Is Sherri Papini lying? Legal expert weighs in on polygraph results
Known as the real-lifeGone Girl, Sherri Papini is breaking her silence in thenew docu-seriesCaught in the Lie, where she takes a polygraph test after claiming that she really was kidnapped after all.
In the eyes of the law, Papini did lie. She admitted to faking her November 2016 abduction after law enforcement discovered she had been at her ex-boyfriendJames Reyes’home, despite claiming for years that she was snatched by two Hispanic women.
In 2022, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay $300,000, while facing backlash for perpetuating racist stereotypes with her made-up story. While she disappeared into obscurity, Papini is front and center of ID’s new four-partdocumentary.
Now, she’s spinning a different story. Rather than saying she faked the kidnapping for attention, she claims that she really was kidnapped and abused – not by two fictitious women, but by Reyes.
Is Sherri Papini lying? Polygraph test shows mixed results
To get to the bottom of her new story, Papini agrees to a polygraph test, the results of which are mixed. There is one question that indicates she’s being deceptive: her denial of planning to go to California with Reyes.
The question is: “Did you plan to travel to Southern California with James on July 02, 2025?” Polygraph expert Brett Bartlett, who conducts the test, says, “You answered ‘no’ and your body’s telling me otherwise.”
Papini claims that she was having an emotional affair with Reyes due to her being unhappy in her marriage to Keith Papini, who she shares two children with. So, according to her account, she remembers “making a plan with James and leading him on, so that we could still talk.”
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“Did you infer that you would move down there?” Bartlett asks, to which Papini replies, “Yeah, there was a lot of leading him on.”
There are three questions at the start of the test that Papini answers “no” to and the results indicate she was being truthful. They are:
There’s also a number of questions that come back as unresolved:
Reyes has given the same story ever since he was first questioned by law enforcement: that Papini falsely accused her husband Keith Papini of being abusive.
She allegedly told him that she needed his help to stage the kidnapping, even roping him in to help her injure herself. At the time, he took a polygraph test and passed every question. So, how can this be the case?
Attorney explains why polygraph tests are “unacceptable”
Dexerto spoke with criminal defense attorney Peter M. Liss about the issues with lie detector testing, and why the results can’t be taken as fact – for Reyes or for Papini. “There’s a reason polygraphs are not used in California criminal courts,” he told us.
“Some people can maintain their composure under the most stressful conditions, while others will have physiological responses to the stress of these lie detector tests – even if they are entirely truthful.
“That’s because polygraphs can’t actually tell if someone is lying, but instead, they measure changes in the test-taker’s heartbeat, blood pressure, breathing, and how much they sweat.
“Depending on who you ask, lie detector tests are anywhere from 50 to 90% accurate, but even a 90% accuracy rate means the machines provide an incorrect answer one out of ten times. That’s an unacceptable failure rate for the criminal courts.”
As Liss explained, elements such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity are measured, but there are no specific physiological reactions associated with lying, making it difficult to determine whether a person is being deceptive or not.
“As a criminal defense attorney, I wouldn’t rely on a polygraph to support my client because they’re simply too inconclusive and unreliable,” Liss said.
“The reason police tend to use these tests is that they want to get the suspect talking in a situation where the suspect believes they will get caught if they tell a lie.
“In the Sherri Papini case, it’s very clear that either she or James Reyes has successfully lied on a polygraph. But without additional evidence, it’s impossible to tell which one of them was actually lying.”
Sherri Papini’s mother doesn’t believe her
Papini’s own mother, Loretta Graeff, appears in Caught in the Lie, and while she’s defensive of her daughter, she doesn’t believe her new version of what happened.
“No, it wasn’t a kidnapping,” Graeff says. “My daughter was very, very unhappy in her marriage. She wanted some kind of happiness.
“When he showed up and Sherri went with him, it wasn’t a kidnapping, it was more, ‘I want to have a little bit of happiness in my life because it’s been very, very hard.’”
When asked about Reyes’ polygraph results in thetrue crimedocu-series,Sherri Papiniaccuses her ex of being a “psychopath.”
However, Peter French, a retired FBI special agent involved in the case, says that Reyes gave “a statement that we were able to corroborate and he was much more credible than someone who gave several stories and even now still can’t be corroborated.”
“When you tell the truth, there are corroborations that bind that story together. When you’re making stuff up, it’s impossible sometimes to prove or disprove. It just is. And it’s hard to corroborate Sherri Papini’s claims,” he continues.
“She had four years when she could’ve said, ‘You know what, I was having marital problems at the time so that’s why I had these events take place.’ She never said that.”
Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie Episodes 1-2 arestreamingon Max now, while Episodes 3-4 air on Tuesday, May 27 from 9-11pm ET/PT on ID and Max.
For more true crime news, read aboutwhy Fred West needed an appropriate adult, theMenendez brothers’ new sentencing, andwhere Molly Martens is now.
