September 16, 2023 • 44 mins
Sherri Papini admits her 2016 kidnapping was a hoax, pleading guilty.
The 39-year-old, sentenced to 18 months in prison, has been released into a residential management program. Her official release date is in October.
The mom was reported missing and told investigators when she was found 22 days later that a pair of Hispanic women kidnapped her at gunpoint. Papini said her kidnappers abused her and then shoved her out of a car. Papini was emaciated, her hair was cut shorter, and she had cuts and bruises all over her body, but prosecutors said she caused the injuries herself.
The case was broken in 2020 when DNA led investigators to Papini’s ex, who told them she had been with him the entire time. Federal prosecutors charged Papini with 34 counts of mail fraud and one count of making false statements. Papini accepted a plea deal, but didn't explain why she created an elaborate kidnapping hoax, although she apologized for her actions.
Panini's story began to unravel when investigators found male DNA on her clothing that led them to her ex-boyfriend, whom she had been staying with while she pretended to be missing. He dropped her off along Interstate 5 when she said she wanted to go back home.
Investigators said that the former boyfriend said that Papini had asked him to hit her but he refused. Instead, he agreed to hold a hockey stick for her to run into and pelted her with hockey pucks. He also said he branded her at her request.
Joining Nancy Grace Today:
- Sheriff Michael Johnson - Shasta County Sheriff's Office
- Matthew Mangino – Attorney, Former District Attorney (Lawrence County); Author: “The Executioner’s Toll: The Crimes, Arrests, Trials, Appeals, Last Meals, Final Words and Executions of 46 Persons in the United States”
- Dr. Angela Arnold – Psychiatrist, Atlanta GA. Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women, Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University, Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital
- Bill Garcia - Private Investigator: "Bill Garcia Investigative Services;'" Part of Search Team for Sherri Papini
- Kristy Mazurek - Emmy Award-winning Investigative Reporter & President: "Successful Strategies"
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Imagine coming home and calling out to your children and
your spouse, and no one answers.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
You know immediately things have gone sideways. You launch a.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Desperate search, finding your taught children still at daycare, but
where's your spouse. Then you find your spouse's cell phone,
the cord wrapped neatly around it, attached to earbuds, and
some of your spouse's hair caught tangled up in that cord.
(00:48):
You know everything has gone sideways. Of course, I'm talking
about the case of Sherry Peppini, the missing mom who
faked her entire disappearance, going so far as to brand herself. Yes,
you heard me, brand herself, you know, like with a
(01:09):
hot poker, brand herself with something that looks like hieroglyphics,
and lose about forty pounds, beat herself and chop off
her hair to make her disappearance more believable. We find
out the entire time her husband is sick, her children
are crying from mommy. The whole world has turned upside
(01:32):
down looking for Chery Peppini. She was hold up in
her old boyfriend's apartment. Good grief woman, I'mancy Grace. This
described Stories, Thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation.
In series six sem one eleven. In The Last Days,
I Break and the Cheery Peppinie Fake Kidnapping case, Chery Peppinie,
(01:53):
everybody who cost police thousands of man hours and tens
of thousand of dollars in the search has just walked free.
That's right, California Moms. Sherry Pepini has been released from prison.
How did the whole thing start?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Hello? Can I help you? Yeah? So I just got
home from work, and uh, my wife wasn't there, which
is unusual, and my kids should have been there by
now from like daycare. So I was like, oh, maybe
she went on a walk. I couldn't find her, so
I called the daycare to see what time she picked
up the kids. The kids were never picked up, so
I got freaked out. So I hit like to find
(02:38):
MyPhone app thing and it said that her. It showed
her phone like at our end of our driveway. We
don't have really good service. Okay, not the end of
our driveway, at the end of our street, but just
drove down there and I saw her phone with their
headphones because she started running again and it's her found
her phone and it's got like hair ripped out of it,
like in the headphones. So I'm like totally freaking out,
thinking like somebody like, let's hers.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Grab thank you, and someone grabbed her. Now take a
listen to our cut one from Channel seven kr c R.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Keith Papini came home last Wednesday and his wife, Sherry Pappini,
was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
In normal days, I would open the door and my
families comes and runs and gives me a hug.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
But there were no welcoming hugs. So he searched in
the house and their property, but learned the children were
still at daycare. He found Sherry's phone down the street.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
That's when I knew she'd been, in my opinion, taken
or abducted.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Now days later, family, friends, the community, and law enforcement
are still looking for Sherry.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
It's the worst thing in the world. It's the worst
thing ever.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Time going by slowly and their children don't know their
mother is missing.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
It's hard waiting.
Speaker 6 (03:49):
You know, you're waiting.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
You're waiting for a phone call, You're waiting for something
to tell us. You know, this is the direction, or
this is the house, or this is the car, and
that is It's very difficult right now, but.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Keith is determined to find her.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
If she's listening, I wanted to say that we're trying
the best we can and I'm so sorry that I'm
not there.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
The family believes she was abducted and has this message.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Bring her home, Bring her home, Just bring her home.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
We all know that Peppini was on a very tight
schedule that she never missed picking up her children. Take
listen to her sister in law, Sherry Peppini are cut five.
Speaker 7 (04:29):
There's no way she would do anything to disrupt her
children's routine, you know, the being that the phone was
found and she wasn't on her routine there. Yeah, there's
no way she wouldn't have gone and picked up the children.
They're on a very they're on a very tight schedule,
and she's extremely close with them. She's here with them
every day gardening and doing projects, and there's there's just
(04:50):
no way that she would take off.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It's terrible.
Speaker 7 (04:53):
She's an incredible human being, best mom I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
You're hearing the sister in law, Suzanne speaking I Nancy Grace,
this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us
here at Fox Nation. In series XEM one eleven. Sherry Peppini,
a name that echoes and echoes and echoes. She's been
in the news so much. With me an all star
panel to make sense of what we know right now.
(05:18):
Matthew Mangino, former prosecutor, highly respected attorney, author of the
Executioners Toll, Doctor Angela Arnold, psychiatrist joining us out of
the Atlanta jurisdiction at Angela Arnold, MD dot com. Mona
Kay private investigator at Mona Ka Investigations joining us out
of Omaha. Emmy Award winning investigative reporter Christy Missourich and
(05:43):
special guests joining us. Sheriff Michael Johnson from the Shasta
Counties Sheriff's Office to Sheriff Michael Johnson.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
This case has been hanging.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Around the Sheriff's office neck an Albatrosso to speak Sheriff
Michael Johnson, familiar with the extensive search for Sherry Peppini.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Take a listen to the Shasta County Sheriff presser.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
The deputies last night when they responded, they conducted a
search of the area and canvas area with local neighbors
and residents there, and they worked throughout the night and
into the early morning hours along with Shasta County Sheriff
investigators as well. They were also able to utilize the
Reach helicopter as the HP Air Operations helicopter was not available,
(06:35):
and they Reached helicopter came out and illuminated the area
and checked the fields in the side of the roads
for her and assisting us in the search operations last night.
They also used search canines for scent work. Local area
hospitals were checked and of course the sides of the
roadways were checked as well. Ms Puppini has been entered
(06:57):
into a national computer per missing persons. She is considered
at risk due to the suspicious circumstances.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
To Sheriff Michael Johnson joining us in Shasta County Sheriff's Office,
it's a real honor and privilege to have you with us, Sheriff.
Thank you for taking time away from your extremely busy
schedule to be with us, Sheriff. You guys went all
out and your search for Sherry Peppini.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Explain what your search entailed.
Speaker 9 (07:27):
Yeah, Nancy, there was three really different parts to this investigation,
and when you're talking about the search, that's really like
what we call the phase one of the investigation. She
went missing, and immediately you heard there was several different
resources deployed to find her. The location of Sherry Peppini
(07:49):
was absolutely the first phase where we just want to
Time's never on your side when somebody goes missing, So
the sooner you can locate them or get a lead
on locating them, the better chances you are of recovering
that personal live. So there was allied agencies asked to
lend us resources, and most of those resources were in personnel.
Speaker 10 (08:14):
As you heard, we had.
Speaker 9 (08:15):
Dogs, that had helicopters, we had everything, an all out
search in the community. The community even joined in, you know,
printing flyers and volunteer people coming out and looking for her.
It was an all out effort to find Sherry.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
At the beginning, I remember exactly how this whole thing
went down, and the Sheriff's office and other agencies spared
no resources trying to find Sherry Pepinie. And what I
hear about the helicopter on most people never seen it
in real life, but seen in the movies. The helicopter
(08:49):
flying close to the ground overhead, which you know, helicopters
can be a pretty risky mode of transportation, but if
you've got to do it. You got to do it,
but in a suburban area, looking for her, flying over
phone wires and cell phone towers, looking for her at
night with a light shining down.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Describe how that works, Shriff.
Speaker 9 (09:13):
Yeah, it's you know, they have infrared technology. They have
a lot of different high end technology that goes into this,
not just in the helicopter, but on the ground as well.
There's efforts, there's people where a night vision, there's everything,
all all expense paid to locate this woman. And and
(09:39):
the that's one of the keys here, Nancy, is when
you talk about the exhausting efforts of all the agencies
into this initial search and throughout this investigation, and the
resources and time and money spent on this, all to
find out in the end that it's a fraud, it's
very frustrating. Then one thing I should tell you also,
and I could remember that during the time Sherry Peppini
(10:03):
went missing, I was actually the neighboring police chief at
the time, I was not the sheriff, So I was
lending resources from my department to the sheriff's office in
the attempt to find Cherry. So everybody was involved.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
And now to find out it's nothing but a big
fat lie. I mean, this woman knows no bounds in
her lies. Take a listen to our cut eight Allison Sutton,
a motorist who spots the missing mom on the side.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Of the road.
Speaker 11 (10:40):
I saw a blind, a blonde woman standing in like
that V shaped area that gets created between the right
shoulder and the left side of an off ramp. But
I wasn't quite sure where I was when I saw her.
I just caught a glimpse of her. The area where
(11:04):
she was is not well lit, so I didn't actually
see her until I was right up on her, which
really startled me. And it kind of took me a
few minutes to figure out what I'd seen, and I
went a couple miles up the road to figure out
where until I saw a road sign so I knew
(11:26):
where I was. And then I pulled off onto the
shoulder and I called nine one one.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Have you ever done that? You've driven by something and
you went whoa, whoa, whoa? What was that?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That's what Alison Sutton is telling our friend Craig Melvin.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Take a listener, c At nine.
Speaker 11 (11:40):
I saw her very very quickly. Her face looked I
thought her face was dirty. But based on what I
know now, I'm guessing that what I thought was dirt
on her face was the bruises. But it was it
was very, very dark. I did not notice restraints. It
(12:04):
just it was so dark. I barely barely saw her.
And like I said, it was a flash because that
area is so dark and it was four thirty in
the morning.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
You didn't go back after that?
Speaker 5 (12:22):
I did not know.
Speaker 11 (12:23):
I had my fourteen year old daughter in the car
with me, and we talked about going back, but the
nine to one one operator had me feeling confident that
law enforcement would take care of the person that I saw,
and so we chose to get back on the road
(12:45):
and keep going.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Crime stories with Nancy Grace breaking news in the case
of a California mom who faked her own kidnap, even
going so far as to brand herself, beat herself, and
starve herself to make it all look real. Then a
woman sees her wandering around on Thanksgiving morning still with
(13:22):
chains around her body.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Seriously, it was all a big fake.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
How much money and man hours did this woman cost us?
When real people were suffering, real people being kidnapped, real
people being aggravated, assaulted, real people being raped, real women
being snatched away from their children and vice versa, and
she pulls this stunt.
Speaker 12 (13:47):
Listen, we are very esthetic to report that Shery Peppini
has been located and it has been reunited with her
husband and family. On this day of Thanksgiving. I'm happy
to say that Sherry is now safe and she has.
Speaker 9 (14:03):
Been treated at a area.
Speaker 8 (14:05):
Hospital outside of Chessa County and for.
Speaker 12 (14:08):
Dawn life threatening injuries.
Speaker 10 (14:11):
At about four point.
Speaker 12 (14:12):
Thirty this morning, chess Cunty Sheriff's Office was notified that
Sherry Peppini had been located.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
We learned that she was released by.
Speaker 12 (14:20):
Her captor on our rural road A near I five
in Yolo County. She was bound with restraints, but was
able to summon from a passing help from a passing
motorists on I five near County Road seventeen again in
about northern Yolo County.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Peppini admits it's all a big lie. I remember when
Peppini's husbands and friends raised alarms after she goes missing,
getting national attention when other victims could have used that attention. Well,
in the last hour, this woman who somehow masterminds the
(15:04):
ultimate kidnapping hopes. I mean, Jesse Smolett can learn a
thing from this woman.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Has walked free.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Christi Msuri joining us Emmy Award winning investigative reporter. Do
you remember everybody looking for Sherry Peppini, the grid searches,
the neighbors in fear, no woman would go for a
walk by yourself, on and on and it was all
(15:31):
a big lie.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Christy Musurich.
Speaker 13 (15:33):
It was the face scene around the world on billboards, signs,
people were donating to go fund me sites to pay
for neighborhood searches. And now, unfortunately, people are having to
deal with the grim fact that this woman has now
been deemed a master manipulator.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I mean, whoa Take a listen to our cut eighteen.
This is Susie's CBSLA.
Speaker 14 (16:01):
After years of sticking to her story that she was
abducted by two women, Sherry Peppini is reportedly ready now
to come clean and admit that she faked it all.
Cherry Peppini vanished from her reading home in twenty sixteen.
Weeks later, she was found wandering along the five Freeway,
bruised and branded. Now, at that time, she told police
(16:21):
two women had kidnapped and tortured her. But last month,
prosecutors charged her with making it all up. They say,
instead of being abducted, she was actually hiding out with
an ex boyfriend in Costa Mesa. And now Peppini has
reached a deal with prosecutors and will admit that she
planned the entire hoax. Her lawyer says, Peppini signed a
(16:42):
plea deal with federal prosecutors. She will plead guilty to
lying to a federal officer and to mail fraud.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
You know what joining me, Sheriff Michael Johnson.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It was the Shasta County Sheriff's office, and you're then
jurisdiction in so many other that join together. There is
no way to count the man hours spent on finding
this spoiled brat mom of two that goes missing on
(17:15):
her stay at home day.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Both of her kids are in daycare. I don't know
what she's doing all day long.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
She's obviously fabricating a crime in her pink jogging suit.
I wonder if she had her hair blow dry before
she took off. But long story short, to go shack
up with her ex boyfriend for weeks on end, starve herself,
beat herself, cut all her hair off.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I'm so mad I could chew anl and a half.
Sheriff doesn't tell.
Speaker 9 (17:47):
Them most like a supermom to me, Does it to you?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Oh no, it doesn't, No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I mean, there are plenty of times moms feel tired.
They don't want to clean the guinea pig cage, or
cook dinner or go to work.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
They're exhausted.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
But hiding in your ex boyfriend's apartment for several weeks
leading up to Thanksgiving, having your entire family and abject
fear that you're dead, I mean, and what it did
to the sheriffs and the.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Local police out in a helicopter at night, set at
home with their own families, or solving.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Real crimes sheriff with real victims that are suffering.
Speaker 9 (18:32):
Yeah, and you hit all the points. It's frustrating to
us that, you know, at some point we created a code,
a finance code to start tracking our resources that we
had into this investigation. And it wasn't too well into
this investigation that that was done, and it got up
to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for us, just
(18:54):
as our agency by the time this thing concluded. And
I'm sure, we had well more than that into the
into the investigation. And that's not even counting all the
other agencies. And that is the frustration, Nasty is who
we put all these this effort into Sherry Peppini and
trying to recover her and do it Will Bratt and
(19:14):
chasing down false suspects and.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Oh yeah, what if you had actually made an arrest?
She tried to blame it on what too hispanic females.
Speaker 9 (19:22):
Yes, she sure did. And and you know what, in
the meantime all this is going on, we have other
legitimate cases that are not getting the attention that they should,
are being kind of pushed to the side because the
ex agency of this circumstance are so we thought.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Reminds me of Jesse Smolett, the big race faker and
his fake hate crime.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
At least we knew he was alive, Okay, we didn't
have to worry that.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
He was dead and that his children would be left
without a father to raise him.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
I mean, here's another thing.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
It's not just the money Mona K joining me private
investigator Mona K Investigations, Ode of Omaha. Mona when used
or at least me when I would work a case
in the District Attorney's office.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
I worked it.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I worked it hard, out on the street till one
two o'clock in the morning, up at five o'clock with
my investigators, trying to find witnesses in court at eight o'clock,
trying to get my evidence lined up so there would
not be any glitch in front of the jury, riding
out my direct and cross examinations, my closings, my openings,
getting the law to make sure my evidence got in
(20:30):
and to keep.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Their evidence out, anything.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I could do to further justice. There was no rest,
There were no dinners out nothing. It was proved the case,
investigate the case, and by the time you're in it
you're so emotionally attached to it that anything other than
a resolution is a personal fail. I mean, that's how
(20:55):
I looked at my cases. They were like my children
at the time, the attached to finding the truth.
Speaker 15 (21:02):
Yeah, that's true. I mean, you become very invested in
the cases that you work, the people you work for,
you know, her family, the community. But you work endlessly
and tirelessly day and night trying to track down leads,
trying to find witnesses, locate people you know, walking through
the you know, the ditches the area, just looking for
(21:23):
any signs.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yes, and it's exhausting.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Monique into you Sheriff Michael Johnson joining us, the Chessa
County sheriff, the elected sheriff, you know, sheriff. It's not
like on TV and movies or in one scene you're
covered in dirt and sweat and blood, the next one
you're like lounging in a hot tub.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
It's not like that.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
You go days, weeks, months working a case. I've had
cases where I had to go to crack houses with
a bunch of crack addicts in there, got a shotgun
pulled on me somebody's front porch, exhaustive hours digging through
glass shards and and syringes to try to find a
(22:11):
projectile from a shotgun.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I mean, I can't even tell.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
You what criminal investigators, lawyers, and sheriffs like yourself go.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Through to make a case and to think the whole time.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Sherry Peppeni is propped up on the sofa at her
ex boyfriend's house watching what Mary Povich.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
I mean, I don't get it, what she put you.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Guys through and her own family is it's I don't
get it.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Sheriff. Why am I the only one angry here?
Speaker 6 (22:44):
You're not.
Speaker 9 (22:47):
I do feel I do feel sorry for her unsuspecting
family because she did do her family as well. But
when you talk about this woman had a very elaborate
reception scheme going to we been talking about the investigation.
Our investigators had to chase down so many leads and
(23:07):
vet out so many facts across state lines at times
because she had put all these other stories and misdirections
into place. That that's why it took so much time
in this investigation. We didn't want to falsely accuse anybody,
but as we started to unfold the mistruth to this
(23:28):
and her deception, we had to make sure that we
vetted out every single lead. And everything you're talking about
is right. It's exhausting, it's.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Hours mentally exhausting.
Speaker 9 (23:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Do you know how many times that I would comment
and send out plays help find Sherry Papaine.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
And I'd read the facts.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
I still got pages and pages and pages of notes
and analysis, and so much of it did not fit
together from me. For instance, the fact that her cell
phone was sitting there and the era bus were neatly
folded up and just sitting on top of her phone,
and I think the phone may have been found on
(24:07):
top of a mailbox or somewhere very It was like
thrown into the bushes. I had so many problems with
her story, but then Sheriff, I kept thinking, well, I mean,
which she goes so far to beat herself and starve herself,
break her own nose, brand herself. Didn't she brand herself,
chop off all her hair? Was she branded?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Sheriff? Yes, she was, Oh, dear Lord in Heaven with
what It's never been told what she was branded? What
were the latters? What did it say?
Speaker 9 (24:37):
Yeah, it was a it was a religious saying, and
I don't really recall exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
What religious saying. Yeah, yes, oh you know.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
This is straight Matthew Mangino, former District Attorney Lawrence County,
now high profile lawyer, former member of the parole Board.
Which I don't like one bit that you pu old
people and author of the executioners told me and Gino
it's straight out of like a fifth grade girl's novel,
(25:09):
being abducted and branded and your hair chopped off and
blah blah blah. It sounded pinky at the beginning, but
I would not come out and say it.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Because the woman.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Had a broken nose, she was starved, she had cut
off all her hair, she was covered with bruises, even branded,
And I thought, okay, the facts are off.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
But would she actually brand herself?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Would she go through all that break her own nose
and that was the other side of the scale.
Speaker 16 (25:42):
Well, yeah, that's extraordinary.
Speaker 6 (25:44):
I mean, you know, you know, she went to great
measures to make this hope seem real, you know, to
physically harm herself, to brand herself that had her nose broken,
all for.
Speaker 16 (25:59):
The the attention that she might get after she comes
back twenty two days later. I mean, you know, this
extravagant hoax is wrong on so many different levels. You know,
it inhibits people from money to get involved in the future.
When someone says they're missing, it's a diversion of police efforts.
(26:22):
You know, it's costly to the community.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Hey, hey, man Geno, I want to analyze something you
just said. A diversion of police efforts. You know, that's
really like putting perfume on the pig. You know, it's
a little bit of a euphemism. Hey, Sheriff Michael Johnson,
did you hear that Matthew Mangino.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Police efforts. Think about it.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
How many women were being raped at that moment, how
many stores or homes were being robbed or home invaded?
How many missing children were being abducted at that moment.
What other crimes were happening? Were people domestic violence, people
women getting beaten, children getting beaten and molested.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
That's what was happening when Sherry Peppini.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Had the sheriffs up in their helicopter and doing grid
searches and putting up flyers.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, what about that, Mangino?
Speaker 3 (27:16):
All right?
Speaker 16 (27:17):
And I agree with you, and it goes beyond that.
I mean the fear that they created in the community,
that hey, you know this, this young woman was abducted
and no one knows where she's at, and then when
she finally returns, there's this racist element that she creates.
Two gun wielding his Spanish got her capted for three weeks.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
You know, I remember when Susan Smith killed her children
and blamed the black guy.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Blame the black man. All right.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
So I was sitting in court Jackie with my trial partner,
who helped me a great deal turn into a judge
by the way, herman Slim and the composite of the
fake kid napper of the children came out of Mike Hermann.
That looks a lot like you look at this. Oh,
I said, actually, I think you were import with me
when a children where I've dug to so you know
(28:09):
you're safe. But what he just said, Sheriff Johnson, did
you hear that, the element of blaming the Hispanic women.
Speaker 9 (28:16):
Yeah, of course. And you know what that doesn't You
got a nerve? What that does a law enforcement is
it gives us you know, she created this these sketches,
and so now we're contacting people and questioning people that
even resemble that falsely. You know, it's it's unfair.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
He just gave me a flashback, Sheriff Johnson. You know the.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Big albums of purps mugshots. I remember sitting up at
like one o'clock in the morning, I found a witness
and just going through page after page after page, looking
to see if any of these people look familiar as
the killer.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It was triple homicide on my dad. But I could
just see you putting together those two composites.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I remember them well, and showing them to this person
and that person.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Oh, it's so intensive. Sheriff Johnson. I know it is,
you know, Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I've still got you. We heard Matthew Mangino. I think
it's a pretty good guess on his part. Two say
she did it for attention. Did we ever figure out
why she did it?
Speaker 9 (29:29):
You know, that's the one thing that I was waiting
for to come out in the trial.
Speaker 12 (29:34):
No.
Speaker 9 (29:35):
All I can tell you is that calculated, narcissistic type
of behavior that she displayed through this whole thing is
all self serving right up now until the end when
she enters a plea agreement. The only reason she pled
in this case is because she's trying to save herself.
This for selfish reasons. Again, and they put out this
(29:58):
statement of remorse by her, which I'm quite sure she
didn't say. It was crafted, probably by her attorney. Yeah,
and just don't buy any of it. So I was
hoping in the trial we would get a better idea
of why she did it. But if I had to guess,
I'd just say it's that same typical selfish behavior.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Oh, the whole thing about Oh I'm bored, I'm bored
being a stay at home mom. You know how many
working moms that have to work. Would love to be
a stay at home mom because they're trying to be
the stay at home mom and do all the things
that mom does and work at the same time.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I mean it's.
Speaker 10 (30:38):
Hard, Nancy.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Uh oh, here it comes, dra Angie Arnold. I don't
get this.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I just did it for attention. There's something else there.
And don't sell he's insane because she's not.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
She's crazy. She's crazy like a fox. I'm telling you that.
Speaker 10 (30:54):
And she is also not a narcissist. She is a sociopath.
Is the definition of a sociopath. She knows the difference
between right and wrong, and she has no conscience because
this is not the first bad thing that she's done
to her family. It has escalated and escalated and now
(31:15):
this and like you said, how selfish? And then how
could you be thinking of anyone? She's not thinking of anyone.
And by the way, typically sociopaths and narcissist are not
really capable of love. So she's got this family you
know that she can portray and of course she looks
(31:37):
like the best mom in the world because she's not.
Her entire life is okay.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
You do know that just didn't make any sense. At all.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
She looks like the best mim in the world because
she's not okay, but that like you, But I know
that didn't make any sense.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Crime stories with Nancy Greasee.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Cherry Peppini walks out of jail. What will be her
next stunt? Don't think this is over. I mean, when
you don't know a horse, look at it's track record,
and boy does she have a track record. All kinds
of family problems way back when, dating back till before
she was married. And this porn guy falls for Chery
(32:33):
Peppinie's line of crap, marries her, they have children, and
now this well in the last hour, Sherry Peppinie walks free.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
But how did this whole thing actually happen? Sheriff, do
you remember? And you don't have to or Christy jump
in if you know this.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
There have been a lot of issues with her before this,
in that she had kicked in her family home, like
her our original family, like mom and dad family or
thank to burglary, there have been some something in her
background that's it's like a waving a big wig flag
in front of a bull. I mean, you can't help
(33:15):
but notice that what was it she had done.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
In the past, Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 9 (33:19):
Yeah, I don't recall.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
That one, so I recall it.
Speaker 9 (33:22):
Hey, I do.
Speaker 13 (33:22):
I hate Nancy rolling back from this A sheriff rolling
back from this case. She scams an ex boyfriend, telling
him that her her husband is beating her and her
family is not helping her. And she weaves this narrative
for almost a year before she disappears. That's why he
(33:43):
allows her to hold up in his apartment.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Hey, speaking of the drama, the story she came up with,
take a listen to our cut eighteen sissy Sue CBSLA.
Speaker 14 (33:54):
After years of sticking to her story that she was
abducted by two women, Sherry Peppini is importedly ready now
to come clean and admit that she faked it all.
Cherry Peppini vanished from her reading home in twenty sixteen.
Weeks later, she was found wandering along the five Freeway,
bruised and branded.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
Now.
Speaker 14 (34:13):
At that time, she told police two women had kidnapped
and tortured her, but last month, prosecutors charged her with
making it all up. They say, instead of being abducted,
she was actually hiding out with an ex boyfriend in
Costa Mesa and now Peppini has reached a deal with
prosecutors and will admit that she planned the entire hoax.
(34:33):
Her lawyer says Peppini signed a plea deal with federal
prosecutors today she will plead guilty to lying to a
federal officer and to mail fraud.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
You know, what if you'd made an arrasre Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
What if you actually found a Hispanic woman, or, as
I believe she said, two Mexican women. What if you
actually found somebody that matched that sketch to the point
that you arrested them based on what Sherry Peppini.
Speaker 9 (35:00):
Said, Well, you know what had happened then did I'd
be in a lawsuit for a false arrest, A.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Big fat lawsuit too, I found at sheriff listen to this.
When she was eighteen, her sister accused her of kicking
in the back.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Door of the family schaste Lake home.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
The same day, her parents, Richard and Loretta, called police
to document the incident as vandalism and claimed she had
taken off to somewhere in Redding. When she was twenty one,
her parents made another call to the cop, saying she
stole money from the father's bank account. Then the mother
reported Sherry was harming herself and blaming her injuries on
(35:37):
her the mother, and the mother was afraid that she,
the mother, would be getting dragged into defects Department Family
Children's Services, So she called herself and went, hey, my
daughter is hurting herself.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
And blaming me.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I mean, Sheriff Michael Johnson, when you don't know a horse,
look at her track record.
Speaker 9 (35:57):
Yes, indeed, and all that was taken into iteration. And
as the things started to unfold, and you know what
another hard part of this was nacy is as we
started to unfold this lies that are being told by her,
we had to lay silent while we took you know,
some we took some criticism from the media, the family
(36:18):
and everybody else, and we were knowing that this was
a lie, and but we had.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
To keep all I hope it wasn't may.
Speaker 9 (36:26):
Quiet until we all the facts.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Now, I mean at the beginning, Sheriff, I find it
hard to believe I would have criticized you because.
Speaker 16 (36:34):
I didn't see you at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I know, but I always assume it's a Sheriff Johnson
because at the beginning her story stumped the whole thing something.
It just wasn't right, the whole thing. And we thought,
and then showing up on Thanksgiving Day.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
What now?
Speaker 9 (36:50):
I said, yeah, and there was there was little uh,
and you hit on a couple of them some of
the evidence. At the front of the investigation. We were
scratched in her head and not thinking thing right as well.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
But I mean, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Bad mouth a victim who's had her nose broken and
lost all that weight, chopped her hair off and branded herself.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I mean, who would have thought? Then you've got the ex.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Boyfriend dragged into the whole thing. Hey, another thing, Sheriff Johnson,
I agree with you. Her her statement says, you know,
she didn't write this. I'm deeply ashamed from my behavior
and so sorry for the pain. I cause I don't
believe that for one minute. I don't think she's sorry
she did it. She's sorry she got caught, Sheriff.
Speaker 9 (37:32):
Yep, that's exactly right. That's what she's sorry about. She's
sorry that she got caught.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
It's like, I'm not sorry you did it, but I
sure don't want to go to hell for it. Okay,
So Christy, Missourich, explain to me what her sentence is.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
She pleads guilty. What's her sentence.
Speaker 13 (37:48):
She'll be sentenced this summer. But in signing up.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
This, I thought she already said, Oh wait, I see
thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
You're absolutely correct.
Speaker 13 (37:57):
It's thousand dollars in restitution that's mandated.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Yes, But what I'm saying is the thirty thousand dollars
she stole from a victim's compensation fund to pay off
her credit cards.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
What lovely, But tell me that.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
She had thirty thousand dollars a credit card debt and
then paid it for the victims compensation fund.
Speaker 13 (38:18):
Yes, and go fund be sites. Also that family and
friends had set up so when she returned back home,
she had a payday. And again her story got so insane.
Her memory was hazy because her head was covered by
a pillowcase. But she heard mariachi music playing. But maybe
(38:40):
that didn't happen because she might have been hit by
a stun gun.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Did you just say mariachi music?
Speaker 13 (38:45):
I absolutely did.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Oh yeah, Monique, probably an investigator with mony Qaue Investigations. Omaha,
the not just stereotypes, but the harmful and hateful stereotypes.
This one is conjuring up right now, I mean again,
it makes me think of Jesse Smilette. They star an
empire who conjures up hatred for Black Americans, hatred for
(39:12):
gay people, and then claims he was attacked with bleach
to make his skin white and put a noose around
his neck. Some of the most hateful things, just straight
out of hell that you could say. And now you've
got this woman claiming to quote Mexican women abduct her,
(39:34):
beat her, torture her, and play mariachi music.
Speaker 15 (39:39):
Yeah, that's right, I read that.
Speaker 9 (39:41):
She.
Speaker 15 (39:42):
I believe she said that she had to listen to
horrible mariachi or Hispanic music while she was being you know,
kidnapped and tortured in a closet. That was part of
the torture. Was listening to that type of music.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Well, not everyone would think that that was torture. Take
a listener. Cut twenty th three. This is Lila Lusiano
at CBS.
Speaker 12 (40:02):
Cherry described her assailants as two Hispanic female adults.
Speaker 17 (40:07):
According to the FBI. She accused the women of brutally
torturing her. The hunt was on and new fears settled
in Rudding, where Ladinos were less than ten percent of
the population. A lot of people would tell me, you know,
and they had to be standing, and they had to
be They said, well, that doesn't give them a good
name either.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
But so there was shame in the community.
Speaker 18 (40:26):
I guess she specifically picked out a gender and a
race to name as the suspect. So any Hispanic woman
at that time, I'm sure it's getting a eyebrow raised
and looking in there wondering, oh, whether she could be
connected or one of the suspects.
Speaker 17 (40:41):
So people were being questioned and stopped and asked questions
by law enforcement.
Speaker 15 (40:45):
Yes, they were afraid to go out together in one
car or a van.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
To women, he'd be suspicious, Yeah, to be suspicious, or
to be stereotyped, to be insulted and take a listener
cut twenty Kelly Hartungu.
Speaker 19 (40:56):
ABC Sherry Peppini says she's ashamed of her behavior and
sorry for the pain she caused. Just as she gets
ready to plead guilty in court. So the agencies who
spent more than five years uncovering her lies, they feel
some relief and closure, but also frustration because taking this
plea deal means she'll likely spend months, not years, in jail.
(41:16):
Sherry Pepinie back in federal court to waive indictment, opening
the door to plead guilty in her own kidnapping hopes.
Speaker 20 (41:23):
She had no other choice because she's caught and she
knows as if this thing comes to actually goes to
trial and we start parading in the witnesses and all
the evidence, so we've got she's got no where to go.
I'm very confident we would have got a conviction if
that went to trial.
Speaker 21 (41:38):
Facing trial for thirty five felony charges and the possibility
of as many as twenty five years in jail, the
mother of two, accepting a plea deal, her recommended sentence
reduced to no more than fourteen months. Through tears in
the court room, Peppini dabbing her eyes with a tissue,
her attorney consoling her as she nervously answered the judges
questions to ensure she understands what happens now, dabbing.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Her eyes in the courtroom, people are consoling her. I mean,
Sheriff Johnson's the one that needs to be consoled. And
everybody that's spent their time, blood, sweat and tears trying
to find Sherry Peppini. Now she's like dabbing her eyes
in the court. You know what, just stop, Peppinie. You've
done enough, Angie Arnold, for Pete's sake.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Is is this Shery Peppenie's world and we're just living
in it? Is it all about her?
Speaker 10 (42:27):
Well, she thinks it is, and she's creating this world
that she wants to live in. She feeds off of
this chaos, and she creates more and more chaos to
keep us all wondering, like we all are on this
show right every I'm wondering. This is terrible. This is
a terrible thought. I'm gonna share with you.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Oh boy, go ahead, don't hold back now.
Speaker 10 (42:49):
I'm wondering how much fun her and her boyfriend were
having shaving her head, giving her bruises. I mean, I wonder,
Oh my gosh, we're all going, oh my god, this
poor woman, her beautiful blonde hair was shaved and everything
it was probab. They were probably enjoying every minute of it.
(43:13):
They were getting some sort of odd satisfaction out of.
Speaker 15 (43:16):
Doing this to her.
Speaker 10 (43:17):
On top of everything else.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
In the last days the Ultimate Hoaster kidnap Mom, Sherry
Peppini walks free.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
There was no kidnap. She faked the whole thing, and
I'm still to this day not entirely sure why she
did it.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Then she reappears three weeks later on Thanksgiving, wearing a
chain around her waist and arm, claiming to Hispanic women
kidnapped her at gunpoint. That's right, blame the Hispanic women.
Her life all fell apart after investigator found her DNA
on a piece of clothing that led back to her
ex boyfriend, who dropped her off there in Woodlam when
(43:55):
she decided to reappear on Thanksgiving, I bet that some
Thanksgiving meal Sherry peppini. Let me tell you it ain't
over yet. Goodbye friends,
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Imagine coming home and calling out to your children and
your spouse, and no one answers.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
You know immediately things have gone sideways. You launch a.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Desperate search, finding your taught children still at daycare, but
where's your spouse. Then you find your spouse's cell phone,
the cord wrapped neatly around it, attached to earbuds, and
some of your spouse's hair caught tangled up in that cord.
(00:48):
You know everything has gone sideways. Of course, I'm talking
about the case of Sherry Peppini, the missing mom who
faked her entire disappearance, going so far as to brand herself. Yes,
you heard me, brand herself, you know, like with a
(01:09):
hot poker, brand herself with something that looks like hieroglyphics,
and lose about forty pounds, beat herself and chop off
her hair to make her disappearance more believable. We find
out the entire time her husband is sick, her children
are crying from mommy. The whole world has turned upside
(01:32):
down looking for Chery Peppini. She was hold up in
her old boyfriend's apartment. Good grief woman, I'mancy Grace. This
described Stories, Thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation.
In series six sem one eleven. In The Last Days,
I Break and the Cheery Peppinie Fake Kidnapping case, Chery Peppinie,
(01:53):
everybody who cost police thousands of man hours and tens
of thousand of dollars in the search has just walked free.
That's right, California Moms. Sherry Pepini has been released from prison.
How did the whole thing start?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Hello? Can I help you? Yeah? So I just got
home from work, and uh, my wife wasn't there, which
is unusual, and my kids should have been there by
now from like daycare. So I was like, oh, maybe
she went on a walk. I couldn't find her, so
I called the daycare to see what time she picked
up the kids. The kids were never picked up, so
I got freaked out. So I hit like to find
(02:38):
MyPhone app thing and it said that her. It showed
her phone like at our end of our driveway. We
don't have really good service. Okay, not the end of
our driveway, at the end of our street, but just
drove down there and I saw her phone with their
headphones because she started running again and it's her found
her phone and it's got like hair ripped out of it,
like in the headphones. So I'm like totally freaking out,
thinking like somebody like, let's hers.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Grab thank you, and someone grabbed her. Now take a
listen to our cut one from Channel seven kr c R.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Keith Papini came home last Wednesday and his wife, Sherry Pappini,
was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
In normal days, I would open the door and my
families comes and runs and gives me a hug.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
But there were no welcoming hugs. So he searched in
the house and their property, but learned the children were
still at daycare. He found Sherry's phone down the street.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
That's when I knew she'd been, in my opinion, taken
or abducted.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Now days later, family, friends, the community, and law enforcement
are still looking for Sherry.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
It's the worst thing in the world. It's the worst
thing ever.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Time going by slowly and their children don't know their
mother is missing.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
It's hard waiting.
Speaker 6 (03:49):
You know, you're waiting.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
You're waiting for a phone call, You're waiting for something
to tell us. You know, this is the direction, or
this is the house, or this is the car, and
that is It's very difficult right now, but.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Keith is determined to find her.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
If she's listening, I wanted to say that we're trying
the best we can and I'm so sorry that I'm
not there.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
The family believes she was abducted and has this message.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Bring her home, Bring her home, Just bring her home.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
We all know that Peppini was on a very tight
schedule that she never missed picking up her children. Take
listen to her sister in law, Sherry Peppini are cut five.
Speaker 7 (04:29):
There's no way she would do anything to disrupt her
children's routine, you know, the being that the phone was
found and she wasn't on her routine there. Yeah, there's
no way she wouldn't have gone and picked up the children.
They're on a very they're on a very tight schedule,
and she's extremely close with them. She's here with them
every day gardening and doing projects, and there's there's just
(04:50):
no way that she would take off.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It's terrible.
Speaker 7 (04:53):
She's an incredible human being, best mom I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
You're hearing the sister in law, Suzanne speaking I Nancy Grace,
this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us
here at Fox Nation. In series XEM one eleven. Sherry Peppini,
a name that echoes and echoes and echoes. She's been
in the news so much. With me an all star
panel to make sense of what we know right now.
(05:18):
Matthew Mangino, former prosecutor, highly respected attorney, author of the
Executioners Toll, Doctor Angela Arnold, psychiatrist joining us out of
the Atlanta jurisdiction at Angela Arnold, MD dot com. Mona
Kay private investigator at Mona Ka Investigations joining us out
of Omaha. Emmy Award winning investigative reporter Christy Missourich and
(05:43):
special guests joining us. Sheriff Michael Johnson from the Shasta
Counties Sheriff's Office to Sheriff Michael Johnson.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
This case has been hanging.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Around the Sheriff's office neck an Albatrosso to speak Sheriff
Michael Johnson, familiar with the extensive search for Sherry Peppini.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Take a listen to the Shasta County Sheriff presser.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
The deputies last night when they responded, they conducted a
search of the area and canvas area with local neighbors
and residents there, and they worked throughout the night and
into the early morning hours along with Shasta County Sheriff
investigators as well. They were also able to utilize the
Reach helicopter as the HP Air Operations helicopter was not available,
(06:35):
and they Reached helicopter came out and illuminated the area
and checked the fields in the side of the roads
for her and assisting us in the search operations last night.
They also used search canines for scent work. Local area
hospitals were checked and of course the sides of the
roadways were checked as well. Ms Puppini has been entered
(06:57):
into a national computer per missing persons. She is considered
at risk due to the suspicious circumstances.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
To Sheriff Michael Johnson joining us in Shasta County Sheriff's Office,
it's a real honor and privilege to have you with us, Sheriff.
Thank you for taking time away from your extremely busy
schedule to be with us, Sheriff. You guys went all
out and your search for Sherry Peppini.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Explain what your search entailed.
Speaker 9 (07:27):
Yeah, Nancy, there was three really different parts to this investigation,
and when you're talking about the search, that's really like
what we call the phase one of the investigation. She
went missing, and immediately you heard there was several different
resources deployed to find her. The location of Sherry Peppini
(07:49):
was absolutely the first phase where we just want to
Time's never on your side when somebody goes missing, So
the sooner you can locate them or get a lead
on locating them, the better chances you are of recovering
that personal live. So there was allied agencies asked to
lend us resources, and most of those resources were in personnel.
Speaker 10 (08:14):
As you heard, we had.
Speaker 9 (08:15):
Dogs, that had helicopters, we had everything, an all out
search in the community. The community even joined in, you know,
printing flyers and volunteer people coming out and looking for her.
It was an all out effort to find Sherry.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
At the beginning, I remember exactly how this whole thing
went down, and the Sheriff's office and other agencies spared
no resources trying to find Sherry Pepinie. And what I
hear about the helicopter on most people never seen it
in real life, but seen in the movies. The helicopter
(08:49):
flying close to the ground overhead, which you know, helicopters
can be a pretty risky mode of transportation, but if
you've got to do it. You got to do it,
but in a suburban area, looking for her, flying over
phone wires and cell phone towers, looking for her at
night with a light shining down.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Describe how that works, Shriff.
Speaker 9 (09:13):
Yeah, it's you know, they have infrared technology. They have
a lot of different high end technology that goes into this,
not just in the helicopter, but on the ground as well.
There's efforts, there's people where a night vision, there's everything,
all all expense paid to locate this woman. And and
(09:39):
the that's one of the keys here, Nancy, is when
you talk about the exhausting efforts of all the agencies
into this initial search and throughout this investigation, and the
resources and time and money spent on this, all to
find out in the end that it's a fraud, it's
very frustrating. Then one thing I should tell you also,
and I could remember that during the time Sherry Peppini
(10:03):
went missing, I was actually the neighboring police chief at
the time, I was not the sheriff, So I was
lending resources from my department to the sheriff's office in
the attempt to find Cherry. So everybody was involved.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
And now to find out it's nothing but a big
fat lie. I mean, this woman knows no bounds in
her lies. Take a listen to our cut eight Allison Sutton,
a motorist who spots the missing mom on the side.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Of the road.
Speaker 11 (10:40):
I saw a blind, a blonde woman standing in like
that V shaped area that gets created between the right
shoulder and the left side of an off ramp. But
I wasn't quite sure where I was when I saw her.
I just caught a glimpse of her. The area where
(11:04):
she was is not well lit, so I didn't actually
see her until I was right up on her, which
really startled me. And it kind of took me a
few minutes to figure out what I'd seen, and I
went a couple miles up the road to figure out
where until I saw a road sign so I knew
(11:26):
where I was. And then I pulled off onto the
shoulder and I called nine one one.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Have you ever done that? You've driven by something and
you went whoa, whoa, whoa? What was that?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That's what Alison Sutton is telling our friend Craig Melvin.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Take a listener, c At nine.
Speaker 11 (11:40):
I saw her very very quickly. Her face looked I
thought her face was dirty. But based on what I
know now, I'm guessing that what I thought was dirt
on her face was the bruises. But it was it
was very, very dark. I did not notice restraints. It
(12:04):
just it was so dark. I barely barely saw her.
And like I said, it was a flash because that
area is so dark and it was four thirty in
the morning.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
You didn't go back after that?
Speaker 5 (12:22):
I did not know.
Speaker 11 (12:23):
I had my fourteen year old daughter in the car
with me, and we talked about going back, but the
nine to one one operator had me feeling confident that
law enforcement would take care of the person that I saw,
and so we chose to get back on the road
(12:45):
and keep going.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Crime stories with Nancy Grace breaking news in the case
of a California mom who faked her own kidnap, even
going so far as to brand herself, beat herself, and
starve herself to make it all look real. Then a
woman sees her wandering around on Thanksgiving morning still with
(13:22):
chains around her body.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Seriously, it was all a big fake.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
How much money and man hours did this woman cost us?
When real people were suffering, real people being kidnapped, real
people being aggravated, assaulted, real people being raped, real women
being snatched away from their children and vice versa, and
she pulls this stunt.
Speaker 12 (13:47):
Listen, we are very esthetic to report that Shery Peppini
has been located and it has been reunited with her
husband and family. On this day of Thanksgiving. I'm happy
to say that Sherry is now safe and she has.
Speaker 9 (14:03):
Been treated at a area.
Speaker 8 (14:05):
Hospital outside of Chessa County and for.
Speaker 12 (14:08):
Dawn life threatening injuries.
Speaker 10 (14:11):
At about four point.
Speaker 12 (14:12):
Thirty this morning, chess Cunty Sheriff's Office was notified that
Sherry Peppini had been located.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
We learned that she was released by.
Speaker 12 (14:20):
Her captor on our rural road A near I five
in Yolo County. She was bound with restraints, but was
able to summon from a passing help from a passing
motorists on I five near County Road seventeen again in
about northern Yolo County.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Peppini admits it's all a big lie. I remember when
Peppini's husbands and friends raised alarms after she goes missing,
getting national attention when other victims could have used that attention. Well,
in the last hour, this woman who somehow masterminds the
(15:04):
ultimate kidnapping hopes. I mean, Jesse Smolett can learn a
thing from this woman.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Has walked free.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Christi Msuri joining us Emmy Award winning investigative reporter. Do
you remember everybody looking for Sherry Peppini, the grid searches,
the neighbors in fear, no woman would go for a
walk by yourself, on and on and it was all
(15:31):
a big lie.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Christy Musurich.
Speaker 13 (15:33):
It was the face scene around the world on billboards, signs,
people were donating to go fund me sites to pay
for neighborhood searches. And now, unfortunately, people are having to
deal with the grim fact that this woman has now
been deemed a master manipulator.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I mean, whoa Take a listen to our cut eighteen.
This is Susie's CBSLA.
Speaker 14 (16:01):
After years of sticking to her story that she was
abducted by two women, Sherry Peppini is reportedly ready now
to come clean and admit that she faked it all.
Cherry Peppini vanished from her reading home in twenty sixteen.
Weeks later, she was found wandering along the five Freeway,
bruised and branded. Now, at that time, she told police
(16:21):
two women had kidnapped and tortured her. But last month,
prosecutors charged her with making it all up. They say,
instead of being abducted, she was actually hiding out with
an ex boyfriend in Costa Mesa. And now Peppini has
reached a deal with prosecutors and will admit that she
planned the entire hoax. Her lawyer says, Peppini signed a
(16:42):
plea deal with federal prosecutors. She will plead guilty to
lying to a federal officer and to mail fraud.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
You know what joining me, Sheriff Michael Johnson.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It was the Shasta County Sheriff's office, and you're then
jurisdiction in so many other that join together. There is
no way to count the man hours spent on finding
this spoiled brat mom of two that goes missing on
(17:15):
her stay at home day.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Both of her kids are in daycare. I don't know
what she's doing all day long.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
She's obviously fabricating a crime in her pink jogging suit.
I wonder if she had her hair blow dry before
she took off. But long story short, to go shack
up with her ex boyfriend for weeks on end, starve herself,
beat herself, cut all her hair off.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I'm so mad I could chew anl and a half.
Sheriff doesn't tell.
Speaker 9 (17:47):
Them most like a supermom to me, Does it to you?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Oh no, it doesn't, No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I mean, there are plenty of times moms feel tired.
They don't want to clean the guinea pig cage, or
cook dinner or go to work.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
They're exhausted.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
But hiding in your ex boyfriend's apartment for several weeks
leading up to Thanksgiving, having your entire family and abject
fear that you're dead, I mean, and what it did
to the sheriffs and the.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Local police out in a helicopter at night, set at
home with their own families, or solving.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Real crimes sheriff with real victims that are suffering.
Speaker 9 (18:32):
Yeah, and you hit all the points. It's frustrating to
us that, you know, at some point we created a code,
a finance code to start tracking our resources that we
had into this investigation. And it wasn't too well into
this investigation that that was done, and it got up
to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for us, just
(18:54):
as our agency by the time this thing concluded. And
I'm sure, we had well more than that into the
into the investigation. And that's not even counting all the
other agencies. And that is the frustration, Nasty is who
we put all these this effort into Sherry Peppini and
trying to recover her and do it Will Bratt and
(19:14):
chasing down false suspects and.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Oh yeah, what if you had actually made an arrest?
She tried to blame it on what too hispanic females.
Speaker 9 (19:22):
Yes, she sure did. And and you know what, in
the meantime all this is going on, we have other
legitimate cases that are not getting the attention that they should,
are being kind of pushed to the side because the
ex agency of this circumstance are so we thought.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Reminds me of Jesse Smolett, the big race faker and
his fake hate crime.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
At least we knew he was alive, Okay, we didn't
have to worry that.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
He was dead and that his children would be left
without a father to raise him.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
I mean, here's another thing.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
It's not just the money Mona K joining me private
investigator Mona K Investigations, Ode of Omaha. Mona when used
or at least me when I would work a case
in the District Attorney's office.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
I worked it.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I worked it hard, out on the street till one
two o'clock in the morning, up at five o'clock with
my investigators, trying to find witnesses in court at eight o'clock,
trying to get my evidence lined up so there would
not be any glitch in front of the jury, riding
out my direct and cross examinations, my closings, my openings,
getting the law to make sure my evidence got in
(20:30):
and to keep.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Their evidence out, anything.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I could do to further justice. There was no rest,
There were no dinners out nothing. It was proved the case,
investigate the case, and by the time you're in it
you're so emotionally attached to it that anything other than
a resolution is a personal fail. I mean, that's how
(20:55):
I looked at my cases. They were like my children
at the time, the attached to finding the truth.
Speaker 15 (21:02):
Yeah, that's true. I mean, you become very invested in
the cases that you work, the people you work for,
you know, her family, the community. But you work endlessly
and tirelessly day and night trying to track down leads,
trying to find witnesses, locate people you know, walking through
the you know, the ditches the area, just looking for
(21:23):
any signs.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yes, and it's exhausting.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Monique into you Sheriff Michael Johnson joining us, the Chessa
County sheriff, the elected sheriff, you know, sheriff. It's not
like on TV and movies or in one scene you're
covered in dirt and sweat and blood, the next one
you're like lounging in a hot tub.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
It's not like that.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
You go days, weeks, months working a case. I've had
cases where I had to go to crack houses with
a bunch of crack addicts in there, got a shotgun
pulled on me somebody's front porch, exhaustive hours digging through
glass shards and and syringes to try to find a
(22:11):
projectile from a shotgun.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I mean, I can't even tell.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
You what criminal investigators, lawyers, and sheriffs like yourself go.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Through to make a case and to think the whole time.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Sherry Peppeni is propped up on the sofa at her
ex boyfriend's house watching what Mary Povich.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
I mean, I don't get it, what she put you.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Guys through and her own family is it's I don't
get it.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Sheriff. Why am I the only one angry here?
Speaker 6 (22:44):
You're not.
Speaker 9 (22:47):
I do feel I do feel sorry for her unsuspecting
family because she did do her family as well. But
when you talk about this woman had a very elaborate
reception scheme going to we been talking about the investigation.
Our investigators had to chase down so many leads and
(23:07):
vet out so many facts across state lines at times
because she had put all these other stories and misdirections
into place. That that's why it took so much time
in this investigation. We didn't want to falsely accuse anybody,
but as we started to unfold the mistruth to this
(23:28):
and her deception, we had to make sure that we
vetted out every single lead. And everything you're talking about
is right. It's exhausting, it's.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Hours mentally exhausting.
Speaker 9 (23:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Do you know how many times that I would comment
and send out plays help find Sherry Papaine.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
And I'd read the facts.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
I still got pages and pages and pages of notes
and analysis, and so much of it did not fit
together from me. For instance, the fact that her cell
phone was sitting there and the era bus were neatly
folded up and just sitting on top of her phone,
and I think the phone may have been found on
(24:07):
top of a mailbox or somewhere very It was like
thrown into the bushes. I had so many problems with
her story, but then Sheriff, I kept thinking, well, I mean,
which she goes so far to beat herself and starve herself,
break her own nose, brand herself. Didn't she brand herself,
chop off all her hair? Was she branded?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Sheriff? Yes, she was, Oh, dear Lord in Heaven with
what It's never been told what she was branded? What
were the latters? What did it say?
Speaker 9 (24:37):
Yeah, it was a it was a religious saying, and
I don't really recall exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
What religious saying. Yeah, yes, oh you know.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
This is straight Matthew Mangino, former District Attorney Lawrence County,
now high profile lawyer, former member of the parole Board.
Which I don't like one bit that you pu old
people and author of the executioners told me and Gino
it's straight out of like a fifth grade girl's novel,
(25:09):
being abducted and branded and your hair chopped off and
blah blah blah. It sounded pinky at the beginning, but
I would not come out and say it.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Because the woman.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Had a broken nose, she was starved, she had cut
off all her hair, she was covered with bruises, even branded,
And I thought, okay, the facts are off.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
But would she actually brand herself?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Would she go through all that break her own nose
and that was the other side of the scale.
Speaker 16 (25:42):
Well, yeah, that's extraordinary.
Speaker 6 (25:44):
I mean, you know, you know, she went to great
measures to make this hope seem real, you know, to
physically harm herself, to brand herself that had her nose broken,
all for.
Speaker 16 (25:59):
The the attention that she might get after she comes
back twenty two days later. I mean, you know, this
extravagant hoax is wrong on so many different levels. You know,
it inhibits people from money to get involved in the future.
When someone says they're missing, it's a diversion of police efforts.
(26:22):
You know, it's costly to the community.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Hey, hey, man Geno, I want to analyze something you
just said. A diversion of police efforts. You know, that's
really like putting perfume on the pig. You know, it's
a little bit of a euphemism. Hey, Sheriff Michael Johnson,
did you hear that Matthew Mangino.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Police efforts. Think about it.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
How many women were being raped at that moment, how
many stores or homes were being robbed or home invaded?
How many missing children were being abducted at that moment.
What other crimes were happening? Were people domestic violence, people
women getting beaten, children getting beaten and molested.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
That's what was happening when Sherry Peppini.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Had the sheriffs up in their helicopter and doing grid
searches and putting up flyers.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, what about that, Mangino?
Speaker 3 (27:16):
All right?
Speaker 16 (27:17):
And I agree with you, and it goes beyond that.
I mean the fear that they created in the community,
that hey, you know this, this young woman was abducted
and no one knows where she's at, and then when
she finally returns, there's this racist element that she creates.
Two gun wielding his Spanish got her capted for three weeks.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
You know, I remember when Susan Smith killed her children
and blamed the black guy.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Blame the black man. All right.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
So I was sitting in court Jackie with my trial partner,
who helped me a great deal turn into a judge
by the way, herman Slim and the composite of the
fake kid napper of the children came out of Mike Hermann.
That looks a lot like you look at this. Oh,
I said, actually, I think you were import with me
when a children where I've dug to so you know
(28:09):
you're safe. But what he just said, Sheriff Johnson, did
you hear that, the element of blaming the Hispanic women.
Speaker 9 (28:16):
Yeah, of course. And you know what that doesn't You
got a nerve? What that does a law enforcement is
it gives us you know, she created this these sketches,
and so now we're contacting people and questioning people that
even resemble that falsely. You know, it's it's unfair.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
He just gave me a flashback, Sheriff Johnson. You know the.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Big albums of purps mugshots. I remember sitting up at
like one o'clock in the morning, I found a witness
and just going through page after page after page, looking
to see if any of these people look familiar as
the killer.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It was triple homicide on my dad. But I could
just see you putting together those two composites.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I remember them well, and showing them to this person
and that person.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Oh, it's so intensive. Sheriff Johnson. I know it is,
you know, Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I've still got you. We heard Matthew Mangino. I think
it's a pretty good guess on his part. Two say
she did it for attention. Did we ever figure out
why she did it?
Speaker 9 (29:29):
You know, that's the one thing that I was waiting
for to come out in the trial.
Speaker 12 (29:34):
No.
Speaker 9 (29:35):
All I can tell you is that calculated, narcissistic type
of behavior that she displayed through this whole thing is
all self serving right up now until the end when
she enters a plea agreement. The only reason she pled
in this case is because she's trying to save herself.
This for selfish reasons. Again, and they put out this
(29:58):
statement of remorse by her, which I'm quite sure she
didn't say. It was crafted, probably by her attorney. Yeah,
and just don't buy any of it. So I was
hoping in the trial we would get a better idea
of why she did it. But if I had to guess,
I'd just say it's that same typical selfish behavior.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Oh, the whole thing about Oh I'm bored, I'm bored
being a stay at home mom. You know how many
working moms that have to work. Would love to be
a stay at home mom because they're trying to be
the stay at home mom and do all the things
that mom does and work at the same time.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I mean it's.
Speaker 10 (30:38):
Hard, Nancy.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Uh oh, here it comes, dra Angie Arnold. I don't
get this.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I just did it for attention. There's something else there.
And don't sell he's insane because she's not.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
She's crazy. She's crazy like a fox. I'm telling you that.
Speaker 10 (30:54):
And she is also not a narcissist. She is a sociopath.
Is the definition of a sociopath. She knows the difference
between right and wrong, and she has no conscience because
this is not the first bad thing that she's done
to her family. It has escalated and escalated and now
(31:15):
this and like you said, how selfish? And then how
could you be thinking of anyone? She's not thinking of anyone.
And by the way, typically sociopaths and narcissist are not
really capable of love. So she's got this family you
know that she can portray and of course she looks
(31:37):
like the best mom in the world because she's not.
Her entire life is okay.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
You do know that just didn't make any sense. At all.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
She looks like the best mim in the world because
she's not okay, but that like you, But I know
that didn't make any sense.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Crime stories with Nancy Greasee.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Cherry Peppini walks out of jail. What will be her
next stunt? Don't think this is over. I mean, when
you don't know a horse, look at it's track record,
and boy does she have a track record. All kinds
of family problems way back when, dating back till before
she was married. And this porn guy falls for Chery
(32:33):
Peppinie's line of crap, marries her, they have children, and
now this well in the last hour, Sherry Peppinie walks free.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
But how did this whole thing actually happen? Sheriff, do
you remember? And you don't have to or Christy jump
in if you know this.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
There have been a lot of issues with her before this,
in that she had kicked in her family home, like
her our original family, like mom and dad family or
thank to burglary, there have been some something in her
background that's it's like a waving a big wig flag
in front of a bull. I mean, you can't help
(33:15):
but notice that what was it she had done.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
In the past, Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 9 (33:19):
Yeah, I don't recall.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
That one, so I recall it.
Speaker 9 (33:22):
Hey, I do.
Speaker 13 (33:22):
I hate Nancy rolling back from this A sheriff rolling
back from this case. She scams an ex boyfriend, telling
him that her her husband is beating her and her
family is not helping her. And she weaves this narrative
for almost a year before she disappears. That's why he
(33:43):
allows her to hold up in his apartment.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Hey, speaking of the drama, the story she came up with,
take a listen to our cut eighteen sissy Sue CBSLA.
Speaker 14 (33:54):
After years of sticking to her story that she was
abducted by two women, Sherry Peppini is importedly ready now
to come clean and admit that she faked it all.
Cherry Peppini vanished from her reading home in twenty sixteen.
Weeks later, she was found wandering along the five Freeway,
bruised and branded.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
Now.
Speaker 14 (34:13):
At that time, she told police two women had kidnapped
and tortured her, but last month, prosecutors charged her with
making it all up. They say, instead of being abducted,
she was actually hiding out with an ex boyfriend in
Costa Mesa and now Peppini has reached a deal with
prosecutors and will admit that she planned the entire hoax.
(34:33):
Her lawyer says Peppini signed a plea deal with federal
prosecutors today she will plead guilty to lying to a
federal officer and to mail fraud.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
You know, what if you'd made an arrasre Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
What if you actually found a Hispanic woman, or, as
I believe she said, two Mexican women. What if you
actually found somebody that matched that sketch to the point
that you arrested them based on what Sherry Peppini.
Speaker 9 (35:00):
Said, Well, you know what had happened then did I'd
be in a lawsuit for a false arrest, A.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Big fat lawsuit too, I found at sheriff listen to this.
When she was eighteen, her sister accused her of kicking
in the back.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Door of the family schaste Lake home.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
The same day, her parents, Richard and Loretta, called police
to document the incident as vandalism and claimed she had
taken off to somewhere in Redding. When she was twenty one,
her parents made another call to the cop, saying she
stole money from the father's bank account. Then the mother
reported Sherry was harming herself and blaming her injuries on
(35:37):
her the mother, and the mother was afraid that she,
the mother, would be getting dragged into defects Department Family
Children's Services, So she called herself and went, hey, my
daughter is hurting herself.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
And blaming me.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I mean, Sheriff Michael Johnson, when you don't know a horse,
look at her track record.
Speaker 9 (35:57):
Yes, indeed, and all that was taken into iteration. And
as the things started to unfold, and you know what
another hard part of this was nacy is as we
started to unfold this lies that are being told by her,
we had to lay silent while we took you know,
some we took some criticism from the media, the family
(36:18):
and everybody else, and we were knowing that this was
a lie, and but we had.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
To keep all I hope it wasn't may.
Speaker 9 (36:26):
Quiet until we all the facts.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Now, I mean at the beginning, Sheriff, I find it
hard to believe I would have criticized you because.
Speaker 16 (36:34):
I didn't see you at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I know, but I always assume it's a Sheriff Johnson
because at the beginning her story stumped the whole thing something.
It just wasn't right, the whole thing. And we thought,
and then showing up on Thanksgiving Day.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
What now?
Speaker 9 (36:50):
I said, yeah, and there was there was little uh,
and you hit on a couple of them some of
the evidence. At the front of the investigation. We were
scratched in her head and not thinking thing right as well.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
But I mean, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Bad mouth a victim who's had her nose broken and
lost all that weight, chopped her hair off and branded herself.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I mean, who would have thought? Then you've got the ex.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Boyfriend dragged into the whole thing. Hey, another thing, Sheriff Johnson,
I agree with you. Her her statement says, you know,
she didn't write this. I'm deeply ashamed from my behavior
and so sorry for the pain. I cause I don't
believe that for one minute. I don't think she's sorry
she did it. She's sorry she got caught, Sheriff.
Speaker 9 (37:32):
Yep, that's exactly right. That's what she's sorry about. She's
sorry that she got caught.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
It's like, I'm not sorry you did it, but I
sure don't want to go to hell for it. Okay,
So Christy, Missourich, explain to me what her sentence is.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
She pleads guilty. What's her sentence.
Speaker 13 (37:48):
She'll be sentenced this summer. But in signing up.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
This, I thought she already said, Oh wait, I see
thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
You're absolutely correct.
Speaker 13 (37:57):
It's thousand dollars in restitution that's mandated.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Yes, But what I'm saying is the thirty thousand dollars
she stole from a victim's compensation fund to pay off
her credit cards.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
What lovely, But tell me that.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
She had thirty thousand dollars a credit card debt and
then paid it for the victims compensation fund.
Speaker 13 (38:18):
Yes, and go fund be sites. Also that family and
friends had set up so when she returned back home,
she had a payday. And again her story got so insane.
Her memory was hazy because her head was covered by
a pillowcase. But she heard mariachi music playing. But maybe
(38:40):
that didn't happen because she might have been hit by
a stun gun.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Did you just say mariachi music?
Speaker 13 (38:45):
I absolutely did.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Oh yeah, Monique, probably an investigator with mony Qaue Investigations. Omaha,
the not just stereotypes, but the harmful and hateful stereotypes.
This one is conjuring up right now, I mean again,
it makes me think of Jesse Smilette. They star an
empire who conjures up hatred for Black Americans, hatred for
(39:12):
gay people, and then claims he was attacked with bleach
to make his skin white and put a noose around
his neck. Some of the most hateful things, just straight
out of hell that you could say. And now you've
got this woman claiming to quote Mexican women abduct her,
(39:34):
beat her, torture her, and play mariachi music.
Speaker 15 (39:39):
Yeah, that's right, I read that.
Speaker 9 (39:41):
She.
Speaker 15 (39:42):
I believe she said that she had to listen to
horrible mariachi or Hispanic music while she was being you know,
kidnapped and tortured in a closet. That was part of
the torture. Was listening to that type of music.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Well, not everyone would think that that was torture. Take
a listener. Cut twenty th three. This is Lila Lusiano
at CBS.
Speaker 12 (40:02):
Cherry described her assailants as two Hispanic female adults.
Speaker 17 (40:07):
According to the FBI. She accused the women of brutally
torturing her. The hunt was on and new fears settled
in Rudding, where Ladinos were less than ten percent of
the population. A lot of people would tell me, you know,
and they had to be standing, and they had to
be They said, well, that doesn't give them a good
name either.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
But so there was shame in the community.
Speaker 18 (40:26):
I guess she specifically picked out a gender and a
race to name as the suspect. So any Hispanic woman
at that time, I'm sure it's getting a eyebrow raised
and looking in there wondering, oh, whether she could be
connected or one of the suspects.
Speaker 17 (40:41):
So people were being questioned and stopped and asked questions
by law enforcement.
Speaker 15 (40:45):
Yes, they were afraid to go out together in one
car or a van.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
To women, he'd be suspicious, Yeah, to be suspicious, or
to be stereotyped, to be insulted and take a listener
cut twenty Kelly Hartungu.
Speaker 19 (40:56):
ABC Sherry Peppini says she's ashamed of her behavior and
sorry for the pain she caused. Just as she gets
ready to plead guilty in court. So the agencies who
spent more than five years uncovering her lies, they feel
some relief and closure, but also frustration because taking this
plea deal means she'll likely spend months, not years, in jail.
(41:16):
Sherry Pepinie back in federal court to waive indictment, opening
the door to plead guilty in her own kidnapping hopes.
Speaker 20 (41:23):
She had no other choice because she's caught and she
knows as if this thing comes to actually goes to
trial and we start parading in the witnesses and all
the evidence, so we've got she's got no where to go.
I'm very confident we would have got a conviction if
that went to trial.
Speaker 21 (41:38):
Facing trial for thirty five felony charges and the possibility
of as many as twenty five years in jail, the
mother of two, accepting a plea deal, her recommended sentence
reduced to no more than fourteen months. Through tears in
the court room, Peppini dabbing her eyes with a tissue,
her attorney consoling her as she nervously answered the judges
questions to ensure she understands what happens now, dabbing.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Her eyes in the courtroom, people are consoling her. I mean,
Sheriff Johnson's the one that needs to be consoled. And
everybody that's spent their time, blood, sweat and tears trying
to find Sherry Peppini. Now she's like dabbing her eyes
in the court. You know what, just stop, Peppinie. You've
done enough, Angie Arnold, for Pete's sake.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Is is this Shery Peppenie's world and we're just living
in it? Is it all about her?
Speaker 10 (42:27):
Well, she thinks it is, and she's creating this world
that she wants to live in. She feeds off of
this chaos, and she creates more and more chaos to
keep us all wondering, like we all are on this
show right every I'm wondering. This is terrible. This is
a terrible thought. I'm gonna share with you.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Oh boy, go ahead, don't hold back now.
Speaker 10 (42:49):
I'm wondering how much fun her and her boyfriend were
having shaving her head, giving her bruises. I mean, I wonder,
Oh my gosh, we're all going, oh my god, this
poor woman, her beautiful blonde hair was shaved and everything
it was probab. They were probably enjoying every minute of it.
(43:13):
They were getting some sort of odd satisfaction out of.
Speaker 15 (43:16):
Doing this to her.
Speaker 10 (43:17):
On top of everything else.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
In the last days the Ultimate Hoaster kidnap Mom, Sherry
Peppini walks free.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
There was no kidnap. She faked the whole thing, and
I'm still to this day not entirely sure why she
did it.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Then she reappears three weeks later on Thanksgiving, wearing a
chain around her waist and arm, claiming to Hispanic women
kidnapped her at gunpoint. That's right, blame the Hispanic women.
Her life all fell apart after investigator found her DNA
on a piece of clothing that led back to her
ex boyfriend, who dropped her off there in Woodlam when
(43:55):
she decided to reappear on Thanksgiving, I bet that some
Thanksgiving meal Sherry peppini. Let me tell you it ain't
over yet. Goodbye friends,
Host
Nancy Grace
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