Forgive me for just jumping in here. I've been a longtime reader here and have followed the discussions through several cases, starting with Mickey Shunick who was from my hometown. I spent much of my night last night and some of my morning reading from (I think) thread 8 on this case.
And really, I want to take a moment before discussing anything else to just applaud this entire community for the nature of conversation regarding SP. I haven't seen one anywhere else that is this respectful and open minded about the case regardless of opinion.
Sherri's disappearance was brought to my attention by a close friend of mine. She lives in Redding (though I don't believe she knows this family personally) and has posted about it quite a bit on facebook. I was... confused, I suppose, when I followed a link she posted leading to the anonymous ransom offer. That seemed unusual to me and raised some red flags. However, I was thrilled when SP was found. I'm a mother of young children and can only imagine the fear hers were feeling while she was gone. Red flags went up again though for me after reading her husband's statement about her appearance, the online rumors, etc. Until that time, I had never heard mention anywhere that SP's abduction was staged in any way, and actually, I had to spend a great deal of time looking for the kind of rhettoric mentioned in that statement. I did come across some incindiery comments on Reddit and another forum, but it confused me that such a strong statement was made against what looked to me like such a comparitively small group of people. Perhaps there are larger discussions that I didn't see that he was alerted to. Still, it seemed odd. That said, people all react differently to emotional situations so I'm trying to withhold speculation there.
I do think though that the nature of that statement was strangely peppered with wordage associated with sensationalist reporting or the kind of highly descriptive writing authors or professional writers use. It was almost... overly descriptive.
I suppose it doesn't help (for me personally) that I've been writing a novel for several years and the description he gave of SP was eerily similar to one I gave a fictional character following an abduction/period of captivity/eventual release. Right down to the way he described her "signature" blond hair being chopped off. It was bizarre to read these details written about a real life person when I dreamed up a similar scenario for a fictional, fantasy/adventure narrative. I'm not saying in the least that this means the man is lying or wrong or misleading in any capacity. It simply added to my personal curiosity about the case in its entirety.
Since I've begun researching, there have been several details of this case that I find perplexing... some of them only slightly, but some are harder to wrap my head around. I have always wondered, for example, why the vast majority of pictures released to media during her disappearance were SEVERAL years old. It was something my friend mentioned in her first post about the case saying something like "I'm attaching a more recent picture to this. Not sure why they're using this one from 2009."
I'm highly confused about motive. I've read all the statements and theories about trafficking and/or gang initiation and I just can't find any solid ground to stand on with those. Neither SP or the nature of the abduction/release fits the profiling for either of those things. I'm not discounting them entirely, just not sold on either.
I'm also not buying the hate crime theory... though I wouldn't be surprised if it were supposed to look that way. I don't want to elaborate much here.
Most of the information received from LE makes it at least sound like SP did not know her abductors, but there could be connections found later or current leads that they don't want to give away.
The hoax theory's biggest hole is SP's injuries, though I don't think those discount the idea entirely. Especially since she wasn't admitted to the hospital. That doesn't seem to jive well with the husband's gruesome description.
I suppose only time will tell. I can say honestly that this is the most unusual and (in a lot of ways) unique case I've ever followed. There are a lot of questions to be asked and I'm impressed with the way that's been executed on this forum. Personally, I feel like something is off with this case.
