It was November 2nd 2016 when 34 year-old mother of 2 Sherry Papini left her home in the town of Reading California to go for a jog. But when her husband returned home hours later, he finds that worryingly she had failed to pick up the children from school. He quickly raised the alarm when he realised his wife was nowhere to be found. Sherri’s disappearance sparked a nationwide search & blew up in the media with coverage about the missing mother becoming national news. Over 3 weeks went past, & hope turned to dread as no trace of Sherri could be found, leading people to believe the worst…. That was until Thanksgiving day, when suddenly a battered & bruised Sherri is found distraught, emaciated but still alive at the side of the road. After she divulges the awful details of what happened to her during her terrifying ordeal, police begin to realise that all was not quite as it seemed with this ‘all American girl next door.’ In fact, the horrific story of abuse & torture she claimed to have suffered at the hands of 2 female abductors sounds more & more suspicious. Leading police to believe Sherri had actually been fooling them all the entire time . It took 6 years of gruelling investigations to reveal the truth - that this normal house wife who’d been referred to as a super mom had woven an intricate web of lies & deceit. Faking her own kidnap, & injuring herself in the process for reasons that are still known only to her. Law enforcements painstaking investigations revealed her so called abduction had really just been one huge hoax & she had in fact masterminded her own disappearance. Today we look into the bizarre case of the girl that cried wolf, a case so strange that it shocked & baffled people across the world. And it also lead to compulsive liar Sherri becoming known as ‘the real life Gone Girl….’

This is episode 73: The Deception Of Sherri Papini.

Crime talk timestamp: 9:30 mins

Sources: Wikipedia/ cbsnews.com / foxnews.com/ Los Angeles Times/ The Hollywood Reporter/ Vanity Fair/ BBC News/Time Magazine

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