Sherri Papini’s ex-husband makes alarming allegation about sinister way she ‘would make their children sick’
Fraudster Sherri Papini’s ex-husband has made a shocking new accusation that she deliberately made their children sick.
Keith Papini claimed in Hulu’s new three-part documentary, Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini, that the mother of two made them inhale rubbing alcohol fumes to make them sick enough to go to the doctor.
He only became aware of the plan after Sherri went to prison for her kidnapping in 2022, he said.
“One day, after Sherri was already in jail, I went to bed to put my daughter to bed and I pushed the bed away from me and made little grunting noises, like, ‘Ah!’ You know, I was a little stiff,” he said.
“Violet, she said, ‘Daddy, are you sick?’ and she says, “Why don’t you do Mommy’s trick?”
“I thought, ‘Mommy’s trick? What are you talking about?'”
Keith Papini claims in new Hulu documentary that his ex-wife let their children inhale rubbing alcohol fumes
“She said, ‘Well, you’re just breathing in this rubbing alcohol,’ and I was like, ‘What?’
“She goes to the bathroom, she knows exactly where the rubbing alcohol is. She wads up a piece of toilet paper, soaks it in and then hands it to me to breathe,” he said.
Keith said he then asked his young daughter, “How many times have you done this?” to which she replied, “Well, when we got sick, we did it every day.”
“And the next thing I know, my kids are getting forensic interviews,” he said.
He said he later found out that Sherri “soaked rags of alcohol and put them in a resealable bag” that she would tie around her children’s necks “so they would keep smelling the fumes and they wouldn’t feel so good, so they wouldn’t feel so good. she could take it to the doctor.’
“It became a lot easier at that moment to see her in a different light, as if she didn’t exist.”
Sherri, 41, has never been charged with any crime in connection with the alleged behavior, and DailyMail.com has contacted her attorney for comment.
But she now sees her children, Tyler and Violet, now 11 and 9, only once a month during supervised visits.
She fights for more access, but Keith wants her to undergo a psychological evaluation and not be allowed to see them unsupervised.
He claimed he only found out she was rubbing alcohol on their children after Sherri was already in jail for her 2016 kidnapping
Keith said the idea was to make the children sicker ‘so she could take them to the doctor’
The mother-of-two had the family’s lives turned upside down when she disappeared while jogging a mile from her home on November 2, 2016.
For three weeks, Keith and his family searched frantically for his wife, while also being treated as suspects in her disappearance.
Sherri was finally found on Thanksgiving, about 140 miles (233 kilometers) from where she was last seen.
Police said she appeared “dazed, battered and bruised,” noting that officers found her with a chain around her waist, multiple wounds and a mark on her shoulder.
Over the next few weeks, Sherri devised an elaborate ruse, telling police she had been kidnapped by two Spanish women who beat and branded her.
But her story unraveled when officers found her ex-boyfriend’s DNA on her clothes in 2020 and discovered she had been hiding with him the entire time pretending to be missing.
It later emerged that her injuries were all self-inflicted, supporting the kidnapping story.
Keith now has custody of their two children, while Sherri can only visit them once a month
Sherri, 41, disappeared on November 2, 2016 while jogging a mile from her home before resurfacing three weeks later on Thanksgiving.
Keith broke his silence about the ruse earlier this month, telling Good Morning America that she has never apologized to him or their children for what she did to their family.
“She has no remorse that I have ever seen or witnessed,” he said.
“This was a lie she told every day, every minute… Maybe being a stay-at-home mom didn’t satisfy her… She never apologized to me or the kids… She’s acting like it never happened. ‘
Even when police accused her of lying, Sherri continued to insist she was telling the truth, Keith said.
“She made us believe her story was true. Every day she kept the lie.”
Sherri even pretended to be triggered by Mexican culture and frequently broke down during therapy to maintain her kidnapping lie, her family said in the documentary.
Her story unraveled when officers found her ex-boyfriend’s DNA on her clothing in 2020 and discovered she had been locked up with him the entire time.
“I took her to some of her therapy appointments and she would curl up and start screaming or crying,” said her older sister Sheila.
“She would process something in therapy, but she would find something new that would trigger her.
‘[She] can’t handle anything that has to do with Spanish culture.’
Keith added that “if there was someone with dark curly hair, a Hispanic people, it would increase her anxiety.” Like “are they?”
Still, Keith said he felt like his wife was lying.
He claimed that when he first saw Sherri after her “rescue,” “it seemed like she thought she had been caught.”
“It’s an image burned into the back of my brain.”
But he added that all doubt disappeared when she saw her injuries and that he “immediately felt terrible for even thinking that.”
‘If you can’t trust your wife, who can you trust? “I kept telling myself, ‘I’m going to do anything for my wife,’” he claimed.
‘I got the impression that she was happy with us and that she didn’t want another life with anyone else.’
Keith has since said he suspected his wife was lying but ‘felt terrible thinking about it’
He also denied Sherri’s claims that he had been an abusive and controlling husband.
“She said I hit her and the police wouldn’t do anything,” Keith said in the docuseries.
‘[When it came to] our mutual friends… it was a completely different story,” he said, noting that he had searched for her for three weeks.
‘It was painful to hear those things at this moment because I don’t sleep and I don’t eat. I’m fighting for my wife’s life.
“And to know that she kept saying these… untrue things is painful…”
Now Keith says he just wants to “move past it” — even though he knows his ex-wife’s plan “will always be there.”
He filed for divorce shortly after Sherri was in prison and now has sole custody of their children.
Sherri, meanwhile, sees her children, Tyler and Violet, now 11 and 9, once a month during supervised visits.
“I want to give my kids a great childhood, but I think that will always be there,” Keith said.