Sheriff Says Captors Burned Message Onto Sherri Papini

'It is not a symbol, but it was a message'
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 30, 2016 1:48 PM CST
Sherri Papini Was Branded by Her Captors: Sheriff
Shasta County sheriff Tom Bosenko says missing California jogger Sherri Papini was branded by her captors.   (Andreas Fuhrmann /The Record Searchlight via AP)

Not only was Sherri Papini apparently chained and beaten during her three-week abduction, but her kidnappers also allegedly burned a message into her skin, ABC News reports. Sheriff Tom Bosenko says the California woman who disappeared while jogging on Nov. 2 was branded by her captors. "I would think that that was some sort of either an exertion of power and control and/or maybe some type of message that the brand contained," he says. "It is not a symbol, but it was a message." According to the AP, Bosenko hasn't given any further information about the brand.

Papini, a mother of two, was found alive on Thanksgiving. Police are still searching for the two women she says kidnapped her. Papini's husband Keith has said his wife was both physically and mentally abused by her captors. He says she weighed 87 pounds when she was found and was "covered in multicolored bruises, severe burns, red rashes, and chain markings." He says her nose was broken and hair cut off. "My Sherri suffered tremendously and all the visions swirling in your heads of her appearance, I assure you, are not as graphic and gruesome as the reality," the BBC quotes Keith Papini as saying. (More Sherri Papini stories.)

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