June 24, 2025 • 52 mins
Sherri Papini was arrested in 2022 after faking her own kidnapping back in 2016.
We’re breaking down her confirmed lies and the new narrative she’s trying to spin in 2025…
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, guys, welcome to another episode of Legally Brunette. I'll
be your host Emily Simpson and my co host Shane.
You're supposed to say, just Shane, Shane, just Shane. All right.
Our last episode we did we went through a little
bit of the Karen Reid trial, but we also got
to the closing arguments and the verdict. However, I thought
it was important at the top of this episode just
(00:21):
to talk a little bit about the Alberts and mccabes
because they decided to give interviews right after the verdict
came out. So let's talk about who was interviewed now.
Brian Albert, who was the one who owned the home
and he was a Boston police officer where John O'Keeffe
was found dead outside of his home, His wife Nicole,
his brother Chris, as well as his sister in law,
(00:42):
who we all know is Jen McCabe, the one who
testified in court, and her husband Matt All spoke to
ABC News in an interview which was released on Friday,
June twentieth. This was two days after Karen Reid was acquitted.
All five were witnesses at Reed's first trial. However, when
they did the reach trial. Jennifer McCabe was the only
one who testified at the retrial. Now, I was thinking
(01:04):
about this, and I assume the prosecution puts on their
on their case and they were like, Okay, we don't
need any of you to testify again because that did
not work the first time around. So Jen McCabe was
the only one who actually testified for the prosecution.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
You mean you think that they had her testify and
then after it was a bad testimony for them, then
they decided not to have anyone else.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
No, I think all of these people that were all
within the house all testified in the first trial, and
then when the retrial came along.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Okay, so even before the second trial, they realized like,
this is not a good idea.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I think they were like, none of they're not credible,
and we're just not going to put them on. So
Jen McCabe, who is the who is the sister in
law of Brian Albert who owns the home, is the
only one who testified at the retrial. All right, So
let's just go over a little bit of what they did.
The families have been accused by Reid and her defense
lawyers to be the ones who were responsible for John
(01:58):
O'Keeffe's death. That was the That was their defense was
that there was a conspiracy and that these police officers
all conspired together that something happened to John within the home,
and then that they put the body out on the lawn.
They blame Karen Read for it. But in the interview,
Brian Albert describes the theory as quote preposterous and silly.
(02:18):
You do realize for this conspiracy to be true, it
would take thirty to fifty people to be in on it.
This is what Albert told Matt Gutman, who is the interviewer.
I don't understand how people buy this.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You're gonna price speak to it, but I don't know
if I agree with it takes thirty to whatever people
to be in on it.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
So I had the same question. I remember when this
trial was going on, initially thinking if this is a
conspiracy and that's the defense's play, it really is astonishing
to me that someone has not come forward or spoken
out or broke this pack that they have.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's not surprising to me. It happens a lot. If
there's like a drug party and someone dies, there's all
these people at the party house and people are like,
I'm staying out of it, walking away.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Well, it makes me not like.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Their hands are dirty per se, they're just staying away
from it.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, And it makes me also think about pity. Yeah
and his freak offs. I mean, these have been going on.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
For years, years, and those are people that don't even
benefit from the freak cops. They're just like security guard, janitors,
you know, pairman, Yeah, others delivering the baby celebrities.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
So the fact that no one was talking about these
freak offs and there were so many people involved and
it went on for years and years and years, goes to.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Show you that you can have It's like you see
an accident, does everyone pull over and try to say,
I'm a waitness, I can help out. No, A lot
of people just think I gotta go to work and
these drive.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Off, all right. So, Brian Albert also addressed one of
the major criticisms Reid's defense had on his conduct of
the morning of January twenty ninth, twenty twenty two. Despite
being a fellow Boston Police officer and a trained first responder,
Albert never left his home, which is one of the
things that we talked about when we did earlier episodes,
(04:02):
was how bizarre it is that he is a police officer.
He's inside this home, there's a body found dead on
his lawn. He's a first responder. It's a fellow police officer,
and he never leaves his home to find out what happened,
to ask to inquire, and police never went inside his I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Sure when he pulls someone over for a moving violation,
he's very detail oriented, takes notes, yeah, checks all the paperwork,
completes the form for the ticket. But then with this
dead body on his lawn, and he's.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Like, he doesn't want it, he's not interested.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
No, he's got to get his floor as repaired.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
So during this interview, Brian Albert says, what am I
supposed to do? Run out front in my underwear and
start running yellow tape around the fire hydrant. Yes, I'm
not a Canton police officer. I'm a Boston police officer.
I was just woken up out of a cold sleep
from hanging out the night before. By the time I
came downstairs, the police were already in my house. John
(04:57):
was already gone, and there was nobody to save. First
of all, he says in the interview, the police were
already in my house.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, yeah, there's police. No, but please live in that house.
He is the police, isn't he.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, but he's referring to the police that we're investigating,
and that's not true. I feel like this is just.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Well, if it is true, then it's what information did
they gather by being inside the house?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Well, I think it's confirmed that there were no No
one went in the house.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Is saying that because he's.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
A liar, because I don't, because I think he's making
up what happened that day, because there's in my opinion,
allegedly there was something nefarious that went on in that house,
and that there's a cover up.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Everyone's opinion this right, So now that.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
He's giving first of all, it probably wasn't a great
idea for them to give an interview.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
They probably would you give an interview, I think.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Because people think they're going to change people's minds that
they're if they speak to it, and they and they
and they're convincing enough in their own head that they're
going to convince other people. I think all it did
was make them look more guilty. He says, I would
have taken a bullet for John O'Keeffe because he was
a fellow cop.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, but I'm not going to go out there. But
I'm not going to go out there my body and
see if he's alive or dead.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Or I'll take a bullet. But I'm not going to
go out there with manderwear and run yellow tail.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And I won't testify and I won't admit for any wrongdoing,
but I'll take a bullet.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
And I would take a bullet Matt McCabe.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Because it's sorry. That's because it's easy to say that.
People say that all the time that they'll they'll do anything.
I mean, it's easy to say that or say I'll
lay down my life or I'll give my life. But
but when you're actually in the position, will he take
a bullet?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
No, doubt it, No, absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I wouldn't I take a bullet from my friends?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah no, probably not. No, you probably would take a
bullet for me. Like what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Son, who's firing? And what you did.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Matt McCabe said the group stayed silent because they wanted
to let the court do its job. We took what
we thought was the high road, he said. Brian Albert
adds the criminal justice system has led us down at
every turn. Yesterday when Karen was acquitted, was the final letdown.
No one protects you, and it's very very sad. Think
long and hard before you're a witness in a case,
added his wife Nicole. She said she was just sad
(07:12):
for John's family. Yeah, and I mean we've talked about that.
We're all sad for John O'Keefe's family. The real travesty
is that there's no closure in this case, and they
still have the civil lawsuit going on. But yep, we'll
see what happens with that. The Oke family has not issued.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
A public A civil lawsuit might reveal more information, right,
because some things might be more admissible in a civil case.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah, we need to dive into that. I have heard
and I don't know if this is true, but it
has to do also with Karen's behavior that night in
the house when she couldn't find John because his daughter
was in the house and she was fourteen, and there's
something about her possibly being traumatized by the way Karen
acted or so I think I.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Think they'll be more to learn. Yeah, maybe still some
more questions to be answered, but there'll be more to
learn as a result of the civil case.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So the Okey family has not issued to public statements
since the verdict and did not speak to the press
outside the courthouse. They are still suing read for John
O'Keefe's death in a civil lawsuit. All right, let's move
on to Sherry Peppini. I'm so excited to do this
case because it is nuts and I love talking about
nutty women because I like there's I am always intrigued
(08:23):
by Shane's reaction.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I don't know much about this case.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I know you don't Cherry Peppini. First of all, there
was a documentary I'm going to tell you if you
guys drink, I would like sh First of all, let
me tell you the order you need to go about
watching this, because I feel like too many people who
(08:47):
are now interested in the Sherry Peppini case are only
watching the four part documentary that came out on Identity
What is It ID Identification Discovery, which is the the
most newly released interview that she did after serving time
in prison. If you only watch that, I feel like
you might be a little biased and a little jaded.
(09:09):
So I would suggest that if you're interested in a
full account of what happened, go and watch the Hulu
documentary It's called a Perfect Wife, that is about what
happened with this kidnapping and everything. It gives you a
very deep background into her life and her husband and
her kids and this whole kidnapping. Then watch the new
four part interview that she does recently, because I feel
(09:31):
like you have to put those two together to really
have a full concept of everything.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Perfect Wife, Well, I mean, I get why is it
called perfect Wife?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I think because that's the way she portrayed herself as
like this perfect wife and mom and really in reality,
she's insane. All right, Let's get into Sherry. Let's get
into Sherry pep Beanie.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Sharry is a California mother of two who's twenty sixteen
disappearance and dramatic or sparked national attention, only to unravel
years later as one of the most notorious kidnapping hoaxes
in modern times. So this happened back in November two
of twoenty and sixteen. Peppini is believed to have been
(10:14):
kidnapped during an eleven AM jog. Her husband, Keith Peppini,
says he last received a text from Sherry at ten
thirty seven am asking if he planned to return home
for lunch, but he claims he didn't see the text
right away and responded back around one thirty pm. Keith
reports her missing that evening after he comes home to
find she isn't there and had not picked up the
(10:34):
kids from daycare. He does find my iPhone and that
led Keith to Sherry's phone and earbuds, which were found
on the ground with strands of hair appearing as though
there had been some type of struggle. Authorities and family
members launch an intensive search and public awareness campaign. Now
he starts doing a lot of interviews. Of course, what
does everyone say when a wife disappears? They clearly please.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Come home, please go.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
And when I watched his interviews, it kind of it
reminded me of Scott Peterson when Lacey was missing and
he did all the interviews about you know, like Marie,
come back, please come back, bring my wife back. Although
Scott Peterson is dead in the face, at least Keith
Peppinie has I find him somewhat more believable. When I
was watching his interviews, I felt as if I didn't think, like, Okay,
(11:24):
he's the one.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
What state is this in?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
This is in northern California and reading. So Sherry Peppini
disappears from November third to November twenty third, She's gone
around twenty two days. Local, state, and federal law enforcement
are involved in the missing person's case. I do know
that Keith also requested that the FBI be involved. Someone
told him that he should do that, and there is
video of him during his interviews asking for the FBI
(11:47):
to be involved. Social media and go fund me campaigns
draw national attention. There was a GoFundMe that raised more
than forty two thousand towards search efforts, and the Peppini
family also offered a fifty thousand dollars reward for Sherry's
safe return. He also made. Keith also made many emotional
appearances on Good Morning America, ABC News, et cetera, describing
his wife as a supermom and pleading for her safe return.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
That's that's sign of guilt right there.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
What the supermom? Yeah, well, he's not guilty. November twenty
fourth is Thanksgiving Day. At four thirty am, Sherry is
found in the middle of country Road seventeen and I
five in Yolo County, Yolo. You only live once.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
It's not the last one in apathetic order, though it's
not Yuma County, Yuma, it's a close one. It's a
close second.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It was near the Woodland area, about one hundred and
fifty miles south of where she first disappeared. She has
found bruised and emaciated, with bindings and a brand on
her shoulder that says Exodus. Her hair has also been cut.
Was Exodus, Well, it's a Bible.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Verse, I know, but like I don't know, Yeah, what
was the significance of that?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I don't know, not really anything, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Was it like a certain font or was it a
certain like style that means some type of cult?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
We would have to ask Sherry that did tattoo. I'd
be like, okay, whatever, But you said branded, it's different.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
It's branded. It was burned onto her.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, that's that's Sherry's story.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
She claims that she was captured by two Hispanic women
and a dark suv while on her run. They took
her to an unknown location, which she claims to have
been drugged during the car ride, so she didn't know
where she was. She said she was physically restrained, with
her wrists and ankles chained and a bag over her
head for the majority of the time. She said she
(13:38):
was beaten repeatedly, often just for fun, by one of
the women, who she referred to as the mean one.
She claims she was starved, losing a significant amount of weight,
reportedly fifteen to twenty pounds within a twenty two day
period that she was gone. She said her two captors
branded her on the right shoulder with a heated tool,
though she didn't know what the word act that is meant,
(14:01):
Apparently it is a reference to the Bible. She was
forced to use a small bucket as a latrine, and
she reported that one of the women appeared more sympathetic
and that her release was likely negotiated by her I
watched her interview when she was telling the police, and
she calls the two Hispanic women that she claims abducted her.
She says there was a big one and there was
a small one, and she said the big one was
(14:24):
the mean one, and the small one was more sympathetic
towards her recorded police interviews was Sherry Peppini, and the
hours after her return showed she was reluctant to speak
with investigators, claiming that her abductors told her she was
going to be trafficked to someone in law enforcement. Sheery
avoided doing media interviews after she had escaped. She even
(14:44):
avoided large.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Crad Did she escape or negotiate her release?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Well, what happened was they she was found dropped on
the side of the room.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I vaguely remember this in the news.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Now I'm starting, and someone picks her up and he
calls nine one one, and you can hear his nine
one one recording, and he calls her first, he calls
her Sherry Panini and then she says Peppini. So a
bystander on the highway finds her and calls police, and
she's like, has a chain wrapped around her waist and she.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Has She's not very good negotiator.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
She has u ties. What are those zip ties?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Cable ties?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Cable ties? Right, So she avoids doing me to interviews
after she's caught. There are several interviews that I watch
in the documentary where the police are recording her. They're
asking her questions about what happened, and I find her
so disingenuine and so unlikable. She talks about things that
don't make sense, Like she talks about how she texts
her husband to come home for lunch, but lunch really
(15:45):
means come home to have sex. I thought that was
just odd that these are things that she's telling investigators
when supposedly she's, you know, been kidnapped for twenty two
days and has been beaten, and she's just making jokes
about like sexual references with her husband. She says that
she needs to close her eyes when she talks. She
can't remember a lot of things anyway. I find her
(16:08):
difficult to believe. There was also a skinheads dot com
article amidst all of this, it was discovered that Sherry
had written a racist post against the Hispanic community on
a skinhead website under her maiden name Sherry Graf.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Prior to or after.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Prior to, the blog entry claims Peppini was persecuted by
Latinos at her high school for being of German descent
and that she was white and proud of her blood
and heritage. The post read, I totally agree with skinheads
that girls should not fight, they should stand by their men.
Being white is my family, my roots, my way of life.
It's always there. There's no denying it. It's nobility, its strength,
(16:50):
it will be there. To lift me up when I
really need my pride, when I need to keep walking.
When asked about this post, Sherry denies writing it and
claims someone impersonated her.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Why would someone in personate her and go on a
skinhead website? That's so random?
Speaker 1 (17:03):
It is random, But this is what happens when someone
is the type of person who repeatedly lies about everything.
On October twenty fifth, twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So you find these cases that are very that just
leave lots of questions.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I don't think there's lots of questions. I think that.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It's not going to be confusing. In this case, it
sounds like it's going to be very confusing because you
just said she's a liar. She's a liar, so well
is Shelsey.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
So Sherry Peppini asks the FBI, can you do a
sketch of the two women who abducted me? So she
describes them, and they do a sketch and they release
it to the media, and it's two Hispanic women, a
bigger one and a smaller one, and they both have
masks on because she claims that they covered their face
for the majority of the time.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
She's just like so she asked for criminal sketch artists. Yes,
and then she's like, oh, they wore masks, Yes, I
could have drawn that.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
So basically they do the sketches of these two Hispanic women.
They were basically just their eyes, their eyes and eyebrows.
They release it. The media releases it like this is
there's new developments in the Sherry Peppina case. The sketch
artist has, you know, made these sketches based upon, you know,
her detailed account of these two women that abducted her.
(18:20):
The day that the sketch artist releases the sketches to
the media is the same day that the FBI gets
back DNA testing from her clothing from when she was abducted,
and there's male DNA found in her underwear.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
And is it has it been excluded that it's not
her husband's or boyfriends or whoever it is.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
No, it's not it's not her that out Yeah, okay.
So in the years following Sherry's return, local investigators as
well as the FBI are very skeptical of her claims,
so they continue their search and investigation and to her
because if.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
She got beaten, there'd be some female DNA, you'd assume.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, but they don't find any female DNA. They only
find male DNA, not her husband, multiple males or no
one male?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
The DNA evidence did not match her story. Investigators found
male DNA on her clothing and belongings, despite her claim
that she was abducted by two women. The DNA did
not match her husband or any suspect until it was
later matched to her ex boyfriend James Rays.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Wait, how did they make that connection?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Though they did, I don't know. They ran it through
COTIS or whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It took a while in the system.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Well no or no, Maybe it wasn't codis. I don't know,
it says Familia familial dale.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Maybe the voluntarily.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
DNA. Well he, I'm sure he gave up his DNA, so.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
The lack of forensic evidence supporting the abduction. There were
no tire tracks, fingerprints of surveillance footage, or physical signs
of an abduction were found where she allegedly disappeared. And also,
I know the FBI investigator also made the claim that
they were very suspicious of her from the very beginning
because when they found the cell phone and the headphones
(20:04):
apparently like her ear plugs or whatever, they were were
wrapped up neatly and like laying on top of the
cell phone, and the cell phone was lying on the ground.
And then there were some blonde hairs that were kind
of stuck into the earbuds.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Like someone pulls up to kidnapp her, and she's like,
hold on one second, she rolls up her earbuds. Yes,
that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yes, So he finds her phone. He actually before he
picked up her phone, he took a picture of it.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
That's even weirder.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Why is that weirder?
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Took a picture of your phone when I found it?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I don't know. I guess because it was evidence and
he didn't want to pick it up unless he took
a photo of how it was sitting there.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So he takes photos and he might be in it.
We'll find out he's gone.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
He's not in it. Unusual branding. The forensic experts suggests
that exodus branding looked deliberate and controlled, not consistent with
the panicked act of violence. I guess, you know, I
understand that too. If they're trying to brand her and
she's like captive and all these things, wouldn't you be
(21:02):
moving around? I think it just was very neatly done.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
It looked like she just I don't know, being wrapped up.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yes, so they found on her penterress page that the
same wooden tools that were used to brand her back
were part of her pinteress page.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Did they check her Amazon account and she purchased like
a brand?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
She didn't purchase them. James ray As purchased them. Oh
really yes, and he had the receipt for it.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Wait, so why are we bothered at? Okay, so she
wanted to go away and get branded by her ex
boyfriend or whatever. What's the what's the issue?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Because she said to she said to Hispanic women abducted her.
The theory is or what what it comes down to
is that ray As is her ex boyfriend and she
was having and she calls an emotional affair with him.
They got burner phones and they were communicating. Then he
comes from he lives in Coasta, Mesa. He drives from
Coasta Mesa to reading anything emotion. She's trying to say
(22:03):
she didn't have sex with them.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah, well, so was it emotional DNA they found on
her underwear?
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yes, it was an emotional DNA on her underwear.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Very well, keep gone.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
So they finally figure out because they don't believe her story.
The two masks, the getting picked up on Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Where city they find her in the same city.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
No, they found her one hundred and fifty miles away.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, I thought, wasn't it down here in Coasta Mesa
or something.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
No, she was James Ray's lived in Coasta Mesa and
that's where she spent the twenty two days in Coasta Mesa.
Then he drove her, I don't know, one hundred like
towards Redding and then dropped her off on the side.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Of the enough emotions for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
When they on and zip ties she gets out of
the car. I think there's actually surveillance of her running
without the zip ties. And then when they and then
when the police come then find her, she's zip tied,
cable ties whatever they're called. And so basically what happens
was what they didn't believe her story from the beginning.
(23:04):
So they're investigating her the whole time, even though they're
not telling her they're investigating her. They just keep interviewing
her and interviewing the husband.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
And so she just divulges all this information while the.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Whole time the FBI is like, this is a bunch
of crap and they're investigating her without telling her. So
they find the DNA, they link it to James Ray
As the police go to Costa Mesa and they interview
him and you can see they don't show him on camera.
He clearly did not agree to show his imass or something. Yeah,
(23:35):
they show body cams and they show audio, I mean
not show, but you can hear audio, but they don't
show his face on camera.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Because he's just a witness at this point.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Well, and what he says is that she asked him
to come and pick her up because her husband's abusive
and she wants to get out of the marriage. So
in his eyes or the way he explains it is
he's just helping this girl out. So he comes and
he picks her Upie takes her to Coast to Mesa.
Then she stays for twenty two days in his house.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
He probably can't stand her.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I don't know, but he claims that all the physical things,
all the harm, the bruises, everything, it was self inflicted,
that she did it to herself, or that she directed
him to do it. I guess he was a hockey
player and she told him to hit her with a
hockey puck and he broke her.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Notes like she liked it or like to set up her.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
To set up her story. I guess that's how that's
how much.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Then he's a psycho too, because it's like, oh, let
me go help this woman. What do you need? Do
you need me to smack you in the face with
that hockey puck?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I agree. I don't understand for one second why this
James Rays guy goes along with this, Probably because.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
He initially tried to save her and help her, and
then you know, get emotional with her, and then they
come down to coast to Mesa, and then he realized
she's psycho. And then she says, well, let me let
me like complete the story and you have I have
been a so hit me in the face. And he's
like gladly because she's psycho. And then he tied her
up and dumped her off and he wants nothing to
(25:07):
do with her anymore.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, I mean I would say that, I would say
that's pretty much in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah, And if she was nice and pleasant, I don't
think he would hit her in the face with the
hockey puck.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
One he goes along with this story two. When they
interview him, he does not seem to be highly intelligent
at all. He seems very like.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Wasn't there receipts for a hotel too? Did they stay
in a hotel or his place?
Speaker 1 (25:31):
No, they stayed at his home. There was a receipt
for him buying the wood burning tools he had that.
He's like, look, here's a receipt told me to buy it.
And I think that they don't. The FBI doesn't give
you a lot of information in these interviews that they do.
They're very careful about their tools and tactics and behind
the scenes.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Well, that way, then she could say something that might
conflict with what they found, and then that would be
more suspicious.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Right. But I'm just saying, even when they talk about
it after the fact, even giving interviews after the fact,
they don't give away a lot of information about how
they knew James was manipulated by her. I know he passed,
you know, a lie detector test, but we'll talk later
about her because she takes one later. But I just
(26:16):
I don't I feel like he's almost so simple, like
he's not highly intelligent, that he just went along with
this crazy scheme, because who in their right mind, has
someone stayed with them for twenty two days when they
have a wife, when they have a husband and young children,
and then goes along with physically abusing them, and then
goes along with dumping them on the side of the road,
(26:38):
and doesn't think that that looks bad for them.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It really makes my life feel very boring. Yeah, you're like, yeah,
like you know, and he's probably less stressed than I
am in.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
His life, probably so. After they found James's DNA, this
was in August of twenty twenty, the FBI contacted and
questioned James Reyes at his home in Coasta, Mesa, And
let's just talk about what he told the investigators. He
says that Peppini had reached out to him. He confirmed
that he and Peppini had previously dated in the early
two thousands. They were in constant communication via burner phones.
(27:13):
Months before her disappearance, she'd tell him she needed to
escape her abusive marriage and start over. He agreed to
help her and picked her up in Reading, driving her
six hundred miles south to his apartment in Costa Mesa.
He claims she was never kidnapped. Rey said that Peppini
stayed willingly in his apartment for the entire twenty two
days that she was missing. He described her as staying
mostly inside doing household chores, watching TV, and exercising. He
(27:37):
claims she even watched the news coverage of her own disappearance.
Injuries were self inflicted or assisted by him. Reyes admitted
to helping her create some of the injuries, including holding
a hockey stick so she could run into it and
purposefully causing bruising. Branding her shoulder using a wood burning
tool was at her request, she says later in an interview,
(27:59):
to kind of to I don't know, get past the
wood burning thing, because you know, I told you this.
Wood burning tools were on her own pinterant page. The
way she explains it after the fact is she says, oh, well,
when he kidnapped me, we were having a conversation and
I was telling him about how I was making these
handcrafted Christmas cards with wood burning tools, and he was
(28:23):
so interested in it that he went out and bought
someone branded my you know, my shoulder. I mean, do
you really think she's in Costa Mesa with James Ray's
talking about how she makes Christmas cards for her kids.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
No, she's watching the coverage of her own.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Right. Security cameras show Peppini running through an empty parking
lot towards the highway on Thanksgiving morning. In the footage,
her hands are not tied together. She is running normally. However,
when a driver found her on the side of the road,
they were zip tied and she was wearing a chain
around her waist. She's like, don't forget to bring the
zip ties and chain. I'll just put him in a
I'll just I'll hang on to him and then right
(28:56):
before the police come, I'll just put them on myself.
I've always said ziptized. Are they not ziptized?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Sable?
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Okay, reyas cooperated fully with the FBI. He consented to
DNA collection, provided text messages, and allowed investigators to search
his apartment. He passed the polygraph test, and authorities confirmed
no chargers were filed against him as he had no
criminal intent and was considered a cooperating witness. All right,
so his account directly contradicted everything Peppini had told law
(29:26):
enforcement and investigators now had a motive, a means, and
the evidence, which was the DNA, the phone records, and
the injury creation and that she'd faked her own abduction.
The DOJ said Rey's cooperation was truthful, consistent, and corroborated
by physical evidence. So the FBI is slowly building their case.
From twenty twenty to twenty twenty two, investigators kept the
(29:49):
case quiet for nearly two years. We talked about that.
How they continue to talk to Pappinie, have interviews with her,
but obviously they don't give away any information that they're
investigating this as they kidnapping hoax.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
No let her say anything she wants.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Right, They confirm and consistency in her interviews. They track
how she spent one hundred thousand plus dollars of victim funds,
disability payments, and go fundme donations.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Some of those gounfund me things are people are way
too quick to just set them up and give people money,
and it's like there's probably a lot of scammers on there.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Well, she got disability because so she's taking disability. She
also received money from like a California victims fund. And
then also clearly the state or the city or whoever
pays for it, taxpayers pay for her for the search efforts.
So they build a case against her for mail fraud
(30:42):
which are the benefits that she received, and false statement,
which is lying to federal agents. On March third of
twenty twenty two, Sherry Peppini is arrested while tending her
children's music lessons. The charges against her are mail fraud
and making false statements to federal officers. The FBI released
a forty four page data outlining all her planning with
(31:02):
ray As, her false statements about the two Hispanic women,
and her misuse of victim compensation funds. On April eighteenth
of twenty twenty two, Sherry Peppini pleaded guilty to one
count of mail fraud and one count of making false statements.
Now I know they do an interview with her attorney
and she makes it like and when she talks about
the allegations against her, and when they arrest her, she
(31:25):
does this very woe is me. I don't even understand
what's going on. I don't even understand why I'm in jail.
I don't understand anything against me. And she talks about
how like someone else and jail with her had to
explain the charges to her because she didn't even understand
what was going on. I just felt like when she talks,
she does a very good job of doing this like
(31:46):
victim role. She's very good at that. Here's just something
else I want to talk about, because if you watch
a Perfect Wife or maybe even in the in her
recent interview, after she was married to Keith, I'm not
(32:08):
sure how long after, but she got caught texting other
men and she has a little history, well, she has
a history of what she calls always having these emotional affairs.
And I like how she calls them emotional affairs so
that she's never actually admitting that she has sex with
any of these other men. It's basically like Keith was
so terrible to her, and he was so awful, and
he wouldn't even talk to her, and he was controlling
(32:30):
and abusive and all these things that she claims that
she always had to have these emotional affairs with other men,
and she would save you know, these other guy's numbers
with like a female name, so she probably had like
Jane and you know, Laurie and all these people that
she was texting with, but they were men. Anyway, Keith
finds out that she's been having these you know, emotional
affairs as she calls them, with other men, and he
(32:51):
makes her sign a post nuptial agreement after they've been
married for a while.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
This is prior pre kidnapping.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
This is pre kidnapping. So I didn't read. I tried
to find the post nuptial agreement. They actually show it
a little bit on the four part series where she
does an interview.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
But do you have money or something?
Speaker 1 (33:10):
I don't think they have a lot of money. They
seem just very middle class to me. He's like an
audio visual specialist for Best Buy and she's a stay
at home mom. So basically, after he finds out that
she's having, you know, these emotional affairs and she's texting
other men, he makes her sign a post nuptial agreement.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Why does he just make her agree not to have
these emotional affairs like.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
A post non emotional affair agreement, So she signs this
post nuptial agreement. It's completely one sided. It's basically says
if she's caught, well.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
It's probably not even valid. I bet he just drafted
himself and said, here's sign this right, which you can't do.
Both sides need to have an attorney. Even if she
says I don't want an attorney, she kind of has
to have an attorney to make it valid.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Well, I actually read in a pre nuptial agreement both
people have to have representation, but for some reason, in
a post nuptial it doesn't say that you have to
have representation. It says that it can't be one sided
and it can't be unconscionable, but it recommends that you.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, so he should have made sure she had an
attorney so she can't later say what, I didn't know
what was going on.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Well, the thing that is interesting to me is that
they make a big deal about this post nuptial agreement,
about how one sided it was, and in my mind,
I'm thinking it wouldn't even be enforceable. Everybody's making it
like he forced her to sign it.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Whole scheme of things anyway.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Well, to me, I think the post nuptial agreement is
very important because I feel as if she wanted to
have an affair with James ray As, but the only
way she could have an affair is to make it
look like a kidnapping hoax so that the post nuptial
agreement wouldn't come into effect because basically he made her
sign a very one did.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
The post agreement steps then they do.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
With an affair, Yes, he made her sign it.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Basically, you can't do that stuff anyway. Sorry, you can't
do that stuff anyway. You can't be like, if you
cheat on me, you don't get this money.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
That's why I'm saying this nuptial agreement that he made
her sign was basically, if you cheat on me, if
you talk to other men, if you have affairs, you
get nothing, you get no money, you.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Leave, or if you stage a kidnapping.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, he forgot to add that part to.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
The emotional affairs. If there's any male DNA found on you.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
In your underwear, yes, so to me, I feel as
if the post nuptial agreement is very interesting because I
feel as if she created this whole kidnapping hoax in
order to have an affair with her ex boyfriend, and
if she did get caught, then she just blames it
(35:45):
on a kidnapping hoax so that she's not actually having
an affair with her ex boyfriend, so that the post
nuptial agreement doesn't come into effect and he gets to
take the kids and all the money and everything, even though,
let's be honest, this post nuptial agreement wouldn't be valid anyway, passable.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
It's one sided her it's valid.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Right, but she clearly thinks it's valid.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
But you're just guessing all this.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
I'm just putting.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
I'm just putting your theory.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
My theory is that she she.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Signed the agreement and then she tried to abide.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
By it, and then she tried to abide by it
by thinking, I want to have an affair with my
ex emotion my boyfriend, an emotional affair, and I'm going
to do it. However, I can't get caught having an affair,
so I have to make it look like a kidnapping.
So there you go. That's just my my thoughts on.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
That her commitment to having affairs is right.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yes, it is right.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
I remember when they do the four part interview where
she speaks up and she now claims that it was
a kidnapping. So that's where we're at now, current like
present day.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Well, so she still admits it's that or she still
sticks to the story that's a kidnapping.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
No, So she was arrested and for the kidnapping, she
signs a plea agreement with very specific language basically saying
that she planned a hoax, that it was a fake kidnapping.
She signs it, and then she's sentenced to I believe,
two years in prison. She's released from prison. Now that
(37:16):
she's released from prison, here we are in present day
and now she's doing interviews and she's saying, you know what,
it wasn't a kidnapping hoax. I was abducted. So that's
where we're at today. She's now recanting, well, what's the matter.
You already served your time, lady. I don't know, but
she claims she's married to this guy.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Still.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
No, he filed for divorce after she was the I
don't know. They don't they They do an interview with
her family law attorney, which is entertaining. She's very entertaining.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Does she have access to those kids? I wouldn't want
her to have accesses?
Speaker 1 (37:55):
No, currently she does.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Without supervised visitation.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
So she's fighting for that's a saying because that's where
we're at currently is she's now recanting the kidnapping hoax
and saying that she was abducted by James. She's claiming
that she lied about it because I guess because she
was scared of him, or she didn't want her husband
to know she was having an affair so she made
up the two Hispanic women. She doesn't want her husband
(38:18):
or anyone to know that she was with James, so
she claims she was abducted by two Hispanic women. Then
when they found when the FBI says we know it
was James because his DNA is in your underwear and
we've interviewed him, then she says, oh, well, I said
it was James's mom, and I described James's mom, so
it would lead you to James without me actually saying
it was James. And now that she's out of prison,
(38:40):
she's saying it wasn't a kidnapping hoax, it really was James.
But then I found the FBI investigator said, which I
found funny. He goes, he said, well, James Ray's his
mom was Irish or something like that, Like she wasn't
Hispanic anyway. Yeah, she wasn't Hispanic anyway. And she wasn't
and she wasn't Hispanic.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Why are they even entertaining whatever she has is saying anyway?
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Now, yeah, you know that's maybe.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
The public because she's speaking about it and it's interesting,
but like, why is law enforcement bothering with her? They
shouldn't be, Well, they're not.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Now she's been released from prison and they're not. But
here's the thing. Now she's doing all these interviews. So
now she did this interview with Investigation Discovery. They made
a four part series about her. She went on Nick Vile,
the Vile Files, and she's doubling down on them. Believe
her story that it was a real abduction.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
So let's we get her on here and we call
her out.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
You want to get Sherry Pepina. Can we make that happen.
Let's make Scherry call her out. I would love for
you to do an interview with Shane Simpson.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Oh so many holes in her story. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
So Sherry pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud,
one count of making false statements, and she was sentenced
to eighteen okay, it was eighteen months in prison and
agreed to pay three hundred and nine thousand, six hundred
and eighty six dollars and thirty three cents in a restitution.
This was the breakdown. She took thirty thousand, six hundred
ninety four dollars from the California Victim Compensation Board. She
(40:09):
took one hundred and twenty seven thousand, seven hundred and
eighty three dollars from the Social Security Administration for benefits,
one hundred and forty eight thousand to the Shasta County
Sheriff's office for the cost of investigating the case, and
twenty five hundred and fifty eight dollars to the FBI
for the government sentencing or to the FBI for their
role in it doesn't seem like a lot. Twenty five
(40:30):
hundred dollars to the FBI, I don't know, but anyway,
that's where they got the breakdown of what her restitution was,
which was a total.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Sharyot money like that without I mean, she was able
to bamboozle them and get all that money. Well, she got.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Money from the California Victim Compensation, then she got money
from the Social Security Administration offices for benefits because she
said she.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Was disabled, just to hand out six figures like that.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
So Sherry Peppini is released from prison after serving about
eleven months in a federal facility. She was released to
a residential re entry center then placed on supervised probation.
So what has she been doing from twenty twenty three
to currently? She lost custody of her two children and
(41:17):
who now live with her ex husband Keith. She began
telling a revised version of the story, claiming Reya psychologically
manipulated her and that she was trapped in twenty twenty
four to twenty twenty five. Her new claims were featured
in Perfect Wife, which I told you guys to watch,
and Caught in the Lie which is the new one
on HBO, which is her most recent interview. And then
(41:38):
I guess she has a self published memoir Sherry Peppini
doesn't exist. And then she did the Vile Files podcast,
so that's where she's out speaking now. Also, this was
another thing that was in this new documentary is she
takes a polygraph and I thought for sure that she
(41:59):
was going to fail this polygraph.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Because clearly asked her.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
So Sharry and James both took polygraphs and both passed,
despite their stories contradicting one another.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Enough for me, what did they ask or know?
Speaker 1 (42:14):
I do? I do know the questions that she passed.
I'll tell you first of all, she failed some of
the questions, and she passed some of the questions. The
ones that she passed, though, were the ones that were
the most important because they go to the heart of
this story that she's now telling. So among the questions
she was asked while at james house in twenty sixteen,
were you free to leave at any time without fear
(42:36):
of violence? And did you ask James to brand you?
She answered no to both of those questions and she
passed them. Also, I don't know, maybe that's a too
too much compound in sent Yeah, that's.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
What I'm saying. It matters what they asked.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Were you free to leave at any time without fear
of violence? I don't know, I mean maybe that's just
too convoluted instead of just asking were you free to leave? Right?
You know, Like, I think they made the questions too complicated. Also,
I was also thinking that maybe she passed because there's
been a long period of time since the kidnapping to
when she took this lie detector test.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
And who administered light test? Like who who was it
that set it up? Did she just do it on
her own?
Speaker 1 (43:19):
She did it through this new interview, this interview that
she did, so I don't know because she did it
on camera.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
What was the second question you referenced, did you ask.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
James to brand you? Which is very straightforward? She said
no and she passed that maybe she didn't ask him,
Maybe she just gave him the branding tools.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
I'm saying how they asked her, there should be follow
up questions. There may very well have been.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yeah, there were other questions that she was asked that
she did not pass.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Do polygraph questions are they only? Are they mostly yes?
Speaker 1 (43:47):
No?
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Questions? Well I don't or like factual like a date
or something, or can it be how did you get
the branding?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I think you're supposed to make the questions as simplistic
as possible with with yes no answers, because what the
what what it's reading is a physical response. But my
thought was this kidnapping happened in twenty sixteen. Here she
is in twenty twenty five taking a lie detector test.
Does the passage of time make a difference on a
physical response? Maybe she's told this story so many times
(44:18):
at this point.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
But you know what, even if she's even those questions
are accurately answered, it doesn't It doesn't help with anything.
It's a mess. Was she wasn't she under what her?
I mean, it doesn't make any sense. Right, It's still
a mess. Right, doesn't solve the case.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I don't think there's any solving it. I think what
it comes down to is I think she's a known
liar and narcissist and sociopath. I think that she she
The fact that they had burner phones and they were
communicating she and James, Well, it's.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Anyone that says they're having any emotional fair right there,
they're lying.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
And the fact that she's returned on Thanksgiving Day, she
didn't pick her kids up from daycare that day. I mean,
I don't know. To me, it just seems like it
was concocted by her. It was her way of having
an affair without her husband knowing that she was having
an affair. It was an elaborate scheme. I think she
lies a lot. I think she's a master at lying.
(45:17):
Her interview, there were several parts of her interview that
really bothered me. In this newest interview that she did,
there was one part where she looks directly at the
camera when she's talking to the producer, because the producer
says something like why did you lie? And she looks
right at the camera and she goes, haven't you lied?
Haven't you lied? Have you ever in your life lied?
And I remember sitting there looking at her and thinking, yeah,
(45:39):
I'm sure all of us a little bit, like I'll
tell Annabel that, you know, we don't have any cookies left.
I remember telling the boys that McDonald's was closed, Like.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
You come home and I say where were you? And
I'm like, oh, I was kidnapped. This guy was having
the emotional affair with right.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I just I thought, Wow, the nerve of this woman
to look directly in the camera at us out here,
at the audience and say, haven't you ever lied?
Speaker 2 (46:03):
The answer is yes, she did. That's what she's saying.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Well, yeah, exactly, Well she's saying she lied about the kidnapping.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
I don't know, so, you know, of all things, what
gets to me is I wake up worried, stressed about
my day. Bill's getting paid this net and these people
live just one day at a time.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
They live one one kidnapping hopes at a time. Yeah,
one whe detector test.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
That got, I know, yeah, she got. She probably has
way less stress than I do.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Probably. Scherry claims that James passed the lie detector test
because he's a sociopath, not her.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah, it's not her.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
She's not the sociopath. It's James. He's a sociopath. Keith
Peppini claims that his daughter Violet and said Sherry would
force her children to inhale cotton swabs drenched and rubbing
alcohol when they were sick to make them even more sick.
Sherry denies this, claiming she gave her children essential oils
when they were sick because they were allergic to vis
That was one of the things he said in the documentary.
(47:03):
If you watch The Perfect Wife, at the very end,
he talks about how his children said that she would
so like cotton balls and alcohol and then tie it
around their neck. I don't know if there's any truth
to that. I have no idea. It doesn't make any
sense that you would tie anything around a child's neck.
I don't care if it's essential oils or if it's alcohol.
It all seems very odd to me. Sherry's therapist, family lawyer,
(47:26):
and sister in law whose name is Suzanne, that's Key's
biological sister, all believe her story. First of all, when
you talk about let me just say this, if you
guys watch the four part documentary of her recent interview,
they do interview her therapist. Her therapist annoys me. He
believes everything this woman says.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
He it's a male and you're willing. No, I don't
like him. Why did you just call him entertaining?
Speaker 1 (47:49):
No, I don't like him. I don't like him at all,
because this is what I think. I think so many
people find a therapist that they yes therapist, someone that
they can manipulate, that they can just tell all their
their side of the story, and then the therapist is like,
those people are wrong, They shouldn't treat you like that.
You're right. Do you really get anything out of therapy
(48:10):
if you just find someone that just goes along with
everything that you're saying and they can't discern between delusion
and fact and lies. And I don't know, I just
didn't like the therapist. I felt that like the therapist
just enabled her by saying that, you know, he believes
everything she said. And the reason she lies is because
she has trauma. And when you have a lot of trauma,
you just lie about things because you can't really remember
(48:32):
what happened anyway, because there was trauma. I don't know.
In Sheery's HBO docuseries, this is the most recent one,
her mother, who was supposedly on her side, explicitly said
the incident was not a kidnapping. Sherry writes this off
as her mother being confused, and also the editing twisting
things around. I love when people blame the editing. That
happens on Housewives too. Everyone for their bad behavior always
(48:55):
likes to blame the editing. I like when people like
after an episode comes out and everyone's liked, it was me,
it was that iting. Keith Peppini still retains custody of
their two children. Sherry has allowed one supervised visit per month,
lasting about one hour. She's allowed weekly calls with the
children at Keith's discretion. However, Sherry claims she's only seen
her children three times since being out of prison. Also,
(49:18):
there's another thing in her this most recent docuseries, she
records herself having a phone call with her children. I
guess she gets to talk to them on Sundays. So
she sets up the camera and she records herself having
a conversation with her kids. She's so dramatic. She she's
overly like, oh baby, tell me more. Oh my gosh,
(49:40):
I tell me so much. Yes. Then she hangs up
with her children, and then she screams and is like
grabbing her head and she's all dramatic, and she's sobbing
and sobbing well right that she gets the one weekly
phone call with them, And I'm just so I am
(50:01):
so turned off by people who set up a phone
to record themselves and then record themselves having this over
the top, dramatic, ridiculous, you know response. And then they
give it to the producers and they're like, here, here, here,
here's what happens here, Please show this. This is what happens.
(50:21):
You know when I only get a weekly call with
my children, you know, I cry and scream and I
act dramatic.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
I know there's people to do that. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
And then there's also another scene where I guess Keith
comes over to where she's living and he wants her
to sign custody of the children over, and she secretly
records him. So she has the phone, she like puts
it under the bed, she records him, and then they
play this audio and I'm thinking, if you're trying to
make this guy look bad, I actually agree with him.
(50:50):
He goes over and he's like, let's just do this
the easy way without having to pay attorneys and things
like why don't you just sign the kids over to me,
this is when she's going to prison. She signed a
plea deal. She's going to prison, and she records it
as if she's catching him, you know, being mean and
being abusive to her. But let's be honest, she knows
that she's recording the conversation, so she's very calm and
she says everything correctly, and all it does is catch
(51:12):
him saying that that she can do this the easy
way or the hard way. She can either sign over
custody of the kids or they can fight for custody,
and she's going to federal prison. So again, I felt
like that was a manipulation tactic of her trying to
make this guy look bad and controlling and abusive and
all these things. But anyway, I just found her behavior
to be the manipulative behavior. But anyway, all right, are
(51:35):
we gonna talk about her more?
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Is she like, well, I don't.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
I mean, I don't know. It depends on if she
has any she has more docuseries explain in trying to
say that she it now was a kidnapping hoax. I
don't know. I mean, who knows. This woman's all over
the place. I don't trust anything that she says, and
I do believe the kids are safer with their father.
At least I feel like they have some stability with him.
(51:59):
And I do know that she has a current family
law case where she is trying to get more custody.
I mean, you can see what happens with that.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
But she'll get some visitation and then they'll be aged
out and then they'll be into that.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
Anyway, we did our best to try to fit that
story into an hour. It's very complex. There's a lot
of other things that happen. I would suggest if you
find Cherry Peppini's case interesting, to go back and watch
A Perfect Wife on Hulu and then watch her four
part recent series it's on Max. So thank you for
listening to our Sherry Peppini case.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Yeah, thank you, Sherry Peppinia to get for giving us
something to talk about. And you are a nut. Just
good luck with your life like it is, Shane.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
Thanks guys,
Hi, guys, welcome to another episode of Legally Brunette. I'll
be your host Emily Simpson and my co host Shane.
You're supposed to say, just Shane, Shane, just Shane. All right.
Our last episode we did we went through a little
bit of the Karen Reid trial, but we also got
to the closing arguments and the verdict. However, I thought
it was important at the top of this episode just
(00:21):
to talk a little bit about the Alberts and mccabes
because they decided to give interviews right after the verdict
came out. So let's talk about who was interviewed now.
Brian Albert, who was the one who owned the home
and he was a Boston police officer where John O'Keeffe
was found dead outside of his home, His wife Nicole,
his brother Chris, as well as his sister in law,
(00:42):
who we all know is Jen McCabe, the one who
testified in court, and her husband Matt All spoke to
ABC News in an interview which was released on Friday,
June twentieth. This was two days after Karen Reid was acquitted.
All five were witnesses at Reed's first trial. However, when
they did the reach trial. Jennifer McCabe was the only
one who testified at the retrial. Now, I was thinking
(01:04):
about this, and I assume the prosecution puts on their
on their case and they were like, Okay, we don't
need any of you to testify again because that did
not work the first time around. So Jen McCabe was
the only one who actually testified for the prosecution.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
You mean you think that they had her testify and
then after it was a bad testimony for them, then
they decided not to have anyone else.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
No, I think all of these people that were all
within the house all testified in the first trial, and
then when the retrial came along.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Okay, so even before the second trial, they realized like,
this is not a good idea.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I think they were like, none of they're not credible,
and we're just not going to put them on. So
Jen McCabe, who is the who is the sister in
law of Brian Albert who owns the home, is the
only one who testified at the retrial. All right, So
let's just go over a little bit of what they did.
The families have been accused by Reid and her defense
lawyers to be the ones who were responsible for John
(01:58):
O'Keeffe's death. That was the That was their defense was
that there was a conspiracy and that these police officers
all conspired together that something happened to John within the home,
and then that they put the body out on the lawn.
They blame Karen Read for it. But in the interview,
Brian Albert describes the theory as quote preposterous and silly.
(02:18):
You do realize for this conspiracy to be true, it
would take thirty to fifty people to be in on it.
This is what Albert told Matt Gutman, who is the interviewer.
I don't understand how people buy this.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You're gonna price speak to it, but I don't know
if I agree with it takes thirty to whatever people
to be in on it.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
So I had the same question. I remember when this
trial was going on, initially thinking if this is a
conspiracy and that's the defense's play, it really is astonishing
to me that someone has not come forward or spoken
out or broke this pack that they have.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's not surprising to me. It happens a lot. If
there's like a drug party and someone dies, there's all
these people at the party house and people are like,
I'm staying out of it, walking away.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Well, it makes me not like.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Their hands are dirty per se, they're just staying away
from it.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, And it makes me also think about pity. Yeah
and his freak offs. I mean, these have been going on.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
For years, years, and those are people that don't even
benefit from the freak cops. They're just like security guard, janitors,
you know, pairman, Yeah, others delivering the baby celebrities.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
So the fact that no one was talking about these
freak offs and there were so many people involved and
it went on for years and years and years, goes to.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Show you that you can have It's like you see
an accident, does everyone pull over and try to say,
I'm a waitness, I can help out. No, A lot
of people just think I gotta go to work and
these drive.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Off, all right. So, Brian Albert also addressed one of
the major criticisms Reid's defense had on his conduct of
the morning of January twenty ninth, twenty twenty two. Despite
being a fellow Boston Police officer and a trained first responder,
Albert never left his home, which is one of the
things that we talked about when we did earlier episodes,
(04:02):
was how bizarre it is that he is a police officer.
He's inside this home, there's a body found dead on
his lawn. He's a first responder. It's a fellow police officer,
and he never leaves his home to find out what happened,
to ask to inquire, and police never went inside his I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Sure when he pulls someone over for a moving violation,
he's very detail oriented, takes notes, yeah, checks all the paperwork,
completes the form for the ticket. But then with this
dead body on his lawn, and he's.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Like, he doesn't want it, he's not interested.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
No, he's got to get his floor as repaired.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
So during this interview, Brian Albert says, what am I
supposed to do? Run out front in my underwear and
start running yellow tape around the fire hydrant. Yes, I'm
not a Canton police officer. I'm a Boston police officer.
I was just woken up out of a cold sleep
from hanging out the night before. By the time I
came downstairs, the police were already in my house. John
(04:57):
was already gone, and there was nobody to save. First
of all, he says in the interview, the police were
already in my house.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, yeah, there's police. No, but please live in that house.
He is the police, isn't he.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, but he's referring to the police that we're investigating,
and that's not true. I feel like this is just.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Well, if it is true, then it's what information did
they gather by being inside the house?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Well, I think it's confirmed that there were no No
one went in the house.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Is saying that because he's.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
A liar, because I don't, because I think he's making
up what happened that day, because there's in my opinion,
allegedly there was something nefarious that went on in that house,
and that there's a cover up.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Everyone's opinion this right, So now that.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
He's giving first of all, it probably wasn't a great
idea for them to give an interview.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
They probably would you give an interview, I think.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Because people think they're going to change people's minds that
they're if they speak to it, and they and they
and they're convincing enough in their own head that they're
going to convince other people. I think all it did
was make them look more guilty. He says, I would
have taken a bullet for John O'Keeffe because he was
a fellow cop.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, but I'm not going to go out there. But
I'm not going to go out there my body and
see if he's alive or dead.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Or I'll take a bullet. But I'm not going to
go out there with manderwear and run yellow tail.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And I won't testify and I won't admit for any wrongdoing,
but I'll take a bullet.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
And I would take a bullet Matt McCabe.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Because it's sorry. That's because it's easy to say that.
People say that all the time that they'll they'll do anything.
I mean, it's easy to say that or say I'll
lay down my life or I'll give my life. But
but when you're actually in the position, will he take
a bullet?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
No, doubt it, No, absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I wouldn't I take a bullet from my friends?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah no, probably not. No, you probably would take a
bullet for me. Like what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Son, who's firing? And what you did.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Matt McCabe said the group stayed silent because they wanted
to let the court do its job. We took what
we thought was the high road, he said. Brian Albert
adds the criminal justice system has led us down at
every turn. Yesterday when Karen was acquitted, was the final letdown.
No one protects you, and it's very very sad. Think
long and hard before you're a witness in a case,
added his wife Nicole. She said she was just sad
(07:12):
for John's family. Yeah, and I mean we've talked about that.
We're all sad for John O'Keefe's family. The real travesty
is that there's no closure in this case, and they
still have the civil lawsuit going on. But yep, we'll
see what happens with that. The Oke family has not issued.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
A public A civil lawsuit might reveal more information, right,
because some things might be more admissible in a civil case.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah, we need to dive into that. I have heard
and I don't know if this is true, but it
has to do also with Karen's behavior that night in
the house when she couldn't find John because his daughter
was in the house and she was fourteen, and there's
something about her possibly being traumatized by the way Karen
acted or so I think I.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Think they'll be more to learn. Yeah, maybe still some
more questions to be answered, but there'll be more to
learn as a result of the civil case.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So the Okey family has not issued to public statements
since the verdict and did not speak to the press
outside the courthouse. They are still suing read for John
O'Keefe's death in a civil lawsuit. All right, let's move
on to Sherry Peppini. I'm so excited to do this
case because it is nuts and I love talking about
nutty women because I like there's I am always intrigued
(08:23):
by Shane's reaction.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I don't know much about this case.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I know you don't Cherry Peppini. First of all, there
was a documentary I'm going to tell you if you
guys drink, I would like sh First of all, let
me tell you the order you need to go about
watching this, because I feel like too many people who
(08:47):
are now interested in the Sherry Peppini case are only
watching the four part documentary that came out on Identity
What is It ID Identification Discovery, which is the the
most newly released interview that she did after serving time
in prison. If you only watch that, I feel like
you might be a little biased and a little jaded.
(09:09):
So I would suggest that if you're interested in a
full account of what happened, go and watch the Hulu
documentary It's called a Perfect Wife, that is about what
happened with this kidnapping and everything. It gives you a
very deep background into her life and her husband and
her kids and this whole kidnapping. Then watch the new
four part interview that she does recently, because I feel
(09:31):
like you have to put those two together to really
have a full concept of everything.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Perfect Wife, Well, I mean, I get why is it
called perfect Wife?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I think because that's the way she portrayed herself as
like this perfect wife and mom and really in reality,
she's insane. All right, Let's get into Sherry. Let's get
into Sherry pep Beanie.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Sharry is a California mother of two who's twenty sixteen
disappearance and dramatic or sparked national attention, only to unravel
years later as one of the most notorious kidnapping hoaxes
in modern times. So this happened back in November two
of twoenty and sixteen. Peppini is believed to have been
(10:14):
kidnapped during an eleven AM jog. Her husband, Keith Peppini,
says he last received a text from Sherry at ten
thirty seven am asking if he planned to return home
for lunch, but he claims he didn't see the text
right away and responded back around one thirty pm. Keith
reports her missing that evening after he comes home to
find she isn't there and had not picked up the
(10:34):
kids from daycare. He does find my iPhone and that
led Keith to Sherry's phone and earbuds, which were found
on the ground with strands of hair appearing as though
there had been some type of struggle. Authorities and family
members launch an intensive search and public awareness campaign. Now
he starts doing a lot of interviews. Of course, what
does everyone say when a wife disappears? They clearly please.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Come home, please go.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
And when I watched his interviews, it kind of it
reminded me of Scott Peterson when Lacey was missing and
he did all the interviews about you know, like Marie,
come back, please come back, bring my wife back. Although
Scott Peterson is dead in the face, at least Keith
Peppinie has I find him somewhat more believable. When I
was watching his interviews, I felt as if I didn't think, like, Okay,
(11:24):
he's the one.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
What state is this in?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
This is in northern California and reading. So Sherry Peppini
disappears from November third to November twenty third, She's gone
around twenty two days. Local, state, and federal law enforcement
are involved in the missing person's case. I do know
that Keith also requested that the FBI be involved. Someone
told him that he should do that, and there is
video of him during his interviews asking for the FBI
(11:47):
to be involved. Social media and go fund me campaigns
draw national attention. There was a GoFundMe that raised more
than forty two thousand towards search efforts, and the Peppini
family also offered a fifty thousand dollars reward for Sherry's
safe return. He also made. Keith also made many emotional
appearances on Good Morning America, ABC News, et cetera, describing
his wife as a supermom and pleading for her safe return.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
That's that's sign of guilt right there.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
What the supermom? Yeah, well, he's not guilty. November twenty
fourth is Thanksgiving Day. At four thirty am, Sherry is
found in the middle of country Road seventeen and I
five in Yolo County, Yolo. You only live once.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
It's not the last one in apathetic order, though it's
not Yuma County, Yuma, it's a close one. It's a
close second.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It was near the Woodland area, about one hundred and
fifty miles south of where she first disappeared. She has
found bruised and emaciated, with bindings and a brand on
her shoulder that says Exodus. Her hair has also been cut.
Was Exodus, Well, it's a Bible.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Verse, I know, but like I don't know, Yeah, what
was the significance of that?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I don't know, not really anything, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Was it like a certain font or was it a
certain like style that means some type of cult?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
We would have to ask Sherry that did tattoo. I'd
be like, okay, whatever, But you said branded, it's different.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
It's branded. It was burned onto her.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, that's that's Sherry's story.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
She claims that she was captured by two Hispanic women
and a dark suv while on her run. They took
her to an unknown location, which she claims to have
been drugged during the car ride, so she didn't know
where she was. She said she was physically restrained, with
her wrists and ankles chained and a bag over her
head for the majority of the time. She said she
(13:38):
was beaten repeatedly, often just for fun, by one of
the women, who she referred to as the mean one.
She claims she was starved, losing a significant amount of weight,
reportedly fifteen to twenty pounds within a twenty two day
period that she was gone. She said her two captors
branded her on the right shoulder with a heated tool,
though she didn't know what the word act that is meant,
(14:01):
Apparently it is a reference to the Bible. She was
forced to use a small bucket as a latrine, and
she reported that one of the women appeared more sympathetic
and that her release was likely negotiated by her I
watched her interview when she was telling the police, and
she calls the two Hispanic women that she claims abducted her.
She says there was a big one and there was
a small one, and she said the big one was
(14:24):
the mean one, and the small one was more sympathetic
towards her recorded police interviews was Sherry Peppini, and the
hours after her return showed she was reluctant to speak
with investigators, claiming that her abductors told her she was
going to be trafficked to someone in law enforcement. Sheery
avoided doing media interviews after she had escaped. She even
(14:44):
avoided large.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Crad Did she escape or negotiate her release?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Well, what happened was they she was found dropped on
the side of the room.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I vaguely remember this in the news.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Now I'm starting, and someone picks her up and he
calls nine one one, and you can hear his nine
one one recording, and he calls her first, he calls
her Sherry Panini and then she says Peppini. So a
bystander on the highway finds her and calls police, and
she's like, has a chain wrapped around her waist and she.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Has She's not very good negotiator.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
She has u ties. What are those zip ties?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Cable ties?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Cable ties? Right, So she avoids doing me to interviews
after she's caught. There are several interviews that I watch
in the documentary where the police are recording her. They're
asking her questions about what happened, and I find her
so disingenuine and so unlikable. She talks about things that
don't make sense, Like she talks about how she texts
her husband to come home for lunch, but lunch really
(15:45):
means come home to have sex. I thought that was
just odd that these are things that she's telling investigators
when supposedly she's, you know, been kidnapped for twenty two
days and has been beaten, and she's just making jokes
about like sexual references with her husband. She says that
she needs to close her eyes when she talks. She
can't remember a lot of things anyway. I find her
(16:08):
difficult to believe. There was also a skinheads dot com
article amidst all of this, it was discovered that Sherry
had written a racist post against the Hispanic community on
a skinhead website under her maiden name Sherry Graf.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Prior to or after.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Prior to, the blog entry claims Peppini was persecuted by
Latinos at her high school for being of German descent
and that she was white and proud of her blood
and heritage. The post read, I totally agree with skinheads
that girls should not fight, they should stand by their men.
Being white is my family, my roots, my way of life.
It's always there. There's no denying it. It's nobility, its strength,
(16:50):
it will be there. To lift me up when I
really need my pride, when I need to keep walking.
When asked about this post, Sherry denies writing it and
claims someone impersonated her.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Why would someone in personate her and go on a
skinhead website? That's so random?
Speaker 1 (17:03):
It is random, But this is what happens when someone
is the type of person who repeatedly lies about everything.
On October twenty fifth, twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So you find these cases that are very that just
leave lots of questions.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I don't think there's lots of questions. I think that.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It's not going to be confusing. In this case, it
sounds like it's going to be very confusing because you
just said she's a liar. She's a liar, so well
is Shelsey.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
So Sherry Peppini asks the FBI, can you do a
sketch of the two women who abducted me? So she
describes them, and they do a sketch and they release
it to the media, and it's two Hispanic women, a
bigger one and a smaller one, and they both have
masks on because she claims that they covered their face
for the majority of the time.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
She's just like so she asked for criminal sketch artists. Yes,
and then she's like, oh, they wore masks, Yes, I
could have drawn that.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
So basically they do the sketches of these two Hispanic women.
They were basically just their eyes, their eyes and eyebrows.
They release it. The media releases it like this is
there's new developments in the Sherry Peppina case. The sketch
artist has, you know, made these sketches based upon, you know,
her detailed account of these two women that abducted her.
(18:20):
The day that the sketch artist releases the sketches to
the media is the same day that the FBI gets
back DNA testing from her clothing from when she was abducted,
and there's male DNA found in her underwear.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
And is it has it been excluded that it's not
her husband's or boyfriends or whoever it is.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
No, it's not it's not her that out Yeah, okay.
So in the years following Sherry's return, local investigators as
well as the FBI are very skeptical of her claims,
so they continue their search and investigation and to her
because if.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
She got beaten, there'd be some female DNA, you'd assume.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, but they don't find any female DNA. They only
find male DNA, not her husband, multiple males or no
one male?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
The DNA evidence did not match her story. Investigators found
male DNA on her clothing and belongings, despite her claim
that she was abducted by two women. The DNA did
not match her husband or any suspect until it was
later matched to her ex boyfriend James Rays.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Wait, how did they make that connection?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Though they did, I don't know. They ran it through
COTIS or whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It took a while in the system.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Well no or no, Maybe it wasn't codis. I don't know,
it says Familia familial dale.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Maybe the voluntarily.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
DNA. Well he, I'm sure he gave up his DNA, so.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
The lack of forensic evidence supporting the abduction. There were
no tire tracks, fingerprints of surveillance footage, or physical signs
of an abduction were found where she allegedly disappeared. And also,
I know the FBI investigator also made the claim that
they were very suspicious of her from the very beginning
because when they found the cell phone and the headphones
(20:04):
apparently like her ear plugs or whatever, they were were
wrapped up neatly and like laying on top of the
cell phone, and the cell phone was lying on the ground.
And then there were some blonde hairs that were kind
of stuck into the earbuds.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Like someone pulls up to kidnapp her, and she's like,
hold on one second, she rolls up her earbuds. Yes,
that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yes, So he finds her phone. He actually before he
picked up her phone, he took a picture of it.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
That's even weirder.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Why is that weirder?
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Took a picture of your phone when I found it?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I don't know. I guess because it was evidence and
he didn't want to pick it up unless he took
a photo of how it was sitting there.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So he takes photos and he might be in it.
We'll find out he's gone.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
He's not in it. Unusual branding. The forensic experts suggests
that exodus branding looked deliberate and controlled, not consistent with
the panicked act of violence. I guess, you know, I
understand that too. If they're trying to brand her and
she's like captive and all these things, wouldn't you be
(21:02):
moving around? I think it just was very neatly done.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
It looked like she just I don't know, being wrapped up.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yes, so they found on her penterress page that the
same wooden tools that were used to brand her back
were part of her pinteress page.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Did they check her Amazon account and she purchased like
a brand?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
She didn't purchase them. James ray As purchased them. Oh
really yes, and he had the receipt for it.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Wait, so why are we bothered at? Okay, so she
wanted to go away and get branded by her ex
boyfriend or whatever. What's the what's the issue?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Because she said to she said to Hispanic women abducted her.
The theory is or what what it comes down to
is that ray As is her ex boyfriend and she
was having and she calls an emotional affair with him.
They got burner phones and they were communicating. Then he
comes from he lives in Coasta, Mesa. He drives from
Coasta Mesa to reading anything emotion. She's trying to say
(22:03):
she didn't have sex with them.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah, well, so was it emotional DNA they found on
her underwear?
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yes, it was an emotional DNA on her underwear.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Very well, keep gone.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
So they finally figure out because they don't believe her story.
The two masks, the getting picked up on Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Where city they find her in the same city.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
No, they found her one hundred and fifty miles away.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, I thought, wasn't it down here in Coasta Mesa
or something.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
No, she was James Ray's lived in Coasta Mesa and
that's where she spent the twenty two days in Coasta Mesa.
Then he drove her, I don't know, one hundred like
towards Redding and then dropped her off on the side.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Of the enough emotions for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
When they on and zip ties she gets out of
the car. I think there's actually surveillance of her running
without the zip ties. And then when they and then
when the police come then find her, she's zip tied,
cable ties whatever they're called. And so basically what happens
was what they didn't believe her story from the beginning.
(23:04):
So they're investigating her the whole time, even though they're
not telling her they're investigating her. They just keep interviewing
her and interviewing the husband.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
And so she just divulges all this information while the.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Whole time the FBI is like, this is a bunch
of crap and they're investigating her without telling her. So
they find the DNA, they link it to James Ray
As the police go to Costa Mesa and they interview
him and you can see they don't show him on camera.
He clearly did not agree to show his imass or something. Yeah,
(23:35):
they show body cams and they show audio, I mean
not show, but you can hear audio, but they don't
show his face on camera.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Because he's just a witness at this point.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Well, and what he says is that she asked him
to come and pick her up because her husband's abusive
and she wants to get out of the marriage. So
in his eyes or the way he explains it is
he's just helping this girl out. So he comes and
he picks her Upie takes her to Coast to Mesa.
Then she stays for twenty two days in his house.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
He probably can't stand her.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I don't know, but he claims that all the physical things,
all the harm, the bruises, everything, it was self inflicted,
that she did it to herself, or that she directed
him to do it. I guess he was a hockey
player and she told him to hit her with a
hockey puck and he broke her.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Notes like she liked it or like to set up her.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
To set up her story. I guess that's how that's
how much.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Then he's a psycho too, because it's like, oh, let
me go help this woman. What do you need? Do
you need me to smack you in the face with
that hockey puck?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I agree. I don't understand for one second why this
James Rays guy goes along with this, Probably because.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
He initially tried to save her and help her, and
then you know, get emotional with her, and then they
come down to coast to Mesa, and then he realized
she's psycho. And then she says, well, let me let
me like complete the story and you have I have
been a so hit me in the face. And he's
like gladly because she's psycho. And then he tied her
up and dumped her off and he wants nothing to
(25:07):
do with her anymore.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, I mean I would say that, I would say
that's pretty much in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah, And if she was nice and pleasant, I don't
think he would hit her in the face with the
hockey puck.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
One he goes along with this story two. When they
interview him, he does not seem to be highly intelligent
at all. He seems very like.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Wasn't there receipts for a hotel too? Did they stay
in a hotel or his place?
Speaker 1 (25:31):
No, they stayed at his home. There was a receipt
for him buying the wood burning tools he had that.
He's like, look, here's a receipt told me to buy it.
And I think that they don't. The FBI doesn't give
you a lot of information in these interviews that they do.
They're very careful about their tools and tactics and behind
the scenes.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Well, that way, then she could say something that might
conflict with what they found, and then that would be
more suspicious.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Right. But I'm just saying, even when they talk about
it after the fact, even giving interviews after the fact,
they don't give away a lot of information about how
they knew James was manipulated by her. I know he passed,
you know, a lie detector test, but we'll talk later
about her because she takes one later. But I just
(26:16):
I don't I feel like he's almost so simple, like
he's not highly intelligent, that he just went along with
this crazy scheme, because who in their right mind, has
someone stayed with them for twenty two days when they
have a wife, when they have a husband and young children,
and then goes along with physically abusing them, and then
goes along with dumping them on the side of the road,
(26:38):
and doesn't think that that looks bad for them.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It really makes my life feel very boring. Yeah, you're like, yeah,
like you know, and he's probably less stressed than I
am in.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
His life, probably so. After they found James's DNA, this
was in August of twenty twenty, the FBI contacted and
questioned James Reyes at his home in Coasta, Mesa, And
let's just talk about what he told the investigators. He
says that Peppini had reached out to him. He confirmed
that he and Peppini had previously dated in the early
two thousands. They were in constant communication via burner phones.
(27:13):
Months before her disappearance, she'd tell him she needed to
escape her abusive marriage and start over. He agreed to
help her and picked her up in Reading, driving her
six hundred miles south to his apartment in Costa Mesa.
He claims she was never kidnapped. Rey said that Peppini
stayed willingly in his apartment for the entire twenty two
days that she was missing. He described her as staying
mostly inside doing household chores, watching TV, and exercising. He
(27:37):
claims she even watched the news coverage of her own disappearance.
Injuries were self inflicted or assisted by him. Reyes admitted
to helping her create some of the injuries, including holding
a hockey stick so she could run into it and
purposefully causing bruising. Branding her shoulder using a wood burning
tool was at her request, she says later in an interview,
(27:59):
to kind of to I don't know, get past the
wood burning thing, because you know, I told you this.
Wood burning tools were on her own pinterant page. The
way she explains it after the fact is she says, oh, well,
when he kidnapped me, we were having a conversation and
I was telling him about how I was making these
handcrafted Christmas cards with wood burning tools, and he was
(28:23):
so interested in it that he went out and bought
someone branded my you know, my shoulder. I mean, do
you really think she's in Costa Mesa with James Ray's
talking about how she makes Christmas cards for her kids.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
No, she's watching the coverage of her own.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Right. Security cameras show Peppini running through an empty parking
lot towards the highway on Thanksgiving morning. In the footage,
her hands are not tied together. She is running normally. However,
when a driver found her on the side of the road,
they were zip tied and she was wearing a chain
around her waist. She's like, don't forget to bring the
zip ties and chain. I'll just put him in a
I'll just I'll hang on to him and then right
(28:56):
before the police come, I'll just put them on myself.
I've always said ziptized. Are they not ziptized?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Sable?
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Okay, reyas cooperated fully with the FBI. He consented to
DNA collection, provided text messages, and allowed investigators to search
his apartment. He passed the polygraph test, and authorities confirmed
no chargers were filed against him as he had no
criminal intent and was considered a cooperating witness. All right,
so his account directly contradicted everything Peppini had told law
(29:26):
enforcement and investigators now had a motive, a means, and
the evidence, which was the DNA, the phone records, and
the injury creation and that she'd faked her own abduction.
The DOJ said Rey's cooperation was truthful, consistent, and corroborated
by physical evidence. So the FBI is slowly building their case.
From twenty twenty to twenty twenty two, investigators kept the
(29:49):
case quiet for nearly two years. We talked about that.
How they continue to talk to Pappinie, have interviews with her,
but obviously they don't give away any information that they're
investigating this as they kidnapping hoax.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
No let her say anything she wants.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Right, They confirm and consistency in her interviews. They track
how she spent one hundred thousand plus dollars of victim funds,
disability payments, and go fundme donations.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Some of those gounfund me things are people are way
too quick to just set them up and give people money,
and it's like there's probably a lot of scammers on there.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Well, she got disability because so she's taking disability. She
also received money from like a California victims fund. And
then also clearly the state or the city or whoever
pays for it, taxpayers pay for her for the search efforts.
So they build a case against her for mail fraud
(30:42):
which are the benefits that she received, and false statement,
which is lying to federal agents. On March third of
twenty twenty two, Sherry Peppini is arrested while tending her
children's music lessons. The charges against her are mail fraud
and making false statements to federal officers. The FBI released
a forty four page data outlining all her planning with
(31:02):
ray As, her false statements about the two Hispanic women,
and her misuse of victim compensation funds. On April eighteenth
of twenty twenty two, Sherry Peppini pleaded guilty to one
count of mail fraud and one count of making false statements.
Now I know they do an interview with her attorney
and she makes it like and when she talks about
the allegations against her, and when they arrest her, she
(31:25):
does this very woe is me. I don't even understand
what's going on. I don't even understand why I'm in jail.
I don't understand anything against me. And she talks about
how like someone else and jail with her had to
explain the charges to her because she didn't even understand
what was going on. I just felt like when she talks,
she does a very good job of doing this like
(31:46):
victim role. She's very good at that. Here's just something
else I want to talk about, because if you watch
a Perfect Wife or maybe even in the in her
recent interview, after she was married to Keith, I'm not
(32:08):
sure how long after, but she got caught texting other
men and she has a little history, well, she has
a history of what she calls always having these emotional affairs.
And I like how she calls them emotional affairs so
that she's never actually admitting that she has sex with
any of these other men. It's basically like Keith was
so terrible to her, and he was so awful, and
he wouldn't even talk to her, and he was controlling
(32:30):
and abusive and all these things that she claims that
she always had to have these emotional affairs with other men,
and she would save you know, these other guy's numbers
with like a female name, so she probably had like
Jane and you know, Laurie and all these people that
she was texting with, but they were men. Anyway, Keith
finds out that she's been having these you know, emotional
affairs as she calls them, with other men, and he
(32:51):
makes her sign a post nuptial agreement after they've been
married for a while.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
This is prior pre kidnapping.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
This is pre kidnapping. So I didn't read. I tried
to find the post nuptial agreement. They actually show it
a little bit on the four part series where she
does an interview.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
But do you have money or something?
Speaker 1 (33:10):
I don't think they have a lot of money. They
seem just very middle class to me. He's like an
audio visual specialist for Best Buy and she's a stay
at home mom. So basically, after he finds out that
she's having, you know, these emotional affairs and she's texting
other men, he makes her sign a post nuptial agreement.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Why does he just make her agree not to have
these emotional affairs like.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
A post non emotional affair agreement, So she signs this
post nuptial agreement. It's completely one sided. It's basically says
if she's caught, well.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
It's probably not even valid. I bet he just drafted
himself and said, here's sign this right, which you can't do.
Both sides need to have an attorney. Even if she
says I don't want an attorney, she kind of has
to have an attorney to make it valid.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Well, I actually read in a pre nuptial agreement both
people have to have representation, but for some reason, in
a post nuptial it doesn't say that you have to
have representation. It says that it can't be one sided
and it can't be unconscionable, but it recommends that you.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, so he should have made sure she had an
attorney so she can't later say what, I didn't know
what was going on.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Well, the thing that is interesting to me is that
they make a big deal about this post nuptial agreement,
about how one sided it was, and in my mind,
I'm thinking it wouldn't even be enforceable. Everybody's making it
like he forced her to sign it.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Whole scheme of things anyway.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Well, to me, I think the post nuptial agreement is
very important because I feel as if she wanted to
have an affair with James ray As, but the only
way she could have an affair is to make it
look like a kidnapping hoax so that the post nuptial
agreement wouldn't come into effect because basically he made her
sign a very one did.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
The post agreement steps then they do.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
With an affair, Yes, he made her sign it.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Basically, you can't do that stuff anyway. Sorry, you can't
do that stuff anyway. You can't be like, if you
cheat on me, you don't get this money.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
That's why I'm saying this nuptial agreement that he made
her sign was basically, if you cheat on me, if
you talk to other men, if you have affairs, you
get nothing, you get no money, you.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Leave, or if you stage a kidnapping.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, he forgot to add that part to.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
The emotional affairs. If there's any male DNA found on you.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
In your underwear, yes, so to me, I feel as
if the post nuptial agreement is very interesting because I
feel as if she created this whole kidnapping hoax in
order to have an affair with her ex boyfriend, and
if she did get caught, then she just blames it
(35:45):
on a kidnapping hoax so that she's not actually having
an affair with her ex boyfriend, so that the post
nuptial agreement doesn't come into effect and he gets to
take the kids and all the money and everything, even though,
let's be honest, this post nuptial agreement wouldn't be valid anyway, passable.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
It's one sided her it's valid.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Right, but she clearly thinks it's valid.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
But you're just guessing all this.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
I'm just putting.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
I'm just putting your theory.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
My theory is that she she.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Signed the agreement and then she tried to abide.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
By it, and then she tried to abide by it
by thinking, I want to have an affair with my
ex emotion my boyfriend, an emotional affair, and I'm going
to do it. However, I can't get caught having an affair,
so I have to make it look like a kidnapping.
So there you go. That's just my my thoughts on.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
That her commitment to having affairs is right.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yes, it is right.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
I remember when they do the four part interview where
she speaks up and she now claims that it was
a kidnapping. So that's where we're at now, current like
present day.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Well, so she still admits it's that or she still
sticks to the story that's a kidnapping.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
No, So she was arrested and for the kidnapping, she
signs a plea agreement with very specific language basically saying
that she planned a hoax, that it was a fake kidnapping.
She signs it, and then she's sentenced to I believe,
two years in prison. She's released from prison. Now that
(37:16):
she's released from prison, here we are in present day
and now she's doing interviews and she's saying, you know what,
it wasn't a kidnapping hoax. I was abducted. So that's
where we're at today. She's now recanting, well, what's the matter.
You already served your time, lady. I don't know, but
she claims she's married to this guy.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Still.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
No, he filed for divorce after she was the I
don't know. They don't they They do an interview with
her family law attorney, which is entertaining. She's very entertaining.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Does she have access to those kids? I wouldn't want
her to have accesses?
Speaker 1 (37:55):
No, currently she does.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Without supervised visitation.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
So she's fighting for that's a saying because that's where
we're at currently is she's now recanting the kidnapping hoax
and saying that she was abducted by James. She's claiming
that she lied about it because I guess because she
was scared of him, or she didn't want her husband
to know she was having an affair so she made
up the two Hispanic women. She doesn't want her husband
(38:18):
or anyone to know that she was with James, so
she claims she was abducted by two Hispanic women. Then
when they found when the FBI says we know it
was James because his DNA is in your underwear and
we've interviewed him, then she says, oh, well, I said
it was James's mom, and I described James's mom, so
it would lead you to James without me actually saying
it was James. And now that she's out of prison,
(38:40):
she's saying it wasn't a kidnapping hoax, it really was James.
But then I found the FBI investigator said, which I
found funny. He goes, he said, well, James Ray's his
mom was Irish or something like that, Like she wasn't
Hispanic anyway. Yeah, she wasn't Hispanic anyway. And she wasn't
and she wasn't Hispanic.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Why are they even entertaining whatever she has is saying anyway?
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Now, yeah, you know that's maybe.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
The public because she's speaking about it and it's interesting,
but like, why is law enforcement bothering with her? They
shouldn't be, Well, they're not.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Now she's been released from prison and they're not. But
here's the thing. Now she's doing all these interviews. So
now she did this interview with Investigation Discovery. They made
a four part series about her. She went on Nick Vile,
the Vile Files, and she's doubling down on them. Believe
her story that it was a real abduction.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
So let's we get her on here and we call
her out.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
You want to get Sherry Pepina. Can we make that happen.
Let's make Scherry call her out. I would love for
you to do an interview with Shane Simpson.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Oh so many holes in her story. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
So Sherry pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud,
one count of making false statements, and she was sentenced
to eighteen okay, it was eighteen months in prison and
agreed to pay three hundred and nine thousand, six hundred
and eighty six dollars and thirty three cents in a restitution.
This was the breakdown. She took thirty thousand, six hundred
ninety four dollars from the California Victim Compensation Board. She
(40:09):
took one hundred and twenty seven thousand, seven hundred and
eighty three dollars from the Social Security Administration for benefits,
one hundred and forty eight thousand to the Shasta County
Sheriff's office for the cost of investigating the case, and
twenty five hundred and fifty eight dollars to the FBI
for the government sentencing or to the FBI for their
role in it doesn't seem like a lot. Twenty five
(40:30):
hundred dollars to the FBI, I don't know, but anyway,
that's where they got the breakdown of what her restitution was,
which was a total.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Sharyot money like that without I mean, she was able
to bamboozle them and get all that money. Well, she got.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Money from the California Victim Compensation, then she got money
from the Social Security Administration offices for benefits because she
said she.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Was disabled, just to hand out six figures like that.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
So Sherry Peppini is released from prison after serving about
eleven months in a federal facility. She was released to
a residential re entry center then placed on supervised probation.
So what has she been doing from twenty twenty three
to currently? She lost custody of her two children and
(41:17):
who now live with her ex husband Keith. She began
telling a revised version of the story, claiming Reya psychologically
manipulated her and that she was trapped in twenty twenty
four to twenty twenty five. Her new claims were featured
in Perfect Wife, which I told you guys to watch,
and Caught in the Lie which is the new one
on HBO, which is her most recent interview. And then
(41:38):
I guess she has a self published memoir Sherry Peppini
doesn't exist. And then she did the Vile Files podcast,
so that's where she's out speaking now. Also, this was
another thing that was in this new documentary is she
takes a polygraph and I thought for sure that she
(41:59):
was going to fail this polygraph.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Because clearly asked her.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
So Sharry and James both took polygraphs and both passed,
despite their stories contradicting one another.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Enough for me, what did they ask or know?
Speaker 1 (42:14):
I do? I do know the questions that she passed.
I'll tell you first of all, she failed some of
the questions, and she passed some of the questions. The
ones that she passed, though, were the ones that were
the most important because they go to the heart of
this story that she's now telling. So among the questions
she was asked while at james house in twenty sixteen,
were you free to leave at any time without fear
(42:36):
of violence? And did you ask James to brand you?
She answered no to both of those questions and she
passed them. Also, I don't know, maybe that's a too
too much compound in sent Yeah, that's.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
What I'm saying. It matters what they asked.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Were you free to leave at any time without fear
of violence? I don't know, I mean maybe that's just
too convoluted instead of just asking were you free to leave? Right?
You know, Like, I think they made the questions too complicated. Also,
I was also thinking that maybe she passed because there's
been a long period of time since the kidnapping to
when she took this lie detector test.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
And who administered light test? Like who who was it
that set it up? Did she just do it on
her own?
Speaker 1 (43:19):
She did it through this new interview, this interview that
she did, so I don't know because she did it
on camera.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
What was the second question you referenced, did you ask.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
James to brand you? Which is very straightforward? She said
no and she passed that maybe she didn't ask him,
Maybe she just gave him the branding tools.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
I'm saying how they asked her, there should be follow
up questions. There may very well have been.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yeah, there were other questions that she was asked that
she did not pass.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Do polygraph questions are they only? Are they mostly yes?
Speaker 1 (43:47):
No?
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Questions? Well I don't or like factual like a date
or something, or can it be how did you get
the branding?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I think you're supposed to make the questions as simplistic
as possible with with yes no answers, because what the
what what it's reading is a physical response. But my
thought was this kidnapping happened in twenty sixteen. Here she
is in twenty twenty five taking a lie detector test.
Does the passage of time make a difference on a
physical response? Maybe she's told this story so many times
(44:18):
at this point.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
But you know what, even if she's even those questions
are accurately answered, it doesn't It doesn't help with anything.
It's a mess. Was she wasn't she under what her?
I mean, it doesn't make any sense. Right, It's still
a mess. Right, doesn't solve the case.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I don't think there's any solving it. I think what
it comes down to is I think she's a known
liar and narcissist and sociopath. I think that she she
The fact that they had burner phones and they were
communicating she and James, Well, it's.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Anyone that says they're having any emotional fair right there,
they're lying.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
And the fact that she's returned on Thanksgiving Day, she
didn't pick her kids up from daycare that day. I mean,
I don't know. To me, it just seems like it
was concocted by her. It was her way of having
an affair without her husband knowing that she was having
an affair. It was an elaborate scheme. I think she
lies a lot. I think she's a master at lying.
(45:17):
Her interview, there were several parts of her interview that
really bothered me. In this newest interview that she did,
there was one part where she looks directly at the
camera when she's talking to the producer, because the producer
says something like why did you lie? And she looks
right at the camera and she goes, haven't you lied?
Haven't you lied? Have you ever in your life lied?
And I remember sitting there looking at her and thinking, yeah,
(45:39):
I'm sure all of us a little bit, like I'll
tell Annabel that, you know, we don't have any cookies left.
I remember telling the boys that McDonald's was closed, Like.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
You come home and I say where were you? And
I'm like, oh, I was kidnapped. This guy was having
the emotional affair with right.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I just I thought, Wow, the nerve of this woman
to look directly in the camera at us out here,
at the audience and say, haven't you ever lied?
Speaker 2 (46:03):
The answer is yes, she did. That's what she's saying.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Well, yeah, exactly, Well she's saying she lied about the kidnapping.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
I don't know, so, you know, of all things, what
gets to me is I wake up worried, stressed about
my day. Bill's getting paid this net and these people
live just one day at a time.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
They live one one kidnapping hopes at a time. Yeah,
one whe detector test.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
That got, I know, yeah, she got. She probably has
way less stress than I do.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Probably. Scherry claims that James passed the lie detector test
because he's a sociopath, not her.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah, it's not her.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
She's not the sociopath. It's James. He's a sociopath. Keith
Peppini claims that his daughter Violet and said Sherry would
force her children to inhale cotton swabs drenched and rubbing
alcohol when they were sick to make them even more sick.
Sherry denies this, claiming she gave her children essential oils
when they were sick because they were allergic to vis
That was one of the things he said in the documentary.
(47:03):
If you watch The Perfect Wife, at the very end,
he talks about how his children said that she would
so like cotton balls and alcohol and then tie it
around their neck. I don't know if there's any truth
to that. I have no idea. It doesn't make any
sense that you would tie anything around a child's neck.
I don't care if it's essential oils or if it's alcohol.
It all seems very odd to me. Sherry's therapist, family lawyer,
(47:26):
and sister in law whose name is Suzanne, that's Key's
biological sister, all believe her story. First of all, when
you talk about let me just say this, if you
guys watch the four part documentary of her recent interview,
they do interview her therapist. Her therapist annoys me. He
believes everything this woman says.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
He it's a male and you're willing. No, I don't
like him. Why did you just call him entertaining?
Speaker 1 (47:49):
No, I don't like him. I don't like him at all,
because this is what I think. I think so many
people find a therapist that they yes therapist, someone that
they can manipulate, that they can just tell all their
their side of the story, and then the therapist is like,
those people are wrong, They shouldn't treat you like that.
You're right. Do you really get anything out of therapy
(48:10):
if you just find someone that just goes along with
everything that you're saying and they can't discern between delusion
and fact and lies. And I don't know, I just
didn't like the therapist. I felt that like the therapist
just enabled her by saying that, you know, he believes
everything she said. And the reason she lies is because
she has trauma. And when you have a lot of trauma,
you just lie about things because you can't really remember
(48:32):
what happened anyway, because there was trauma. I don't know.
In Sheery's HBO docuseries, this is the most recent one,
her mother, who was supposedly on her side, explicitly said
the incident was not a kidnapping. Sherry writes this off
as her mother being confused, and also the editing twisting
things around. I love when people blame the editing. That
happens on Housewives too. Everyone for their bad behavior always
(48:55):
likes to blame the editing. I like when people like
after an episode comes out and everyone's liked, it was me,
it was that iting. Keith Peppini still retains custody of
their two children. Sherry has allowed one supervised visit per month,
lasting about one hour. She's allowed weekly calls with the
children at Keith's discretion. However, Sherry claims she's only seen
her children three times since being out of prison. Also,
(49:18):
there's another thing in her this most recent docuseries, she
records herself having a phone call with her children. I
guess she gets to talk to them on Sundays. So
she sets up the camera and she records herself having
a conversation with her kids. She's so dramatic. She she's
overly like, oh baby, tell me more. Oh my gosh,
(49:40):
I tell me so much. Yes. Then she hangs up
with her children, and then she screams and is like
grabbing her head and she's all dramatic, and she's sobbing
and sobbing well right that she gets the one weekly
phone call with them, And I'm just so I am
(50:01):
so turned off by people who set up a phone
to record themselves and then record themselves having this over
the top, dramatic, ridiculous, you know response. And then they
give it to the producers and they're like, here, here, here,
here's what happens here, Please show this. This is what happens.
(50:21):
You know when I only get a weekly call with
my children, you know, I cry and scream and I
act dramatic.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
I know there's people to do that. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
And then there's also another scene where I guess Keith
comes over to where she's living and he wants her
to sign custody of the children over, and she secretly
records him. So she has the phone, she like puts
it under the bed, she records him, and then they
play this audio and I'm thinking, if you're trying to
make this guy look bad, I actually agree with him.
(50:50):
He goes over and he's like, let's just do this
the easy way without having to pay attorneys and things
like why don't you just sign the kids over to me,
this is when she's going to prison. She signed a
plea deal. She's going to prison, and she records it
as if she's catching him, you know, being mean and
being abusive to her. But let's be honest, she knows
that she's recording the conversation, so she's very calm and
she says everything correctly, and all it does is catch
(51:12):
him saying that that she can do this the easy
way or the hard way. She can either sign over
custody of the kids or they can fight for custody,
and she's going to federal prison. So again, I felt
like that was a manipulation tactic of her trying to
make this guy look bad and controlling and abusive and
all these things. But anyway, I just found her behavior
to be the manipulative behavior. But anyway, all right, are
(51:35):
we gonna talk about her more?
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Is she like, well, I don't.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
I mean, I don't know. It depends on if she
has any she has more docuseries explain in trying to
say that she it now was a kidnapping hoax. I
don't know. I mean, who knows. This woman's all over
the place. I don't trust anything that she says, and
I do believe the kids are safer with their father.
At least I feel like they have some stability with him.
(51:59):
And I do know that she has a current family
law case where she is trying to get more custody.
I mean, you can see what happens with that.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
But she'll get some visitation and then they'll be aged
out and then they'll be into that.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
Anyway, we did our best to try to fit that
story into an hour. It's very complex. There's a lot
of other things that happen. I would suggest if you
find Cherry Peppini's case interesting, to go back and watch
A Perfect Wife on Hulu and then watch her four
part recent series it's on Max. So thank you for
listening to our Sherry Peppini case.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Yeah, thank you, Sherry Peppinia to get for giving us
something to talk about. And you are a nut. Just
good luck with your life like it is, Shane.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
Thanks guys,
Hosts And Creators
Teddi Mellencamp
Tamra Judge
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