Sherri Papini, the 34-year-old California mother of two who was abducted in November, should consider herself lucky, said a serial killer profiler.
John Kelly, the president and founder of S.T.A.L.K. Inc. told People magazine last week that he’s not convinced that two armed Hispanic women abducted Papini for three weeks before her eventual discovery on Thanksgiving Day. According to police, Papini said she was abducted by the women, although police have not disclosed a motive.
The case bears similarities of crimes committed by “serial rapists”—or even serial killers. Papini’s case has “has serial rapist, serial killer all over it,” he elaborated.
The perpetrator—or perpetrators—left Papini “scared to death of these people,” who may have threatened the young mother into lying about her kidnapper’s identity. “This is a sadistic situation, and she somehow was able to convince them to let her go,” Kelly told the magazine.
“She somehow got them to believe she would not squeal on them,” he added.
“It’s only by an act of God that they let her go. I have a hard time understanding that as sadistic as these [people] are—and I’ve hunted many of them—would let someone live.”
Officials said Papini was found on the side of an interstate about 150 miles from her home near Redding, California. She disappeared while jogging on Nov. 2.
Kelly added: “She can identify this perpetrator. If they know where she lives, she will always worry.”
Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko confirmed last month that she had been “branded” by her captors, was beaten, and starved. Her long, blonde hair was also cut.
Police had been searching for two handgun-armed Hispanic women driving a dark SUV, CBS News reported.
Papini, he said, described one of the women as having a thick Spanish accent, younger, with pierced ears, long curly hair, and thin eyebrows. The older woman had straight black hair with some gray, and thick eyebrows, Bosenko said.
“Sherri was taken from us for 22 days, and suffered incredibly through both intense physical agony and severe mental torture,” husband Keith Papini stated, CBS reported. “My reaction was one of extreme happiness and overwhelming nausea as my eyes and hands scanned her body. I was filled with so much relief and revulsion at once. My Sherri suffered tremendously and all the visions swirling in your heads of her appearance, I assure you, are not as graphic and gruesome as the reality.”
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