Helen Archer | On 22, Apr 2025

Some viewers may remember, back in the annals of history – November 2016 – the strange case of Sherri Papini, a mother of two who went missing from her home in Redding, northern California, after apparently going for a run. Her husband, Keith, returned from work to an empty home, his children still in daycare after their mother had failed to collect them. Sherri’s mobile phone and earbuds were found on a road near their house, along with a clump of her hair. 

For the next three weeks, Keith, along with Sherri’s family and friends, attempted to publicise their search for her, giving interviews to the media in the hopes that she would be found. Police turned up nothing – she had vanished into thin air. The case was going cold, until, on Thanksgiving Day, she was found on the side of a road, chained, bruised, beaten, and burned – the skin on her back literally branded. In the following days, months and years, she gave vague interviews to police about her captors, pointing towards two unknown Mexican women, dubbed ‘Smegma’ and ‘Taint’ in her therapeutic journalling – excerpts of which are read out here, in a monotone voice, set against TV static. Meanwhile, Keith, attempted to reintegrate her back to normal family life. Elizabeth Smart – who herself had escaped kidnappers after nine months in captivity – gave advice in TV interviews, and Sherri and Keith met with the parents of Tera Smith, a young woman who, in 1998, had gone missing – though was never found – in the same area.

But all was not what it seemed. Many on social media already had their suspicions, the whole ordeal reminiscent of the plot of Gone Girl. A year later, when Papini suddenly remembered enough about her captors to initiate police sketches of them, the case became something of a laughing stock – though with serious implications. Anti-Mexican feeling was already on the rise due to Trump’s first term, and his obsession with closing borders, and now, the sketches increased hostility to the Latino community, many of whom now refused to go out in pairs. Meanwhile, a blog with Sherri’s maiden name on it, written some years previously, published on a white supremacist website, heightened the distrust of Sherri’s narrative.

This fast-paced and more-ish three-part documentary, directed by Michael Beach Nichols and produced by – among others – Erin Lee Carr, features interviews with Sherri’s friends and family, as well as the police officers and detectives who worked on the case. Keith’s voice, ultimately, comes across the strongest, as he is filmed watching old interviews and explaining why he chose to believe his wife, even as her lies became ever-more apparent to the outside observer. He speaks, too, of the effect it had on his children, some of which is captured on home video, as they become increasingly distressed at the thought of any harm coming to their mother. 

The only thing missing is Sherri’s own voice, though her police interview videos demonstrate that she is unlikely to have taken any responsibility or accountability for her actions. A titbit at the very end, of how she treated her children when they weren’t feeling well, hints at a diagnosis of a personality disorder, as do some of the descriptions of her childhood. Ultimately, what it reveals is the similarity in modern-day hoaxers – both in their modus operandi and in their motivations. As with Disney+’s other recent hit true crime documentary, Scamanda, which details a woman who pretended, for years, to have terminal cancer, Sherri is ultimately a narcissistic void, caring little about the harm done not only to her nearest and dearest, but also to those who have truly suffered the experiences she laid claim to.

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