Who Kidnapped Sherri Papini? Husband, Private Investigator And Sheriff Blame Unnamed Women

A private investigator hired by the husband of a California woman who went missing in a violent, mysterious criminal case that has gripped the nation in recent weeks said her story is real. After Sherri Papini, 34, went missing in November and then later was found injured by the side of a road on Thanksgiving, some have questioned the details of her shocking story.

But while Papini's story seems highly unusual, she is telling the truth, private investigator Cody Salfen told local reporters. “It’s clear that this is a legitimate case of abduction and the other scenarios that people have talked about are improbable,” he said of hoax theories circulating on the internet. “The fact that she was recovered alive such a long period of time after her initial disappearance that really defies my experience with abduction cases.”

The young mother was beaten and branded and then left on the side of Interstate 5. The Shasta County Sheriff has not named the two suspects, described simply as two Hispanic adult women armed with a gun and driving a dark SUV.

“When you have a criminal duo essentially or a pair of people, traditionally that would involve a male or a female. in most criminal duo relationships or situations you’ll have the male dominant role and the more subservient female role,” Salfen said.

Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko has said Papini was branded in an unknown area of her body to terrorize her. A motive also remains unknown.

“I would think that that was some sort of either an exertion of power and control and/or maybe some type of message,” Bosenko said, adding, “We do not know if she was a specific target or if this was a random abduction.”

Papini, the mother of two small children, went missing while jogging on Nov. 2.

“She was bound … she had a metal chain around her waist," her husband, Keith Papini, told reporters. "She had a bag over her head...she was chained anytime she was in a vehicle."

Her captors apparently were driving on the interstate when they stopped the vehicle, pushed her out onto the road and then left her about 150 miles from her California home.

"She screamed so much, she’s coughing up blood from the screaming trying to get somebody to stop," Keith Papini said in an exclusive interview slated to air on ABC News "20/20" FRIDAY, Dec. 2 at 10 p.m. EST. "And again just another sign of how my wife is, she’s so wonderful. She’s saying, 'Well maybe people aren’t stopping because I have a chain that looks like I broke out of prison' so she tried to tuck in her chain under her clothes."