The newspaper spoke to Giacalone and Danny Defenbaugh, a former Dallas FBI director who led the task force that investigated the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and has expertise in hostage situations, to ask about the prevalence of cases in which captors release their victims and how those victims respond when they return home.
In Giacalones experience, it is a rarity for a victim to be released, and he was upfront that the story so far does not add up.
"To attack somebody, kidnap them, tie them up, take them 150 miles and then leave them on the side of the road, it just doesn't make any sense to me," he said.
But Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said his investigators have no reason to doubt Papini's story. They and their counterparts in Yolo County are combing surveillance videos and traffic cameras to identify the perpetrators, he said.