped by sex traffickers.
Sherri Papini is now living her life as a recluse in the same community where she was kidnapped as neighbours poked holes in her story.
Papini made headlines in November when she was found bound by the side of the road almost 240km away from her home, more than three weeks after she was first reported missing.
The 34-year-old mother-of-two was allegedly abducted while taking a routine jog along the Mountain Gate trail near her home in Redding, northern California on November 2 last year.
Authorities, family members and dozens of volunteers searched for weeks before Papini surfaced on Thanksgiving Day morning.
She was found bound and beaten but alive on a rural road in northern Yolo County after passing motorist Alison Sutton spotted her and called 911.
Papini told police she had been thrown from a dark-coloured SUV by her captors, who she described as two Hispanic women armed with a handgun.
She said that in captivity she was branded, beaten and starved.
It would later emerge her skin had been branded with "a message", a practice common in sex trafficking circles and street gangs.
According to sources, Papini was held in a dark, dingy holding cell where she was starved.
She's also believed to have been so badly beaten that bones were broken in her face. Her long blonde hair was also chopped off.
Her husband, Keith Papini, described his wife's horrific injuries in minute detail, from the "bruises ranging from yellow to black because of repeated beatings" to the "severe burns, red rashes and chain markings" on her emaciated, 39kg body.
Surprisingly, investigators have said very little about the case since she was discovered and told the Daily Mail there is "no news" but "continue working on the assumption that Papini was kidnapped".
Sherri and her husband Keith Papini. Photo / Facebook
Now, it looks as if Papini is attempting to rebuild her life in her home in Shasta Lake, California, which she shares with husband Keith and children Tyler, 5, and Violet, 3.
The couple bought the home in April, which has been in the Papini family for more than four decades. It was once owned by father-in-law Kenneth and his ex-wife, Kathleen.
Five months after Papini's alleged attack, Kenneth said that she was "trying to put her life back together".
She was last seen publicly leaving her home in January this year, and has lived the life of a recluse ever since.
"It's been hard for them and they're trying to put their lives back together," father-in-law Kenneth, 63, said.
"She talks to the sheriff and she's told him everything that she knows [regarding the kidnapping].' Even we don't know everything."
Husband Keith is working at a local Best Buy as part of a technical engineering "Geek Squad" that makes house calls to customers.
It comes as neighbours of the couple say she stays out of the community's eye and rarely interacts, while it was "unusual to see her running even before the apparent kidnapping".
"She keeps herself to herself and stays at home with the kids. I've been here 12 years and I've never seen her jogging. The only time I've ever spoken to him [Keith] was when she went missing. He came to ask if he could search my yard."
Another neighbour, Betty Vaughn, 72, reiterated: "I've never seen her jogging, never seen her coming up to the mailboxes.
"I've been living here for 20 years so you would have thought I would have seen her at some point."
Vaughn also made reference to the headphone and phone evidence found after her kidnapping, claiming the discovery outside her house was "strange, like it had been placed there".
Even before Papini was found by the side of the road, there was no shortage of doubters airing their views on social media.
The Shasta County Sheriff's Office has stated investigators have no reason to doubt Papini's story and confirmed the case remains active and open.
