Sherry Papini refused to eat Mexican food and said she was triggered by Hispanic people after returning from elaborate fake kidnapping by 'Latino' captors

Relatives of kidnapping hoaxer Sherri Papini claim she faked a bizarre paranoia about Mexican food, curly hair, and mariachi music after she returned to her family. 

The 41-year-old mother disappeared while out for a jog a mile from her house on November 2, 2016 before resurfacing three weeks later on Thanksgiving.

But she was jailed in 2022 for the Gone Girl-style plot after it became clear she lied to police and gave herself injuries in an elaborate ruse to match the faux abduction. 

Now her family claims she pretended to be triggered by Mexican culture and would regularly break down during therapy to keep up her kidnapping lie.

'There were so many precautions taken,' her mother-in-law Pam Papini explains in the new Hulu's docuseries titled Perfect Wife. 'She refused to eat black beans because they [kidnappers] only fed her cold black beans out of a can.' 

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

She was reported missing in November 2016 when she suddenly vanished after going out for a jog.

Sherri, who was 34 at the time, appeared 'dazed, battered and bruised' three weeks later on Thanksgiving about 145 miles away from where had been last seen.

In a new docuseries, her relatives claim she kept up the lie by faking a bizarre paranoia of Hispanic food and culture.

'I went to several of her therapy appointments with her, she would curl up and start screaming or crying,' her older sister Sheila said. 

'She would work through something in therapy but she would find something new that would trigger her.

'[She] can't handle anything that had to do with Hispanic culture.

Sherri's mother-in-law Pam added: 'There were so many precautions taken.'

While her ex-husband Keith said: 'If there was anybody with dark curly hair, any Hispanic people, it would heighten her anxiety. Like "is that them?"'

Sherri's best friend Jenifer Harrison claimed she was triggered by lots of things including loud noises and closed doors.

She added that the mother-of-two would not be able to drive on her own. 

Keith said: 'If she needed to use the restroom, she couldn't handle the door shut. 

'Then I would have to go into the bathroom and then close it but she wouldn't want me to lock it.'

Pam added: 'She had to be next to him at all times. He was in charge of everything.'

Her ex-husband claimed she would refuse to eat food that wasn't prepared by him or her sister Sheila.

'She had to know the person and in front of her because she was being drugged by these people and they would put drugs in her food,' Keith added.

Sherri told the authorities that she heard mariachi music on the radio in the car when she was kidnapped and she allegedly described it as 'that really annoying Mexican music'. 

Early on in the docuseries, Jenifer explained what Sherri told her about her relationship with Keith. 

'"If I ever try to leave him, he'll kill me",' she said. 'She went down to "he'll chop me up into little pieces and bury me in the backyard."

'But I will tell you she tends to be a little dramatic, a little exaggerative.'

Keith revealed he thought Sherri was lying about the ordeal as soon as he saw her after the alleged kidnapping. 

'When I pulled back that curtain and I saw her very first reaction when she looked up at me...It just looked like she thought she was caught,' he said. 

'It's an image that's burned in the back of my brain.'

But he added that any doubt disappeared once her saw her injuries and he 'immediately felt horrible for even thinking that'.

He accompanied her to therapy sessions and once told the therapist: 'Sometimes I don't believe what Sherri is telling me to be true.'

'She's like "okay well you know, one thing I can always tell you is her story's never changed. At the end of the day, look at her body. You can't fake that sort of stuff. Look at the scars, do you think she's capable of that?"

'I remember I took a long pause. In a very shameful way, I was like, "yeah I can actually kind of see her doing that". 

'But she seemed to do odd things in the past. She would lie, she would manipulate.'

Officers discovered Sherri 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 or 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'.

Keith 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 their children 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.

Last week, exclusive DailyMail.com photos showed Sherri locked in an embrace with her auto dealer boyfriend Shawn Hibdon, 49, following an amorous encounter in the backseat of her white Jeep SUV in a Starbucks parking lot in Orland, California, on Monday.

After an hour in the car with Hibdon, who arrived separately in a gray Hyundai with distinctive dealer plates, she emerged giggling and dressed in a pink tank and flashy tie-dye leggings.

The pair then enjoyed a smooch – having first checked the parking lot to make sure no one was watching – before leaving in different cars.

Hibdon has been single since losing his wife Brittany unexpectedly at the age of 36 in September 2021 and is a single father to their two sons Houston, 16, and Westley, 14.

A source told DailyMail.com the relationship began prior to her 10-month stretch at FCI Victorville, with the pair meeting in Chico – a town located an hour south of Sherri's former home in Redding.

She briefly lived in the area after being thrown out by her ex following her arrest. Her sister Sheila also resides in the town.