Just over a year after Sherri Papini vanished while jogging near her home, investigators have released footage of the moment she fled from her kidnappers.
The “super mum” was out jogging near her home in northern California when she was reportedly snatched by two women. She was discovered freed but partially clothed and “bound with chains” on a road more than 240 kilometres away some three weeks later.
In the grainy video released by Shasta County police, Papini can be seen running toward a Jehovah’s Witness church in the area before running back towards the highway.
She managed to flag down a driver about seven minutes after the footage was taken, police said.
WATCH: Investigators have slowly began to release more information on the incident in the hopes of securing fresh leads. Post continues…
Speaking with People, an investigator working on the still-unsolved abduction case said he had “no problems with the context” of the newly-released surveillance video.
“You can get the gist of some body movement,” Shasta County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Brian Jackson said. “I have no issues about her condition upon her being located seven minutes later. She is chained.”
“She was looking for help,” he told the publication. “She saw a building and she didn’t know what it was and went to look for help. It was 4 o’clock in the morning and there was nobody there.”
Papini has claimed her kidnappers were two women, but authorities recently revealed a man’s DNA was found on her clothes.
“The male DNA was compiled from the clothing Sherri was found wearing,” Jackson told People at the time.
Jackson said that the alleged female abductors gave her clothing to wear, so it’s possible “that the clothing that was provided to Sherri are clothes that belonged to somebody who was an acquaintance of the captors, and hopefully down the road, once we get these females identified, we will get the answers for that.”
The DNA was uploaded into a criminal database, but so far, no matches have been made. Her husband Keith has been ruled out as a suspect.
Sherri’s husband Keith has been ruled out as a suspect.
It was also revealed that the mother-of-two had been texting with a Michigan man in an attempt to meet in California before her disappearance.
Detectives traveled to Michigan, interviewed him and determined he was not involved in her disappearance.
No arrests have been made in the kidnapping, but the FBI have released sketches of two female suspects in the case. Both are described as Hispanic women, one of whom is in her 20s or 30s and the other of whom is middle-aged.
Image via FBI.
Sherri was out jogging near her home in northern California when she was reportedly kidnapped. She returned 22 days later, her husband Keith recounting the horrors she’d faced.
She was reportedly held captive in a cell, starved, beaten and branded. She allegedly had broken bones on her face and her head had been shaved.
“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.”
The story unsurprisingly attracted worldwide attention with many speculating that it might have been some sort of cult kidnapping, while others believed the entire event to be staged.
