It’s been over three months since Sherri Papini was returned to her family, and it’s still not been confirmed who was responsible for reportedly kidnapping and torturing the mother-of-two.
Sherri, 34, was out jogging near her home in northern California when she was reportedly snatched. She returned 22 days later, her husband Keith recounting the horrors she’d faced.
“My first sight was my wife in a hospital bed. Her face covered in bruises ranging from yellow to black because of her repeated beatings. The bridge of her nose broken,” Keith Papini told Good Morning America in a statement. “She has been branded and I could feel the rise of her scabs under my fingers.”
Sherri and Keith Papini
The story unsurprisingly attracted worldwide attention – many thought it might have been some sort of cult kidnapping, others even believed it was staged.
However, a new disturbing theory on US crime show Crime Watch Daily alleges Sherri was mistaken for a much younger woman and was kidnapped for sex trafficking.
“It was sexual trafficking. I think they saw what appeared to be a young girl and took her for that purpose,” an anonymous source told the show.
Keith said her skin had been branded with a message and this is apparently a practice common in sex trafficking gangs.
Sherri was reportedly held in a cell and starved and beaten. She allegedly had broken bones on her face and her head had been shaved.
The Shasta County Sheriff’s office won’t confirm any of the sex trafficking allegations.
More as we get it.
