REDDING, Calif. _ Investigators say they have no reason to doubt Sherri Papini's story that she was abducted by two women who held her captive and badly abused her for three weeks.
"All the information that we have right now we have no reason to believe that she is making this up," said Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko in an interview Wednesday with The Sacramento Bee.
Bosenko said detectives have a clearer picture of events after conducting two lengthy interviews Monday and Tuesday with the 34-year-old Mountain Gate woman who disappeared while on a jog on Nov. 2.
"Two women, armed ... they did abduct her and held her captive for roughly three weeks," Bosenko said. "Then one of them released her obviously on Thanksgiving."
Bosenko said Papini did not know the two women, and it's not yet clear why they took her.
"We do not know if it's related to sex trafficking or the reason for her abduction, or was she specifically targeted or if this was a random abduction," he said.
On Tuesday, Sherri Papini's husband, Keith Papini, released a statement to ABC's "Good Morning America" saying the women broke her nose and starved her, left her covered in scabs and bruises, seared a brand into her skin and cut her long, blond hair.
According to her husband, Sherri Papini's captors threw her from a vehicle on a darkened Yolo County highway, wearing a bag over her head and restrained by chains on her wrists and waist.
Keith Papini said he was releasing his statement in an effort to put rumors to rest, following rampant online speculation about the events, including whether the abduction could be a hoax.
On Wednesday, Bosenko addressed a widely circulated online post on a now-defunct website called Skinheadz.com that allegedly was signed by a "Sherri Graeff" � Papini's maiden name.
In the post, the writer said that while growing up in Shasta Lake, she got into two fights with Latinos who targeted her because she was "drug-free, white and proud of my blood and heritage."
Bosenko said it's still not clear if Papini wrote the post, but he said the fights the author described weren't noted in any sheriff's office records.
"We don't know if it has any relevance to this case or not," he said.
