The California mom who was kidnapped, tortured and starved had a message burned into her skin by her abductors and her hair chopped off to “humiliate her,” police said Wednesday.
Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko would not describe the content of the message seared into Sherri Papini, 34, who survived the harrowing three-week ordeal.
“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. It is not a symbol, but it was a message,” Bosenko told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday morning.
“Obviously, a very sick person who may have wanted to not only to cut it off to change her physical appearance, but also as to humiliate them, wear her down,” Bosenko added.
Keith Papini, Sherri’s husband, issued a statement Tuesday detailing the horror of seeing his wife in the hospital for the first time after her release by her kidnappers.
“Obviously, a very sick person who may have wanted to not only to cut it off to change her physical appearance, but also as to humiliate them, wear her down,” Bosenko added.
“Her now-emaciated body of 87 pounds was covered in multicolored bruises, severe burns, red rashes and chain markings,’’ the husband wrote in a lengthy statement to “GMA.”
“Her signature long, blond hair had been chopped off. She has been branded, and I could feel the rise of her scabs under my fingers.’’
Papani said the mother of two had just been “thrown from a vehicle with a chain around her waist, attached to her wrists and a bag over her head.
“The same bag she used to flag someone down once she was able to free one of her hands,’’ he said.
Sherri Papini was discovered by a motorist on Interstate 5 near a rural road outside Sacramento on Thanksgiving Day, three weeks after she disappeared while jogging near her home in Mountain Gate — 140 miles away.
She told police she had been abducted by two armed Hispanic women in a dark SUV.
Police were still hunting for the kidnappers.