"It is hard to corroborate" - FBI agent who worked on Sherri Papini's kidnapping case thinks it might be a hoax 

Despite Sherri Papini's continued efforts to identify a suspect, a retired FBI agent who was part of the first investigation into her 2016 kidnapping casts doubt on her most recent accusations. A new documentary series is reexamining the case, which was once a national mystery. The FBI agent said,

“It is hard to corroborate Sherri’s claims.”

A former FBI officer who was personally engaged in the investigation cast further doubt on Papini's most recent account of events in the Investigation Discovery program, Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie, which aired on May 26 and 27. The agent contends that her story is still untrustworthy even if she claims that her ex-boyfriend, James Reyes, abducted her. He said,

“When you tell the truth, there are corroborations that bind that story together. When you are making stuff up, it is impossible sometimes to prove or disprove. It is hard to corroborate Sherri’s claims.”

Sherri Papini had plenty of time to come clean or provide clarification in the years after her return, the agent said, criticizing the timing of her new story.

“She had four years where she could have said, ‘I was having marital problems, so that is why I had these events take place.’ She never said that.”

He added, questioning her motives and timing.

An off-screen producer even inquires throughout the series as to whether Sherri Papini is "the girl who cried wolf." He said,

“What if any part of these things really did happen to her? Not at her direction but against her will and without her consent?”

He added:

“If she is the girl who cried wolf then with her background she is going to need a picture of the wolf, paw prints from the wolf, confession both verbal and written from the wolf in order to corroborate her version of the wolf actually coming to get her. [This is] based upon the problems with her credibility and her veracity.”

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Sherri Papini's journey from media sensation to federal felon

In 2016, Sherri Papini gained notoriety after she vanished while running close to her Redding, California, home. Twenty-two days later, she reappeared, saying that two Hispanic women had kidnapped and tormented her. When federal officials discovered in 2022 that she had faked the kidnapping and had been hiding out with her ex-boyfriend Reyes, her narrative came to a complete collapse.

She later entered a guilty plea to lying to federal authorities and mail fraud. In court, Papini said,

“[I am] so sorry for the pain I’ve caused my family, my friends, all the good people who needlessly suffered because of my story and those who worked so hard to try to help me.”

In her statement, she mentioned that she was “deeply ashamed” of her actions. Sherri Papini added:

“I will work the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done.”

Sherri Papini now breaks her silence in Caught in the Lie, going on camera to assert that Reyes had taken her hostage against her will. She claimed that James Reyes had taken her against her will and held her captive for 22 days.

According to her story, Sherri Papini claimed that

“I wanted to leave. So I tried to pull one of the boards off the window and James came in and hit me in the face. And that’s the first bruise that I got . . . And after being knocked out and waking up, that’s when the chain was around my waist, secured with a padlock attached to a cable that was attached to a pole in the closet.”

She continued, talking about her abduction:

“James had let me off the chain. I said, my husband’s going to find me. He’s never going to stop looking for you . . . You need to let me go. He was like, ‘Well, there’s too much has happened.’ So it all came down to me. It all came down to my coverup, and that’s [when] I agreed to . . . make up that someone else did it.”

Although Reyes was never officially charged in connection to the case.

Investigation Discovery will broadcast Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie on Monday, May 26, and Tuesday, May 27, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Additionally, episodes will be streamed on Max.

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