Pod Insights Crime Weekly S3 Ep315: Sherri Papini on Media Tour to Promote Her Book About this episode Sherri Papini, the California mom who orchestrated her own kidnapping in 2016, is now on a media tour promoting her new memoir, Sherri Papini Doesn't Exist. Sherri pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI after telling authorities she was abducted by two Hispanic women. Investigators would discover that she was with an ex-boyfriend the entire time. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets! https://www.crimecon.com/CC25Try our coffee!! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:14 Derrick Levasseur? Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derrick Levasseur.
0:17 Stephanie Harlowe? And I'm Stephanie Harlow.
0:18 Derrick Levasseur? And as you can tell from the title of this episode, we're gonna be talking about our girl Sheri Papini. We did a two-part series on her case. It's a very interesting case. Stephanie's gonna give you the rundown on it. We came to our conclusions on this case. She was charged and convicted of a crime, and yet, she's out there now. My old network, Discovery ID, they're doing a documentary on this, and this is what they do. They do a lot of cases like this where they'll go back and cover, they'll allow the people who are directly involved to come out and tell their side of the story. Some people agree with it, some people don't. I'll weigh in after we give kind of a summary of it, but yeah, she's out there. She's on a media tour. She's telling her story. In fact, before we recorded this, I just saw that Any Elise was doing an interview with her in studio,
1:03 Derrick Levasseur? so go check that out as well. But yeah, she's out there. She's making her rounds, and apparently, she's on a mission now. So why don't you give us the background for anybody who's not familiar with Ms. Papini?
1:15 Stephanie Harlowe? So just as a quick reminder, because I think a lot of people are familiar with Sherri Papini.
1:21 Derrick Levasseur? Oh yeah.
1:22 Stephanie Harlowe? It was November 2nd, 2016. Sherri Papini, 34-year-old mother of two from Redding, California, went missing while jogging. And then 22 days later, on Thanksgiving, she was found battered, chained, and branded with what appeared to be a Bible verse about 150 miles south of her home. At first, she claimed she'd been kidnapped by two masked Hispanic women, which fueled a massive search and national media coverage. Authorities ultimately determined the kidnapping was staged, it was a hoax. DNA evidence, cellphone and car records revealed that she was voluntarily hiding with her, I guess, boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, lover. I don't really know what to call him.
2:03 Stephanie Harlowe? His name was, and still is, James Reyes in Orange County. The bruises and brand were found to be Self inflicted or assisted by Reyes in March of 2022, Papini was arrested, then pleaded guilty to mail fraud and making false statements. She received an 18 month prison sentence and was ordered to pay about $300,000 in restitution. Since her release in August of 2023, Papini's story has shifted. So there was this docu-series that came out this year called Caught in the Lie. That's kind of where her claims have come out. But additionally, she has taken to the media now, like Derek said, she's doing a media tour to talk about this book
2:47 Stephanie Harlowe? that she's releasing, her memoir called Sherri Papini Doesn't Exist. And in this book, she maintains that she was actually held against her will by James Reyes. She claimed she lied originally to hide the affair and out of fear of her husband Keith Papini, who she describes as being emotionally abusive. Now, obviously, James Reyes and Keith Papini both deny this. Investigators say Reyes passed a polygraph denying abduction allegations. And like I said, she's planning to release this new tell-all book titled Sherri Papini Doesn't Exist this Thursday, June 26. So it's going to come out tomorrow, the day after you're you're seeing
3:26 Stephanie Harlowe? us talk about this. And Sherri claims that this this book is backed by, quote, "loads and loads of evidence." So yeah, that's where we are. So let me kind of tell you the the two most kind of bizarre claims that she's making. In an interview with Good Morning America, Sherri Papini insisted that there was only one thing she lied about. She stated, quote, "There was one thing I lied about. Everything else was accurate and true. I lied about the identity of my captor," end quote. So she's saying, hey, all this stuff I said happened, did happen. It just wasn't two Hispanic women. It was James Reyes. She claimed her injuries happened at the hands of James Reyes, but when Reyes was questioned by police in 2020, he told them that most of her injuries were self
4:10 Stephanie Harlowe? inflicted, but she had asked him to hurt her. Sherri said, quote, "There was no consent. He still did it. The injuries that occurred, the bites on my inner And outer thigh, the footprint on my back, the brand, the melting of my skin. I can't do that to myself. I am telling you, there was no consent. End quote. The Shasta County Sheriff's Office has told ABC News, quote, James Reyes was interviewed extensively by the FBI and Shasta County Sheriff's Office Major Crimes Unit. Not only was he fully cooperative and forthright with his answers, but he passed a polygraph in verifying his statements. End quote. Now Sheri has said that she initially lied because she was afraid of Reyes.
4:48 Stephanie Harlowe? She was also afraid of her husband, Keith Papini, and she said, quote, "Prison was far safer than the consequences that I would suffer if my ex-husband found out I was having an emotional affair." End quote. At this time, Sheri is currently battling with her ex-husband in court for the right to see her children unsupervised. And on Good Morning America, she sent a message directly to Keith Papini saying, quote, "You have to love your children more than you hate your ex." End quote. I want to discuss this, but first I want to also tell you that Sherri Papini is now additionally alleging that her ex-husband Keith, as well as her sister Sheila Coaster, have something going on romantically.
5:27 Stephanie Harlowe? During a June 11th episode of The Veil Files, Sheri said, quote, "She was very involved with being on camera, just as Keith was. Then she started developing a really inappropriate relationship with Keith. Then they got really close and they still are close. I think there's a lot of inappropriate things happening between Keith and Sheila and a lot of things that I've seen." End quote. And Sheri claims that there was home video. She was hoping would end up in the docu-series where you can see Keith and Sheila engaging physically. And my response to this is, who cares? Who cares? What the hell? You lied, made up a kidnapping, made your husband worried for almost a month.
6:08 Stephanie Harlowe? Okay, after you had this picture-perfect relationship that you claimed was beautiful and wonderful until just now. By the way, she's never said anything like this before.
6:18 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah, but she came home. She was still streaming that.
6:21 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, exactly. Okay, so and now she's saying like, oh, yeah, I thought that like going to prison was was better than dealing with my my husband, but she also has only stated that he was emotionally abusive, not physically abusive.
6:35 Derrick Levasseur? Right.
6:35 Stephanie Harlowe? So I'm not sure how going to prison would be better than just leaving your allegedly emotionally abusive husband. And additionally, it all went down in 2016. But she was not arrested until 2022, I believe. So it took, you know, many, many years for for her to come home and continue living with this man who she claims she was terribly afraid of, and she would rather take, you know, being behind bars than than living with him and being honest about what she calls an emotional affair, which, by the way, I believe that it was it was a physical affair. Even Sherri's mother has come out and been like, yeah, I don't believe her, you know, she chose to be with James Reyes.
7:17 Stephanie Harlowe? She wanted to get away from everything, etc., etc. Like she she definitely wasn't kidnapping James Reyes and physically beaten by him. And if if Keith Papini and Sherri's sister Sheila have started something, if they found solace in each other, even if it is a romantic thing, then what what why do you care? Why is it relevant? Yeah, like, honestly.
7:40 Derrick Levasseur? They bonded over you.
7:41 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, this is your fault.
7:43 Derrick Levasseur? She was there to support him and he realized he chose the wrong sister.
7:47 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, at the end of the day. At the end of the day, like, do you think he owes you? Do you think either of them owe you any loyalty at this point? You know, come on, I don't. She's she's she's a banana on Sunday. Okay.
8:01 Derrick Levasseur? So any allegations, any accusations of domestic violence, we should take seriously. So the fact that she's saying Keith Papini was emotionally abusive to her, I don't I don't completely dismiss that. There may have been some arguments between them. No marriage is perfect. I'm sure they had some fights, but she said he never physically put his hands on her. Now, that doesn't mean it's not domestic abuse. It still can be, absolutely. However. When you talk about domestic abuse and trying to remove yourself from a toxic or dangerous situation, there are better ways to do it. There are much better ways, much easier ways to do it. We talk about all the time.
8:36 Stephanie Harlowe? And going to prison for 18 months.
8:38 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah, well, not even that, but just as elaborate as this was, like, she didn't think she was gonna get caught, she didn't think this was gonna happen, or she probably wouldn't have done it. But if you find yourself in a relationship where you're being abused, whether it's mentally, physically, or both, you don't want to stage your own kidnapping, because that's not gonna end well. What you gotta do is go seek some professional help, talk to family and friends, find a way out so that you can get out safely and also still, maybe get your kids out as well and still be able to have relationships with them. This was much more than that. This was much more than that, and to me, it was an attention grab. I think the plan all along was to come back. She wanted people to miss her, she wanted people to quote-unquote "appreciate" her more. Or maybe she really did just plan
9:23 Derrick Levasseur? on running away with this guy, Brian, right, was his name?
9:26 Stephanie Harlowe? James, James Reyes, yeah.
9:27 Derrick Levasseur? James Reyes, James Bryan, whatever. And then when they got away, she realized that the grass wasn't much greener on the other side and wanted to come back. I don't know, I'm not gonna try to get into her head. But as far as where we are now, I think she's a pathological liar. I haven't seen anything in the clips that I've...
9:43 Stephanie Harlowe? I think she's mentally ill, I'm gonna be honest.
9:44 Derrick Levasseur? Anything in the clips that I've watched, I haven't seen anything that's convincing me. She's not even denying the staged kidnapping, she's just basically giving her reasons behind it and why she did it. And you might say, "Well, you didn't watch every interview." I have no intention on watching every interview.
9:58 Stephanie Harlowe? No, she's saying it wasn't. She's saying it wasn't a staged abduction.
10:03 Derrick Levasseur? She's saying she was captured by James Reyes.
10:06 Stephanie Harlowe? She's saying that, yeah, it was actually James Reyes, and he did all that stuff to her. And so she's like, "I didn't lie about anything besides who did it."
10:14 Derrick Levasseur? Right. So the fact that James passed the poly, which, you know, is not 100%, and you have all this other information that's come out during the case to prove that she's lied multiple times to law enforcement, including when she came back.
10:25 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, because he's admitted. He said, "Yeah, she had me hurt her in some places, because this was a staged kidnapping."
10:30 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah.
10:31 Stephanie Harlowe? So in order to sell the story, she had me do some things to her, but most of her wounds were self-inflicted. So he's not even over here talking to the police, saying, "Now, I never laid a finger on her." He's saying, like, "Yeah, I mean, I did, but at her behest..." And I believe him. I believe him.
10:45 Derrick Levasseur? He did go to some extremes that you think about the branding and stuff like that, you know, to go to that extreme to prove a point. It's amazing what certain people will do to get away with a lie.
10:55 Stephanie Harlowe? Well, I think it's what you were saying, which is she went there and thought like, oh, I'm gonna escape my life. And then she was like, ah, I have to go back, but I can't go back under these terms. I've gotta, I've gotta sell it. I've gotta make it believable. It has to look dire.
11:09 Derrick Levasseur? And listen, I, I'm not sitting here, I don't have no issue with ID and people are gonna say, oh, that's because you, you know, work with them. But I have no issue with ID covering this. People want to hear about it. And not everybody believes that she's lying. Some people believe her. I have no issue with Any Elise.
11:25 Stephanie Harlowe? Who believes her? People believe her?
11:27 Derrick Levasseur? There's people out there who are, you listen, there's people who believe everything, right? I, I think the majority of people know she's lying. I think even, I'd have to watch the interview, but like even Any Elise, I don't think she's conducting, I just saw like a social media post she put up, the questions she's asking her and the tone she's using. It doesn't sound like she's sitting there trying to prove that Sheri's telling the truth. It just seems like she's covering it and allowing Sheri to tell her story. And I have no issue with it. She's not hurting anybody. She wants to go out there and talk to America's, you know, uh, what is it? What is the morning show? Morning America?
11:57 Stephanie Harlowe? Good Morning America, yeah.
11:58 Derrick Levasseur? If she wants to go out there and talk to that show and, and, and people want to have a conversation with her, hell. Sheri, you want to come on here? We'll talk to you. It's not gonna be a pleasant conversation, but we're always open to the conversation and we're always open to discussing what you want to discuss. We have no interest in it. We're, we have a case we're covering. We just had a very interesting conversation with Darlie Rooty, our sister, Danelle. You won't see that till later this week, but it was fascinating. We didn't agree, but we had a very constructive conversation that was respectful from both sides and we discussed a lot. So we're open to that, but I, I do think that now she's been on Vile Files, she's been on Any Elise, she's been on, uh, Good Morning America. She's got the, the memoir coming out.
12:39 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, she's all over the place. Yeah, it's, it's available for preorder right now in case anybody wants to check it out. I won't be.
12:45 Derrick Levasseur? Here's the one thing I will say, and you might cringe when I say this, okay? But if I'm Sherri Papini and I'm just- Being pragmatic here and I'm being honest with you guys. If people are gonna pay me to spew my bull and write about it and be on these shows and I don't even know if they're she's getting paid for like Annie Elise or I don't even know. I don't think she is. I would I would guess that she's not, but I have no inside information. If she's being paid or if she's being if she's just doing this tour to promote her book and someone's paying her to to put out this book, a publisher. I I would do it too. Why not? Right? Wouldn't you if you're if you're?
13:22 Stephanie Harlowe? I mean, if I owed $300,000 in restitution.
13:24 Derrick Levasseur? Right. I mean, you would do it if you especially if you're just got nothing but time on your hands. But when this originally started to premiere, they put up a post. And it was just like a clip on ID's Instagram and she just looks delusional to me in that clip and I don't respond on a lot of posts, but she had said something like, I'm gonna say some ridiculous things. And I just wrote, we all agree with you there. You're definitely gonna say some ridiculous things. So I get it. I don't mind people putting her out there, allowing her to tell her story. If anything, it for most people, it's only gonna affirm what they already believe. Some people it may sway, it may sell a couple extra books. If you want to hawk some books and make some money.
14:05 Derrick Levasseur? More power to you. You're only making yourself look worse. The kids right now, I don't know their situation. I hope that they are doing well. It seems like they're, you know, staying behind the scenes and Keith is, from what we can see, protecting them. And that's really all I care about. Keith's a big boy. He can take care of himself and I have zero issue with him fighting to keep Sherri away from them because
14:25 Stephanie Harlowe? I agree.
14:26 Derrick Levasseur? If anything we've seen so far, she's only gonna poison the well.
14:30 Stephanie Harlowe? She has she has supervised visits with them at this point. She's trying to get unsupervised visits and I understand why.
14:36 Derrick Levasseur? I'm fine with that.
14:37 Stephanie Harlowe? I I get I get why she wants to see them unsupervised, but at this point.
14:44 Stephanie Harlowe? Nothing that you're asserting right now is proven by evidence, which shows that you continue to lie, which shows that you're either kind of, you know, like you said, a compulsive liar, or you have like nefarious intentions, or you don't have any grasp on reality. And so there needs to be some psychological examination happening before she's allowed to see her kids unsupervised. I'm sure Keith is working on that. I mean, this is sad for her kids. It's sad for the whole, all of them. I'm even sad for Sheri, but she needs help and she needs to start coming to terms with reality and she needs to take some accountability. This, she's going to view this as a victimless crime, right? Because she was technically the only one hurt. It's not like Casey Anthony, where her daughter's missing and ends up
15:28 Stephanie Harlowe? dead and, and you know, she's trying to get money off of telling her story. Sheri, in her convoluted mind, is looking at this as a victimless crime and she's thinking, well, what's the difference if I make some money off of this? Yes, you wasted law enforcement's time. Yes, you wasted taxpayers' money. Yes, you may see this as a victimless crime. It doesn't mean that to be a good person, a person that a judge and your ex-husband is going to trust with your children, it doesn't mean that you don't have to have some, you know, reckoning where you come forward and you take accountability for what's happening. And then that's the move towards healing. That's the move towards showing that you are a responsible adult, who can be in charge of the raising of children. Until then, you're
16:11 Stephanie Harlowe? somebody that we probably don't want being responsible for raising children, because you can't even be responsible for yourself to tell the truth about what happened here and just, you know, take the, take the hits to your reputation. You can't rebuild until you tear it all down at this point. And this castle of lies that you're building around you, it's just making you look more and more ridiculous and you're actually lessening your chances of being able to return to a normal life with your children as their mother.
16:37 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah. I definitely recommend that anybody who's not familiar with this case, you can go back, we did a two-part series on it, which I already said, it's pretty extensive. We go over everything. I go into it not knowing much about the case, as I often do. But even as we're sitting here talking, and we're not going to relitigate the case, but I think I remember, and if I'm wrong, I apologize, I think I remember there was even a point where Sheri was at this house.
17:03 Derrick Levasseur? And there were other people who came into the equation, maybe family members or cleaners or I forgot what it was, but she could have easily left at any point.
17:11 Stephanie Harlowe? Oh, yeah.
17:11 Derrick Levasseur? And she didn't. Like, she wasn't like being trapped in a room. She described it as being trapped in a room, but that wasn't the case at all.
17:17 Stephanie Harlowe? Exactly. So she's like, I didn't lie about anything except who didn't know. You lied about, you said you heard them blasting music and they would come in and, and make fun of you and hit you. Like, that, none of that happened. So you lied about everything.
17:30 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah. If they were, if that would have happened, they would have went to James's place and you would have found like some type of man-made contraption to kind of keep her in. That's not what happened. So, yeah, we don't believe her. If you haven't picked that up already, but a lot of you, oh, man, so many DMs, so many emails, so many people went over to the website and submitted this because it was a big case for us. We got a lot of views on it and people liked the way we covered it and they were like, hey, do you see she's back in the news? I was waiting a couple of weeks to kind of see how things played out. Sometimes it's a blip on a radar and it goes away, but it, it picked up a little traction and she has been making her rounds. I've seen her face multiple times now. So that's kind of our opinion on it. You know, if you want to hear more about her thoughts as far as the case itself, not what she's saying after the fact, right? Now that she's
18:15 Derrick Levasseur? heard everybody, she's heard all the criticism, she's seen all the evidence. Now she can take that evidence and those stories and contort them to fit the narrative that she's now going to put out there. To me, it's too late. It's too late for that. So I'm sticking with my original thoughts on this. But again, she wants to come on here. Open invite. Come on, come on. You can mention your memoir. We'll have a conversation. We'll ask some serious questions if that's what you're up for, but I highly suspect that won't happen. What do you think? What's the chances of that?
18:44 Stephanie Harlowe? She is delusional enough where she might-
18:46 Derrick Levasseur? She might come on and say, I can change them.
18:48 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah. She might be like, I can, yeah.
18:49 Derrick Levasseur? I can fix them.
18:50 Stephanie Harlowe? I can change him. Yeah.
18:52 Derrick Levasseur? Jerry, come on, come on over to Crime Weekly. We're ready for you.
18:56 Stephanie Harlowe? We'd love to talk to you.
18:57 Derrick Levasseur? Any, any final words?
18:58 Stephanie Harlowe? No, that's it.
18:59 Derrick Levasseur? Guys, listen, we appreciate you being here. Criminal Coffee, criminalcoffeeco.com, hazelnut and French vanilla, whole bean and ground in stock right now. I've already been hearing back from a couple of you guys. We sent out stuff the first day. People are loving it. We love it. I, I'm really proud of it. I'm really proud of- The flavor, I'm really proud of the bags. I'm just proud of the everything we're building here and how the product line that we've built and what the causes behind it. I know I keep saying it. We have updates in the Houston case that we're working. I'm working it weekly. I'm having some barriers put up in my way as far as the investigation itself. I actually brought in two of my investigators to work it as well, and they've done some good things. Fortunately or
19:43 Derrick Levasseur? unfortunately, this is what I'll say because I said it in the comments. If there was nothing in this case, if it was a dead end, we would have already told you guys. We'd have said, unfortunately, we spent the money. Here's what we spent it on. We weren't able to solve it. The fact that I'm not able to tell you what's going on, read between the lines. What does that mean? So just, just go with that. Stick with us. We promise you, as soon as I'm legally allowed to say something, we're going to say it. We're going to say it, but we have to do what's right for the case because ultimately, our number one reason for starting this company was to fund these cases, but to also solve them. And we don't want to be responsible for that not happening.
20:24 Derrick Levasseur? So we're going to follow, we're going to trust the process, although it's a little longer than I would like it to be because I'm impatient, but I'm optimistic. And if there's an update, I will let you know. But if you want to support us, support the cause, head on over to Criminal Coffee Co. com. That's going to do it for us, guys. Everyone stay safe out there. We'll be back later this week with Darlie Routier, part six, our full interview with her sister, Danelle. It's a really fascinating discussion. You don't want to miss it. We'll be back on Friday on audio, and then out on Sunday. Like, comment, subscribe. That's everything. Did I cover it all?
20:56 Stephanie Harlowe? Yes.
20:57 Derrick Levasseur? All right, guys. We'll talk to you soon. Have a good night.
20:59 Stephanie Harlowe? Bye.
Previous S3 Ep314: Darlie Routier: The Verdict Is In (Part 5) Next S3 Ep316: Darlie Routier: Our Interview With Her Sister, Danelle (Part 6) Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated