This Is Really A Weird One...

[Lord Jim]

California mom found along highway had message burned onto skin, sheriff says

A California sheriff confirmed Wednesday that the abductors of a woman who was held captive for three weeks branded her with a "message" before she was released and said he had no reason to doubt her story.

Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko told reporters at a press conference Wednesday that Sherri Papini was branded by her captors, but did not disclose where she was branded or with what "for integrity of the investigation."

In an earlier interview, Bosenko told ABC's "Good Morning America" that the suspects may have been trying to humiliate Papini by cutting off her long blonde hair and branding her.

Bosenko declined to elaborate on the branding, saying only that it was a message, not a symbol.
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Papini's husband has said his 34-year-old wife was covered with bruises and burns and was chained at the waist and wrists when she was found along Interstate 5 near Sacramento on Thanksgiving.

The mother of two small children disappeared while jogging Nov. 2 near her home in Redding.

Dispatch audio from the Yolo County Sheriff's Department reveals Papini was found battered and chained to something along northbound Interstate 5, near County Road 17 in Yolo County, on Thanksgiving morning. The location is 140 miles from the Shasta County community where she vanished while jogging, Fox 40 reported.

One woman, who claims she saw Papini on Thanksgiving morning on the side of the road, posted a message to Facebook, saying: "I couldn't stop in time to help you this morning but I did pull over and report to police that I saw you by the road and was certain you needed help."

Questions continued to swirl Wednesday around the identities of the abductors and the motive for the kidnapping. The woman reportedly told police that she was dropped off along the highway by two Hispanic women armed with a handgun.

Bosenko described the one of the suspects as a young Hispanic woman with long, curly hair with a thick accent, pierced ears, and thin eyebrows. The second suspect, who was the older of the two, was described by Bosenko as having straight, black hair with greying color and thick eyebrows.

The sheriff told reporters Wednesday that Papini "did the best she could" at giving a description, but was not able to make a detailed one because the suspects had their faces covered while she also had part of her face covered.

The woman's husband, Keith Papini, released a statement to "Good Morning America" saying his wife suffered severe abuse at the hands of her captors, including a broken nose. She was found starved and covered in scabs and bruises, and her long, blond hair was "chopped off."

Papini also sought to dispel rumors that his wife's abduction was a hoax.

"My Sherri suffered tremendously, and all the visions swirling in your heads of her appearance, I assure you, are not as graphic and gruesome as the reality," he said Tuesday in a written statement to ABC’s “Good Morning America."

“Rumors, assumptions, lies, and hate have been both exhausting and disgusting,” said Papini. “Those people should be ashamed of their malicious, sub human behavior. We are not going to allow those people to take away our spirit, love, or rejoice in our girl found alive and home where she belongs."

Bosenko said he and his detectives have no reason to doubt Papini's story.

“All the information that we have right now we have no reason to believe that she is making this up,” Bosenko told The Sacramento Bee on Wednesday.

Investigators have also issued 20 search warrants in the case, and are looking at the woman's computer records for any clues. They're also searching for any surveillance video showing Papini or her abductors, according to Fox 40.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/11/30/ca ... -says.html

[BoSoxGal]

I've been waiting to see what unfolds there, too . . .

People are inclined to disbelieve because lengthy abduction followed by release is a pretty rare circumstance - except in child custody disputes.

[RayThom]

Odd and open-ended crime stories like this one make me even more cynical and skeptical than usual. When everything finally unfolds I'm fairly sure it will point to one mentally unhinged young woman -- possibly with some cover up by family and friends.

As pappy always said, there's more to this than meets the eye.

[liberty]

Odd and open-ended crime stories like this one make me even more cynical and skeptical than usual. When everything finally unfolds I'm fairly sure it will point to one mentally unhinged young woman -- possibly with some cover up by family and friends.

As pappy always said, there's more to this than meets the eye.

I can tell that you are included to disbelieve her. I have problems with the story too because people are generally motivated by things like money or hatred. There are people that hate blonds; my grandmother was one of them, more precisely blond women in her case. I am not saying that it was motivated by hate or that it even did happened, but if it was hate it will happen again somewhere. Or the woman will receive some type of harassing communication. If that doesn’t happen I would be very suspicious. Concealed carry anyone.

This story reminds me of the black girl in New State back in the 1980s who claimed she had been kidnapped and raped by a gang of white men, but in that case her story was readily believed at least in the beginning.

[Lord Jim]

I have problems with the story too

Come on lib and Ray...

I can see where people might have had problems believing this before she was released, (some people thought it was a complete hoax, others thought the husband might have done her in and made up the story about her disapearance...he took and passed a polygraph test...)

But going down to 87 pounds, having a broken nose and being covered in bruises and burns (including a branding) does seem to lend an air of authenticity to the idea that she was abducted and tortured...

It is odd that there was no ransom demand, and that this kind of crime would be committed by two women with no male involvement, and that she would be released after all of this rather than killed, and that this all would have been done by total strangers....

(Maybe she's not being completely forthcoming with the details of who did this because she promised not to tell the authorities in order to get let free and she's still afraid of the people who did it ...)

This story reminds me of the black girl in New State back in the 1980s who claimed she had been kidnapped and raped by a gang of white men

I believe you're referring to the Tawana Brawley case, a case in which Al Sharpton figured prominently...

The good reverend must have been absent from divinity school the day they covered "Thou shalt not bear false witness"....

[Scooter]

This story reminds me of the black girl in New State [sic] back in the 1980s who claimed she had been kidnapped and raped by a gang of white men, but in that case her story was readily believed at least in the beginning.

And why did it remind you of that story, and not the story of the four black and one Hispanic teenage boys who were falsely accused and wrongfully convicted of raping a white woman, spending up to 13 years in prison for a crime they never committed?

Of course, Donald Trump insists to this day that those five blameless boys were rapists and calls for them to be executed. "All lives matter" my ass.

[BoSoxGal]

After watching the 20/20 interview with the husband, I'm less inclined to believe they had anything to do with it - I gather she was very badly battered and branded, and his emotion seemed very genuine to me.

Still a bizarre case . . .

[liberty]

After watching the 20/20 interview with the husband, I'm less inclined to believe they had anything to do with it - I gather she was very badly battered and branded, and his emotion seemed very genuine to me.

Still a bizarre case . . .

Well then if not money it must have been motivated by some type hate either towards her personally or pretty blonde girl types in generally. Either way it seems they would strike again either towards the original victim or a new one depending on the motivation.

[RayThom]

Questions continued... the identities of the abductors and the motive for the kidnapping. The woman reportedly told police that she was dropped off along the highway by two Hispanic women armed with a handgun... Bosenko described the one of the suspects as a young Hispanic woman with long, curly hair with a thick accent, pierced ears, and thin eyebrows. The second suspect, who was the older of the two, was described by Bosenko as having straight, black hair with greying color and thick eyebrows.

Also: This appears to me to be nothing more than a switcheroo on the old "blame it on a black man" scenario. Nondescript Latinos are now the go-to suspects when needing to implicate nonexistent evil doers. Next up on the perp list -- Asians with flatter faces, smaller noses, straight, black hair, and dark eyes that are slightly slanted.

Hey, but that's just me. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Big RR]

I agree Ray, this reminded me a lot of the Susan Smith case where it turned out she killed her own kids after blaming some generic "black man" who hijacked her car.

In this case, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out she or her husband owed money to bookies or loan sharks or drug dealers, but who knows? It's also possible she is telling the truth.

[Lord Jim]

the Susan Smith case where it turned out she killed her own kids after blaming some generic "black man" who hijacked her car.

I remember concluding that she must have been the killer as soon as I saw the police sketch based on her "description"...

The picture was ridiculous...it didn't even look like a real person...it looked like some stereotypical cartoon of a black man from the 1930s...

ETA:

Here's the sketch that was based on the profile description she provided: