Sherri Papini first made headlines in 2016 — when she went missing while on a jog near her Redding, California, home — and they haven’t stopped since. The first big development was her shocking return 22 days after her disappearance. The fact that it happened on Thanksgiving Day was an even sweeter reward, for her family and the millions of people across the globe who had gotten invested in the story.
Then came Papini’s assertion that “two Hispanic women” had taken — and tortured — her, and the search for her assailants was on.
Life went back to normal for Papini, her husband, Keith, and their two kids, Tyler and Violet. (Life for the Latinx community in Shasta County, California, who were suddenly implicated in one of the most high-profile crime stories in the nation, got tense and scary.)
Then, in 2022, there was a development.
Papini was arrested, with law enforcement asserting that the two women Papini had accused were fictional. The person she was with for 22 days was, in fact, her ex James Reyes, with whom she’d been having an emotional affair in 2016. Reyes copped to his involvement and said Papini was not only a participant in the disappearance but the orchestrator. Papini admitted it was Reyes she was with and pleaded guilty to mail fraud and lying to the FBI.
Though in her plea agreement Papini admitted her involvement, in the June Investigation Discovery docuseries Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie — as well as her memoir, Sherri Papini Doesn’t Exist: The Lie That Defined Me, The Media That Destroyed Me, and The Truth That No One Heard, self-published on June 26 — she reverts to what she says has always been her version of events: that Reyes took her without her consent. She maintained the same to Us in a two-hour Zoom conversation the day her book came out.
Below are additional excerpts from our interview, in which Papini, 43, opens up about life since her return from prison, her relationship with her kids, where her restitution stands and whether she cares what people think of her.
Us: What does your life look like today?
SP: Right now, my primary focus is getting the kids back, so it’s a lot of preparation for my upcoming [custody] trial. And that’s really the majority of what I do … We had the first half of the trial [in May], and we got to the end of it, and we just kind of ran out of time. We didn’t get to all the witnesses and all the evidence presented and things like that. And then Shasta County Court flooded, and it was closed for a really long time. So now we can have this continuance going for setup in August. It’s just going to be the conclusion of the first half of the trial, and then Judge [Kathryn J.] Barton will be able to make a ruling and a modification to the custody and then things will move forward.
Us: Is your current custody agreement that you have supervised visits once a month?
SP: I get to see my kids once a month, for an hour. And unfortunately … Keith Papini, doesn’t follow court orders. [Us was unable to reach Keith for comment. He has repeatedly denied Sherri’s claims.] So it’s incredibly infuriating to go through this process with someone who just refuses to follow even court guidelines. I’m supposed to have calls with the kids every week, and he never answers. And we had it set up in the last trial that there was a supervised visitation center, and he unilaterally changed it again and shifted it to a private supervisor and changed the location, so it’s pretty infuriating. I don’t know if you have any friends or family that go through family court, but it’s pretty excruciating.
You know, generally, when we have divorces, there’s two different kinds of divorces, right? There’s divorces where people just kind of amicably split and they play their own roles in the custody, and you don’t see those in family court. And then we have relationships where there’s abuse and there’s toxicity, and those are the ones that we see in family court. [Keith Papini has previously denied any allegations of abuse.] Otherwise we would just be dealing with things out of court, and it would be far easier. And what’s happening to me, sadly, is so common. It’s common in family law to see what I’m going through, but it’s excruciating. I’m looking forward to concluding.
Us: What is your ideal custody situation?
SP: 50/50. I think right now, because I went to prison for nearly a year, and I’ve been without the kids for nearly three years now, there’s going to need to be some kind of a step-up program. And what I mean by step-up is we’re going to kind of have to do reunification therapy, and there’s going to be a process to get them here, to have overnights and things like that. So I’d imagine what the judge is probably going to do, if I had to make an assumption, is she would do weekends, for a period of time, for an adjustment with the kids, and then we would go from there. But I am never going to stop until we get a reasonable conclusion of a modification of the custody.
Us: What is your relationship with them like?
SP: Right now, Tyler [who is 12] is struggling; my son is having a really hard time. When you look at my case, there’s some really clear alienation happening. And based on my knowledge of being in family court, when you have a very close established relationship with a child, and then they suddenly pull away from the parent, generally, that’s a symptom of being alienated from a parent. And frankly, Tyler really started pulling away with the Hulu documentary that came out [2024’s Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini], and I haven’t had access to him since then. And I’m hoping that the courts will assist … Tyler needs love of both parents, and that’s very clear. And in terms of visiting with my daughter [Violet, who is 10], it’s great. I mean, I just got to visit with her yesterday. And we’re very bonded. I feel like I’m going to nail teenage years with her. The visits are really great. We talk about school and books and movies and boys and glitter nail polish, all of the best things with a preteen. So Vi and I are still exceptionally close.
Us: You had what is, by all accounts, a difficult adolescence. [Papini has alleged sexual abuse as a child and has been diagnosed with a personality disorder.] Are there any things that you worry about repeating? How is your own experience looking back on your years as a teenager and preteen? How do you see that reflected in the way your relationship is developing?
SP: With my children? Oh gosh. When you have someone that’s experienced trauma in their childhood, it can go two ways. It can go in a way that you know you might not want to be a parent, or it can go in a way where you really learn all the things not to do. And so for me, I’ve always wanted to be a mom, and it’s where I really shine. And I feel like I learned a lot, and I have a very deep understanding and a better, much clearer and better relationship to my childhood trauma. And so that gives me this foundation of how to emotionally support my children. I taught them growing up a lot about emotional intelligence, which is not something that I necessarily had growing up as a child. And I really immersed my kids a lot in learning about emotional intelligence. And so I feel like it’s been a cornerstone of my parenting.
I learned a lot from my childhood of what I knew was deeply traumatizing. And I think the main thing with my kids is I raised them in a way that it’s a very open environment. So there’s no secrets, and I don’t neglect my children in any way. I give them a lot of open space. And when I still had custody of them, we had this routine of nighttime before bed. I would alternate each day with each kid, and it would be like a no-judgment space, where they could tell me anything. We could talk about anything, and they could cry and they could be angry, and they could have that environment where Mommy’s not going to judge you about anything. Because I think what you want to do as a parent is you want to be that safety for them, so if something happens, they come to you for that and not go somewhere else. And I really became that for my children, and I imagine that it’s very difficult being without Mama now and being without that person that they had that emotional attachment to.
Us: Do you feel like that’s something you didn’t have when you were growing up? Like you didn’t necessarily have that safe space, so you had to look elsewhere?
SP: I grew up in that generation where kids were seen and not heard … We really didn’t have as much access to mental health or a deeper understanding about personality disorder in the way that we do now. My parents, I would say, did the best that they could, given the educational climate they were raised in also. They were still so loving. I’m a hugger, My mom was a hugger. My parents were really affectionate, but we really didn’t sit down and talk about how we’re feeling and what we’re thinking and the process of back then … But what’s really cool is, like my parents, both of them, they’re so engaged in the therapy process and going through the documentary with them, and like this revealing of this family secret that we had. It was so brave of my parents. And you know, I’d been alienated from my parents in my marriage with my ex-husband, and then when I went to prison … it’s so difficult to explain, because it’s like, I’m incarcerated, I’m miles away from them, and yet, I got so much more access to them than I had in my marriage. Prison was the safest that I’d felt in 16 years, and I got this ability to express myself in a way that I didn’t get in my marriage. So it’s like this relationship with my mom and dad exploded. And both my parents were like, ‘We want more.’ They were so thirsty for this therapy that I was experiencing. And so we came together in this beautiful way. And then when you see in the film, my mom opens up and talks about some of my childhood trauma.
After I got out of prison, I’m so grateful to have had that gift of moving back in with my parents. As obnoxious as it was, as a 42-year-old woman moving back home with Mom and Dad … we had family dinners, and dad and I would go for walks, and Mom was super emotional and wanting to engage. It’s what I’ve always wanted, that emotional explosion, and my parents are so willing, they just jumped in headfirst. And it’s been absolutely … I’m tearing up. I mean, it’s been incredible. And I think so many children out there now as adults, we have this trend of going no-contact and not having a resolution to our trauma as children. And I feel so grateful and so lucky to have a mom and dad that are like, ‘Clearly, there was some trauma, clearly there were some things that we needed to deal with, but we love you unconditionally and we went through trauma too. Let’s talk about it.’ I feel so lucky.
Us: I want to ask what it felt like in your documentary series, when your mother says, ‘I don’t think Sherri was kidnapped. I think she got caught up and basically ran off with James Reyes.’ I imagine that that was probably hard to watch.
SP: Not at all. I think because my mom did the best that she could in the interview; she was exceptionally nervous, and so what my mom was trying to do is she was trying to explain that it’s reasonable to conclude that I would have gotten in the car, and that’s, I think, the best way that she could explain it. My mom wholeheartedly believes that I was held captive and tortured and brutalized for 22 days from James. But like everyone says in the film, because I have no memory, it’s difficult to say what happened. So there’s a reasonable conclusion that I could have gotten in the car and a reasonable conclusion that I didn’t get in the car. So I think for my mom, she was just trying to explain, like, ‘It makes sense why she wanted to meet up with James. It makes sense why she would have even volunteered to get in the car, but not to have left her children, and not to have been held captive for 22 days.’ And so there’s a lengthier explanation to my mom with that, that I think she definitely could have went into, may have went into, and she very much has this definition of ‘Sherri was held against her will,’ but it’s that sticky part of not understanding whether I asked to get in the car or not to get in the car. And that’s the best way that she could explain it. It was used to be shocking in the film. It did its job.
Us: Is that what it felt like to you?
SP: No, that’s what I’m saying. It was shocking for everyone else, but for our family and for our side, we were like, ‘Oh, that makes sense.’ I mean, we get my mom’s language. We speak my mom’s language. We understand how she meant that.
Us: You mentioned that part of the reason that you speak is because there were facts that were flat-out gotten wrong, and there were omissions. Can you speak a little bit about some examples of those?
SP: Primarily right now, what’s happening is there’s this spin off of everything, of ‘I have a new story,’ right? Or this is a new something, and that could not be farther from the truth. I have always maintained that I was kidnapped, that I was tortured, that I was held against my will. I’ve always maintained complete accuracy about the injuries. I just kept the identity of my captor secret. I have never once, and even when you see me in court, I realize that I did sign the plea agreement that was built by the federal government, it was their words that I agreed to, given that there were no other options. But even in my speech in court, I say I lied. I did not say I made up a kidnapping and I hoaxed a kidnapping. So, there’s no new story. It’s the same testimony that I’ve given, other than I was too afraid, which is quite normal for victims of domestic abuse and quite normal for victims that have gone through severe trauma like I did. Ordinarily, women that are sexually assaulted don’t come forward for decades, for years, and so for me, that was the safest option. And it is definitely not a new story. It is the same story. I’m just brave enough and capable enough to tell you the identity of my captor.
Us: So, you just mentioned, there was one lie, the identity of the captor. This is one of the most pivotal parts of your story, which is that your initial claim was that it was two Hispanic women and on ABC News, on the interview you just gave, you apologized for that because you said you didn’t intend for that to harm anybody. Obviously Latinos in this country — certainly then and of course now — are targets for bigotry, and that certainly didn’t help. My question is, is there anything that you’ve done or would like to do to try to repair that?
SP: Absolutely, absolutely, and I do feel like I started doing that in my incarceration. You know, Victorville Federal Prison was like 90 something percent Hispanic women. And, yeah, I definitely feel like working with the women there and hearing their stories, and wanting to get into advocacy programs and wanting to work with programs like Arc, for example, and things like that. Like, absolutely, yes, I’ve always wanted to be very involved in the repair in that. And I think that a lot of shifts in our judicial system and in the way that law enforcement interrogates and things like that. Because if, somehow I could assist in the interrogation process and the target of race in general, I would be so exceptionally grateful if there’s any way to help that in any way, because I think you’re right, and I think that it’s been around for a long time, and I think there’s some big changes that need to be made in terms of race and targeting race in law enforcement for sure.
I deeply regret that, and I wish that it wasn’t used in a way to empower law enforcement to mistreat anyone Hispanic. That wasn’t my intention. My intention was to just breadcrumb officers to James Reyes … It was not in any way my intention to cause any harm or any unjustified treatment by law enforcement ever.
Us: James Reyes was never charged with anything. When I spoke to [Caught in the Lie executive producer] David [Michael], he said that you’re interested in pursuing charges against him still. Could you talk a little bit about that?
SP: [When]I was incarcerated. I learned quite a lot about our system. I learned a lot about the Bureau of Prisons and kind of how our system works. And there’s a charge called conspiracy, right? And so when I was in prison, I had this cellmate, and she was in prison for about six years. She got a prison sentence for six years for just being in the car of a drug deal. So conspiracy means having knowledge of a crime and knowingly or willingly participating in a crime and not speaking up. And so it’s mind blowing to me to see a woman who is incarcerated for six years, who’s a mother of two and didn’t actually know anything, they just chose to wrap her up in the crime, and then go through what I’ve gone through with James, where you listen to his testimony, it’s very clear that he knew the entire time, and he never spoke up to law enforcement. And quite frankly, I impeded an investigation, he impeded an investigation, and he admits to participating in incredibly vile acts to my body that happened, and yet, law enforcement just gave him a way out, and, in my opinion, coerced him into a confession. There just doesn’t feel like there’s a whole lot of justice there. The restitution is all on me. James Reyes participated. He didn’t only participate, but he held me captive and brutalized my body, and he’s getting away with it because he’s just saying, like law enforcement officers led him to say, ‘Just say, she wanted it, and then there’s no crime.’ And the culpability there is … it’s still very raw to me, and it’s still hard to swallow. He’s a very dangerous individual. [Reyes has denied Papini’s claims.]
Us: You mentioned in the book that he has a lengthy, violent rap sheet.
SP: Yeah. I don’t know extensively what his charges were. I do know that I picked him up from jail. I’ve watched him get into bar fights. He was a hockey player, for goodness sake. So he has this proclivity for violence. And frankly, when you have a record prior to an investigation, an interrogation, and then suddenly it disappears, it’s quite suspect to me, in my opinion.
Us: I want to make sure I understand: Are you saying that you think he should be charged with conspiracy?
SP: At minimum. Yes, I mean, there’s quite a lot of charges that I think James is going to face that he’s going to be up against, but at minimum, yes. [Reyes has never been charged in connection with Papini’s case.]
Us: David provided us with the full audio of the FBI the first time they questioned him. You would consider what we hear to be coercion?
SP: Absolutely. You hear law enforcement leading him in the investigation. When law enforcement set him up, they say, ‘If she wanted to go with you, then it’s not a kidnapping, and if she asked you to hurt her, then there is no crime.’ He wasn’t saying that until law enforcement said that. And there’s even, there’s a portion of the audio where it stops, and then it carries on, and then it picks back up. So, we have no idea what was said during that time. We have no idea what was proposed to him. And I thought that seems awfully suspect as well.
Us: You’ve also said that the bloodwork that was done when you were taken to the hospital after your return, you can’t access it.
SP: And that’s so weird. Why? Why are they holding that detail from us? Other than that they’ve doubled down on making and ensuring their investigation goes a certain way. They’re doubling on gatekeeping certain information, and me like, how am I supposed to seek any justice?
Us: Do they give you an answer as to why? Is there a reason?
SP: I even went to the hospital. I tried to go to the hospital to get it. They put me under a pseudonym when [I was] in the hospital, and so it took me forever to even find out what name they had me under. And even though I’m still not getting the results of it, and I don’t, they took me to a separate facility for my start exam. And so like they won’t, they won’t even give me that information. And that just seems so strange.
Us: Yeah, it does.
SP: If it would have been Sherri Papini versus James Reyes, when I was arrested, I would have had a lot more confidence. It would have been difficult and scary and horrific, and I don’t know how I would have been able to get through it, but that’s not what I had. It was Sherri Papini versus the federal government, and they specifically tailored my arrest around my lying to them. And, I mean, I had to take accountability for that. I wanted to take accountability for that and continue to demonstrate my remorse. But it wasn’t like it was going to be a trial of me versus my captor. So I really didn’t stand a chance. You can’t beat someone when the game’s already rigged. And like I said at the end of the trial, I still lied. I knew that I lied to law enforcement … I got in over my head with something that I couldn’t get out of, and I made the best choices that I could at the time, and now I’m trying to unravel all of those mistakes, move forward from those mistakes, take accountability for those mistakes. I was still a victim, and now I get to stand up for myself, And I have the courage to be able to say what happened to me, and some way to seek some kind of justice in that.
Us: Something I would love some more clarity on is whether the kind of playing along, becoming docile [with Reyes], that was a tactic you said you used. But was there a specific way in which you bargained in order to get set free?
SP: Absolutely. I did absolutely everything I could, so whatever I could grasp at. And toward the end of captivity — it’s 22 days of torture and isolation and brutality — at the end of it, like James broke me. I would have done anything to get back home. So when he started talking about the news coverage, because he would come home and he would talk about what was happening, and that his cousin, who was in the cul de sac that was watching me while he was gone, nicknamed me ‘America’s Most Wanted.’ So, for me, it’s like, that’s something. He’s grabbing on to the media coverage. He cut my hair off as well, which, in my opinion, I think he still has. And if they would have done a more thorough investigation, I think they would have found it.
Us: You think he kept [your hair]?
SP: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that there’s a lot more. I think there would have been a lot more clues had they done more of an investigation. Because why would law enforcement show up and he still have remnants of the boards on the windows? That seems very, very strange to me, that detail, but I’m sorry I’m drifting off of the subject. I used every bit of everything that I could. So for me, it was like he joked about my husband trying to find me, and he was joking about Keith and and so as much as I could say he’s never going to stop looking for me, he’s coming for you. He’s never going to stop looking for me. And like knowing that he had found my phone and praying that law enforcement would find that I was having an emotional affair. And using that as softly as I could, but still as forcefully as I could have trying to convince James to let me go so that it would stop.
Us: The cousin you mentioned, there’s a very disturbing scene in the book where you are chained up in Reyes’ apartment, and the cousin is masturbating while watching you. Is that something you had disclosed before?
SP: No, no, no. Nobody’s really asked me questions like that. It’s not like I told the truth to law enforcement about what happened. I couldn’t say that there were men there — that would have completely ended my marriage. So, if I was like, now I’m able to talk about it, because I’m not Keith’s wife. I went to prison, and in prison, it was like the first time where I was able to really safely talk about things, because I don’t give a f*** about saying I had an emotional affair now. I carried around the shame of that, and I carried around the weight of that, and there was no … I couldn’t tell Keith, because it was going to end everything. Now, I don’t have shame about that. I know that I was seeking external validation rather than internal validation, and now that I know and understand that and have a deeper relationship to it, and now, I’m not going to participate in that bad behavior anymore, I’m pretty behind it. I don’t have shame.
So I can tell you right now, yes, I was having an emotional affair, and I don’t carry shame with that. It wasn’t a sexual affair. I never sexually or physically cheated on my husband. It was just an emotional affair. I didn’t deserve what happened to me because I was having an emotional affair, and now I’m not afraid to say it, because I don’t have Keith. He did what I was afraid of doing. And I’m OK. I’m able to tell the truth, and I’m able to come forward and say things like, there were other men there, because I don’t run the risk of ending my marriage, and I don’t run the risk of Keith punishing me for that.
Us: So, James Reyes, we’ve known about for a while, right? Once that was out, why wasn’t it OK or safe or potentially helpful to tell law enforcement that his cousin was also there and this other thing had happened to you?
SP: They knew he was there. They interrogated him. He said that he knew that I was there, so it was already part of their investigation.
Us: OK, but he at no time, I imagine, said, ‘Also I masturbated while she was there,’ right?
SP: Why would he? He’s married with two children … And it’s like, why would you walk into law enforcement and say, ‘OK, take me.’ Everybody has an agenda in this.
Us: Are you hoping that he gets charged as well?
SP: He was there. He has just as much culpability as everyone else that witnessed me and didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything. He saw me chained to a wall and he didn’t say anything. And it’s like they have alibis in each other. So James can say ‘No, that didn’t happen,’ and his cousin can say ‘No, that didn’t happen.’ So they have alibis in each other, and I have a charge for moral turpitude. So it’s like investigators wrapped this in a nice, neat little bow and made it so that my testimony is invalid. And if we look at how the investigation went when they interrogated him, Robert clearly says, ‘Yes, I knew she was there. Yes, I knew that he had her there.’ [Us could not reach the cousin for comment.] That enough, can be considered a conspiracy charge, but we’re also up against the statute of limitations now, and we’re up against so many odds because I waited to come forward on everything and that makes it very difficult.
And also what law enforcement officer is going to take audience with me. It’s not like I have a very good relationship with law enforcement officers. I’m at the point now where, if I can just find someone that’s brave enough to see the facts of the case and the evidence of the case, like my attorney, Chase Kinney … Chase is like, ‘I’m a lawyer, and I focus on evidence,’ and that’s why, for Chase, it was simple to believe me, because she laid out all the evidence. She looked at these investigations, she listened to my recordings of Keith, she listened to the information that I had on Keith, and she’s been through her own personal experience, which you see [in Caught in the Lie] so it’s like, I have a FBI agent who doesn’t have kids, isn’t married and missed that piece in there and doesn’t have that life experience to draw on, and has this confirmation bias on me, because that’s all that my investigation was. It’s built on confirmation bias.
Us: Did Chase disclose her own experience with sexual assault you because she sensed that you had probably gone through something similar? I don’t know if I have the timeline right, but did it take Chase opening up about her experience for you to open up about yours?
SP: I think they happened in tandem. Chase sat me down and Chase sniffed me out pretty quickly, which was comforting, frankly. And for her, she was like, you know, I’m going to afford you this bubble of safety. Now I don’t care what happened, and that is the experience that I got living with my sister-in-law as well. Suzanne [Papini] did the same thing. I don’t care. I don’t care if you lied. We’ll deal with it. And Chase did the same thing. When she sat me in her office, she was like, ‘Girl, I don’t give a f*** if you lied, just tell me so that we know how to fix it.’ And for me, it was like, Oh, thank God. There’s no shame. There’s no repercussions here if I tell her everything; I’m not gonna go back to prison if I’ve made a mistake in anything. So for Chase to tell me, ‘I really don’t care, we just need to know how to build your defense, and it’s in your best interest to tell me everything so that we know how to go forward.’ Then she shared her personal experience, when I started sharing my personal experience, because she was like, ‘Oh, that makes total sense. I’ve experienced that.’ And there was this delicate union that was made in terms of, like, ‘I get you, and I would totally understand why you would make that choice there, and why you would make that choice here.’
Us: There’s a chapter in your book addressed to Shawn [Hibdon]. Were you dating him when you were writing the book?
SP: Briefly, yeah, briefly.
Us: There are all these moments in the book where you kind of switch from the narrative to actually addressing people, and at times, address yourself, and what you say is that you were planning on dedicating a chapter to Shawn, which I took to mean in a positive way. Then you change your mind, because he’s, ‘A sick excuse for a man. Backspace. Delete.’ My question there was, why not actually delete it? Why not just take that out? As the writer, as the author of your own memoir, instead of just deleting him, you put him in there to let readers know and let him know, ‘You were going to get a chapter, but you’re not going to now.’ So, he kind of did, in a way,
SP: Well, I mean, it’s already out there. It’s something that I’m asked constantly [thanks to an ongoing eviction case between the two]. So I think for me, because everything is so out there, and everyone has so much access to everything, when I hold back and when I don’t address something head on, now everyone’s like, ‘Wow, you’re keeping something for some reason.’ I had a difficult choice, and I wrestled with that quite a lot of like, well, because of this eviction and because that happened right before I released the book to Amazon, before we turned everything in, it was like, ‘S***.’ It’s already out there. It’s already been made into articles. Everybody’s already talking about it. So if I don’t address it, it’s just going to become bigger and they’re just going to keep poking at it. So, just meet it head-on.
Us: I think that’s fair. I mean, I do think that there’s this point when my experience in watching all the documentaries and reading all the stories and doing all the prep to talk to you is that it is crazy-making. I think that, I personally, and I think a lot of people who have been watching this case from afar go through ‘I believe her. No, I don’t. I believe her. No, I don’t. I believe that. No, I don’t.’ It starts to make me crazy. I imagine it makes you crazy, and that it is hard. I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to convince people to believe you. Do you wonder about that?
SP: I don’t think I need anybody to believe me. I think it’s really just like there’s missing pieces, and I was part of the missing pieces. We want our story lines to be neat and tidy in flow and go from start to finish. No one was able to do that because I never gave them all of the missing pieces. I’ve never claimed to be a perfect person. I’ve never claimed to be a perfect victim. I’ve always been like, ‘Yeah, my s*** was messy when I grew up, and that investigation was messy. Sorry.’ So, there’s this rawness to me where we see people go through trauma, and we see victims go through things, and we really want them to be wholesome and perfect and neatly packaged. And that’s not what this case is, and certainly in any way.
And so that’s OK. I’m OK with people not necessarily believing me. I believe in myself, and I’m very proud of what I’ve accomplished and where I’m going, moving forward, and what I’m becoming. In terms of this life sentence that I’ve had and continuing to suffer the consequences of my behavior, the only thing I can do is demonstrate remorse and asking for help to seek some kind of redemption for that, and that, in and of itself, is a demonstration of remorse. When you’re seeking help and you’re seeking guidance, and like the mess that was created through this, I think that that’s a valuable piece of it, too. But, yeah, I’m not trying to convince anybody of anything. I’m just trying to fill in the gaps and be the missing piece that I think everybody was searching for realistically.
Us: Do you care whether people like you?
SP: No. I did, I used to. When I was the perfect wife, I was so fake. And that’s part of self-defeating personality disorder, people pleasing and stuff like that. And, yeah, that’s where it’s like, I watched the documentary the same time everybody else did, and I was like, ‘Oh, God, no, that’s so embarrassing. I can’t believe I did that.’ But now I’ve reached the point where the worst has happened to me. You know, the worst has come at me. The media has come at me in every way humanly possible. So what else do I have to lose? And I like myself now. I like myself. I love the relationships that I have in my life now, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world. So in terms of, like, getting people to like me, I don’t. Who’s sitting at my dinner table, those are the people that I hope I have a good relationship with, that like me, but everyone else, no, I’ve, I’ve learned to let that go. That was hard.
Us: Part of your sentencing was a fine and restitution and I’m curious if you could give me an update on where that stands?
SP: The restitution was the Shasta County Sheriff’s investigation charges, the victim’s compensation. So the victim’s compensation paid for my therapy, and my therapy alone. Then there was one other one. What’s the other one? Shasta County Sheriff’s victim compensation, the FBI as well. Taking accountability means the responsibility of assuming the restitution, which I am. I’ve never missed a payment. I’ve continued to make payments, and when I make big chunks of money, like when I got a settlement for my divorce, I gave them everything, 100 percent. I gave them the whole chunk of it. I kept nothing.
Us: Do you know how much that was?
SP: $9,000. I was awarded that in my settlement, and went, ‘Here you go, government. Here’s my hands, here’s what I have.’ Everything for that. I’ve continued to stay really open to the government taking absolutely everything that I have, because I have nothing. I mean, this is a gifted couch, even, that I’m sitting on in my house.
Us: Does the 2016 GoFundMe fall under what you have to pay restitution for?
SP: I wish it did, but they can’t charge me with it because I had absolutely nothing to do with it. So I’m going to be incredibly clear about this. The GoFundMe was not attached to my restitution because Sherri Papini did not touch a single penny from that. I had absolutely nothing to do with that. And in my wholehearted opinion, Keith Papini should absolutely be held responsible for that. The way that he handled the money in that is incredibly suspect. And I really think that there should be more people that should look into how the GoFundMe was handled and what he did with money, because he has not been willing to answer anyone’s questions, he has not been willing to come forward and show receipts and how he paid for everything that he paid for. His only statement is, ‘I paid for credit card bills.’ Well, what was on those credit card bills? What did you use to pay those credit card bills for? I was always very uncomfortable with that, but during the marriage, I had absolutely no access to financing, or any of the bills or anything like that. And, yeah, I think Keith Papini should pay back the GoFundMe, frankly.
With reporting by Yana Grebenyuk, Andrea Simpson, Erin Strecker & Amanda Williams
