Found Alive CA - Sherri Papini, 34, Redding, 2 November 2016 - #18

[katydid23]

I would say KaaBoom IS discussing it. S/he is discussing the fact that s/he thinks it is highly unlikely. And saying why. There are really three sides--those who argue that it very well could be sex trafficking, those who argue that it is highly unlikely, and me--I say that there is really no information upon which to base a decision and so I am going to walk the dog.

:seeya::seeya::seeya:

I did not mean that KaBoom should scroll and roll....:wink:

 

[Ontario Mom]

Ok, so why do you think she was taken?

From all we have to go on, which is very little, I'm leaning toward this being personal. Either directed at her personally or someone who loves her. Obviously this is pure speculation since we have so very little to go on. Yet.

 

[soanyway]

The branding in sex trafficking can include burning. The type of branding SP received is likely key to disclosing who her captors were and hopefully this information remains undisclosed. With the knife cut referenced below, I've seen where traffickers carve into their victims and pour ink into the wounds. BBM

Many victims of human trafficking are BRANDED; their captors physically mark them with a number or symbol. The process is often violent: a forced tattoo, a burn or knife cut. When you receive your item from the BRANDED Collective, ​

you are BRANDED. Each piece contains a unique number that represents one of the millions trapped in the nightmare of trafficking.

http://www.brandedcollective.com/pages/story

It's hard to know at this point. Sex traffickers often tattoo their victims with a logo of theirs, often called a "brand". So what is called branding in sex trafficking is in the form of tattooing your "brand" onto a human victim, using needles. As far as I know it is not common for sex traffickers to brand with something hot in order to burn the skin of a victim, the way cattle are "branded" (sorry so graphic).
Spokespeople for the Papinis have said Sherri was "branded". If they mean she was burned, then it is something different from what sex traffickers ordinarily engage in. If they mean she was tattooed with someone else's logo, name, or identifying mark, then they are describing the exact sort of "branding" sex traffickers sometimes employ.
I think it is not useful to speculate about whether this particular injury implies sex trafficking unless or until we get a more detailed description of the injury they were referring to when they said she was "branded".
That's my understanding of the situation. I hope that helped make it clearer?

 

[Prahasaurus]

Or at least not to kill her. Which means they may have been planning on selling her to others, possibly sex traffickers.

So the plan was to abduct a married woman with family and friends, watch as publicity about her abduction builds, beat her and brand her, incur costs to guard her, risk exposure and significant jail time, then, after three weeks of this, find someone willing to buy a battered woman whose face in all over the TV to use in their sex trafficking business?

If that was their business model, we can at least take solace in the fact they will not be in business very long.

 

[kanzz]

Or at least not to kill her. Which means they may have been planning on selling her to others, possibly sex traffickers.

Do you know if SP got the impression from her captors that they (at least initially) might have thought she was much younger than she actually is?

(apologies in advance if you have already answered this - and I will understand if you can't or don't)

 

[KaaBoom]

Serial killer profiler John Kelly tells PEOPLE he isn’t convinced that two armed Hispanic women abducted California mom Sherri Papini for 22 days, as she has told police.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ya...i-papini-lucky-alive-abduction-180024166.html

However Kelly, the founder and president of S.T.A.L.K. Inc., is convinced the case “has serial rapist, serial killer all over it.” He says whomever abducted Papini left her “scared to death of these people,” who may have terrified Papini into lying about her abductor’s identity.

He makes good points, but he should have stopped at "serial rapist". If this was the work of a serial killer, SP would be dead.

 

[rob]

Just noting that none of the sex trafficking VICTIMS are "interested". It is FORCED prostitution. There is a HUGE difference.

I really don't mean interested, like interested in being sold off, but a 34 year old in this case is, IMO, going to be harder to force/coerce/scare into doing what you are trying to force them to do.
Does that make sense?

 

[Satchie]

It just seems to me that the way the abductors tried to dehumanize and break her down is also what is done in the sex trafficking industry in order to gain compliance.

But it's also what a significant number of people fantasize about doing for psychological/sexual gratification, mostly through 'playacting' BDSM, look at how popular Fifty Shades of Grey was. I think most sadists have a hidden part of themselves that would rather do it for real than just play acting.

 

[katydid23]

I'm curious about the link in the post about the sex trafficking arrest. The URL is riversidecountynewssource.org, and the linked story has ties to Riverside county. But why does a website covering Riverside County also have another title bar right below that says "Shasta County News Source"? Why does one website cover news in two counties that are over 500 miles apart?

You may not have an answer for that but can you explain how you discovered the article? Were you trying to find out more about the man arrested at your daughter's apartment complex and coincidentally found an article with ties to Shasta County? Or were you researching SP on "Shasta County News Source" and coincidentally found an article about the man arrested at your daughters apartment complex?

YES, I thought that was really odd too.

My daughter called to tell me about the reason for the arrest of her neighbor. So I just googled, using her street name, and this is the first article that came up. It is the only one that stated specifically the name of the street. We didn't know his name.

So it is really odd that it is also Shasta County News on the heading. I have no idea why. All of the other articles that come up with google seem to be word for word with this one.

 

[Gardener1850]

I'm a bit baffled by the fixation on sex trafficking. It seems the LEO aren't taking it seriously. Maybe they haven't ruled it out, but they haven't ruled out anything... There have not been any reports of sexual assault. Most experts say this isn't a typical sexual trafficking case. Why the push to make this sexual trafficking with zero evidence?

I'm not pushing sex trafficking, however I find it plausible for multiple reasons:

1. Trafficking has been mentioned by several people close to the case including a PI the family hired and a Verified Insider here.

2. Trafficking has been pointed out as being more common in the area where SP was taken/released and experts have said I-5 is a busy ST corridor. Multiple articles have been posted in these threads with examples of traffickers in the area and the stats of the crime in those areas.

3. The things done to SP during her captivity-- branding, beatings, chained, and hair cut-- fit with things traffickers do to break their victims.

4. There are "sensitive" things the sheriff is holding back. I can think of a lot of things they may be holding back on but the top of my list would be that there was rape involved. The Verified Insider here said if we could know the extent of what SP went through most would find her even more courageous. We know she was beaten, branded, chained, starved and tortured. There is only one thing worse that I can think of that a woman would be subjected to that would not involve life threatening injuries--and that is rape. I don't wish to know if SP was raped but I cannot rule it out in my mind. That is a main reason women are abducted- whether it was by a ST ring or by a random sicko. JMO.

In short, I see slightly more evidence that points to trafficking than to other theories. I will continue to keep an open mind, however, and I'm not willing to totally discount this was a targeted attack by someone obsessed with SP personally. I can see the arguments for that kind of scenario as well. I'm baffled as to why some can totally discount trafficking as a possible explanation. But I guess we all see things differently.

 

[Lake16]

You apparently believe that the perpetrators knew her age or other details about her life. I don't believe they did. I have actually seen Sherri in real life. She looks very young. As I stated before if I was serving her alcohol I would request her i.d. to verify she was of legal age (21 here in California).

Just to clarify something. The issue with her being 34 years old is not her age per se. As many have noted, she looks rather young, at least in the pictures I've seen. The issue is that 34 year old women typically have people with whom they interact regularly, people who will immediately miss them, look for them, pressure the police to find them, put up flyers, go on TV, etc.

Sex traffickers are not stupid, they do that for a living, and they know what type of girl can be snatched with relatively few issues. Married women with children are definitely outside of their target group.

It is extremely unlikely this was sex trafficking.

 

[katydid23]

So the plan was to abduct a married woman with family and friends, watch as publicity about her abduction builds, beat her and brand her, incur costs to guard her, risk exposure and significant jail time, then, after three weeks of this, find someone willing to buy a battered woman whose face in all over the TV to use in their sex trafficking business?

If that was their business model, we can at least take solace in the fact they will not be in business very long.

How would they know she was a married woman with kids and friends and supportive family?

 

[dc211]

He makes good points, but he should have stopped at "serial rapist". If this was the work of a serial killer, SP would be dead.

Also if LE had any indication that serial killer or serial rapist was responsible for abducting Sherri and was still at large they would have to disclose that fact to the community. To not do so would be a huge liability.

 

[unsomnambulist]

Sherri Papini Sex-Trafficking Evidence Almost as Flimsy as PizzaGate Proof

The Pizzagate reference is sheer clickbait, but the thrust of this post casts a whole of skepticism on the entire sex trafficking angle. Here's a snip:

Police later confirmed that Sherri did have something burnt into her skin, specifying only that it was not a "symbol" but a "message." But even accepting the premise that sex-traffickers frequently "brand" their victims—a common claim also utterly lacking in evidence—Papini's burns could just as easily have been an act of torture or a way to relay a message to Papini, police, or the public. And the latter explanations certainly make more sense than the former when taken with the facts that nothing else about the abduction belied an intent to force Papini into commercial sex and, in fact, Papini's assailants eventually just let her go, according to what she told police.​

 

[cady]

Personally, I'd rather just stick with this case in discussions than see incessant citations of other cases from around the country. This case seems rather unique, to me. Is there some reason that the people of Shasta County are contemptuous of their own Law Enforcement Agencies? What a strange community it paints itself to be. What IS going on ? JMO

 

[kanzz]

You apparently believe that the perpetrators knew her age or other details about her life. I don't believe they did. I have actually seen Sherri in real life. She looks very young. As I stated before if I was serving her alcohol I would request her i.d. to verify she was of legal age (21 here in California).

That certainly answers my question as well. Thank you!

:wink:

 

[Deleted member 110058]

I think there was a red herring here, but thankfully is not open for discussion per TOS. Does anyone else find it odd that the OR hasn't been on any of the threads since?

What does OR stand for?

 

[DeDee]

ABSOLUTELY. It really saddens me how people don't see it as forced or as kidnapping victims and hostages. Some people write these girls off as throwaways without understanding the true circumstances which surrounded them at the time. :sigh:

There hasn't been a dismissal of women who are used in trafficking that I've noticed. Most, if not all, of the Long Island Serial Killer(s) victims were prostitutes. WS has joined forces with the new A&E doc series to better understand what happened to the victims. There are numerous threads dedicated to the LISK victims on WS.

In this particular thread, some may be dismissing the objective of the kidnapping of SP as being related to sex trafficking. However, none of us are belittling the victims of the lucrative sex trade. I may be one of the few who believes that prostitution should be legalized. Women should not have to stand on a street corner to earn a decent living.

 

[soanyway]

Lake, I posted a link stating that Salfen was hired as a PI for the family. Do you know if Garcia was actually paid for services by the family or was his work pro bono?

Or at least not to kill her. Which means they may have been planning on selling her to others, possibly sex traffickers.

 

[cady]

You're free to believe what you want. There is nothing more that KP, SP and family would like then for the perpetrators to be caught. There is no cat to let out of the bag.

Do they feel that LE has enough information to find and capture these people? JMO