The After Show: Sherri Papini: Where the Truth Lies

Summary

Podcast Summary: 20/20 After Show: Sherri Papini: Where the Truth Lies

Introduction

In the May 26, 2025 episode of ABC News' 20/20 After Show, hosts Debra Roberts and senior producer Sean Dooley delve deep into the enigmatic and controversial case of Sherri Papini. This episode seeks to unravel the complex layers of Papini's story, examining her alleged abduction, subsequent revelations, and the latest developments surrounding her narrative.

Background: The Sherri Papini Case

The episode begins with a brief overview of Sherri Papini's initial disappearance and the dramatic return that captivated the nation. Debra Roberts introduces the case:

Debra Roberts (00:36): "This was a story that horrified people all around the country. A young mom claiming that she had been abducted, held hostage and even branded during her captivity. Well, then her story fell apart."

Papini had claimed to have been kidnapped by two Hispanic women while jogging, enduring 22 days of captivity marked by severe abuse. However, over time, inconsistencies emerged, leading to doubts about the veracity of her claims.

The Collapse of Papini’s Story

Sean Dooley provides an in-depth analysis of how the authorities began to suspect Papini's story was fabricated:

Sean Dooley (09:04): "The DNA that was on you belongs to James Reyes."

Through meticulous investigation, law enforcement discovered male DNA on Papini's clothing, contradicting her account of being held by two women. This DNA led them to James Reyes, Papini's ex-boyfriend, who played a central role in exposing the truth.

Impact on Papini’s Family

The podcast explores the profound emotional toll on Papini's husband, Keith Papini, who initially stood by her:

Keith Papini (05:16): "The bruises were just intense... she always had very long blonde hair. You know, they chopped it off."

Debra Roberts highlights the emotional turmoil Keith experienced upon Papini's return, grappling with the possibility that his wife might have fabricated her ordeal. This internal conflict is further emphasized when Keith reflects on his feelings years later:

Keith Papini (13:38): "Of course I felt that way. There was always something that wasn't right."

The Unraveling Investigation

As the investigation progressed, inconsistencies in Papini's story became undeniable. Sean Dooley discusses how investigators used genetic genealogy to trace the DNA to James Reyes, uncovering that Papini had orchestrated her own disappearance:

Sean Dooley (10:00): "Over the next six years, investigators would piece together how Papini had lied about everything, from her fictional abduction to injuries, which were largely self-inflicted."

This revelation shifted Papini from being perceived as a victim to a suspect, leading to her arrest on charges of lying to federal agents.

Legal Consequences and Plea Deal

Papini eventually admitted to fabricating her abduction in a plea deal, avoiding trial but facing significant repercussions:

Sherry Papini (01:28): "Papini, why did you lie?"

Debra Roberts (01:43): "Sherry was sentenced to 18 months and was ordered to pay restitution. She served just under a year in federal prison and is now free."

New Developments: The Documentary Revelation

Nearly a decade after the initial incident, Papini becomes the focal point of a new documentary aiming to shed light on her motivations and the truth behind her actions. Debra Roberts introduces the upcoming documentary and its significance:

Debra Roberts (18:28): "So, the person at the center of this story is actually finally going to speak out."

Filmmaker Nicole Rittenmeyer discusses her experiences interviewing Papini:

Nicole Rittenmeyer (23:47): "The person that I met is not the same person that I think people believe they are familiar with. ... She's been through therapy, she's been through prison. She's hit rock bottom, and we really put her through it."

One of the most compelling aspects of the documentary is Papini undergoing a lie detector test, wherein she challenges her previous admissions:

Sean Dooley (25:08): "The filmmakers have asked that we not reveal what happens in that test. But, yes, they brought in a legitimate polygrapher and they hooked Sherri up and they asked her these questions."

Community and Familial Fallout

The episode does not shy away from the broader repercussions of Papini's actions, particularly within the Hispanic community and her family. Debra Roberts addresses the community's reaction:

Sean Dooley (16:09): "Once they found out that this was a hoax kidnapping and that she had participated in this herself. The fact that, yes, that she blamed it on two Hispanic women, it just, you know, it didn't sit well with people."

Furthermore, the impact on Papini's family, especially her relationship with Keith, is profound. The couple divorced, and ongoing legal battles over custody reflect the deep scars left by the ordeal.

Conclusion: An Ongoing Saga

The 20/20 After Show wraps up by highlighting the enduring fascination with Papini's case and the anticipation surrounding the new documentary. Sean Dooley emphasizes the unresolved questions and the public's continued interest:

Sean Dooley (23:36): "The authorities stand by their investigation and believe that Sherri Papini was the mastermind behind this, not James Reyes."

Debra Roberts concludes the episode by acknowledging that while the official investigation may be closed, the narrative surrounding Sherri Papini continues to evolve, keeping audiences engaged and eager for more revelations.

Key Takeaways

• False Allegations: Sherri Papini initially claimed abduction and abuse but was later revealed to have fabricated her story.
• Investigation Breakthrough: DNA evidence and genetic genealogy linked the case to Papini's ex-boyfriend, leading to the unraveling of her false claims.
• Emotional Toll: The case had a significant emotional impact on Papini's husband and family, leading to divorce and custody disputes.
• Documentary Insights: A new documentary aims to provide Papini's perspective, challenging previous admissions and adding complexity to the case.
• Community Impact: The case caused distress within the Hispanic community due to the false allegations against two Hispanic women.

This comprehensive exploration by 20/20 After Show not only recounts the timeline of events but also delves into the personal and societal implications of Sherri Papini's actions, offering listeners a nuanced understanding of this perplexing true crime mystery.

Transcript

[Sean Dooley]

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[Debra Roberts]

Hello everybody, it's Debra Roberts with 2020 the After Show. This was a story that horrified people all around the country. A young mom claiming that she had been abducted, held hostage and even branded during her captivity. Well, then her story fell apart.

[Sherry Papini]

Sherry Papini arrested on charges that she.

[Debra Roberts]

Allegedly lied to federal agents about being kidnapped.

[Sherry Papini]

News breaks that the mother of two has been arrested.

[Sean Dooley]

Now being accused of making the whole thing up. A stunning admission of Carrie Papini has now admitted it was all a hoax. Will plead guilty to lying to federal agents about the case.

[Debra Roberts]

There's a plea deal. She's avoiding trial entirely. As part of this agreement, she has to admit, which she did in writing and through her attorney, that she made the whole thing up.

[Sean Dooley]

Do you have any so that you want her, that you want to pay.

[Debra Roberts]

Papini, why did you lie?

[Sherry Papini]

Sherry was sentenced to 18 months and was ordered to pay restitution. She served just under a year in federal prison and is now free.

[Debra Roberts]

Now, nearly a decade later, Sherri Papini is the subject of a new documentary where she gives her account of what she says happened. So joining me now to dig into the story and 2020's long reporting on it is senior producer Sean Dooley. Hello, Sean.

[Sean Dooley]

Hi, Deb. Good to be here.

[Debra Roberts]

Good to be with you. You've been with us obviously here 2020 for so long. You and I are always catching up in the hallway on all these different stories. But now we get a chance to talk face to face about this story that you senior produced along with Matt Gutman who reported on it, correct?

[Sean Dooley]

Yeah.

[Debra Roberts]

Sean. People, I just remember when this story happened and I, I think I remember, of course, my jaw dropping at the whole prospect of it. But you know, when you think about, you know, a story like that, right, that a mom has been abducted. And although we've seen a lot of stories where things have gone sideways, so I sort of wondered about it, but we were following it from the very beginning and I don't know I mean, were there doubts in the beginning?

[Sean Dooley]

I think there were, Deborah. I mean, one of the things I think that's great about a show like 2020 is that we've been on for so long, we have such an incredible archive, and we get to follow stories. So, as you said, this one's been going on for almost a decade, and we were there at the very beginning. And so when it first happened, as you say, it was a shocking story. I mean, a mother seemingly snatched off the street as she's out for a jog in the middle of the day.

[Debra Roberts]

She's got young children at home.

[Sean Dooley]

She's got young. Yeah, it was certainly a story that caught everyone's attention, and so, of course, we were following it as well. She ends up showing back up in sort of a seeming miracle on Thanksgiving morning, weeks and weeks later. Weeks later, yeah. And we did our first show on this in 2016. Just days after she had gotten back. Matt Gutman sat down with her husband, Keith Papini. She, we had been told at the time, obviously was not in any condition to do an interview herself, but her husband came out and spoke to us and told us, you know, how he was. So I remember at the time, he was so emotional and talked about, you know, having her back, that this was a, you know, a miracle. He was so thankful to all the people who. I mean, because her community had really come out and searched for her, raised money for her. I mean, everybody was concerned about this mom.

[Debra Roberts]

And what do people say about this mom? I mean, she was, I guess, known to be a doting mother. Right. They seemed to have a solid marriage from what friends told us.

[Sean Dooley]

Yeah, at the time, it was this. It was almost, you know, everybody referred to her as sort of a picture perfect mom. I mean, there were these gorgeous photos of her and her family and her two young children. And, you know, clearly they'd had some really nice photos, professional photos taken of their family that were out at the time. And so, yeah, everybody just thought she was this perfect mom who had this horrible thing happen to her.

[Debra Roberts]

And her husband actually told us that, too. Well, let's play a clip from that 2016 show when Keith, her husband, describes reuniting with his wife Sherry at the hospital.

[Keith Papini]

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.

[Sherry Papini]

Keith, a couple of times you said her face, her poor face.

[Sean Dooley]

Yeah. What did you see?

[Keith Papini]

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 blonde hair. You know, they chopped it off.

[Sherry Papini]

I just need to know, because I was worried that when you first said her face, her face, that they didn't brand her face.

[Sean Dooley]

Right.

[Keith Papini]

I will say that. No, it's not on. Not on her face, no.

[Sherry Papini]

She lost almost 15% of her body weight in 22 days. That is traumatic physically.

[Sean Dooley]

Oh, yeah.

[Keith Papini]

It made me sick that there is people out there that could do something like this. I just want her to hold her. And we just had her. We just embraced each other and cried together. And, I mean, I was so happy, though. I mean, how do you. How do you explain it? You're upset and everything, what happened, but you're. You're happy.

[Debra Roberts]

His voice is just dripping with emotion. Sean. At the time, you couldn't talk to law enforcement, but we had heard the story from her. And, you know, he talks about how could people do this to people? And she had told a story that she had been abducted and that these two women had held her and she was sort of somewhat still kind of bound when she was found.

[Sean Dooley]

That's right, yeah. So her story was is that two Hispanic women abducted her while she was out for a jog, that she was held for 22 days. She was starved. She was beaten. She was, as Keith was just talking about, she was branded. I mean, that was the thing, I think, that really took people back, that she had a brand on her back. We did eventually do another show on this story, and we did get to speak to law enforcement. And so, as you were kind of alluding to early, even in the very first days, there were questions out there. People kind of thought parts of her story didn't seem to add up.

[Debra Roberts]

Well, the two women abducting her, that sounded a little strange. I remember thinking that.

[Sean Dooley]

Right. And so law enforcement kind of just dug into the case, but it was sort of on parallel tracks. You know, on one side, I think they were treating her as a victim, believing her story, because, you know, there was another story that we covered here at 2020 that had happened just a year before this in California. It was the. What was known at that time as the Gone Girl case. The Denise Huskins case where, like the book. Like the famous book. And in that case, Denise Huskins was abducted out of her home in the middle of the night. And when she came back, police sort of very publicly questioned her. And it turned out that her story was true. She had been abducted, she'd been held by this man, Matthew Mueller. And so when we talked to the law enforcement in Sherry Papini's case, they talked about that. They said, you know, we were, as everybody in the country was, we were aware of that case, and we didn't want to look like we were going to do the same thing and have egg on our faces. So.

[Debra Roberts]

So they wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.

[Sean Dooley]

Exactly. While at the same time saying there are definitely questions about this case. So on that other parallel track, they are looking into it, and they're trying to sort of verify what she's told them. And it's not all checking out.

[Debra Roberts]

Yeah. And so a year goes by, and then another year goes by, and clearly, people were sort of wondering what happened here. And then all of a sudden, Sherri Papini goes from victim to suspect. What specifically did you know? When did you start to find out that, I mean, didn't add up, of course, the whole notion of maybe she was, you know, there was a cult or something. That's what you think about when there's branding. What kinds of things didn't that police began to question?

[Sean Dooley]

Well, I think the biggest thing in the case was when Sherri came back, she was wearing sweatpants, and she did have a chain around her. And so, of course, authorities collected all of that as evidence, including all of her clothing. And they were able to determine that there was DNA on her clothing. The first thing that they determined is that it was male DNA, which didn't make sense because she.

[Debra Roberts]

Because she said two women.

[Sean Dooley]

Two women. It was two women. Two women held her the whole time. It was these, according to her, two women who had abused her. So that was a big red flag for authorities. And it began a very long process of them, I think, trying to figure out who that DNA belonged to. They used what we now kind of hear about all the time, genetic genealogy to trace it back. And they found that that DNA belonged to a man named James Reyes, who Sherry had actually dated at one point before she was married to Keith. So that was another huge red flag.

[Debra Roberts]

Oh, the plot thickens.

[Sean Dooley]

Exactly.

[Sherry Papini]

And over the next six years, investigators would piece together how Papini had lied about everything, from her fictional abduction to injuries, which Were largely self inflicted. DNA from her clothing eventually leading them to her ex boyfriend, James Reyes.

[Sean Dooley]

I didn't kidnap her, you know, I just. Friend in need asked me for help and that was that. What did she say? She was trying to get away from her husband. Your husband beat you, Your husband raped you. I don't know what her deal was. Is it okay if I go look in that room? The closet? I'm curious if it's the same as she described it.

[Debra Roberts]

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. This apartment, this closet and this bathroom look just like the place that Sherry says she was held captive.

[Sherry Papini]

Authorities say Papini's allegations of abuse against her husband were unfounded and that James Reyes and had no knowledge of her plan. And with Reyes's cooperation, investigators now believed they had solid proof Sheriff Papini's kidnapping was a hoax.

[Sean Dooley]

The DNA that was on you belongs to James Reyes.

[James Reyes]

We talked to him. We been on a polygraph. We talked to everybody around him. We have the rental agreements, phone rental, the carbon flow agreements. The reason why you lost so much weight is because you stopped eating. The reason why the brand is because he went to the store, bought the branding tools and branded you. The reason why your nose was broke is because of a hockey stick. It's not an abduction. She asked me to come and get her. No, I rented a car. I drove up and picked her up. He passed the polygraph test, Sherry.

[Sean Dooley]

That's not what happened. What did happen, Sherry?

[Debra Roberts]

Well, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, share his confession. But it's not the end of the story.

[Sean Dooley]

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[Debra Roberts]

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[Debra Roberts]

See full [e-mail] I'm back now with Sean Dooley, a senior producer here at 2020, and we're talking about the case of Sherry Papini, which Sean worked on along with correspondent Matt Gutman. Many times police have a suspicion. I've covered stories where they kind of didn't really believe the alleged victim. And then maybe within a year or so, this took six years to figure out that she wasn't truthful. Why so long?

[Sean Dooley]

It took a long time. Yeah. The authorities, when we were able to finally interview them, which, you know, we did the piece again in 2022, and we got a chance to talk to some of the lead investigators, and they basically just said we wanted to be absolutely sure of ourselves. Again, kind of referencing back to this Denise Huskins gone girl story. And also, they just wanted a. They wanted a bulletproof case so that when they took it to her and confronted her, they were able to say, we know this happened. We know this happened.

[Debra Roberts]

And poor Keith. He really was standing by her. Well, we've got a clip from the 2020 that aired in 2024 where Keith talks with Matt Gutman about feeling that something wasn't quite right about his wife's story.

[Sherry Papini]

I sat down with Keith Papini nearly eight years after I first met him, to hear how he says he was fooled by Sherry's lies for so long. So many people watching this would wonder, was his spidey sense going off? Didn't he notice that something was off?

[Keith Papini]

Of course I felt that way. There was always something that wasn't right.

[Sean Dooley]

No one found me.

[Debra Roberts]

And I want my husband.

[Sean Dooley]

I want my husband.

[Sherry Papini]

When you first encountered her in the hospital, what was your first instinct?

[Keith Papini]

When I pulled back the curtain and I saw her and I saw the look in her eyes, I felt in that moment that she was lying. And it wasn't until I went to her to embrace her, and I could just see the amount of injuries, bruises, burns to her body. And it was a shock to me. And I remember thinking, how horrible of me to even think that she could have done this to herself.

[Debra Roberts]

Such a confusing mix of emotions for this guy and the mom of his children. She presents as somebody who had been abused. Clearly now police are starting to think she did this to herself. That had to be really difficult for him.

[Sean Dooley]

Yeah. And I think you can understand where he was coming from. Right. That he. Something in his intuition told him in that moment that this didn't seem right. But as you say, this was his wife, the mother of his children. And. And she. You know, we did get to see these images of Sherri Papini, what she looked like when she came back. And the investigators say the same thing. It was her. The extent of her injuries were so extreme that any doubt that I think popped up in his head, he just immediately said, how could I even. How could I even think that?

[Debra Roberts]

How could she possibly do that?

[Sean Dooley]

How could she do this to herself? And I Think he felt a sense of guilt at the time even for having that thought. So, you know, and again, it took years for him to understand what really happened to his wife. And I think that it was a very, very difficult process for him to accept.

[Debra Roberts]

Let's talk about the lie that she told. I mean, police at this point are starting to believe that there are lies here. Two Latino women, you know, we've all heard these stories before where a person of color was fingered as the perpetrator. And it turns out somebody completely lied. This really was a very upsetting moment for those in the Latino community. Right. Because she just completely made this up. And why would she mention two Latino women?

[Sean Dooley]

Exactly. And I think, understandably so, there were many people in the Hispanic community who, especially in that area of California, who were offended by this. Once they found out that this was a hoax kidnapping and that she had participated in this herself. The fact that, yes, that she blamed it on two Hispanic women, it just, you know, it didn't sit well with people.

[Debra Roberts]

Yeah, it didn't sit well with people. And what about just the other fallout? Because she's got children, I'm sure the community, their neighborhood, I mean, what was that like, the fallout for their family?

[Sean Dooley]

Well, yeah, you have to think about what an enormously public story this was. So there was fallout for her family. There was fallout for Keith. They had also. Sherry had applied for, you know, victim assistance funds that exist in states when something like this happens to you when you're the victim of a crime. So you. She had taken money from these funds that eventually she's charged with. That. That's eventually part of what she's ultimately charged with is taking money that she shouldn't have taken. That's intended for victims of crime.

[Debra Roberts]

What's the status? So they divorced. They still have children together. Keith and Sherry. Have they found any way to get along? What is the latest between them as a family?

[Sean Dooley]

Yeah, when we spoke to Keith last year, you know, I don't know that he would use the term get along. I think they were, you know, they were divorced. They were in court. They are still in court going back and forth about the custody agreement. Keith remains the sort of primary custodian of his children. And I think Sherry is fighting to get expanded rights. But, you know, I think as we could all understand, Keith was dealing with feelings of incredible betrayal. And I think he didn't. He wanted to just focus on his children and move forward.

[Debra Roberts]

And we're learning, too, and we do learn in our 2020 episode about why she would do this kind of thing. I mean, what was going on for her?

[Sean Dooley]

Well, so this is the latest chapter of the Sherri Papini story, right? Is that in all these years, you know, we did get the opportunity to talk to Keith several times. We did get to talk to the law enforcement about how they really unraveled this story. But the person everybody I think has wanted to hear from now is Sherry Papin herself. And that's the reason why we're doing the story again.

[Debra Roberts]

Well, you just teed it up perfectly for me, Sean, because just ahead, a new chapter in this ever changing story. Sherry is the subject of a new documentary. So the person at the center of this story is actually finally going to speak out. Pms, pregnancy, menopause, being a woman is a lot. Ollie supports you and yours with expert solutions for every age and stage. They just launched two new products exclusively at Walmart. Period. Hero Combats bloat, mood swings and more during pms. And balance perimeno to support hormonal balance, mood and metabolism during perimenopause. Grab [e-mail] these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

[Sean Dooley]

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[Debra Roberts]

I'm back now with Sean Dooley, our senior producer here at 2020, who worked alongside Matt Gutman on this story with Sherry Papini. Nobody had hu from her. We all wanted to know her story. Of course, police at that point when we started working on this story for the second time, strongly felt that her story wasn't true. People have wanted to hear from her for a long time and now they're gonna hear from her in a documentary. Sean.

[Sean Dooley]

That's right. That's right, Deborah. So Sherri Papini did ultimately plead guilty to making false statements and to mail fraud. The mail fraud was in connection with that the victim's funds that she took that she shouldn't have. So she went to prison. She served 10 months, was released. She and Ke divorced. And yes, people have always wanted to hear from her. What would she say about why she did this, and now she's speaking out in this documentary. Her story is surprising, I will say.

[Debra Roberts]

Discovery ID has a four hour doc coming out and it launches on Memorial Day and 2020. Got a chance to talk to the filmmaker Nicole Rittenmeyer. And this had to have been really interesting to you to hear her story.

[Sean Dooley]

Definitely. So, you know, they spent a lot of time with her. They clearly shot several interviews with her. I think the headline of their documentary is that her story has changed from when she pled guilty. When you plead guilty, you sign a form.

[Debra Roberts]

You own up to it.

[Sean Dooley]

You own up to it. And there was a document that laid out exactly what happened. And she signed that document. Well, she now says that the majority of that document is not true and that the only thing that she lied about was that two Hispanic women abducted her. She now says that her ex boyfriend, James Reyes, who she readily admits that she was speaking to, they were talking that he. She was out for a jog one day, he showed up and he abducted her. And she says the rest of what she originally told was true, that he held her, he, you know, he abused her, he branded her, he starved her, and then he let her go.

[Debra Roberts]

And we should clarify that. Police believed that she willingly, you know, stayed with this guy and then at a certain point said she missed her children and wanted to leave.

[Sean Dooley]

Correct. You know, police, when they were doing their investigation, they found James Reyes and they spoke to him, they interviewed him. They recorded that interview. That interview is a part of our reporting on the story.

[James Reyes]

She instructed James to get a rental car, leave his cell phone at his house, and drive the nine hours or so to get to Redding, California to pick her up.

[Debra Roberts]

He gets her down to his apartment, gives Sherry the bedroom, and he sleeps on the couch.

[James Reyes]

Sherry asked him to put up the plywood to block out the window. I think James thought it was strange, but he was. He was also just helping a friend.

[Sean Dooley]

He said, you know, I thought I was helping a friend. You know, she asked me to come get her. I got her. She stayed with me for a while. He says she did the majority of the things to herself. She cut her own hair, she didn't eat a lot. She, you know, hit herself in the face with a hockey stick to, you know, break her nose. He does say, she asked me to help her with a few things, and I did that. But this was Sherry's idea.

[Debra Roberts]

And he was not charged, he was.

[Sean Dooley]

Never charged with a crime in connection with this. And we should also point out that he took a polygraph administered by the FBI, and he completely passed that.

[Sherry Papini]

We have reached out to James Reyes for comment, but have not heard back. The Shasta County Sheriff's Office fully investigated James, corroborated his story with a polygraph, cell phone records and witnesses, and has cleared him of any crimes. The sheriff's office declining to comment on Sherry's latest allegations, saying, quote, we are choosing to focus on current public safety matters.

[Sean Dooley]

So the authorities stand by their investigation and believe that Sherri Papini was the mastermind behind this, not James Reyes.

[Debra Roberts]

Well, she finally speaks out to the filmmaker with this documentary. So let's listen to 2020's conversation with Nicole Rittenmeyer about what she said about interviewing Sherri Papini.

[Nicole Rittenmeyer]

The first thing I felt when I met Sherri Papini was that I wanted to check myself. When you're dealing with an unreliable narrator, which she is, by even, you know, her own account, you have to bring an extra level of scrutiny to every single exchange, every single conversation. The person that I met is not the same person that I think people believe they are familiar with. What the public knows of Sherry is, you know, home movies where she's being a mom or being a wife or, you know, more significantly, the interviews that she did, the police interrogations, where she is very actively misleading, she is very actively lying. She admits that now. She pled guilty to that in court. So the Sherry I met, and I think the Sherry viewers are going to see is a very different version. She's been through therapy, she's been through prison. She's hit rock bottom, and we really put her through it. I mean, I was challenging her constantly. She's never spoken for herself. I think she just wants to be heard.

[Debra Roberts]

One of the things the film does is to have Sherry take a lie detector test.

[Sean Dooley]

Correct. So, you know, the filmmakers have asked that we not reveal what happens in that test. But, yes, they brought in a legitimate polygrapher and they hooked Sherri up and they asked her these questions. It's definitely an interesting part of the.

[Debra Roberts]

Documentary, and it'll be interesting to see now that she is going back on the story that she told, whether there could be some repercussions because of that. Now she's saying she signed a document and admitted to something that she says isn't true.

[Sean Dooley]

So, yeah, I think we'll have to wait to see how the authorities handle it. We did get a. We did reach out to the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, who we spoke to, and they said that they consider this case closed.

[Debra Roberts]

So that may be the end of it, but not the end of the fascination with this case. Well, that's it for the 2020 After Show. Sean, such a pleasure to have you here.

[Sean Dooley]

I love talking to you anytime.

[Debra Roberts]

It's always fun, right? So for once we took our hallway conversation to the actual microph and you all got a chance to hear how we report these stories. That's it for the 2020 after show. Thanks so much for listening. Don't forget, on Friday nights you can catch all new broadcast episodes of 2020 at 9:00pm Eastern on ABC. Our podcast is produced by Amira Williams and Sasha Aslanian with Brian Mazersky and Alex Barenfeld of 2020 Theme music by Evan Viola Janice Johnston is the executive producer of 2020, Josh Cohen, director of podcasting at ABC Audio and Laura Mayer is the Executive producer.

[Sean Dooley]

Oh my God. Is this your home? This is the humble abode. Oh my God, it's so humble. FX presents Adults.

[Debra Roberts]

You don't know your Social Security number?

[Sean Dooley]

No, I do. It's just my mom like knows the whole thing. A new comedy about 20 somethings achieving 0 anythings. What is the worst that happens? I go broke, I can't pay my loans, I start an OnlyFans, but only you guys subscribe. You can't do only fans. Yeah, you wouldn't make it on there. So sorry. FX's Adults premieres May 28th on FX. All episodes streaming on Hulu with T Mobile. No trendspotter has to deal with Trendspotty service because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network switch. Now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid cart. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more at T Mobile. Com. KeepAndSwitch up to 4 lines of your virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device, credit service port in 90 plus days device ineligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card is no cash access and expires in six months.