April 6, 2025 • 46 mins
Sherri Papini is back in court fighting for custody of her children. She wants to be reunited with one child and increased visitation the another. Her ex-husband, Keith, was granted full custody after Papini was charged with 34 counts of mail fraud and one count of lying to the FBI. Ultimately Papini pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of making false statements. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $300,000 Keith’s defense claims Sherri's actions, perpetuating the hoax that she had been kidnapped, put the children through "hell" and "they could not thrive under her "pathological personality."
Sherri Papini admits her 2016 kidnapping was a hoax. The 39-year-old mom was reported missing on November 2, 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. When Papini accepted a plea deal, she didn't explain why she created an elaborate kidnapping hoax, but did apologized for her actions.
Joining Nancy Grace Today:
- Sheriff Michael Johnson - Shasta County Sheriff's Office
- Matthew Mangino - Attorney, Former District Attorney (Lawrence County), Former Parole Board Member, 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, www.angelaarnoldmd.com, 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 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
The so called supermom turned kidnap hoaxer Shery Peppini is
back in court. She is battling for child visitation with
her ex husband. Good luck, Sherry Peppini. I'm Nancy Grace.
This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
The California mom who pled guilty to charges related to
(00:29):
faking her own kidnapping, showing up on Thanksgiving covered in bruises, starved,
even branded. She branded herself with a curling iron. Okay,
tell that to a judge. He's not going to give
you more visitation or custody with your children. Forget it.
But that said, she's back in court. She is whining.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
For eight years, our family has been followed, stalk to
rest and bullied by the media. Really could it be
because you led everyone on a wild goose chase, spending
hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers money, torturing your family,
your husband and children, thinking you were probably dead before
you came back like a stray cat on Thanksgiving morning.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Oh. She said this to Kate orc R.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Quote, I've done my best to stay private, to focus
on my children and healing what she's healing from her
own hoax, healing from the.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Events that transpired.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
She makes it sounds like something happened to her, not
that she actually did something pretty evil. Pretending you've been
kidnapped and your children having to endure the possibility you
could be dead.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
For many years.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
After my arrest, I was the primary caregiver of our
children before serving my time in prison. You mean, before
you played guilty. My children have always been my primary focus.
Oh was that what you were thinking about when you
pretend I need to be kidnapped, slung up with your
old boyfriend? What ordering pizza, watching movies? I guess at
(02:06):
that point from Blockbuster. Peppini wants to be able to
see her children again. After an eight year saga that
got worldwide press attention. There was even a Hulu documentary
the ex Keith Peppini is fighting to shelter the children
from their mother. Why is he so hell bent on
(02:27):
sheltering his children?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
This is why?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Hello, can I help you?
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah? So I just call home from work and 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 times she picked up the kids. The kids were
never picked up, so I got freaked out. So I
hit like to find my phone app thing and it
said that her. It showed her phone like at our
(02:56):
end of our driveway. Wen I'm really good service. Okay,
not the end of our in our street, but just
drove downer and I saw her phone with her headphones
because she started running again, and it's town her phone.
It's got like hair ripped out of it, like in
the headphones. So I'm like totally freaking out, thinking like
somebody like, what's her?
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Grab her?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Thanking, someone grabbed her?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Now take a listen to our cut one from Channel
seven kr c R.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Keith Pappini came home last Wednesday and his wife, Sherry Pappini,
was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 7 (03:28):
In normal days, I would open the door and my
families comes and runs and gives me a hug.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
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 7 (03:44):
That's when I knew she'd been, in my opinion, taken
or abducted.
Speaker 6 (03:48):
Now days later, family, friends, the community, and law enforcement
are still looking for Sherry.
Speaker 7 (03:54):
It's the worst thing in the world. It's the worst
thing ever.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
Time going by slowly and they're children don't know their
mother is missing.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
It's hard waiting.
Speaker 8 (04:03):
You know, you're waiting.
Speaker 7 (04:04):
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 that is very difficult right now.
Speaker 6 (04:15):
But Keith is determined to find her.
Speaker 7 (04:18):
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 6 (04:23):
The family believes she was abducted and has this message.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Bring her home, Bring her home, just bring her home.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
We all know that Peppinie 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 9 (04:43):
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 just no
(05:04):
way that.
Speaker 7 (05:04):
She would take off.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
It's terrible.
Speaker 9 (05:07):
She's an incredible human being, best mom I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
You're hearing the sister in law, Suzanne Peppini speaking.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
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. Matthew Mangino, former prosecutor,
highly respected attorney, author of The Executioners Toll, Doctor Angela Arnold, psychiatrist,
(05:42):
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 Massurich and special guests joining us. Sheriff Michael Johnson
from the Shasta Counties Sheriff's Office to Sheriff Michael Johnson,
(06:07):
this case has been hanging around the Sheriff's office neck
an albatross, so to speak. Sheriff Michael Johnson familiar with
the extensive search for Sherry Peppini. Take a listen to
the Shasta County Sheriff presser.
Speaker 10 (06:25):
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,
(06:48):
and they Reached helicopter.
Speaker 11 (06:50):
Came out and illuminated the area.
Speaker 10 (06:52):
And checked to the fields in the side of the
roads for her and assisting us in the search operations
last night. They also used for search canines for scent work.
Local area hospitals were checked and of course the sides
of the roadways were checked as well. Ms Peppini has
been entered into a national computer for missing persons. She
(07:15):
is considered at risk due to the suspicious circumstances.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
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 (07:38):
Explain what your search entailed.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
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 Cherry Peppini
(08:03):
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 recovering that
personal live. So there was allied agencies asked to lend
us resources and most of those resources were in personnel.
(08:28):
As you heard, we had dogs, we 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 Cherry at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I remember exactly how this whole thing went down, and
the Sheriff's office and other agencies spared no resources trying
to find Cherry Pepinie. And what I hear about the
helicopter on my people have never seen it in real life,
but you've seen in the movies the helicopter flying close
(09:04):
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 (09:25):
Describe how that works, Sheriff.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
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 that's
(09:54):
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
and one thing I should tell you also to remember
(10:15):
that during the time Sherry Peppini 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 charity.
So everybody was.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Involved, and now to find out it's nothing but a
big fat lie.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I mean, this.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
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.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Side of the road.
Speaker 12 (10:54):
I saw 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.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
When I saw her.
Speaker 12 (11:13):
I just caught a glimpse of her. The area where
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.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
And I went a couple.
Speaker 12 (11:35):
Miles up the road to figure out where until I
saw a road sign so I knew where I was,
and then I pulled off onto the shoulder and I
called nine one one.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Have you ever done that? You've driven by something and
you went whoa, whoa, whoa? What was that?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's what Alison Sutton is telling our friend Craig Melvin.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Take a listener, cut nine.
Speaker 12 (11:53):
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
(12:18):
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 11 (12:32):
Called you didn't go back after that?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I did not know.
Speaker 12 (12:37):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Think back, it was In November, Sheery Peppini left her
home for a jog and never came back for twenty
two days. Her family went through hell. She reappeared beaten,
tied up with a brand on her shoulder, one hundred
(13:29):
and fifty miles away from home, claiming she was kidnapped
a gunpoint by two female Hispanics. Yeah, what if somebody
had been arrested based on her big fat lie. Finally,
she was linked to her ex boyfriend through DNA evidence.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
He came clean.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Her husband, Keith Peppini, rightfully filed for divorce and custody immediately.
Later that year, she accepted a plea deal admitted to
what she had done. She managed to plead to only
one count of mail fraud and to one count of
lawn to le law enforcement. And now she wants the
(14:15):
children that husband is fighting this tooth and nail. You
want to know why, take a listen to.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Hour cut sixth the Shasta County Sheriff pressor.
Speaker 13 (14:26):
We are very estatic to report that Cherry Pepinie has
been located and has been reunited.
Speaker 11 (14:33):
With her husband and family. On this day of Thanksgiving.
Speaker 13 (14:37):
I'm happy to say that Sherry is now safe and
She has been treated at a area.
Speaker 11 (14:44):
Hospital outside of Shasta County and for non life threatening injuries.
At about four point.
Speaker 13 (14:51):
Thirty this morning, Chascuty Sheriff's office was notified that Cherry.
Speaker 11 (14:55):
Peppini had been located. We learned that she was released
by her cap on a rural road from near High
five in Yolo County.
Speaker 13 (15:05):
She was bound with restraints but was able to summon
from a passing help from a passing motorist on I
five near County Road seventeen, again in northern Yolo County.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Peppini admits it's all a big lie to Christie, Missouri
joining US Emmy Award winning investigative reporter. Do you remember
everybody looking for Sherry Peppini, The grid surges, the neighbors
(15:40):
in fear, no woman would go for a walk by yourself,
on and on, and it was all a big lie.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Christy Massurich.
Speaker 14 (15:50):
It was the safe scene around the world. On billboards signs,
people were donating to go fund me so 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 (16:13):
I mean, whoa take a list in our cut eight.
Take this as Susie Suscbsla.
Speaker 15 (16:18):
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
(16:38):
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
(16:59):
plea deal with federal prosecutors. Today she will plead guilty
to lying to a federal officer and to mail fraud.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Joining me, Sheriff Michael Johnson.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
It was the Shasta County Sheriff's office and your then
jurisdiction and so many others that joined together. There is
no way to count the man hours spent on finding
this spoiled brat mom of two that goes missing on
(17:33):
her stay at home day.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Both of her kids are in daycare. I don't know
what she's doing all day long.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
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 our hair off.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I'm so mad at you. Anl and a half sheriff.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Doesn't tell them much like a supermom to me, does
it to you?
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Oh no it doesn't, No, it doesn't.
Speaker 12 (18:12):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
There are plenty of times moms feel tired. They don't want.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
To clean the guinea pig cage, or cook dinner or
go to work.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
They're exhausted.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
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 local police out in a
helicopter at night. Is set at home with their own
(18:43):
families or solving real crimes sheriff with real victims that
are suffering.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Yeah, and you've 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 till well into
this investigation that that was done, and it got up
to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for us, just
(19:12):
as our agency. By the time this thing concluded, I'm
sure we had well more than that 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 well bratt and chasing down false
(19:33):
suspects and oh yeah, what if.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
You had actually made an arrest? She tried to blame
it on what too hispanic females.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Yes, she sure did. 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 (19:56):
Reminds me of Jesse Smollett, the big race faker and
his face hate crime. At least we knew he was alive, Okay,
we didn't have to worry that he was dead and
that his children would be left without a father to
raise them. I mean, here's another thing. It's not just
the money Mona CA joining me private investigator or Mona
Q investigation inside of Omaha Mona when used or at
(20:19):
least me, but I would work a case in the
District Attorney's office.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
I worked it.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I worked it hard, out on the street till one
two o'clock in the morning, up at five o'clock with
my investigator, 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
(20:48):
and to keep.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Their evidence out, anything I could do to further justice.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
There was no rest, there were no dinners out nothing.
It was proved the cave. 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 sale.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
I mean that's how I looked at my cases. They
were like my children at the time, very attached to
finding the truth.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
I mean you become very invested in the case 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 any signs.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yes, and it's exhausting, Monaque and to you, Sheriff Michael Johnson,
joining us, the Chassa County sheriff, the elected sheriff, you know, sheriff.
It's not like on TV and movies or in one
saying you're covered in dirt and sweat, blood, the next
one you're like lounging in a hot tub.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
It's not like that. You go days, weeks, months working
a case.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I've had cases where I had to go to crackhouses
with a bunch of crack addicts in there, got a
shotgun pulled on me and somebody's front porch. Exhaustive hours
digging through glass shards and syringes to try to find
a projectile from a shotgun. I mean, I can't even
(22:33):
tell you what criminal investigators, lawyers, and sheriffs like yourself
go through to make a case and to think the
whole time, Sherry Peppenia is propped up on the sofa
at her ex boyfriend's house watching what Mary Povich.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I mean, I don't get it what she put you
guys through and her own family is it's I don't
get it, Sheriff. Why am I the only one angry here?
Speaker 5 (23:02):
You're not? 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 deception scheme. Going to we been talking about the investigation,
our investigators had to chase down so many leads and
(23:25):
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 unhold the mistruth to this
(23:46):
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, long.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Hours, mentally exhausting.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Do you know how many times that I would comment
and send out please help find Sherry Peppini and I'd
read the facts. 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 earbuds
(24:18):
were neatly folded up and just sitting on top of
her phone, and I think the phone may have been
found on 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, would she goes so far to beat herself
(24:40):
and starve herself, break her own nose, brand herself. Didn't
she brand herself, chop off all her hair? Was she branded?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Sheriff? Yes, she was, Oh dear Lord in Heaven.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
With what It's never been told what she was branded?
What were the letters?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
What did it say?
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Yeah, I was acurrence. It was a religious saying, and
I don't really recall exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
What religious saying. Yeah, yes, Oh, you know this.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
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 paroled people and
author of the executioners told me and Gino it's straight
out of like a fifth grade girl's novel. Being abducted
(25:29):
and branded in your hair, chopped off a blah blah blah.
It sounded heinkey at the beginning, but I would not
come out and say it because the woman 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, But.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Which she actually brand herself?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Would you go through all that break her own nose
and that was the other side to a.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Scale, Well, yeah, that's extraordinary.
Speaker 16 (26:02):
I mean, you know she, you know, she.
Speaker 8 (26:03):
Went to great measures to make this hope seem real,
you know, to physically harm herself, to brand herself, to
have her nose broken, all for the attention that she
that she might get after she comes back twenty two
days later. I mean, you know, this extravagant hoax is
(26:26):
wrong on so many different levels.
Speaker 16 (26:29):
You know, it inhibits people for money to get involved
in the future.
Speaker 8 (26:34):
When someone says they're missing, it's a diversion of police efforts.
You know, it's costly to the community.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Hey, hey, Manjeno, 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, police efforts?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Think about it.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
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?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
What other crimes were happening?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Were people domestic violence, people women getting beaten, children getting
beaten and molested. That's what was happening when Sherry Peppini
had the sheriffs up in their helicopter and doing grid
searches and putting up flyers.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah, what about that, Mangino?
Speaker 7 (27:35):
All right?
Speaker 16 (27:35):
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 cap for three weeks.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
You know, I remember when Susan Smith killed her children
and blamed the black guy.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Blame the black man, all right.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
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 kidnapper of the children came out of Mike Herman.
That looks a lot like you. Look at this, he went, Oh,
I said, actually, I think you were.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Born with me when a children were i'mductan, so you
know you're safe.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
But what he just said, Sheriff Johnson, did you hear that,
the element of blaming the Hispanic women.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
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 unfair.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
He just gave me a flashback. Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know the.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
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 (29:15):
It was triple homicide of my dad.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
But I could just see you putting together those two
composites I remember them well, and showing them to this
person and that person. Oh it's so intensive, Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I know it is, you know, Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
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?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Did we ever figure out why she did it not?
Speaker 5 (29:47):
You know, that's the one thing that I was waiting
for to come out in the trial. No, all I
can tell you is that calculated, narcisistic type of behavior
that she did displayed through this whole thing is all
self serving right up now until the end when she
enters a flee agreement. The only reason she pled in
(30:09):
this case is because she's trying to save herself for
selfish reasons. Again, and they put out this statement of
remorse by her, which I'm quite sure she didn't say.
It was crafted, probably by her attorney, 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
(30:31):
say it's that same typical selfish behavior.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
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 (30:54):
I mean it's hard.
Speaker 17 (30:56):
Nancy.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Uh oh, here it comes, and she arnold. I just
did it for attention.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
There's something else there, and don't Yes, there is something else.
Insane because she's not she's crazy. She's crazy like a fox.
I'm telling you that.
Speaker 17 (31:12):
And she is also not a narcissist. She is a sociopath.
She 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
(31:33):
now this and like you said, how selfish? And then
how could you be thinking of anyone? She's not thinking
of anyone.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
And by the.
Speaker 17 (31:43):
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 like the best mom
in the world.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Sherry Peppini back in court.
I recall when she was confronted with evidence of her hoax. Man,
this woman can lie. Would you let your children be
with a mom like that? I'm not the church lady.
(32:27):
I'm not making a moral judgment. I'm talking about the
safety of children. When you don't know a horse, look
at her track record, when you don't know what's going
to happen, look at what has already happened. Do you
blame Keith Peppeni for fighting over visitation? Let me refresh
(32:51):
your recollection. Sheriff Michael Johns from the Shasta Counties Sheriff's
Office or.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Christy jump in if you know this.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
There have been a lot of issues with her before
this is 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.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I mean, you can't.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Help but notice that what was it she had done
in the past, Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Yeah, I don't recall that one.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
So I recall it.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
Hey, I do?
Speaker 14 (33:30):
I hate Nancy rolling back from the sheriff rolling back
from this case. She scams the ex boyfriend, telling him
that 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 allows her
(33:51):
to hold up in his apartment.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Hey, speaking of the drama, the story she came up with,
take a listen to our cut eighteen SISSYSUCBSLA.
Speaker 15 (34:02):
After years of sticking to her story that she was
abducted by two women, Sheery Peppini is reportedly ready now
to come clean and admit that she faked it all.
Chery 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
(34:22):
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
(34:43):
plea deal with federal prosecutors today she will plead guilty
to lying to a federal officer and to mail fraud.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
You know, what if you'd made an rare Sheriff Johnson,
What if you actually found a Hispanic woman, or, as
I believe she said, a two Mexican women. What if
you had actually found somebody that matched that sketch to
the point that you arrested them based on what Sherry
Peppini said, Well.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
You know what had happened then, did not be in
a lawsuit for false arrest, A big.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Fat lawsuit too. I founded Sheriff lit'sten know to this.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
When she was eighteen, her sister accused her of kicking
in the back door of the family schaste Lake home.
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 reading. When she was twenty one,
her parents made another call to the cops, saying she
stole money from.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
The father's bank account.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Then the mother reported Sherry was harming herself and blaming
her injuries on her the mother, and the mother was
afraid that she, the mother would be get dragged into
defects Department Family Children's Services, So she called herself and went, hey, my.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Daughter is hurting herself and blaming me.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
I mean, Sheriff Michael Johnson, when you don't know a horse,
look at a track record.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
Yes, indeed, and all that was taken into consideration as
things started to unfold. And you know what another hard
part of this was Nancy is as we started to
unfold this lies that are being told by her, we
had to lay silent. Why we took you know, some
we took some criticism from the media, the family and
(36:26):
everybody else. And we were knowing that this was a lie,
and but we had to keep all I hope it
wasn't may whyet until we all the fact.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Now, I mean at the beginning, Sheriff. I find it
hard to believe I would have criticized.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
You because I didn't see you at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I know, but I always assume it's a Sheriff Johnson
because at the beginning her story stumped the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Something It just wasn't right.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
The whole thing, And we thought, and then showing up
on Thanksgiving date, what now?
Speaker 5 (36:58):
I said, yeah, and there was little and you hit
on a couple of them, some of the evidence. At
the front of the investigation, we were scratching our head
and not thinking thing for right as well.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
But I mean, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Bad mouth a victim who's had her nose broken and
lost all that weight, chopped her hair off and branded herself.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
I mean, who would have thought?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Then you've got the ex boyfriend dragged into the whole thing. Hey,
another thing, Sheriff Johnson, I agree with you. Her statement says,
you know, she didn't write this. I'm deeply ashamed from
my behavior and so sorry for the pain I caused.
I don't believe that for one minute. I don't think
she's sorry she did it. She's sorry she got caught.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
Sheriff Yep, that's exactly right. That's what she's sorry about.
She's sorry that she got caught.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
It's like, I'm not sorry he did it, but I
sure don't want to go to hell for it. Okay, So, Christy,
Missourich the thirty thousand dollars she stole from a victim's
compensation fund to pay off her credit card.
Speaker 14 (37:56):
What lovely?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Wait?
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Tell me that she had thirty thousand dollars a credit
card debt and then paid it for the victims compensation fund.
Speaker 14 (38:03):
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 pillow case. But she heard mariachi music playing. But
(38:25):
maybe that didn't happen because she might have been hit
by a stun gun.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Did you just say mariachi music?
Speaker 14 (38:31):
I absolutely did.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Oh yeah, Monique probably an investigator with moni Que investigations.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Omaha.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
The not just stereotypes, but the harmful and hateful stereotypes.
This woman 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.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Hatred for gay people and then claims.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
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 claimbing to
quote Mexican women abduct her, beat her, torture her, and
(39:23):
play mariachi music.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Yeah, that's right, I read that.
Speaker 7 (39:26):
She.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
I believe she said that she had to listen to
horrible mariachi or Hispanic music while she was being kidnapped
and tortured in a closet.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
That was part of the torture.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Was listening to that type of music.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Well, not everyone would think that that was torture. Take
a listener. Cut twenty three. This is Lila Luciano at CBS.
Speaker 10 (39:48):
Sure I described her assailants as two Hispanic female adults.
Speaker 18 (39:52):
According to the FBI, she accused the women of brutally
torturing her. The hunt was on and new fears settled
in where Latinos were less than ten percent of the population.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
A lot of.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
People would tell me, you know, and they had to
be Spanic, and they had to be they said, Well, that
doesn't give.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Them a good name either, But so there was shame
in the community.
Speaker 19 (40:12):
I guess she specifically picked out a gender and a
race to name us the suspect. So any Hispanic woman
at that time, I'm sure it's getting an eyebrow raised
and looking in there wondering, oh, where if she could
be connected or one of the suspects.
Speaker 18 (40:26):
So people were being questioned and stopped and asked the
questions by law enforcement.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yes, they were afraid to go out and together in
one car or a van, two women.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Who'd be suspicious, Yeah, to be suspicious or to.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Be stereotyped, to be insulted and take a listener twenty
Kelly Hartungu ABC.
Speaker 20 (40:42):
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 a year, in jail.
Shechery peppinie back in federal court to wave indictment, opening
(41:05):
the door to plead guilty.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
In her own kidnapping hopes.
Speaker 21 (41:08):
She had no other choice, because she's taught and she
knows as if this thing comes to actually goes to trial,
and we've started parading in the witnesses and all the evidence,
so we've got she's got nowhere to go.
Speaker 11 (41:20):
I'm very confident we would have got a conviction.
Speaker 19 (41:22):
If that went to trial.
Speaker 20 (41:24):
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 courtroom, Peppini dabbing her eyes with a tissue, her
attorney consoling her as she nervously answered the judges questions
to ensure she understands what happens next.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Dabbing her eyes in the courtroom. People aren't consoling her.
I mean, Sheriff Johnson is the one that needs to
be consoled. And everybody that spent their time, blood, sweat
and tears trying to find Cherry Peppini.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Now she's like babbing her eyes in the court. You
know what, Just stop, Peppenie.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
You've done enough, Angie Arnold, for Pete's sake, is is
this Sherry.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Pepenie's world and we're just living in it. Is it
all about her?
Speaker 17 (42:12):
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.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
This is terrible.
Speaker 17 (42:31):
This is a terrible thought. I'm going to share with you.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Oh boy, go ahead, don't hold back now.
Speaker 17 (42:35):
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 probably they were probably enjoying every minute of it.
(42:58):
They were getting some sort of ode satisfaction out of
doing this to her. On top of everything else.
Speaker 14 (43:03):
The ex boyfriend went along with her tail because she
kept telling him her husband was going to do horrific
things if she went back home. And she's done this
in the past. And Nancy hate to bring up, you know,
the stereotyping, but you and I lived through Jennifer Wilbanks
(43:24):
the runaway bride outside of Atlanta when she went out
for a run and she was kidnapped by a Latino
man and turned up in New Mexico.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Oh, I remember it really well. Take a listen to this.
Speaker 22 (43:38):
Police investigators made an afternoon visit to the lakefront home
in Georgia, where Jennifer Wilbanks is now in seclusion, last
seen publicly hiding under a blanket as she left for
New Mexico. The case of the runaway broad may now
lead to criminal charges and it did.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I remember it really well.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Christy Massa climbing that Hispanic male sex assault at her
and Winstanlye grabbed her the night before her wedding. She
was a runaway bron and she ended up cutting grass
for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 14 (44:07):
At the end of it, she had absolutely no guilt
or remorse. When we were questioning her upon her return
back to Atlanta, she laughed at cameras and she basically
like this young woman Sherry thought the whole thing was
a game.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Well, it's not a game, and it was no game
for a law enforcement that literally spent blood, sweat and
tears trying to find this mom of two much less
what this whole thing did to her family.
Speaker 14 (44:36):
Here is one final fact in this story. So after
this lengthy investigation and all of these lies are uncovered,
Keith Panini filed for divorce from Sherry and wants full
custody of their kids. His thought process that Sherry was
acting erratically for these past few years while telling this
(45:00):
sordid tale of lies to her own children about her kidnapping.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Cherry Peppinie is back in court fighting for more visitation
and cash. Says she doesn't want her ex to show
her children the Hulu docuseries about her crimes. After being
exposed for her very intricate hoax involving self inflicted bruises
(45:26):
and even branding her own skin, she got eighteen months
behind bars. Now recall, husband Keith Peppini divorced her and
got full custody of their two children. He said her
disturbance cause quote heartbreaking trauma for the children.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
I guess it did.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
He reiterated he was unaware of her scheme and even
sought help from a hostage negotiator during her disappearance. But
now Puppeni fires back, claiming her ex is quote reopening
old wounds to the detriment of their children. According to
court officials, Peppini appeared in a Shassa County court on
(46:07):
issues regarding visitation, child custody, and attorneys fees. While she's
battling that out in court, let's don't forget what she
put her family and everybody else through. We wait as
just as unfals.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Goodbye, friend,
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
The so called supermom turned kidnap hoaxer Shery Peppini is
back in court. She is battling for child visitation with
her ex husband. Good luck, Sherry Peppini. I'm Nancy Grace.
This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
The California mom who pled guilty to charges related to
(00:29):
faking her own kidnapping, showing up on Thanksgiving covered in bruises, starved,
even branded. She branded herself with a curling iron. Okay,
tell that to a judge. He's not going to give
you more visitation or custody with your children. Forget it.
But that said, she's back in court. She is whining.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
For eight years, our family has been followed, stalk to
rest and bullied by the media. Really could it be
because you led everyone on a wild goose chase, spending
hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers money, torturing your family,
your husband and children, thinking you were probably dead before
you came back like a stray cat on Thanksgiving morning.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Oh. She said this to Kate orc R.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Quote, I've done my best to stay private, to focus
on my children and healing what she's healing from her
own hoax, healing from the.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Events that transpired.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
She makes it sounds like something happened to her, not
that she actually did something pretty evil. Pretending you've been
kidnapped and your children having to endure the possibility you
could be dead.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
For many years.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
After my arrest, I was the primary caregiver of our
children before serving my time in prison. You mean, before
you played guilty. My children have always been my primary focus.
Oh was that what you were thinking about when you
pretend I need to be kidnapped, slung up with your
old boyfriend? What ordering pizza, watching movies? I guess at
(02:06):
that point from Blockbuster. Peppini wants to be able to
see her children again. After an eight year saga that
got worldwide press attention. There was even a Hulu documentary
the ex Keith Peppini is fighting to shelter the children
from their mother. Why is he so hell bent on
(02:27):
sheltering his children?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
This is why?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Hello, can I help you?
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah? So I just call home from work and 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 times she picked up the kids. The kids were
never picked up, so I got freaked out. So I
hit like to find my phone app thing and it
said that her. It showed her phone like at our
(02:56):
end of our driveway. Wen I'm really good service. Okay,
not the end of our in our street, but just
drove downer and I saw her phone with her headphones
because she started running again, and it's town her phone.
It's got like hair ripped out of it, like in
the headphones. So I'm like totally freaking out, thinking like
somebody like, what's her?
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Grab her?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Thanking, someone grabbed her?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Now take a listen to our cut one from Channel
seven kr c R.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Keith Pappini came home last Wednesday and his wife, Sherry Pappini,
was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 7 (03:28):
In normal days, I would open the door and my
families comes and runs and gives me a hug.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
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 7 (03:44):
That's when I knew she'd been, in my opinion, taken
or abducted.
Speaker 6 (03:48):
Now days later, family, friends, the community, and law enforcement
are still looking for Sherry.
Speaker 7 (03:54):
It's the worst thing in the world. It's the worst
thing ever.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
Time going by slowly and they're children don't know their
mother is missing.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
It's hard waiting.
Speaker 8 (04:03):
You know, you're waiting.
Speaker 7 (04:04):
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 that is very difficult right now.
Speaker 6 (04:15):
But Keith is determined to find her.
Speaker 7 (04:18):
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 6 (04:23):
The family believes she was abducted and has this message.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Bring her home, Bring her home, just bring her home.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
We all know that Peppinie 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 9 (04:43):
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 just no
(05:04):
way that.
Speaker 7 (05:04):
She would take off.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
It's terrible.
Speaker 9 (05:07):
She's an incredible human being, best mom I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
You're hearing the sister in law, Suzanne Peppini speaking.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
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. Matthew Mangino, former prosecutor,
highly respected attorney, author of The Executioners Toll, Doctor Angela Arnold, psychiatrist,
(05:42):
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 Massurich and special guests joining us. Sheriff Michael Johnson
from the Shasta Counties Sheriff's Office to Sheriff Michael Johnson,
(06:07):
this case has been hanging around the Sheriff's office neck
an albatross, so to speak. Sheriff Michael Johnson familiar with
the extensive search for Sherry Peppini. Take a listen to
the Shasta County Sheriff presser.
Speaker 10 (06:25):
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,
(06:48):
and they Reached helicopter.
Speaker 11 (06:50):
Came out and illuminated the area.
Speaker 10 (06:52):
And checked to the fields in the side of the
roads for her and assisting us in the search operations
last night. They also used for search canines for scent work.
Local area hospitals were checked and of course the sides
of the roadways were checked as well. Ms Peppini has
been entered into a national computer for missing persons. She
(07:15):
is considered at risk due to the suspicious circumstances.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
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 (07:38):
Explain what your search entailed.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
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 Cherry Peppini
(08:03):
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 recovering that
personal live. So there was allied agencies asked to lend
us resources and most of those resources were in personnel.
(08:28):
As you heard, we had dogs, we 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 Cherry at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I remember exactly how this whole thing went down, and
the Sheriff's office and other agencies spared no resources trying
to find Cherry Pepinie. And what I hear about the
helicopter on my people have never seen it in real life,
but you've seen in the movies the helicopter flying close
(09:04):
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 (09:25):
Describe how that works, Sheriff.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
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 that's
(09:54):
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
and one thing I should tell you also to remember
(10:15):
that during the time Sherry Peppini 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 charity.
So everybody was.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Involved, and now to find out it's nothing but a
big fat lie.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I mean, this.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
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.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Side of the road.
Speaker 12 (10:54):
I saw 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.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
When I saw her.
Speaker 12 (11:13):
I just caught a glimpse of her. The area where
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.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
And I went a couple.
Speaker 12 (11:35):
Miles up the road to figure out where until I
saw a road sign so I knew where I was,
and then I pulled off onto the shoulder and I
called nine one one.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Have you ever done that? You've driven by something and
you went whoa, whoa, whoa? What was that?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's what Alison Sutton is telling our friend Craig Melvin.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Take a listener, cut nine.
Speaker 12 (11:53):
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
(12:18):
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 11 (12:32):
Called you didn't go back after that?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I did not know.
Speaker 12 (12:37):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Think back, it was In November, Sheery Peppini left her
home for a jog and never came back for twenty
two days. Her family went through hell. She reappeared beaten,
tied up with a brand on her shoulder, one hundred
(13:29):
and fifty miles away from home, claiming she was kidnapped
a gunpoint by two female Hispanics. Yeah, what if somebody
had been arrested based on her big fat lie. Finally,
she was linked to her ex boyfriend through DNA evidence.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
He came clean.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Her husband, Keith Peppini, rightfully filed for divorce and custody immediately.
Later that year, she accepted a plea deal admitted to
what she had done. She managed to plead to only
one count of mail fraud and to one count of
lawn to le law enforcement. And now she wants the
(14:15):
children that husband is fighting this tooth and nail. You
want to know why, take a listen to.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Hour cut sixth the Shasta County Sheriff pressor.
Speaker 13 (14:26):
We are very estatic to report that Cherry Pepinie has
been located and has been reunited.
Speaker 11 (14:33):
With her husband and family. On this day of Thanksgiving.
Speaker 13 (14:37):
I'm happy to say that Sherry is now safe and
She has been treated at a area.
Speaker 11 (14:44):
Hospital outside of Shasta County and for non life threatening injuries.
At about four point.
Speaker 13 (14:51):
Thirty this morning, Chascuty Sheriff's office was notified that Cherry.
Speaker 11 (14:55):
Peppini had been located. We learned that she was released
by her cap on a rural road from near High
five in Yolo County.
Speaker 13 (15:05):
She was bound with restraints but was able to summon
from a passing help from a passing motorist on I
five near County Road seventeen, again in northern Yolo County.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Peppini admits it's all a big lie to Christie, Missouri
joining US Emmy Award winning investigative reporter. Do you remember
everybody looking for Sherry Peppini, The grid surges, the neighbors
(15:40):
in fear, no woman would go for a walk by yourself,
on and on, and it was all a big lie.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Christy Massurich.
Speaker 14 (15:50):
It was the safe scene around the world. On billboards signs,
people were donating to go fund me so 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 (16:13):
I mean, whoa take a list in our cut eight.
Take this as Susie Suscbsla.
Speaker 15 (16:18):
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
(16:38):
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
(16:59):
plea deal with federal prosecutors. Today she will plead guilty
to lying to a federal officer and to mail fraud.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Joining me, Sheriff Michael Johnson.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
It was the Shasta County Sheriff's office and your then
jurisdiction and so many others that joined together. There is
no way to count the man hours spent on finding
this spoiled brat mom of two that goes missing on
(17:33):
her stay at home day.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Both of her kids are in daycare. I don't know
what she's doing all day long.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
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 our hair off.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I'm so mad at you. Anl and a half sheriff.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Doesn't tell them much like a supermom to me, does
it to you?
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Oh no it doesn't, No, it doesn't.
Speaker 12 (18:12):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
There are plenty of times moms feel tired. They don't want.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
To clean the guinea pig cage, or cook dinner or
go to work.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
They're exhausted.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
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 local police out in a
helicopter at night. Is set at home with their own
(18:43):
families or solving real crimes sheriff with real victims that
are suffering.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Yeah, and you've 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 till well into
this investigation that that was done, and it got up
to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for us, just
(19:12):
as our agency. By the time this thing concluded, I'm
sure we had well more than that 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 well bratt and chasing down false
(19:33):
suspects and oh yeah, what if.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
You had actually made an arrest? She tried to blame
it on what too hispanic females.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Yes, she sure did. 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 (19:56):
Reminds me of Jesse Smollett, the big race faker and
his face hate crime. At least we knew he was alive, Okay,
we didn't have to worry that he was dead and
that his children would be left without a father to
raise them. I mean, here's another thing. It's not just
the money Mona CA joining me private investigator or Mona
Q investigation inside of Omaha Mona when used or at
(20:19):
least me, but I would work a case in the
District Attorney's office.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
I worked it.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I worked it hard, out on the street till one
two o'clock in the morning, up at five o'clock with
my investigator, 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
(20:48):
and to keep.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Their evidence out, anything I could do to further justice.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
There was no rest, there were no dinners out nothing.
It was proved the cave. 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 sale.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
I mean that's how I looked at my cases. They
were like my children at the time, very attached to
finding the truth.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
I mean you become very invested in the case 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 any signs.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yes, and it's exhausting, Monaque and to you, Sheriff Michael Johnson,
joining us, the Chassa County sheriff, the elected sheriff, you know, sheriff.
It's not like on TV and movies or in one
saying you're covered in dirt and sweat, blood, the next
one you're like lounging in a hot tub.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
It's not like that. You go days, weeks, months working
a case.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I've had cases where I had to go to crackhouses
with a bunch of crack addicts in there, got a
shotgun pulled on me and somebody's front porch. Exhaustive hours
digging through glass shards and syringes to try to find
a projectile from a shotgun. I mean, I can't even
(22:33):
tell you what criminal investigators, lawyers, and sheriffs like yourself
go through to make a case and to think the
whole time, Sherry Peppenia is propped up on the sofa
at her ex boyfriend's house watching what Mary Povich.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I mean, I don't get it what she put you
guys through and her own family is it's I don't
get it, Sheriff. Why am I the only one angry here?
Speaker 5 (23:02):
You're not? 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 deception scheme. Going to we been talking about the investigation,
our investigators had to chase down so many leads and
(23:25):
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 unhold the mistruth to this
(23:46):
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, long.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Hours, mentally exhausting.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Do you know how many times that I would comment
and send out please help find Sherry Peppini and I'd
read the facts. 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 earbuds
(24:18):
were neatly folded up and just sitting on top of
her phone, and I think the phone may have been
found on 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, would she goes so far to beat herself
(24:40):
and starve herself, break her own nose, brand herself. Didn't
she brand herself, chop off all her hair? Was she branded?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Sheriff? Yes, she was, Oh dear Lord in Heaven.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
With what It's never been told what she was branded?
What were the letters?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
What did it say?
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Yeah, I was acurrence. It was a religious saying, and
I don't really recall exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
What religious saying. Yeah, yes, Oh, you know this.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
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 paroled people and
author of the executioners told me and Gino it's straight
out of like a fifth grade girl's novel. Being abducted
(25:29):
and branded in your hair, chopped off a blah blah blah.
It sounded heinkey at the beginning, but I would not
come out and say it because the woman 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, But.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Which she actually brand herself?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Would you go through all that break her own nose
and that was the other side to a.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Scale, Well, yeah, that's extraordinary.
Speaker 16 (26:02):
I mean, you know she, you know, she.
Speaker 8 (26:03):
Went to great measures to make this hope seem real,
you know, to physically harm herself, to brand herself, to
have her nose broken, all for the attention that she
that she might get after she comes back twenty two
days later. I mean, you know, this extravagant hoax is
(26:26):
wrong on so many different levels.
Speaker 16 (26:29):
You know, it inhibits people for money to get involved
in the future.
Speaker 8 (26:34):
When someone says they're missing, it's a diversion of police efforts.
You know, it's costly to the community.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Hey, hey, Manjeno, 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, police efforts?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Think about it.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
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?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
What other crimes were happening?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Were people domestic violence, people women getting beaten, children getting
beaten and molested. That's what was happening when Sherry Peppini
had the sheriffs up in their helicopter and doing grid
searches and putting up flyers.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah, what about that, Mangino?
Speaker 7 (27:35):
All right?
Speaker 16 (27:35):
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 cap for three weeks.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
You know, I remember when Susan Smith killed her children
and blamed the black guy.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Blame the black man, all right.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
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 kidnapper of the children came out of Mike Herman.
That looks a lot like you. Look at this, he went, Oh,
I said, actually, I think you were.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Born with me when a children were i'mductan, so you
know you're safe.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
But what he just said, Sheriff Johnson, did you hear that,
the element of blaming the Hispanic women.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
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 unfair.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
He just gave me a flashback. Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know the.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
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 (29:15):
It was triple homicide of my dad.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
But I could just see you putting together those two
composites I remember them well, and showing them to this
person and that person. Oh it's so intensive, Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I know it is, you know, Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
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?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Did we ever figure out why she did it not?
Speaker 5 (29:47):
You know, that's the one thing that I was waiting
for to come out in the trial. No, all I
can tell you is that calculated, narcisistic type of behavior
that she did displayed through this whole thing is all
self serving right up now until the end when she
enters a flee agreement. The only reason she pled in
(30:09):
this case is because she's trying to save herself for
selfish reasons. Again, and they put out this statement of
remorse by her, which I'm quite sure she didn't say.
It was crafted, probably by her attorney, 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
(30:31):
say it's that same typical selfish behavior.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
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 (30:54):
I mean it's hard.
Speaker 17 (30:56):
Nancy.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Uh oh, here it comes, and she arnold. I just
did it for attention.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
There's something else there, and don't Yes, there is something else.
Insane because she's not she's crazy. She's crazy like a fox.
I'm telling you that.
Speaker 17 (31:12):
And she is also not a narcissist. She is a sociopath.
She 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
(31:33):
now this and like you said, how selfish? And then
how could you be thinking of anyone? She's not thinking
of anyone.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
And by the.
Speaker 17 (31:43):
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 like the best mom
in the world.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Sherry Peppini back in court.
I recall when she was confronted with evidence of her hoax. Man,
this woman can lie. Would you let your children be
with a mom like that? I'm not the church lady.
(32:27):
I'm not making a moral judgment. I'm talking about the
safety of children. When you don't know a horse, look
at her track record, when you don't know what's going
to happen, look at what has already happened. Do you
blame Keith Peppeni for fighting over visitation? Let me refresh
(32:51):
your recollection. Sheriff Michael Johns from the Shasta Counties Sheriff's
Office or.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Christy jump in if you know this.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
There have been a lot of issues with her before
this is 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.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I mean, you can't.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Help but notice that what was it she had done
in the past, Sheriff Johnson.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Yeah, I don't recall that one.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
So I recall it.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
Hey, I do?
Speaker 14 (33:30):
I hate Nancy rolling back from the sheriff rolling back
from this case. She scams the ex boyfriend, telling him
that 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 allows her
(33:51):
to hold up in his apartment.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Hey, speaking of the drama, the story she came up with,
take a listen to our cut eighteen SISSYSUCBSLA.
Speaker 15 (34:02):
After years of sticking to her story that she was
abducted by two women, Sheery Peppini is reportedly ready now
to come clean and admit that she faked it all.
Chery 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
(34:22):
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
(34:43):
plea deal with federal prosecutors today she will plead guilty
to lying to a federal officer and to mail fraud.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
You know, what if you'd made an rare Sheriff Johnson,
What if you actually found a Hispanic woman, or, as
I believe she said, a two Mexican women. What if
you had actually found somebody that matched that sketch to
the point that you arrested them based on what Sherry
Peppini said, Well.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
You know what had happened then, did not be in
a lawsuit for false arrest, A big.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Fat lawsuit too. I founded Sheriff lit'sten know to this.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
When she was eighteen, her sister accused her of kicking
in the back door of the family schaste Lake home.
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 reading. When she was twenty one,
her parents made another call to the cops, saying she
stole money from.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
The father's bank account.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Then the mother reported Sherry was harming herself and blaming
her injuries on her the mother, and the mother was
afraid that she, the mother would be get dragged into
defects Department Family Children's Services, So she called herself and went, hey, my.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Daughter is hurting herself and blaming me.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
I mean, Sheriff Michael Johnson, when you don't know a horse,
look at a track record.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
Yes, indeed, and all that was taken into consideration as
things started to unfold. And you know what another hard
part of this was Nancy is as we started to
unfold this lies that are being told by her, we
had to lay silent. Why we took you know, some
we took some criticism from the media, the family and
(36:26):
everybody else. And we were knowing that this was a lie,
and but we had to keep all I hope it
wasn't may whyet until we all the fact.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Now, I mean at the beginning, Sheriff. I find it
hard to believe I would have criticized.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
You because I didn't see you at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I know, but I always assume it's a Sheriff Johnson
because at the beginning her story stumped the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Something It just wasn't right.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
The whole thing, And we thought, and then showing up
on Thanksgiving date, what now?
Speaker 5 (36:58):
I said, yeah, and there was little and you hit
on a couple of them, some of the evidence. At
the front of the investigation, we were scratching our head
and not thinking thing for right as well.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
But I mean, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Bad mouth a victim who's had her nose broken and
lost all that weight, chopped her hair off and branded herself.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
I mean, who would have thought?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Then you've got the ex boyfriend dragged into the whole thing. Hey,
another thing, Sheriff Johnson, I agree with you. Her statement says,
you know, she didn't write this. I'm deeply ashamed from
my behavior and so sorry for the pain I caused.
I don't believe that for one minute. I don't think
she's sorry she did it. She's sorry she got caught.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
Sheriff Yep, that's exactly right. That's what she's sorry about.
She's sorry that she got caught.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
It's like, I'm not sorry he did it, but I
sure don't want to go to hell for it. Okay, So, Christy,
Missourich the thirty thousand dollars she stole from a victim's
compensation fund to pay off her credit card.
Speaker 14 (37:56):
What lovely?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Wait?
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Tell me that she had thirty thousand dollars a credit
card debt and then paid it for the victims compensation fund.
Speaker 14 (38:03):
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 pillow case. But she heard mariachi music playing. But
(38:25):
maybe that didn't happen because she might have been hit
by a stun gun.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Did you just say mariachi music?
Speaker 14 (38:31):
I absolutely did.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Oh yeah, Monique probably an investigator with moni Que investigations.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Omaha.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
The not just stereotypes, but the harmful and hateful stereotypes.
This woman 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.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Hatred for gay people and then claims.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
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 claimbing to
quote Mexican women abduct her, beat her, torture her, and
(39:23):
play mariachi music.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Yeah, that's right, I read that.
Speaker 7 (39:26):
She.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
I believe she said that she had to listen to
horrible mariachi or Hispanic music while she was being kidnapped
and tortured in a closet.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
That was part of the torture.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Was listening to that type of music.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Well, not everyone would think that that was torture. Take
a listener. Cut twenty three. This is Lila Luciano at CBS.
Speaker 10 (39:48):
Sure I described her assailants as two Hispanic female adults.
Speaker 18 (39:52):
According to the FBI, she accused the women of brutally
torturing her. The hunt was on and new fears settled
in where Latinos were less than ten percent of the population.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
A lot of.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
People would tell me, you know, and they had to
be Spanic, and they had to be they said, Well, that
doesn't give.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Them a good name either, But so there was shame
in the community.
Speaker 19 (40:12):
I guess she specifically picked out a gender and a
race to name us the suspect. So any Hispanic woman
at that time, I'm sure it's getting an eyebrow raised
and looking in there wondering, oh, where if she could
be connected or one of the suspects.
Speaker 18 (40:26):
So people were being questioned and stopped and asked the
questions by law enforcement.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yes, they were afraid to go out and together in
one car or a van, two women.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Who'd be suspicious, Yeah, to be suspicious or to.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Be stereotyped, to be insulted and take a listener twenty
Kelly Hartungu ABC.
Speaker 20 (40:42):
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 a year, in jail.
Shechery peppinie back in federal court to wave indictment, opening
(41:05):
the door to plead guilty.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
In her own kidnapping hopes.
Speaker 21 (41:08):
She had no other choice, because she's taught and she
knows as if this thing comes to actually goes to trial,
and we've started parading in the witnesses and all the evidence,
so we've got she's got nowhere to go.
Speaker 11 (41:20):
I'm very confident we would have got a conviction.
Speaker 19 (41:22):
If that went to trial.
Speaker 20 (41:24):
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 courtroom, Peppini dabbing her eyes with a tissue, her
attorney consoling her as she nervously answered the judges questions
to ensure she understands what happens next.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Dabbing her eyes in the courtroom. People aren't consoling her.
I mean, Sheriff Johnson is the one that needs to
be consoled. And everybody that spent their time, blood, sweat
and tears trying to find Cherry Peppini.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Now she's like babbing her eyes in the court. You
know what, Just stop, Peppenie.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
You've done enough, Angie Arnold, for Pete's sake, is is
this Sherry.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Pepenie's world and we're just living in it. Is it
all about her?
Speaker 17 (42:12):
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.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
This is terrible.
Speaker 17 (42:31):
This is a terrible thought. I'm going to share with you.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Oh boy, go ahead, don't hold back now.
Speaker 17 (42:35):
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 probably they were probably enjoying every minute of it.
(42:58):
They were getting some sort of ode satisfaction out of
doing this to her. On top of everything else.
Speaker 14 (43:03):
The ex boyfriend went along with her tail because she
kept telling him her husband was going to do horrific
things if she went back home. And she's done this
in the past. And Nancy hate to bring up, you know,
the stereotyping, but you and I lived through Jennifer Wilbanks
(43:24):
the runaway bride outside of Atlanta when she went out
for a run and she was kidnapped by a Latino
man and turned up in New Mexico.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Oh, I remember it really well. Take a listen to this.
Speaker 22 (43:38):
Police investigators made an afternoon visit to the lakefront home
in Georgia, where Jennifer Wilbanks is now in seclusion, last
seen publicly hiding under a blanket as she left for
New Mexico. The case of the runaway broad may now
lead to criminal charges and it did.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I remember it really well.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Christy Massa climbing that Hispanic male sex assault at her
and Winstanlye grabbed her the night before her wedding. She
was a runaway bron and she ended up cutting grass
for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 14 (44:07):
At the end of it, she had absolutely no guilt
or remorse. When we were questioning her upon her return
back to Atlanta, she laughed at cameras and she basically
like this young woman Sherry thought the whole thing was
a game.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Well, it's not a game, and it was no game
for a law enforcement that literally spent blood, sweat and
tears trying to find this mom of two much less
what this whole thing did to her family.
Speaker 14 (44:36):
Here is one final fact in this story. So after
this lengthy investigation and all of these lies are uncovered,
Keith Panini filed for divorce from Sherry and wants full
custody of their kids. His thought process that Sherry was
acting erratically for these past few years while telling this
(45:00):
sordid tale of lies to her own children about her kidnapping.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Cherry Peppinie is back in court fighting for more visitation
and cash. Says she doesn't want her ex to show
her children the Hulu docuseries about her crimes. After being
exposed for her very intricate hoax involving self inflicted bruises
(45:26):
and even branding her own skin, she got eighteen months
behind bars. Now recall, husband Keith Peppini divorced her and
got full custody of their two children. He said her
disturbance cause quote heartbreaking trauma for the children.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
I guess it did.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
He reiterated he was unaware of her scheme and even
sought help from a hostage negotiator during her disappearance. But
now Puppeni fires back, claiming her ex is quote reopening
old wounds to the detriment of their children. According to
court officials, Peppini appeared in a Shassa County court on
(46:07):
issues regarding visitation, child custody, and attorneys fees. While she's
battling that out in court, let's don't forget what she
put her family and everybody else through. We wait as
just as unfals.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Goodbye, friend,
Host
Nancy Grace
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