Sherri Papini’s husband, Keith Papini, opened up to ABC’s 20/20 about his wife’s 22-day disappearance and said that he thought about her “being there, screaming my name” the moment she was released on a highway in Northern California. Good Morning America debuted an extended clip from the sit-down on Thursday, December 1. See what he had to say in the video above.
“I thought about her being there, screaming my name,” Keith told ABC’s Matt Gutman in an interview set to air in its entirety Friday, December 2, at 10 p.m. ET.
“She was bound. She had a chain around her waist,” he added. “She had a bag over her head. Her left hand was in the vehicle chained to something. She was chained anytime she was in a vehicle. They opened the door — she doesn’t know, because she had a bag over her head. They cut something to free [a] restraint that was holding her into the vehicle and then kind of pushed her out of the vehicle, and she at this point has no idea where she’s at. She ran to the freeway.”
Keith went on to share disturbing details of Sherri’s physical condition after she escaped her alleged abductors, whom she described to police as two Hispanic women. Authorities are looking for the two women as the investigation continues.
“She screamed so much, she said she’s coughing up blood from the screaming, trying to get somebody to stop,” Keith told Gutman. “And again, just another sign of how my wife is, she’s so wonderful, how she’s like, ‘Well, maybe people aren’t stopping because I have a chain, it looks like I broke out of prison.’ So she tried to tuck in her chain under her clothes.”
As previously reported, Sherri was found beaten and chained on the side of a road in Yolo County, California, around 4:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving. Keith reported his wife missing from their home when she didn’t come back following a jog November 2. Sherri was supposed to pick up their children, ages 2 and 4, from daycare that day. She was found 22 days later.
Keith previously issued a statement to Good Morning America regarding his wife’s abduction. “Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see upon my arrival at the hospital, nor the details of the true hell I was about to hear,” Keith said, adding that Sherri was “emaciated” and only weighed 87 pounds. “My first sight was my wife in a hospital bed, her face covered in bruises ranging from yellow to black because of repeated beatings, the bridge of her nose broken.”
He also responded to internet rumors that Sherri’s story is a hoax. Authorities previously told ABC News that there was “no reason to disbelieve” her account.
“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. I understand people want the story, pictures, proof that this was not some sort of hoax, plan to gain money, or some fabricated race war. I do not see a purpose in addressing each preposterous lie,” Keith said. “We are a very private family who do not use social media outlets prior to this grotesque tragedy. My love for my wife took precedence, and it was clear we had to be exposed in ways we never would have been comfortable with.”
Watch the video above.
