Sherri Papini Documentary: 3 Things That Still Puzzle Us About the Case — Like That Dropped Phone

We’re still reeling from all the revelations in Investigation Discovery’s two-night true-crime documentary Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie.

Sherri, who had gone jogging near her Redding, California, home, disappeared on November 2, 2016, and didn’t resurface until 22 days later. Claiming two armed Hispanic women had abducted her, she was in rough shape, emaciated, with bruises, burns, her long blonde hair shorn and a chain around her waist. But an intense investigation flipped the script, and Sherri ultimately confessed that she’d faked the crime. She served nearly 11 months in prison.

In the doc, she recants that confession and points a finger at ex-boyfriend James Reyes, with whom she was having an emotional affair. He had long ago told investigators that she was at his Costa Mesa, California, apartment for those three weeks, but he thought he was helping her “run away” from an abusive marriage: “I didn’t kidnap her.” He also said that she was the instigator for any physical harm to her body.

Now that we’ve seen all four hours of Caught in the Lie, let’s look at a few things that still don’t add up.

The iPhone She Dropped

One of the initial clues that puzzled investigators and spoke of potential violence was Sherri’s iPhone, which had been dropped by a dirt road on her jogging route and had blonde hair tangled up in the cords to her earbuds. Then-husband Keith Papini had discovered it using his Find My Phone app, telling 20/20: “If she would have lost her phone driving home one day and she put it on the roof of the car and it fell off, OK, whatever. I could see that happening. But the cars are home and the kids are at school. I knew something was wrong.”

For the FBI, the find — the phone was facing up, with the earbuds on top of it — was a red flag. “The way it was placed … you don’t just drop your phone when you’re being kidnapped and coil up your headphones and then pull your hair out and make sure it’s in there,” says Denise Farmer, the FBI’s lead investigator (now retired). “That was very strange to us.”

Initially, Sherri confirmed she was responsible and had intended this as an alert to her husband. While in the room with investigators, she turned to Keith and said, “I knew you’d find my phone and my hair … That’s why I pulled it out — I knew you’d know.”

But in the new doc, she changes her story. With plans to meet Reyes, Sherri says she went on her run. “I saw a vehicle pull up and then back up. That’s when I realized that it was James. My cell phone fell, and when I reached down to get my phone, that is the last thing that I remember.”

Questioned about the inconsistency, she first answers with a non sequitur: “Oh, during captivity, James said they found my phone, so I knew I knew he had found the phone.” (Yeah, her interviewer didn’t get it either.) But then she explains her first account (sort of): “So, there was elaboration around it, sure, and there was a — what’s the word that you’ve used before? Thank you, thank you — there was embellishment around it, sure. But it was my first attempt to say I was in trouble.”

The truth, Sherri says, is that it fell. But after that, “I have no memory of getting in the back of this vehicle. I have no memory of what was said or what was exchanged or how he managed to knock me out or get me in the back.”

Sherri’s therapist, Dr. Stephen Diggs, who specializes in the treatment of personality disorder, shares that failure to remember “pertinent parts of the trauma” is listed as one of the criteria for PTSD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. “It’s right in the DSM.”

And clinical psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula, who has not treated Sherri, gives additional insight about the kind of memory issues Sherri may be experiencing: “One of the most frustrating things you’re going to find is that trauma stories have holes, right? And we think that if someone can’t remember something, they’re faking, or we think it’s soap opera amnesia or something like that. But those holes in memory are often protective, and the shape-shifting on the story, if it feels too self-serving, leaves you in the position of wondering how much of this is a calculation, how much of this is a dishonesty.”

The Brand

Sherri’s condition after three weeks in captivity shocked the nation — and perhaps the most disturbing element was the brand on her right shoulder, which reads “Exodus” with a corresponding Bible verse. At the time, Shasta County, California, sheriff Tom Bosenko said, “I would think that that’s some sort of either an exertion of power and control and or maybe some type of message that the brand contained.”

In her new interview, Sherri specifically references the brand when reclassifying her disappearance not as a hoax but as an abduction: “There was no consent. And 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 myself, and I am telling you, there was no consent.”

She alleges that Reyes got the idea to brand her in October 2016, when she was telling him about the handmade Christmas gifts she was working on, included wood coasters with letters burned onto them. Specifically, “I had talked about the wood-burning tool,” she says. She believes that conversation sent him to Hobby Lobby a month later (the receipt was in evidence) to buy the tool and brand her.

“When James had me tied to the table,” she recounts, “he would have to screw these letters in with pliers. I can still hear the sound. It’s like a popping sound and you can smell it and I can still feel it and the pain that you experience, letter by letter.”

The Dueling Polygraphs

In the show’s final hour, we see video of an investigator’s November 8, 2024, visit to Reyes in Nogales, Arizona. Reyes confirms he’s aware of Sherri’s new allegations and says, “I’ll have to contact my lawyer in California.” During the investigation, he passed every question of a polygraph and was never charged with anything… which is a bit tricky to reconcile with Sherri’s new polygraph.

Among the questions, she’s asked, “While at James’ house in 2016, were you free to leave at any time without fear of violence?” and “Did you ask James to brand you?” She answered no to both — and passed.

Polygraph examiner Brett Bartlett explains that the test does not technically indicate truth but whether her body has a “significant response” to a statement, indicating she has failed the polygraph.

While other questions to Sherri did get that significant response — and she clarifies the thoughts racing through her mind while answering — ultimately, the test indicates that the essence of her new account of being held against her will is indeed true. “I do believe you. I’m sorry that happened to you,” Bartlett says.

Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie is now streaming on Max.