Sherri Papini, Accused of Faking Her Own Kidnapping, Finally Tells Her Side of the Story

“I tried so hard to ‘gotcha’ her,” Nicole Rittenmeyer says. The veteran true-crime filmmaker went into her newest mission, an ID docuseries known as Sherri Papini: Caught within the Lie, anticipating to be informed what in point of fact took place when Sherri Papini disappeared in 2016. Initially, it gave the impression that Papini were abducted; later, investigators stated the entire thing was once a hoax cooked up via Papini, with toughen from her ex-boyfriend James Reyes.

The case has already been the topic of every other docuseries: the 2024 Hulu manufacturing Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini, that includes interviews with Papini’s then husband, Keith. Papini herself didn’t take part in Perfect Wife—regardless that Michael Beach Nichols, director of Perfect Wife, tells Vanity Fair that he and his group made repeated efforts to incorporate her of their display. “She never responded to us,” he says. “We would have loved to have spoken to her, and you always want to speak to everyone.”

Perhaps her reticence was once motivated via her dedication to this new collection, which options in depth interviews with Papini. ID president Jason Sarlanis says that Caught within the Lie was once within the works lengthy earlier than the community was once conscious about Hulu’s competing assets. “In fairness to them, they told a one-sided story because that’s all they had,” says Rittenmeyer, who has labored with contributors of the Perfect Wife group previously. As Sarlanis places it, “The Hulu project came out before us—but in so many ways, I believe this project is the yin to its yang.”

It may sound counterintuitive, however the Hulu display’s previous premiere offers Caught within the Lie a possibility to duck a large number of same old true-crime tropes. Papini’s alleged 2016 kidnapping—after reappearing, she first of all stated she were taken via two Hispanic girls—was once nationwide information, as have been her 2022 plea deal and jail sentence for the alleged hoax. (She pleaded to blame to fees of mail fraud and making false statements.) Yet a big swath of the general public was once nonetheless unfamiliar with the case till Perfect Wife, which took a chronological technique to the tale’s twists and turns.

As such, Caught within the Lie will get to skip a large number of exposition and pass directly to the beef. So: Why did Papini disappear for 22 days? Why did she lie about it? And why did she wait till now to set the report directly?

It may well be a spoiler to announce right here that none of the ones questions get absolutely responded via the brand new display, regardless that Rittenmeyer in point of fact attempted her very best. Often, when Papini seems on digital camera, we will be able to listen Rittenmeyer off-screen, pushing again on responses or stating inconsistencies in Papini’s claims. “I have 1,500 pages of interview transcripts,” Rittenmeyer says, “and every time you go through it, it’s just us kind of hammering her.”

Yet Papini refuses to completely diverge from the tale she’s been telling for years now, insisting that she was once in truth abducted in November of 2016. “I was abducted by my ex-boyfriend, who held me captive for 22 days. There was no consent, and he still did it,” she says, staring directly into the digital camera.

According to Papini, she first of all reconnected with Reyes after he skilled a loss of life in his circle of relatives, however she says they endured to keep in touch—with Papini ultimately the use of a secret 2nd telephone—as Keith become emotionally abusive and controlling and she or he sought any individual who made her really feel heard. (Through his legal professional, Keith denies all of his ex-wife’s claims of abuse.) Papini claims she has gaps in her reminiscence round her alleged kidnapping, together with the precise main points round her alleged abduction within the Northern California the town of Redding.

According to Papini, she first of all blamed two Hispanic girls as a result of naming Reyes as her abductor would have intended publicly revealing that she’d had an emotional affair with him. In the collection, Papini claims that if Keith had discovered of her textual content conversations with Reyes, he would have most probably divorced her. She says she and Keith had a postnuptial settlement that might have awarded Keith all assets within the match of a divorce; she was once additionally involved that infidelity of any kind would value her custody in their son and daughter. So as an alternative she changed Reyes with a fictional pair of feminine abductors—however the truth that she was once kidnapped stays true, she says.