Kidnapped mum’s horror injuries suggest she may have been abducted by Mexican sex slave gang, detective claims
HORRIFYING injuries found on the body of kidnapped mum Sherri Papini who was found chained and beaten on the side of a highway suggest she was abducted by sicko sex traffickers, it is claimed.
The Californian who was missing for 22 days was covered in bruises, had a broken nose and her hair was completely cut off at the time.
The 34-year-old mum of two was even branded during the ordeal.
So far the exact circumstances of what happened has remained a mystery.
But now San Diego private detective Bill Garcia, who has been working with the family, told reporters that he believes there are tell-tale signs she was taken by sex traffickers.
“There’s a lot of young girls, even young men, that have been taken from that area,” Mr Garcia told Fox News.
“I know in working in the area for some years now that there’s a high incidence Mexican cartel groups.”
The new theory comes after husband Keith Papini revealed his wife "screamed so hard she coughed blood" after her two female captors cut her free and pushed her out of a vehicle in California.
He spoke out about the mum-of-two's desperate bid to flag down drivers in a preview for an ABC News 20/20 show set to air on Friday.
"She screamed so much, she’s coughing up blood from the screaming trying to get somebody to stop," he said.
Sherri, 34, was freed on Thanksgiving morning after allegedly being tortured, beaten and starved in a horrific three-week ordeal.
Speaking about the moment she was released, her husband said: “She was bound…she had a metal chain around her waist.
"She had a bag over her head...she was chained anytime she was in a vehicle."
Keith said the alleged kidnappers "cut something” that freed the restraint holding her in the vehicle, pushed her out onto the road and drove away.
But rather than drivers rushing to her aid, Keith said the battered and bruised mum was ignored by motorists on Interstate 5 in Yolo County.
"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'.”
She then tucked the chain under her clothes before drivers came to her aid.
Police investigating the alleged kidnap now fear one of the few clues in her disappearance may have been planted as a red herring.
The 34-year-old mother of two was believed to have been abducted during a routine jog near her family home in Redding, Northern California on November 2.
Her iPhone and earbuds were found on the Mountain Gate trail about 1.5km from the Papini residence in the days after she vanished.
They were located by Ms Papini’s husband Keith using the “Find my iPhone” app and detectives later confirmed several strands of Ms Papini’s long blonde hair were tangled up in the earbud cords.
Rumours have been circulating in social media forums on the case for days that the items appeared to have been “placed” rather than dropped or thrown.
Shasta County Police Sheriff Tom Bosenko confirmed that rumour for the first time in an interview with the Today Show this morning.
Sheriff Bosenko said Ms Papini’s phone and earbuds had been “neatly placed” rather than lost in a struggle.
“It appeared they had been set in some grass with the screen facing up, and then the earbuds to the phone were loosely coiled and appeared to be placed on the screen,” he told Today.
“It did somewhat appear to be that it was placed there purposely.”
It raises several questions, including the possibility Ms Papini was kidnapped somewhere other than the jogging track and that she may have known the person or people who took her.
Some online sleuths have speculated Ms Papini was snatched from her house, citing unconfirmed reports that a half-wrapped Christmas present was found at the residence.
She disappeared for 22 days before turning up on the side of a rural road in Yolo County on thanksgiving morning — some 240km from where she was last seen.
The badly-beaten woman was found starved and chained, telling police she had been ejected from a dark-coloured SUV by her captors, whom she described as two Hispanic women armed with a handgun.
Sheriff Bosenko told reporters that “a number of evidence items” found at the second crime scene had been sent to the lab for processing but declined to say what they were.
One is believed to be a bag placed over her head that she managed to take off and use to flag down a passing motorist, who failed to stop but put in the crucial 911 call.
Both alleged captors are described by Ms Papini as Hispanic. One was “younger”, with long curly hair, thin eyebrows, pierced ears and a thick Spanish accent. The other suspect was older with straight black and grey hair and thick eyebrows.
Ms Papini was unable to provide more detailed descriptions because the women had kept their faces covered most of the time, and sometimes covered hers.
Sheriff Bosenko said a sketch artist had been contacted but was having trouble creating a composite based on the limited information Ms Papini could provide.
Keith Papini has been blamed for seriously compromising the investigation after releasing a detailed statement of his wife’s appalling injuries, including the fact that she had been branded.