Sherri Papini is breaking her silence nearly a decade after faking her own kidnapping in the new docu-series Caught in the Lie. Now, she’s claiming her captor was her ex-boyfriend, James Reyes.
On November 2, 2016, Papini went missing while on a jog near her home in Redding, California. Her husband, Keith Papini, and their two children were left fearing the worst, sparking a nationwide hunt. Then, 22 days later, she returned. She was chained, emaciated, covered in bruises, burn marks, and had even been branded.
For years, she claimed her kidnappers were two Hispanic women (who she nicknamed Smegma and Taint in her own writeup of the incident). The FBI noticed holes in her story, but it wasn’t until March 2022 that she was finally arrested. Law enforcement proved that she had been staying at her ex boyfriend’s house, convincing him to help her harm herself.
She signed a plea deal admitting to the hoax, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay $300,000. However, her story has changed in ID’s new true crime documentary series, where she claims Reyes was the aggressor.
Where is James Reyes now?
The producers of Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie hired a private investigator to catch up with Reyes, where it’s revealed that he’s currently living a quiet life in Nogales, Arizona, where he looks after his 95-year-old grandfather.
Papini now claims that she described Reyes’ mother in the right police sketch
The private investigator was also able to discover that Reyes’ mother is Irish, which contradicts Papini’s earlier claims in the new documentary. According to her latest account, she chose to lie about two women kidnapping her as she thought Reyes’ mother was Hispanic.
She alleges she didn’t want to outright tell police that Reyes had kidnapped her, so she thought that by describing the likeness of his mother would give them a clue and somehow lead them to him.
Reyes was interrogated by law enforcement after they discovered his DNA on Papini and found out that she had been at his home. He explained that she had lied to him, falsely claiming her husband, Keith, had been abusing her.
He also stated that Papini had inflicted the injuries on herself or had convinced him to help her. In August 2020, three days before Sherri’s final interview with law enforcement, he took a polygraph test and passed every question.
Following his interviews, he was cleared of any wrongdoing. Peter French, a retired FBI special agent involved in the case, says, “I actually spoke to the individual who conducted that test.
“The individual who conducted that test went to the same school that I went to, which is a very rigorous course to become a polygraph examiner. And that examiner said he passed.
“That guy gave a story, a statement that we were able to corroborate and he was much more credible than someone who gave several stories and even now still can’t be corroborated.
“When you tell the truth, there are corroborations that bind that story together. When you’re making stuff up, it’s impossible sometimes to prove or disprove. It just is. And it’s hard to corroborate Sherri Papini’s claims.
“She had four years when she could’ve said, ‘You know what, I was having marital problems at the time so that’s why I had these events take place.’ She never said that.”
Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie Episodes 1-2 are streaming on Max now, while Episodes 3-4 air on Tuesday, May 27 from 9-11pm ET/PT on ID and Max.
For more true crime news, read about why Fred West needed an appropriate adult, the Menendez brothers’ new sentencing, and where Molly Martens is now.
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