Ex-husband of kidnapping fraudster Sherri Papini reveals how he was also fooled by wife's elaborate hoax

The ex-hubby of kidnapping faker Sherri Papini broke his silence to reveal how he was also fooled by his wife’s elaborate hoax.

Sherri, 41, was jailed in 2022 for a Gone Girl style plot where she faked her own kidnapping and vanished for three weeks in 2016, lying to police and giving herself injuries to match her story. 

The scheme captivated the nation and has been the center of true crime documentaries and podcasts. 

Now, seven years on, her ex-husband Keith has broken his silence, telling Good Morning America: 'I think she wanted me to be her knight in shining armor and run to her.'

The pair are now locked in a drawn-out custody battle over their two children Tyler, 14, and Violet, 12.

Sherri was reported missing in November 2016, reappearing three weeks later on Thanksgiving 145 miles away from where she was last seen. 

Officers found her with a chain around her waist, multiple injuries and a brand on her shoulder. 

Over the following weeks she crafted an elaborate ruse, telling officers that she had been abducted by two Hispanic women who had beaten and branded her. 

But her story unraveled when officers found her ex-boyfriend's DNA on her clothes in 2020 and discovered she had been holed up with him the whole time she had been pretending to be missing. 

It emerged that her injuries were all self-inflicted to back-up the kidnapping story. 

Keith spent the time she was missing desperately searching for her while also being treated as a suspect in her disappearance. After her trial and imprisonment, he was given full custody of the children. 

Breaking his silence seven years on, he told Good Morning America she has never apologized to him of their children for what she put their family through: 'She has no remorse that I have ever witnessed or seen.' 

Even when police accused her of lying, Sherri insisted she was telling the truth, Keith said: 'She made us believe that her story was true. Every single day she committed to the lie.'

Speaking out, he said he wants everyone to know 'how convincing' Sherri was 'all those years' and how he believed everything she said.

He said: 'I think she wanted to plan a fake kidnapping, but in her version I was supposed to find her.' 

He said all he wants now is to be able to 'move past it' even though the events are 'always going to be there'. 

He said: 'I do want to provide my children an amazing childhood, but I think it will always be there.'

Sherri is currently battling for more access to Tyler and Violet while Keith wants her to undertake a psychological evaluation and be barred from seeing them unsupervised.

She is also demanding he hand over an array of items from the marital home in Redding, among them ‘Grandpa’s truck, an inflatable water slide, a leaf blower and a smart TV'.

An expense declaration obtained by DailyMail.com shows that the petite blonde claims to have an income of just $1,000-a-month, half of which she says she pays out in rent.

She was previously awarded just $10,000 in her divorce and ordered to pay half of a $3,000 debt she racked up on a BestBuy credit card after she was arrested in April 2022.