Sherri Papini Update | What was the Motive for Sherri's Hoax?

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i update my analysis of the sherry papini case based on her arrest in march of 2022 just a reminder i'm not diagnosing you in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoyed this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i will put the link to patreon in the description for this video first i'll look at the background this case i'll move to the timeline of the alleged crime then move to my analysis it's worth noting that some of the background information is based on a criminal complaint filed against sherry papini on march 2 2022 at the time making this video sherry has not been convicted of any crime and is presumed innocent shea papini was born in 1982 and raised in reading california at age 16 sherry ran away from home and stayed in southern california with friends presumably this was temporary in 2000 cherry's father called the police and said his daughter had burglarized his residence that same year sherry's sister reported her to the police saying that sherry had kicked in the back door of her residence in september of 2003 cherie's father accused her of making unauthorized withdrawals from his bank account she later returned the money to him in december of 2003 cherie's mother accused her of attempting to harm herself and trying to blame those injuries on her in 2006 sherry married a platoon sergeant named david dreyfuss they divorced in 2008. in 2009 she married a man named keith papini they would go on to have two children sherry and keith lived in the mountain gate area of shasta county near reading california their home was in a rural area as early as december of 2015 sherry started having conversations with an ex-boyfriend they used prepaid cell phones to speak to one another he was not identified in the criminal complaint so i will just call him ex-boyfriend which is how the criminal complaint referred to him now moving to the timeline of the alleged crime on november 2 2016 sherry and her ex-boyfriend exchanged text messages in the morning the ex-boyfriend traveled to reading california and picked up sherry in a rented dodge challenger they traveled together to southern california when sherry's husband keith came home from work he could not find her he noticed that she did not pick up the children from daycare which she normally would have done keith used an app to locate sherry's phone and earbuds he found them about a mile away from his home they looked as though they had been placed on the ground neatly the earbuds were coiled up on top of the phone keith notified the police at about 5 50 pm and they started investigating a witness had seen sherry running on sunrise drive between the hours of 10 a.m and 12 p.m cherie's financial accounts had not been accessed her person jewelry were accounted for law enforcement expended a great deal of resources trying to find sherry but they did not have any success they did not know what happened to her or where she was 22 days later on november 24 sherry's ex-boyfriend drove sherry back to northern california in a rented mitsubishi outlander he dropped her off near woodland california about 146 miles south of sherry's home at about 4 30 a.m the california highway patrol responded to several 911 calls reporting that a woman was standing or running on interstate five the police arrived at the scene to find sherry she had a chain around her waist which was connected to one of her arms her other wrist and both her ankles had makeshift restraints on them she was transported to woodland hospital she had a brand on her right shoulder rashes on her left arm and upper inner thigh bruises on her face pelvis and legs her nose was swollen she had burns on her left forearm and appeared to have lost quite a bit of weight cheri told the police that she had been kidnapped she said the kidnappers alluded to law enforcement being involved in the crime therefore sherry was reluctant to talk to the police even still she did speak to the police on several occasions here's what sherry said happened on november 2 she decided to go jogging to prepare for a local 5k race as she approached the end of sunrise drive a dark-colored suv drove past her then backed up a woman in the passenger seat asked for help as sherry approached she saw the woman was holding a small revolver in a subsequent interview she referred to it as a short revolver the woman said something like we don't want to hurt you cherie set her phone and earbuds on the ground she did not remember getting into the vehicle but she did remember having a pillowcase over her head she could tell the vehicle was moving she did not remember how long the trip was because she kept falling asleep seems like an odd time for a nap but i guess some people's lives are so busy they take any opportunity they can get to sleep the next thing she remembered was waking up in a room zip ties were around her wrists and she was wearing different clothes the kidnappers were both hispanic women one older and one younger they primarily spoke spanish and always wore masks and black leather gloves they often played loud music outside the room that she was in when they weren't playing loud music they would hear every time she made a noise and run in the room and beat her sherry had three different stories for how her shoulder was branded number one after she tried to escape they branded her on her shoulder as punishment number two the kidnappers talked about a buyer who wanted her branded so they were doing it per the buyer's request number three they branded her for making too much noise sherry said that she had trouble remembering what happened because she was in pain from the branding itself and from the weight of her body pressing on her recent breast implants over the next several weeks the kidnappers cut her hair burned her arm and continued to beat her she would try to ask them various questions like where am i and why am i here but they didn't answer her at one point the kidnappers told her they were going to sell her to a buyer who was a police officer cherie talked about one attack where she cut her foot on the side of a cabinet in the bathroom interestingly her foot did not have a cut on it or a scar the kidnappers attempted to discourage sherry they told her that no one was going to find her people think that she ran away and the police were not looking for her eventually one of the kidnappers drove her to where she was found and told her to get out of the vehicle that was it the kidnapping was over just four days after she was found sherry applied to the california victim compensation board she eventually received about 35 payments totaling over thirty thousand dollars she used much of it for mental health counseling over the next several years from time to time sherry would offer more information to the authorities she would add small details to her story like describing various pieces of furniture that she saw in the place where she was kept sherry worked with an fbi sketch artist to create renderings of the two kidnappers in 2018 sherry once again contacted the fbi she told them that during a session with her therapist she remembered additional information about how her arm was burned in 2020 investigators were able to identify the ex-boyfriend from the dna found on sherry's clothing they interviewed him on august 10 2020. he told investigators that sherry had told him that her husband had been beating her and she was trying to escape him the ex-boyfriend agreed to help her run away over the course of sherry's disappearance she never left the ex-boyfriend's residence while she was there he believed that she was intentionally trying to lose weight and he witnessed her causing injuries to herself cherie asked him to brand her which he did with a wood burning tool he purchased at hobby lobby the ex-boyfriend said that he did not have sex with sherry while she'd stayed with him it's worth noting that his dna was found on her underwear doesn't necessarily mean they had sex but it is curious sherry eventually said that she missed her children and wanted to go home he agreed to take her back to northern california before they left sherry threw various items that could be connected to her into a dumpster on the trip back she threw a prepaid cell phone out of the car window ex-boyfriend dropped sherry off and returned home he then became increasingly concerned about all the attention the case was getting he became worried about what that meant for him he decided he wouldn't notify anybody but he would tell the truth to law enforcement when and if they approached him so all these people were wondering what happened this guy knew what happened and he wasn't going to say anything i'm guessing he will not be nominated for the helpful citizen of the year award sherry was interviewed by the fbi on august 13 2020 they told her that lying to a federal officer is a crime she indicated that she understood they accused her of making up the story she denied it and continued saying that her story was true with her husband out of the room she admitted to investigators that she did talk to the ex-boyfriend noting it was a mistake on march 2 2022 sherry was arrested on charges of making false statements to a federal law enforcement officer and engaging in mail fraud she is facing five years for the first charge and 20 years for the second now moving to my analysis it seems fairly clear that sherry papini is guilty of perpetrating a hoax although as i mentioned she is presumed innocent she has not been convicted of any crime at the time making this video just a few examples of the inculpatory evidence her boyfriend knew about the injuries that no one else knew about he took off work on november 1 and november 2 which was out of the ordinary the ex-boyfriend's cousin saw sherry at the ex-boyfriend's residence on two occasions the prepaid cell phone records matched the ex-boyfriend story rental car records match his story as well for example the mileage for the suv matched the round-trip distance from his residence to northern california a bedroom and the ex-boyfriend's residence matched one that sherry described and his brother had a table which matched one that sherry described i don't know if sherry papini will be convicted or not but it doesn't look good for her running under the assumption that she was perpetrating a hoax what was her motive at first glance this looks like a situation where sherry wanted to have an affair she communicated with men during her marriage to keith including a man from michigan who intended to meet her the day before she was picked up by her ex-boyfriend the plan didn't work out but it suggests some degree of infidelity the problem with this theory of course is the ex-boyfriend denies they had sex this leads to another theory which is that cherry was looking for attention in her history we see a few different items that support this theory a few examples various friends of sheri described her making up lies about being a victim sherry actively contacted the authorities several times after she returned it wasn't like she was trying to stay out of the spotlight she voluntarily offered new information the police spoke to a man who encountered sherry sometime around 2000 or 2001 at a youth program meeting and he dated her for several years he described her as attention hungry he said that she fabricated stories about being a victim the authorities contacted the director of that youth program who remembered sherry the director said that she was good at creating different realities for people so that they would see what she wanted them to see this gained her a lot of attention now attention seeking may not be the motive or the only motive for example sherry did profit financially from the hoax but i don't think money was her primary motive it really does seem to be more about playing the victim the hoax was consistent with her history now moving to the next question what type of personality characteristics are associated with this behavior not specifically speaking about this case but rather in general when a person plays the victim to an extreme sometimes it is because they are a victim narcissist they have a set of narcissistic characteristics which facilitate this behavior this personality type overlaps somewhat with factitious disorder imposed on self and on another the latter disorder is also known as munchausen syndrome by proxy a disorder where a caregiver hurts someone in their care to attract sympathy for themselves instead of pretending to be injured or having a child who is sick the victim narcissist creates fictitious villains who cause them harm it's not bad enough that natural causes or something like that would hurt them they pretend a human villain is responsible for their pain the victim narcissist wants people to think that there's someone out there who really hates them an active enemy who everybody can unite against so they are not just being hurt they are being hated it's personal this makes them even more of a victim a victim narcissist typically has high levels of vulnerable narcissism they have a sense of entitlement they need admiration they are self-centered arrogant resentful insecure and full of shame when they fail to gain attention for positive reasons they change their strategy they make themselves into a hero by creating a villain personality traits of the victim narcissist often interfere with their plan they typically have low conscientiousness and high neuroticism so they are impulsive irresponsible and emotionally reactive typically their plans fall apart fairly quickly because of those characteristics the irony of the victim narcissist is that they really do suffer quite a bit not from some external tormentor but from their own lack of insight moving back to the case of sherry papini what penalty should she receive if she's guilty in most cases i don't think prison is appropriate for non-violent offenders i see this as a case that should involve a long period of probation and continued mental health counseling these behaviors are often born out of a great deal of pain and dysfunction prison for sheri is not going to make society any safer and it certainly won't help her gain any insight if anything it would just expose her to a new group of people she could manipulate albeit a less receptive and less empathetic audience now moving to my final thoughts even though sherry's plan was simplistic it was effective because she was able to win advocates who in turn would accuse skeptics of victim blaming this may have brought sherry a particularly special level of joy she had fooled people so completely that they were willing to attack those who suspected that sherry was no victim she used their ability to empathize and their lack of critical thinking skills against them and transformed them into unwitting accomplices those are my thoughts in the case of sherry papini please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis to be as intriguing as winning the helpful citizen of the year award thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 328,481

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Id: U3fnWYx0Q8k

Length: 16min 35sec (995 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 06 2022