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Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Now, most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yes, I know you are. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you are not in some kind of moving vehicle, there is something else you can be doing right now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.
It's easy and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what.
Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. Hey, True Crime Besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly.
Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new bonus episode of Serialistly. It's me, Annie, your true crime bestie, here to talk all things true crime with you. Now, the reason why I had to jump on here and drop this bonus episode outside of the normal release schedule is because I need to talk to you about this case.
It is so wild. There is so much to talk about, so we got to get right into it. Before we do, please take a quick second, just make sure that you are following along on the podcast so that you don't miss any future episodes and bonus episodes like these that drop, and also follow along on the Serialistly Facebook page where we drop episodes
All information regarding giveaways, behind the scenes information, guest episodes, Q&As, all sorts of good stuff. All right, now let's get into today's case.
Let me just break it down for you guys. Let me break down what we are going to be talking about today because it is truly a, I was looking for my red flag here, it is truly a crazy case. And you guys know this case, but when I went in and did a deep dive on this case, the details
like within it that are embedded into this case are truly just unbelievable. So although there are other videos out there already on this case, I felt like I needed to do my own because there was just so much information that people were not talking about and so many details that people were not sharing that makes this case even all the more bizarre. So again, you guys may have already heard about this case. I'm sure you did.
But it's the case of Sherry Papini. And Sherry Papini was known as Supermom to everybody who knew her. She was a stay-at-home mom. She had her two kids, Tyler, who was four years old, and Violet, who was two. And the family lived in Mountain Gate, California. And Mountain Gate is like right outside of Redding in Shasta County, and it has a very extremely small population. I think it's even less than like a thousand people. Very, very tight-knit community.
So Sherry went missing back in November of 2016. And when she went missing, this tight-knit community was in complete panic. This young mother, 34 years old, missing her four-year-old, her two-year-old at home. I mean, just horrible. So where could this supermom have been? How could she just go missing without a trace? But was she really missing? Or was this a bootleg version of Gone Girl?
And the twists and the reasoning in this case are truly unlike anything that I have ever heard. And if you know about this case, you know probably a little bit of why. So let's jump right in to this twisted case.
November 2nd, 2016 started like any other morning for the Papini family. Sherry was up to get the kids ready for daycare and her husband Keith was on his way to work. Keith worked as a home theater specialist and he really was the family breadwinner. Sherry was just 34 years old and seemed to have a dream life. She had two beautiful kids, a hardworking husband, a beautiful home. What more could any woman ask for?
At 10:37 AM, Sherry texted Keith asking if he would be home for lunch. But she wasn't just asking if he was going to be home for lunch because allegedly the text she sent said something along the lines of, "Honey, would you please come home to have sex with your wife for lunch?" Almost like a little afternoon delight of sorts.
And he didn't reply until later, and when he did reply, he said he wasn't able to make it home for lunch, so that plan was off the table. Meanwhile, Sherry had decided that she was going to take a jog sometime between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m., and Sherry was training for an upcoming Thanksgiving run, so it wasn't out of the ordinary for her to go on a run or go on a long jog of sorts. So when Keith got home that night, he figured it would be like every other night and that the kids would come running excited to see him as usual.
But when he walked into his house, it was an empty house, and his kids and his wife were nowhere to be found. So he decided that he was going to go and look for his family. He looks through the house, doesn't find anyone, so then he decides to check Sherry's Find My Phone app. And Sherry's phone showed that it was about a mile away, so he decided to take her car and drive to that location and see if Sherry and the kids were there. But when he got down there, Sherry and the kids were not there.
So he becomes frantic and he decided he was going to start making calls to see if anyone had either heard from his family or knew where his family was. So he calls his mom and his mom says that she hasn't talked to Sherry. And then he calls the daycare and daycare teachers and daycare systems in general usually have a log of what time kids come in and out. It's usually done electronically. Sometimes it's done on paper, but that would help establish any sort of timeline. So Keith calls the daycare.
But then the daycare teacher says that his kids were still there and that they had not been picked up.
And this made Keith panic because he knew that Sherry would never have just left her kids there and missed picking them up unless something horrible had happened to her. If you have an iPhone, you are probably familiar with the Find My Phone app. If you can't find your phone, it also shows you the location, but also you can set an alarm on the phone so that it'll start beeping and help you find it.
So Keith was already searching hard for Sherry at her last known location on the Find My iPhone all around town, but he also was going to use that alarm to help him identify her and find her phone even faster. So he found her road in that location on the side of the road, and her earbuds were wrapped around her phone with strands of hair on the wires.
And in that moment, that's when Keith knew that Sherry had been abducted because her phone was just laying there, her earbuds from running were laying and wrapped around the phone. This was not an accidental situation here. So Keith jumps into action and he snaps a couple photos of this phone on the ground before he calls 911 at approximately 5:50 p.m. 911, what is your emergency? CHP transferring. Keith is on the line.
Hello, can I help you? Yeah, so I just got home from work, and my wife wasn't there, which is unusual, and my kids should have been there by now from, like, daycare. So I was like, oh, maybe she went on a walk. I couldn't find her, so I called the daycare to see what time she picked up the kids. The kids were never picked up.
up. So I got freaked out so I hit like the find my iPhone app thing and it said that her, it showed her phone like at our end of our driveway. We don't have really good service. Okay. Not the end of our driveway but the end of our street. So I just drove down there and I saw her phone with her headphones because she started running again and it, I found her phone and it's got like hair ripped out of it like in the headphones. So I'm like totally freaking out thinking like somebody like grabbed her. Okay, what's your address? Redding. Okay, what's your last name? Yes.
Papini, P-A-P-I-N-I. And your first name? Keith. K-E-I-P-H? Yes. Okay. Did you go pick up your children? No, I'm going to call my mom and have her do it. Okay. What's your wife's name? I'm going to, like, knock on every door. Sherry, S-H-E-R-R-I. And same last name? Yes. She white female? Yes. What's her date of birth?
It is June 11, 1982. Is her vehicle there? Does she not have a vehicle? She has a vehicle. It's at the house. Okay, the vehicle is at the house? She's running. Okay. Yes, I'm in it right now driving, and I took a picture of her phone on the ground before I picked it up. Okay, how tall is she? 5'3", 5'4". How much does she weigh? 100 pounds. Eye color?
Uh, like a bluish blue. Okay, hair color? Blonde. Do you know what she was wearing? Is there something she always wears? I'm assuming she went running, so probably wearing athletic type clothes. Okay, there's not an outfit she always wears or anything like that. Does she run with a dog or by herself? By herself. Okay, at what time were the kids... She just started running again, and we live in a... When's the last time you heard from her?
She sent me a text asking me if I was coming home for lunch. What time was that? Give me one second. She sent me a text at 10:47 asking me if I was coming home for lunch from work. And I said, "Sorry, long day." And that was the last... I never spoke to her on the phone or any other contact. Okay, and what time are the kids supposed to be picked up? Way before 5:30, she usually goes at like 4:45. 4:30, 4:45.
Okay, are you headed back to the house or where are you at right now? I'm at the end of the driveway where, uh, I'm at the Old Oregon Trail and Sunrise where they meet, 'cause that's right where I found her phone on the ground.
telling me that something happened to her, is the way I'm looking at it. There's like, then there was hair, like, in the headphones. Like, it got ripped off, like, it grabbed me. Yeah, no, I understand, I understand. Okay, I'm sorry. I know you're trying to keep me calm, but obviously... What kind of vehicle are you in? I'm in a black Kia Optima. Oh, my God. Okay.
And I live, I mean, we live down kind of a sketchy street, so I definitely, I don't know if I'm allowed to knock on everybody's door, but I will if I'm allowed to do that. Well, let's just have the officers contact you so they can start, you know, processing everything, figure out what's going on, okay? And I understand you're freaking out a little bit. We want to make sure we get your kids, make sure they're okay. Yeah, I'm going to call my mom and have her go down to that place.
Yes. Do you want me to wait right here for somebody? If you want to head back to your residence so they can contact you there and in case she does return. Okay. Okay. We'll have them contact you at your residence. Call us back if anything changes, all right? All right. So they're going to call the number you just took down? They'll probably call you when they're on their way and they're going to come out in person. Okay. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Okay, bye. Bye-bye.
Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Now, most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yes, I know you are. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you are not in some kind of moving vehicle, there is something else you can be doing right now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.
It's easy, and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what.
Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. An official message from Medicare.
A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. Maybe you can save too. With Medicare's Extra Help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov slash extra help. Paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
He called his mom to go pick up the kids from daycare while the police started gathering as much information as possible and began searching for Sherry. It wasn't long before the news was actually broadcasting about Sherry being missing. And as I mentioned earlier, the community was very small, so the community rallied together and teamed up to bring Sherry home safely, trying to really just come together again, a very tight-knit community.
As part of the investigation, Keith showed the police where he found her phone, which is about two feet off the road. And the police, of course, took the phone as evidence and began analyzing it for potential information. They then went to the family home to search and see if they could uncover any more leads or evidence.
and Asheri's purse and jewelry were still at the house. Now, obviously, it would be extremely odd to take a purse on a run with you, so that made sense. But the reason that they checked for it was more so even to see if her belongings were still inside. For example, if her ID was missing or her wallet was missing, it would more than likely mean that she left of her own free will because she needed money with her, brought her ID with her, but everything was left behind.
So the police also talked with Keith further to make sure that he really had no involvement because at first they weren't entirely convinced. It sounded like the two of them though had a pretty fairytale relationship. They had known each other since childhood. They had shared their first kiss together in middle school. Years later, they ended up reconnecting, really just like a fairytale story. Keith had even kept all of the notes that they had written back and forth during that period that they were in middle school together.
So the two of them reconnected and they got married in 2009. And this was Sherry's second marriage. The house that they ended up moving into was a house that Keith actually grew up in. And the two of them did have occasional arguments like most, and I will say most, but all married couples do. And their most recent argument was just a few weeks prior. And it stemmed over a messy room in the house. But by all accounts, again, a normal relationship and normal relationship arguments.
He did tell law enforcement that Sherry did know how to push his buttons and that she could also get loud when she got upset, apparently. But he says that there was nothing currently going on between the two of them that would have anything to do with her disappearance, whether it was of her own free will or him being guilty and involved somehow.
Throughout the first night, the area in which Sherry went missing was thoroughly searched. A helicopter was used, canine dogs were brought in, and many volunteers from the community were out searching. Nobody was going to let this go, and everyone was going to do everything that they could to find her. The next morning, the sheriff ended up doing a press conference related to the disappearance, and he made it known that they were worried about the details of her disappearance.
So signs went up around the community to bring light to Sherry and bring light to her disappearance. Then on November 7th, five days after Sherry went missing, with the community still really searching and this case gaining more and more attention each hour, Keith did an interview begging whoever had Sherry to bring her home. And his sister and Sherry's sister also did an interview.
This case was startling everyone. So people were actually even teaching each other and other people how to remain safe when they are out alone, as Sherry was when she was suspected to have been abducted. The husband of the beautiful mother of two who vanished during an afternoon jog is speaking out. Bring her home. Bring her home. Just bring her home.
Bring her home safe. There's a $50,000 reward. Bring her home. 34-year-old Sherry Papini disappeared on a remote trail near her home in Redding, California. Her husband used the Find My Phone app to trace her cell phone, which was found on the jogging trail. Her sister and sister-in-law say Sherry is a supermom. We call her Supermom.
She's an amazing, beautiful light of a person. Jogging is a popular sport, but it can be dangerous, especially if you're out there alone. But there are things you can do to protect yourself. Security expert Steve Cardian showed me how to fight off an attacker. Somebody comes out from behind and grabs you from around this way. Bump your hips back, throw your arms up. Good. Now swivel. Look where you're going to strike. Hand up.
And strike, strike, strike, once I'm disabled, turn, spray, boom. That butt thrust should knock the guy's wind out of him and the spray, of course, is pepper spray. Steve, what about if I'm worried that the guy's bigger than me? I won't be able to do this. Remember, all you wanna do is injure him enough so that you can get away. And there's safety in numbers. Experts say women should jog in pairs.
Now, Keith Papini says he hopes his missing wife can hear his message. I'm coming, honey. I'm trying. I'm doing everything I can. And I love you.
As investigators started really digging into Sherry's past more, more information started coming out. And her phone analysis also came back, showing that she had recently talked with two men. One of them was a man from Michigan. The two apparently had met back in 2011 while Sherry was on a work trip and they spent the weekend together. The context of that weekend, we don't know.
And although they didn't know each other very well and they never saw each other, they did exchange flirty text messages back and forth for years. And the two had also exchanged text messages about potentially meeting up in Reading on this man's work trip because he was in San Francisco from October 28th to November 2nd, the day that Sherry went missing.
So investigators flew to Michigan to interview him because they wanted to make sure that Sherry wasn't with him and they wanted to rule him out as a suspect.
and Sherry was indeed not with him. And as it turns out, they hadn't even met up while he was in California on that work trip as they had planned. So the second man that investigators talked to apparently was Sherry's ex-boyfriend. And Sherry and this man had known each other from the Friday Night Youth program, and this program is a county-run youth program that is all about promoting a healthy lifestyle without the use of alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.
But what was interesting is the X started to shed a lot of light on Sherry.
And the ex said that Sherry often made up stories about being abused as a child at the hands of her father, and that apparently when the two of them broke up, she made up the same allegations about him against her. Now obviously, these abuse stories set off red flags right away to investigators, and investigators, leaving no stones unturned, interviewed the director of that program that Sherry had met her ex-boyfriend at and that they were a part of together.
And the director confirmed the account of the ex-boyfriend and even mentioned that Sherry was the only person in that program that they were ever worried about. Now this was odd because the director says that Sherry was good at creating different realities for people so that they would see what she wanted them to see.
which got her really good attention. And in this interview, it sounds almost like the director genuinely feared for the program's reputation with her being in it, which is just never a good thing. Former friends and current friends were also interviewed, and the ones who grew up with Sherry described her crazy teenage years being full of partying and even running away from home multiple times. One time, she even ran all the way to Southern California.
And yet again, more people confirmed the lies that she told to people about being abused. But her current friends and her family maintained that she was this supermom persona who was a great person, a great wife, loved her children beyond anything. So who were these two very different women?
Investigators stopped their physical search, but they continued behind the scenes in this investigation trying to figure out anything they could, although they were very leery about who Sherry really was as a person because all of this new information had been surfacing.
So they held another press conference on November 10th. And in that press conference, the sheriff kind of seems a little bit hesitant. Meanwhile, Keith continued to stand by his wife and he really vowed to bring her home safely, saying that he just knew that she had been kidnapped. We're not saying it is an abduction. We're not saying it is not. Could it be a voluntary disappearance? Could it be an involuntary? We don't know at this time. I know she was taken. My family knows she was taken.
but you're obviously not going to come out and say that abduction because you don't have the evidence. And that was a little rough for me to hear, but she had been missing now for a while by that point. And though his kids were young kids know when something in the home is off.
So Keith decided to talk to his four-year-old son and tell him what was going on. And Keith described that moment that he had to tell his son about his mother being missing in an interview that he gave later. And this, as a parent, would absolutely break my heart to have to tell my child something like this. There are not many more awful things than telling a child that their mother is missing, especially when you don't know if or when she will be coming home.
I told him I had something important to tell him and he jumped up on the couch with me and he knew something was up and he said, dad, you can tell me anything. For a little four-year-old to say that, I wasn't prepared for that. So I just said, son, you know, mommy went running and she didn't come home and we're all looking for her right now. We just held each other and
And I said, he said, are you looking for it? I said, everybody in the whole world is looking for it right now. And I said, we're going to find her and we're going to get her back. Keith had no idea whether that was a promise he could keep. Sherry may be gone, but her picture is everywhere. One day, Keith sees their son with the innocence of a four-year-old standing in front of one of those posters. He was just standing there and he had his left hand on her face.
He was just staring at her and he was just sitting there, you know, tears in his eyes with his hand on her face. On November 11th, Keith was cleared and was declared as not a suspect by the sheriff. He had cooperated on every single aspect of the investigation by handing over everything and anything that investigators wanted. He continued to speak with them and he even gave a polygraph test, which he passed with flying colors.
His emotion in his interviews was also so clear to the public that he deeply cared about Sherry and the well-being of her and his family. Sherry's family also said that they knew that Keith was not involved in any of this. And as we all know, in most cases where a spouse goes missing, if the family speaks up and says that the spouse is involved, that typically means that the spouse is probably involved to some degree.
But Sherry's family was beyond adamant that Keith had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance. As luck would have it, the investigators were able to get in contact with Sherry's ex-husband. His name is David Dreyfus, and investigators interviewed him on November 14th. This was 12 days after Sherry went missing. So the two of them married back in 2006 and got divorced just a year later in 2007.
But it wasn't a love story. They initially wed because Sherry reportedly needed health insurance due to having multiple complications from constant egg donations and egg retrievals. And we're going to talk more on that in just a second here. So at the time, David was in the military and he got decent insurance. And he deployed shortly after they got married. And when he returned in 2007, Sherry told him that she wanted a divorce because there was another man that she was in love with.
and it's believed that the man she was referring to is her now husband Keith. So David, of course, did not object to the divorce because the two of them hadn't even really spent any time together. They never actually even lived together, as a matter of fact. But Sherry's mom Loretta said that the two of them had traveled the world together, and David disputed that, saying the only time that they ever traveled together was when Sherry visited him during his deployment in Japan.
So considering all of her lies about her childhood and the alleged abuse that took place, which she also told David about, it would also make sense that she lied to her mom about this, you know, worldwide travel and love story that they had. She just seems like a liar and an attention seeker. And in regards to the egg donations,
were these egg donations solely to make money, because you can make quite a bit of money donating your eggs, and Sherry would have been in her early 20s at the time. So it is plausible to think that she did this as a means to pay her bills,
Or could this have been a much more sinister reason, giving the accounts that everybody was giving? Was there something else to Sherry that we didn't know about? Out of nowhere in this investigation, an anonymous person offered a ransom award for whoever brings Sherry home. And part of the note said, I'm willing to confidentially pay you cash immediately for Sherry's release.
Truly bizarre.
Very often we see, you know, reward funds go up, but not an anonymous reward to a suspect. It was just, I don't know, a little weird. And the person that this kidnapper was supposed to contact was named Cameron Gamble.
The nameless donor instructs the presumed kidnappers to contact a designated negotiator, a professional in this shadowy field. My name is Cameron Gamble and I'm an international kidnapping ransom consultant. I've been retained by an individual who wishes to remain anonymous. By now, Keith is desperate. He's even considered turning to psychics. So when Gamble contacts him asking for permission to try a more aggressive approach, he agrees. There was no idea
or thought that if I think could work, that I was not going to try. 12 days into Sherry Papini's disappearance, Gamble posts this provocative video online promoting the ransom. I don't know your motive. I don't know who you are. I don't care. I simply care about getting Sherry back.
Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Now, most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yes, I know you are. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you are not in some kind of moving vehicle, there is something else you can be doing right now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.
It's easy, and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what.
Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. An official message from Medicare.
Go to ssa.gov slash extra help.
Paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. On November 24th, it was Thanksgiving morning, and it was a Thanksgiving miracle because Sherry was found. Or was it a miracle?
Because the way that Sherry was found was so odd. She was found on the side of the road, in Woodland, which is almost 150 miles away from her house. She was found wearing gray sweatpants and a gray sweatshirt and her original underwear from weeks earlier. She had a chain around her waist that was also connected to one arm.
Her other wrist was also tied up along with her ankles. Her hair had been cut very short, she had a branding on her left shoulder, and she had marks and bruises and rashes all over her body. On her face, on her nose, on her arms, on her legs, everywhere. She had, you know, marks on her wrists and her ankles.
It was just like beyond. This woman appeared to have been held captive, badly physically injured, and somehow managed to bravely escape and be reunited with her family. Was that the reality or was this just another tale that Sherry would tell?
Multiple 911 calls came through that morning, but one woman has come out and she spoke about her experience in seeing Sherry on the side of the road. Said that you were driving along the highway there, I-5, at more than 70 miles an hour, but you managed to catch a glimpse of something on Thanksgiving morning. What exactly did you see?
I saw a blind, a blonde woman standing in like that V-shaped area that gets created between the right shoulder and the left side of an off ramp. But I wasn't quite sure where I was when I saw her. I just caught a glimpse of her. The area
WHERE SHE WAS IS NOT WELL LIT, SO I DIDN'T ACTUALLY SEE HER UNTIL I WAS RIGHT UP ON HER, WHICH REALLY STARTLED ME. AND IT KIND OF TOOK ME A FEW MINUTES TO
to figure out what I'd seen and I went a couple miles up the road to figure out where until I saw road signs so I knew where I was and then I pulled off onto the shoulder and I called 911. When police got to Sherry, a truck driver was with her as he had stopped and decided to stay with her and law enforcement let her call her husband Keith before then transporting her to the hospital. But on the way to the hospital, officers were trying to talk to Sherry, but she refused.
Now I can understand being traumatized, but these people and these officers were trying to help her. So refusing to say anything is really just a red flag in my opinion. Unless you're purposefully not saying anything because you're trying not to incriminate yourself.
So the Shasta County Sheriff's Office did a press conference the day that she was found, but this time they seem to believe that she didn't leave on her own and that she was kidnapped. We are very ecstatic to report that Sherry Papini has been located and has been reunited with her husband and family on this day of Thanksgiving. I'm happy to say that Sherry is now safe.
And she has been treated at a area hospital outside of Shasta County and for non-life-threatening injuries. So to recap a little bit, at about 4:30 this morning, Shasta County Sheriff's Office was notified that Sherry Papini had been located. We learned that she was released by her captor on a rural road near I-5 in Yolo County.
She was bound with restraints but was able to summon help from a passing motorist on I-5 near County Road 17, again in northern Yolo County. The California Highway Patrol, Yolo County Sheriff's Office and medical personnel responded to assist. Sherry was freed from her restraints, transported to an area hospital and treated for her injuries. Her husband Keith
was immediately responded down to the area and is remaining at Sherry's side. Shortly after Sherry was located and received treatment, I did receive word that the California Highway Patrol was able to have her speak to Keith on a cell phone to let her know that she was okay and was getting assistance there. As we may all recall, on Wednesday, November 2nd,
Sherry was reported missing by her husband Keith. While Keith was at work, Sherry had gone for a late morning jog from her home and after not responding to pick up her children from daycare, her husband Keith became concerned and began looking for his wife. He did locate her cell phone and earbuds about a mile away from their home and near the intersection of Old Oregon Trail and Sunrise Drive in Redding, California.
The Shasta County Sheriff's Office immediately began investigating her disappearance. It was considered that she was a missing person at risk. Our detectives have remained dedicated to this investigation and have been working tirelessly ever since the report of her missing came in. They are still devoted to the case and will not rest until her captor or captors is identified and brought to justice.
We are continuing to follow investigative leads and this is a critical and active investigation. Sherry's husband Keith described seeing her for the first time. Now after that pre-dawn phone call, Keith is breaking every speed limit to get to the hospital where Sherry's been taken. The entire hospital was on lockdown. Eventually they opened the door.
The woman who's behind the curtain doesn't look like the wife and mother smiling back in countless family photos. One of the officers kind of like braced me and kind of put his arm around me and he said, you know, prepare yourself. She's alive and you just got to be happy. They branded her. So I just wanted to see her. So I just ran past everybody and I, you know, throw open the curtain and she was there in a bed in her poor face. And I just hugged her. I just held her.
I felt like I hugged her for like 20 minutes. I was so happy that she was there and I was just kissing her all over and then I got like nauseated just looking at her. It was so hard for me to see her like that. Keith, a couple of times you said her face, her poor face. What did you see? The bruises were just intense. The bumps from, you know, being hit and kicked and whatever else. Everybody gets a bruise once in a while, but not these types. I mean, these are...
hard to look at her hair. She always had very long, long hair. You know, they chopped it off. I just need to know, because I was worried that when you first said her face, her face, they didn't brand her face, right? I will say that no, it's not on her face, no. She lost almost 15% of her body weight in 22 days. That is traumatic physically. It made me sick that there is people out there
that could do something like this. I just wanted to hold her. And we just embraced each other and cried together. And I mean, I was so happy, though. I mean, how do you explain it? You're upset and everything about what happened, but you're
You're happy. Investigators decided to let Keith interview Sherry with a recorder in hand, which was both insane but also kind of genius because it was going to get Sherry to talk. And during that interview, Sherry kind of let off all sorts of landmines, in my opinion.
She said that the kidnappers read articles to her saying that she had left voluntarily and told her also that law enforcement was involved in the kidnapping, which is why she then had refused to speak with them on the way to the hospital.
She described the circumstances of the alleged kidnapping, saying that a dark-colored SUV containing two Hispanic women first drove past her, then they backed up when they saw her jogging on the road. One of the women apparently had on sunglasses, and Sherry believed that she said, "Can you help me?" So Sherry walked towards the woman. The woman then opened the door of the vehicle and showed Sherry her gun, which appeared to be a small revolver-like gun.
Sherry said one of the women said, "We don't want to kill you," and told her to put her phone down. So Sherry got in the tinted SUV after putting her phone down. And she says that she didn't know where they took her because she had something covering her face the entire time. But she says that at some point, she remembers her clothes being taken off. But she says she doesn't remember much, including how long the car ride was, because she said she kept being injected with something and falling asleep.
but she did make note that the car smelled awful, like sewage, according to her.
So she says that once they got to the place that they were going, Sherry says that they put her in a closet with a bucket full of kitty litter in it for her to use as a toilet. And she said that the closet contained shelves and a metal pole that a cable actually attached to with a chain hook to it. And then they hooked that chain to her waist so that she couldn't get in it or so that she could get in and out of bed, but that she couldn't get out of the room. And Sherry said that when she didn't listen to these women, they would lock her in that closet.
She said that there were also boards on the window of her room so she couldn't see out, she couldn't see daylight. I mean, a truly horrifying and very detailed experience. Sherry said in her words, "They would play music really loudly.
that really annoying Mexican music and they would watch TV. There was a fireplace and I could smell it and I could hear that sound, you know, when you move the handle of a fireplace to open it and it makes like a creaking sound and she says it was very cold. It was always cold.
and that it seemed like it rained almost every night. She says that she ate once a day, and the things that they fed her included rice, tortillas, and apples, but that if she was good, she'd also get extra food, including cream of wheat, which is oatmeal.
She says they also took all of her clothes except for her underwear, which she was allowed to wash in the shower when they allowed her to shower while holding a gun on her. Then she says that they cut her hair and that she had to wear an adult diaper. But why was she wearing an adult diaper if she had underwear on? Why would she wear a diaper if she had kitty litter to go to the bathroom in?
The story wasn't adding up, and there were certain things that were beginning to contradict each other. Certain details, I should say. And although Sherry recounting so many of these details almost seems like it had to have happened that way because it's so detailed, things just weren't matching up.
And when she was asked about her branding, she said that it happened after she tried to escape. She said that the abductors brought a table in, hit her back, and tied her to the table, and that the branding was very painful. However, later, her story changed a little bit, and she said that the abductors told her that she was being branded because that's what her buyer liked. When asked who the buyer was, she said she didn't know his name because they only spoke Spanish, and she had limited Spanish understanding.
so was she implying that there was a buyer and that she was going to be sold and you know t-r-a-f-f-i-c-k-e-d can't say it on youtube because they're gonna flag me if you know what i'm talking about throw it in the comments or the chat so she said that the conversations she did understand included things about medicine traffic cameras a delivery date and a gamble as well as insulting her in spanish over and over and over again
But no one who hardly understands a lick of Spanish is going to know what people are talking about in those kinds of conversations. Beginner Spanish speakers don't know about gambles, delivery dates, traffic lights,
I mean, this just isn't even believable, really, at this point, in my opinion. Sherry then talked about the morning of her release, saying that one of the abductors stopped the car and told her to get out and just instructed her to leave. So she says that then the younger abductor dropped her off and then she clipped something off of her arm that gave her the ability to move her arm. Then the abductor sped off.
Sherry said that they were already far away by the time she was able to pull the pillowcase off of her head. She says that she then ran to a church, but banged on the door and nobody was there. She says then she decided to run to the freeway where she tried to flag down different motorists, and eventually a truck driver stopped and assisted until law enforcement arrived. So law enforcement eventually did end up interviewing her at her house on November 28th and 29th, and a few things changed about her story in this new interview.
This time, she said that her hips were achy from laying on the floor of the car, and that they got achy after about 40 minutes. But if she was in and out of sleeping in the car, how would she know how long 40 minutes was? She also said that the pillowcase that was on her smelled like laundry detergent, but she was complaining that the car smelled like sewage. If you're smelling the fresh laundry detergent, how are you also smelling beyond that to the sewage? It's just a red flag to me.
She said that when she woke up in that room that they had taken her to, she had zip ties on her wrists that she tried to get off and eventually did get off by biting. But she didn't say anything about being in the closet with kitty litter. She didn't say anything about the chains either until much later. Just another red flag. Let's count them, guys. I wish I had my red flag with me today.
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So after getting the zip tie off, Sherry says that she tried to open the door of the room, but that it was locked with a deadbolt. Now remember, initially she said she couldn't even reach the door with the chains, that she could only go to and from the bed.
So now all of a sudden she can reach the door, but it's locked. She says that she stood on the bed to get to the window, which was covered with two boards. And Sherry says that she yanked that effer out of the wall super quickly, referring to that board, so much so that her nail broke in the process. Oh no, my nail broke. Like, that's what you are remembering?
and the noise she apparently made while trying to get these boards off of the windows caused her two abductors to rush into the room because they heard her. She says they then struck her with something which she thought was possibly a taser. She said that after that was when they ended up tying her up with the chains. But again, a different version of events from her initial interview where she said the chains were from the start.
So detectives wanted more information about the branding in this, and Sherry changed her story yet again, saying that it wasn't from her trying to escape like she originally said, but rather because she was getting too loud. But she says that she was burned on her forearm for trying to escape. It seems as though she just really couldn't keep up with all of these stories.
She says that she only showered twice during this entire ordeal, which lasted for weeks. And she changed her story again, saying that that's not how she washed her underwear in the shower, and that she actually kept her dirty underwear on the entire time. So can this girl, like, keep anything straight at this point?
She also talked about how she didn't look at her abductors while she was showering and that she never looked them in the eyes and in fact when they came into the room she would have to actually drop to all fours and look down because they didn't want her to see them. So this was just full of red flags. Two separate interviews, multiple stories changing, multiple details changing, but of course this investigation is still ongoing.
So quite a bit of time passes, and on March 2nd, 2017, Sherry did a forensic interview with the FBI. And this was the first interview that she gave that her husband was not present for. And she made sure to tell the interviewer when this got started that she didn't trust her, which is just weird. And in this interview, her story changed once again. She said she actually doesn't even remember how the door of the car opened or how she got into the car at the time of the abduction.
remember at first she said that one of the abductors had opened the door and then showed the revolver saying to get in and that she put the phone down and climbed in and then this time she said that when she woke up in that room she was wearing only a t-shirt and her underwear but that was different than the previous story where it was her sweatpants and the sweatshirt and that's pretty different from a t-shirt and underwear sweatshirt sweatpants in a cold room like how are these stories changing so crazy
So when talking about the incident after pulling that board off the window, this time instead of mentioning that they came in and struck her with a taser, she said that she was pulled off the bed by her hair, and that some of her hair actually ripped out, and that she remembers seeing stars.
She said that when she woke up, the dresser was gone and the mattress was now where the dresser had been and she was now in these chains. But again, she makes no mention of ever being in the closet. When describing her first shower, she said that she was told while she was in the bathroom that her buyer was a cop. Again, going back to this story of somebody purchasing her. She said that when the younger abductor lowered the gun, Sherry jumped on her and shoved her face into the toilet.
but because she was wet, apparently she slipped and cut her foot. The older abductor then swept in, grabbed her, dragged her out to her room, and shoved what she describes as bitter liquid down her throat, making her choke before hitting her and then locking her up in the room. Again, details that were never disclosed months earlier in the interviews.
So when asked about the articles that she says that she was read by these kidnappers, this time she said she wasn't actually read any of the articles or shown any news coverage about her abduction. Okay, that's again, you're going from black to white here.
When they asked her about her release, instead of saying that they clipped something off like she said before, she says that she heard three clipping noises and that the restraints on her ankles and wrists had been clipped off. Just one more change in her story. She then wanted to know if law enforcement had figured out what her branding said. Sherry told law enforcement that it was a word or a Bible passage and she thought it said Exodus, but that she couldn't read the numbers.
I mean, this is just bizarre. The story not only keeps changing, but the specific details that were so overly detailed originally also keep changing. Wouldn't you think that whatever version of events happened or potentially were made up would have been practice and essentially ironclad as you're delivering them over and over again?
It's so weird to me, guys. A couple of months later, on June 8th, 2017, Sherry met with FBI agents to review a photo lineup of sorts. And in that meeting, she told the agents that the older woman who had taken her had bushy, thick eyebrows and that the younger one had curly hair and very thin eyebrows that had been over-tweezed, in her words, but that neither woman had a widow's peak.
So on June 22, 2017, she met with an FBI sketch artist to create renderings of these two Hispanic females who abducted her, trying to help the public not only to identify them, but make sure it didn't happen to anybody else.
So she also provided the sketch artist with reference photos that she had printed from the internet to show the skin condition of the older abductor and to provide a reference of facial features and mask placement for both abductors. Just like the details were incredible. So much so that you're like, this has to be real. These details are just uncanny. It is so detailed.
So Sherry told the FBI sketch artist that both abductors wore those masks when they interacted with her. The sketch artist and Sherry went back and forth on correct sketches a couple of times, and then they ended up releasing the sketches on September 22nd, 2017. Keith continued to reach out to the FBI during the course of the investigation, whenever he got more information from Sherry that he thought would be helpful, such as what the gun looked like, what the branding table looked like, etc.,
So on March 16th, 2018, this is now what, like a year and a half? Is it a year and a half? Yeah, it's about a year and a half since the abduction. Sherry contacted the FBI saying that during a therapy session, she remembered something that she hadn't before. She said that the burns that were on her arms were made from heated kitchen utensils, such as the back of a spoon or a butter knife.
and Sherry had silverware at home that apparently matched these scars on her arms. So when she was asked to provide pictures, she said she couldn't because her and her husband were planning to take a trip, they were going to a cabin, and they were going to be out of cell reception. Guys, if she was really trying to identify abductors, don't you think she'd put her little camping trip on hold and do everything in her power to give any and all information over to the police?
You're not going to say, "Hey, I'll catch you in a few days when I'm back from my vacay." This case is just crazy.
So a few days later on March 21st, 2018, Sherry ended up sending the FBI agents a text with a photo of a spoon. And in the text message, Sherry says, "I don't recall seeing anything other than the shine, but now that we look closer, you can see the first spot she tried to touch my skin when I jerked away and then it appears to be drag marks. The second mark is when I flinched and that deep mark is when she held it in my arm and pressed in it, holding it tight."
Her husband contacted the FBI again on May 7th, 2018, saying Sherry now remembered another piece of information: that one of the women had been trying to pour a sticky substance down her mouth, but that she wiped her mouth with her underwear. Apparently, that left a sticky residue, and then she fell asleep right after. Now, what the point of that detail was, I'm not quite sure. If you guys know, let me know in the chat.
So now we fast forward. In 2019, things started coming together and the truth started coming out.
Sherry's underwear had been tested, and there was DNA that matched the DNA of a man, not two Hispanic women. On March 19, 2020, the lab received an email identifying a man who we will call Person 2 as a potential relative of the DNA found in Sherry's underwear and her clothes. And Person 2 had two living biological sons.
one of whom was an ex-boyfriend of Sherry named James Reyes. Now this investigation was about to ramp up because now there was a connection and it was also found out that James had been previously linked to a house owned by Sherry's parents. Sherry and James also had shared apparently a subscription to an AOL account at one point and had even made financial transactions together.
So as an FBI agent was looking at James' social media in July of 2020, he saw a table in the photo. And this table looked just like the branding table that Sherry talked about: a dead ringer.
So could this have been real all along? And did police just find their guy who was responsible for this? In order to get a positive DNA match, investigators went to James' house in Costa Mesa, California. Literally my backyard over here. They went through his trash can and took items out that would have his DNA on them. And one of these items was an empty bottle of Honest Honey Green Tea.
So James was also interviewed, and he was interviewed on August 10, 2020. And again, the victim stuff about Sherry's childhood was brought up once again. But not only that, James was about to drop a bombshell of a story. James said that Sherry told him she was having problems at home, that she was being abused and essayed by her husband, Keith.
He said that she was a good friend and he admitted to helping her run away." Now this is sounding a lot like the Neil Patrick Harris situation in Gone Girl, isn't it? Like all the way to a T with that story. Like the old friend from your childhood, he's coming to rescue you from your horrible marriage where you're the victim. I mean it's like a dead ringer here.
So James tells investigators that Sherry had told him she filed police reports, but that the police were not doing anything to help. And we need to make it clear right now that no police reports were ever filed about this alleged abuse. James told investigators that he and Sherry had known each other since they were 13 or 14 years old, and at one point they were even engaged.
He says that in 2015, he was cleaning his house and he found a box full of things that were Sherry's from when they were together. So he called her parents and he mailed the box to her. Shortly after that, Sherry reached out to him saying that she had a plan and she was saving cash to run away with him. Her plan was to send that cash to him so she could have it when she got to him. I mean, an elaborate plan.
The two of them used their cell phones to communicate, but eventually they both got prepaid phones and made a plan for James to come and pick her up. And they made these plans on those prepaid phones. And when discussing how he knew to pick her up, he talked about a care package that she had sent to him. So he was in the hospital over the summer of what, 2016, and Sherry sent a care package to his house. And in that care package was a note with the address that she wanted to be picked up.
Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Now, most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yes, I know you are. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you are not in some kind of moving vehicle, there is something else you can be doing right now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.
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Go to ssa.gov slash extra help.
paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. So on October 31st, James had a friend rent a car for him. It was a Dodge Challenger. And the morning that Sherry went missing, James had driven up to Reading and picked her up. They laid down the back seats of this Challenger, and apparently Sherry slept the entire drive down to Costa Mesa.
He also said that she was a bit worried about her kids, which I just find that to be like the cherry on top of the icing. How convenient and kind of her that she was so worried about her kids that not only was she willing to leave them like that, but also willing to let them worry and panic about her.
James told investigators that they really didn't do anything of any sexual nature and that Sherry cooked and cleaned and really kept to herself this entire time. He said they even slept in separate bedrooms and that he boarded up her windows at her request.
And as for her injuries, he said that Sherry's injuries were self-inflicted, but that he did help with them a little bit. But he made sure to note that he never laid a hand on Sherry directly. Instead, he gave an example, saying that Sherry apparently said, "Bank a puck, a hockey puck, off my leg." So he shot a puck off her leg. Very lightly, he says. I mean, honestly, how crazy can people be?
And as for the branding, Sherry also allegedly asked James to brand her. So he went to Hobby Lobby in Huntington Beach and got a wood burning tool, used cash to pay for that tool, and branded Sherry. So she had told him too what to brand her with, but he says at this point now he forgot what it was. As Thanksgiving was nearing that year, Sherry told James that she was ready to go home and that she missed her kids.
Apparently her little make-believe hiatus was now not cutting it for her anymore. So James had that same friend rent a car again and then drove her up north. Sherry had a bag full of stuff with her to tie herself up and before leaving James's house she threw anything out that could be traced to her. She also threw out that prepaid phone on the way to this drop-off location. Really just trying to act as though this escapade of hers did not happen.
Literally, you just willingly left your family and your children for weeks. You made them panic for your well-being. You wasted tons of community and law enforcement resources. What is this lady's problem? What is her damage? When investigators asked James if anyone knew that Sherry was with him, he said his cousin knew and that his mom knew, and that his mom actually got worried when she started seeing things on the news about Sherry's disappearance. But
But James said that he really thought that he was just helping Sherry. And that's why he didn't say anything and that's why his mom didn't say anything. He also mentions that he has not talked to Sherry since he dropped her off that day.
On August 13, 2020, investigators interviewed Sherry with her husband in the room, and they started showing pictures of James' house, and Sherry was denying everything and just saying, I don't know. And when they told her that they were showing her these things, she finally replies and says, oh my God, and asked to talk privately with her husband, which investigators agreed to, and they left the room.
So when the interview resumed and investigators came back in, Sherry says, Referring to the kidnapper. Sherry was still going on with this story of these women abducting her.
Sherry denied it being James and says she hasn't talked to him in years, and the investigators discussed the phone records and told her that lying was a federal crime. So she continued to lie. However, finally, when her husband Keith leaves the room, she does admit to it and says that she and James did talk a little bit before and acknowledged that they had talked on her work phone while she was on work trips, but she still denied James being involved and kept to her story of being abducted.
The GoFundMe had been created during that time when Sherry was missing and it raised almost $50,000. And during the investigation, law enforcement found out that that GoFundMe money was actually used to pay off credit card debt by both Keith and Sherry. So was this not even about attention? And was this really just a ruse for money this entire time? And was her husband Keith really involved?
Sherry also fraudulently received about $30,000 from the California Victim Compensation Program. And that money? She spent that on therapy, new blinds for her house, and the ambulance provider after her "rescue." It was later found out that Sherry had a high school friend, actually, who went missing and was never found, and the circumstances of her friend's disappearance were eerily similar to Sherry's disappearance.
So could she have wanted to mimic her friend and the attention she saw that came from that? Because things were very closely aligned there. Sherry was arrested on Thursday, March 3rd, 2022, and she was charged with making false statements to a federal law enforcement officer and mail fraud. Her family posted a $120,000 bond on March 8th, and the bond conditions included getting a psych eval and giving up her passport so she couldn't flee.
The night of her arrest, her family released a statement saying, "We love Sherry and are appalled by the way in which law enforcement ambushed her this afternoon in a dramatic and unnecessary manner in front of her children."
If requested, Sherry would have fully complied and come to the police station as she has done multiple times before, where this could have been handled in a more appropriate way. Sherry and Keith have cooperated with law enforcement's requests despite repeated attempts to unnecessarily pit them against each other.
empty threats to publicly embarrass them, and other conduct that was less than professional. We are confused by several aspects of the charges and hope to get clarification in the coming days.
Now, right after Sherry was released, an ex-boyfriend spoke to a news channel. This was apparently from when Sherry was 20 years old and he was 15 when they were dating, which is just disgusting that a 20-year-old woman, or anyone 20 years old for that matter, found it okay to even date a 15-year-old. But he gives this interview.
He dated Sherry Papini and says he knows firsthand that she's a world-class fantasist. She's a compulsive liar. She would, you know, not talk to you for three or four days, and then all of a sudden there'd be some fantastical story about what happened. Shaheen Daivari says he dated the mom when she was a 20-year-old youth counselor. Get this, he says he was just 15. In retrospect, sure, tons of red flags, right? But she was a counselor that was...
going out with a 15-year-old kid. Now 35, the professor of communications says Sherry's lies were never ending. For example, she kept insisting she was a skilled surfer. I surfed all the time when I was 15, 16 years old. It's something that I really enjoyed doing, and she told me that she surfed as well. There was always an excuse as to why she couldn't go surf, and she had to have her surfboard that was at her house, but
but didn't have any pictures. He says there was also a mystery medical condition. She was faking a heart condition at one point and eventually like not only me, but a bunch of people figured out that that was not true. What did you think when you heard that Sherry Papini was kidnapped? I was like there's no way she's fine. I promise you she's fine. There's just no chance that.
She got kidnapped. At this point now, Sherry has already accepted a plea deal, which was filed on April 12th while she was in court. And many people had questions as she arrived at the courthouse. This plea deal includes over $300,000 of restitution. She has to pay that 30 grand back to the California Victims Compensation Board. She has to pay about 127 grand to the U.S. Social Security Administration for all of the fraudulent disability payments that she received.
and she owes Shasta County another $150,000 and the FBI about $2,500. And the restitution is due at the time of sentencing, so it's going to be really interesting to see how she comes up with that much money without any sort of payment plan. She also now has admitted...
that the kidnapping was a hoax, and she released a statement through her attorney saying, "I am deeply ashamed of myself for my behavior and so sorry for the pain I've caused my family, my friends, all the good people who needlessly suffered because of my story, and those who worked so hard to try and help me. I will work for the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done." Now as part of her plea deal, which truthfully kind of enrages me, and tell me what you think,
The government's going to recommend a lower level sentence, which is estimated to be around 8 to 14 months. That's all. Now that is ridiculous considering how long she dragged this story out and how many resources she wasted. Was she just miserable in her marriage and she wanted, you know,
a moment of fun to feel the butterflies, to feel the sparks as she like runs to her ex-boyfriend. Was she mimicking her friend's disappearance to get the same attention?
Do you think that Keith was somehow involved in all of this and this was financially motivated? Because it's evident that Sherry was not Supermom. Was not the Supermom that everybody was trying to say that she was. Because as she was playing that role of Supermom and had kids full-time in daycare, she was actually planning an elaborate kidnapping hoax.
And my question is why? Was it for attention? Was it for money? Was it because she wanted to disengage from her life as a married woman with two kids and she wanted to live the life of a single woman again for a couple weeks and when that dried up she decided to go back home? And why all of the elaborate details? Was it to make it more believable? Was it to gain sympathy?
My mind is just like, ugh, I don't even know. I can't make sense of it. Because part of her bond condition was to get a psych eval, I am hopelessly
hoping they will release some of the information that comes from that because it will be so telling and interesting to learn what's really going on up in that noggin of Sherry's. All right, guys, thank you so much for tuning in to another bonus episode with me. Like I said at the top of this episode, make sure you're following the podcast so that you don't miss any more bonus episodes in the future. And if you would be so kind as to just quickly rate this podcast,
review it. It takes 30 seconds max to leave a review and it really does help the algorithm and help push this podcast out to more people so that these victims stories get heard which we know is the goal. So thank you guys so much for tuning in to another bonus episode and I will be talking to you again very very soon. All right it's me Annie signing off.
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