When I spoke with Keith Papini in June of 2024, the last thing he wanted to talk about was his kids. His then-wife, Sherri Papini, had famously disap
When I spoke with Keith Papini in June of 2024, the last thing he wanted to talk about was his kids. His then-wife, Sherri Papini, had famously disappeared during a 2016 jog, then flagged down a passing driver three weeks later, claiming she’d been kidnapped. None of it was true, Keith discovered years later. The mom of two had spent those lost weeks at her ex-boyfriend’s home, then spun a false abduction tale—complete with self-inflicted injuries—after the fact.
When her story unraveled in 2022, Sherri was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for making false statements to FBI agents (among other charges), catapulting the twisty and shocking case back into the spotlight. By the time Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini, a true crime docuseries based on the case, dropped on Hulu last year, it was clear that Keith had weighed the impact his family’s participation in the show might have on his kids. Ultimately, he said, “I wanted to let the community and my friends and family members know that we’re doing great, the kids are thriving.”
But in a court appearance Friday, Sherri argued that the series had the opposite effect. “For eight years, our family has been followed, stalked, harassed, and bullied by the media,” a court filing reported on by KRCR reads. “I have done my best to stay private to focus on my children and healing from the events that transpired. For many years after my arrest, I was the primary caregiver of our children before serving my time in prison. My children have always been my primary focus.”
Keith filed for divorce from Sherri in 2022, and by the fall of 2023, she had been released from prison. Custody proceedings began soon after that, with Keith requesting full legal and physical custody. While footage in the series depicts the effect Sherri’s disappearance and subsequent claims of trauma related to the hoax event had on their kids, Keith declined to speak with me on the matter, citing the ongoing court discussions.
“They know they’re certainly not going to watch the documentary, as I don’t think they’re age-appropriate yet,” Papini told me at the time. “They are just amazing kids. And my goal right now is just make sure they have a happy and healthy life.”
But in the Shasta County Superior Court filing, Sherri says Keith’s participation in the Hulu series amounts to “revisiting the past and reopening old wounds rather than focusing on moving forward—at the expense of our children.” She asked for an official court decision to block the children from watching Perfect Wife, KRCR reports.
It’s unclear if the bombshell revelation in the final few minutes of Perfect Wife came up in Friday’s hearing. In an interview shown in the series, Keith says that he discovered years after the hoax that “Sherri would soak rags of alcohol and put it in a Ziploc bag and … Would tie a string around their neck onto the Ziploc bag so that the fumes would … make them not feel good, so that she could take them to the doctor.”
Keith declined to discuss those claims during our 2024 interview. According to Perfect Wife director Michael Beach Nichols, Keith “had never had any suspicions of any kind of behavior like this until she was no longer in the house,” and said that “it really is a story that the children told Keith,” but that “There’s no reason not to think that that didn’t happen.” Sherri has never faced charges related to those allegations.
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