In 2016, California mom Sherri Papini went missing while on a run in her home town on November 2. Her disappearance and later recovery have become one of the most well-known missing person cases in the United States.
However, regardless of people’s varying opinions of the case, it remains open.
Papini’s alleged abductors have never been found.
And while some of the details of her kidnapping are known based on Papini’s account of the disturbing events, not much is known about the mother herself. Well, in 2017, the New Zealand Herald profiled the mom’s current living situation.
According to the Herald, the mom, her husband, Keith, and their children live in a home that sits on the outskirts of their little California town. It has become the mother’s oasis after returning home 22 days after she was reportedly abducted, beaten, and released on November 24, Thanksgiving Day 2016.
Now Papini is trying to get back to some sort of normalcy.
The home is described as a “tiny house with children’s toys scattered through the yard and several worn-out cars out the back.” And, at the time the article was published, it’s where Papini has been hunkered down since her story began making national headlines and “as neighbors poked holes in her story.”
As Mamas Uncut previously reported, based on some of the injuries she sustained during her alleged kidnapping, authorities believe her abductors may have been involved in sex trafficking. As the Herald revealed, the mom’s “skin had been branded with ‘a message,’ which reportedly is “a common practice in sex trafficking circles and street gangs.”
But ever since being dropped on the side of a dirt road and flagging down a passerby for help, Papini has been trying to rebuild her life at her remote home with her husband and two children, Tyler and Violet, the New Zealand Herald reported.
The couple moved into the home, which was once owned by her father-in-law Kenneth, following the tragic incident. After talking to Kenneth, “It’s been hard for them and they’re trying to put their lives back together. She talks to the sheriff and she’s told him everything that she knows [regarding the kidnapping]. Even we don’t know everything.”
Investigators say there is no reason to doubt Papini’s story, but neighbors seem skeptical.
And according to one of their neighbors, Joyce Allison told the New Zealand Herald that they rarely she the mom out and about since they moved in. “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.”
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And many of her other neighbors shared the same skepticism. However, regardless of those who have tried to negate Papini’s story, according to the Herald, “the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office has stated investigators have no reason to doubt” it.
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