Three weeks after Sherri Papini disappeared, the question of whether she was dead or alive was answered when the young mother and wife was spotted waving frantically for help along a California freeway early on Thanksgiving morning. But the mystery over what happened to her during those 22 days just seemed to grow stranger.
She was battered and bruised, her hands were chained, her long blond hair had been chopped off, and her flesh had been branded with a threatening message. The 34-year-old Papini told authorities that she had been kidnapped at gunpoint by two women Nov. 2 while she was out for a run near her home.
The bizarre turn of events — with many of the most sensational details released not by authorities but by her husband in an exclusive interview with ABC — has baffled police and set social media aflutter, with armchair detectives scouring the internet’s darkest corners for clues and others arguing that the case is some kind of twisted hoax, like something out of the movie “Gone Girl.”
Her husband, Keith Papini, has condemned the rumors as “exhausting and disgusting,” and police have said they have no reason to doubt his wife’s harrowing account. But they have a multitude of questions, among them: Who are these women? Where did they keep her? Was she selected at random or targeted?
And, most of all, why?
