Sherri Papini's ex-husband makes alarming allegation about sinister way she 'would make their children sick'
Kidnapping fraudster Sherri Papini's ex-husband has made a shocking new allegation that she would intentionally make their children sick.
Keith Papini claimed in Hulu's new three-part documentary, Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini, that the mother-of-two would have them breathe in fumes from rubbing alcohol to make them sick enough to go to the doctor.
He did not become aware of the scheme until after Sherri went to prison in 2022 for her kidnapping hoax, he said.
'One day after Sherri was already in prison, as I go and lay my daughter to bed, I push off the bed and I kind of make little grunt sounds, like "Ah!" You know, I was a little bit sore,' he said.
'Violet, she was like "Daddy are you sick?" and she goes, "Why don't you do Mommy's trick?"'
'I was like, "Mommy's trick? What are you talking about?"'
Keith Papini claims in a new Hulu documentary that his ex-wife would have their children inhale the fumes from rubbing alcohol
'She was like, "Well you just breathe in this rubbing alcohol," and I was like, "What?"'
'She goes up to the bathroom, she knows right where the rubbing alcohol is. She wads up a thing of toilet paper and just soaks it and then hands it to me to breathe,' he said.
Keith said he then asked his young daughter, "How often did you do this?" to which she replied, "Well, when we got sick, we did it every single day."
'And the next thing I know, my kids are getting forensic interviews done,' he said.
He said he later found out that Sherri would 'soak rags of alcohol and put it in a Ziploc bag' that she would tie around her children's neck 'so that they would continue to smell the fumes to make them not feel so good, so that she could take them to the doctor.'
'So obviously at that point, it really made things a lot easier to think of her in a different light as if she didn't exist.'
Sherri, 41, has never been charged with any crime in connection with the alleged behavior, and DailyMail.com has reached out to her attorney for comment.
But she now only sees her children, Tyler and Violet, now 11 and 9, once a month during supervised visits.
She is fighting for more access, but Keith wants her to undertake a psychological evaluation and be barred from seeing them unsupervised.
He claimed he only found out that she was rubbing alcohol on their children after Sherri was already imprisoned for her 2016 kidnapping hoax
Keith said the idea was to make the children sicker 'so that she could take them to the doctor'
The mother-of-two had turned the family's life upside down when she disappeared while out for a jog a mile from her house on November 2, 2016.
For three weeks, Keith and his family frantically searching for his wife, while also being treated as a suspect in her disappearance.
Sherri was eventually found that Thanksgiving, about 145 miles away from where had been last seen.
Police said she appeared 'dazed, battered and bruised,' noting that officers found her with a chain around her waist, multiple injuries and a brand on her shoulder.
Over the next few weeks, Sherri crafted an elaborate ruse, telling police 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 later emerged that her injuries were all self-inflicted to back-up the kidnapping story.
Keith now has custody of their two children, while Sherri can only visit them once a month
Sherri, 41, disappeared while out for a jog a mile from her house on November 2, 2016 before resurfacing three weeks later on Thanksgiving
Breaking his silence on the ruse earlier this month, Keith 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,' he said.
'This was a lie she told every day, every minute… Maybe being a stay-at-home mom wasn’t fulfilling her… She has never apologized to me or the children… She acts like it never existed.'
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.'
Sherri even allegedly pretended to be triggered by Mexican culture and regularly broke down during therapy to keep up her kidnapping lie, her family said in the documentary.
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
'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.'
Keith added that 'if there was anybody with dark curly hair, any Hispanic people, it would heighten her anxiety. Like "is that them?"'
Still, Keith said he had a feeling his wife was lying.
He claimed that when he first saw Sherri after her 'rescue,' 'It just looked like she thought she was caught.'
'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'.
'If you can’t trust your wife, who can you trust? I just kept saying to myself, "I’m going to do everything for my wife," he claimed.
'I was led to believe that she was happy with us and that she didn’t want any other life with anyone else.'
Keith has since said he had a sinking suspicion his wife was lying, but 'felt horrible for thinking of that'
He also denied Sherri's claims that he had been an abusive and controlling husband.
'She was saying I was beating her and that the cops wouldn’t do anything,' Keith said in the docuseries.
'[When it came to] our mutual friends… it was a totally different story,' he said, pointing out that he spent three weeks searching for her.
'It was hurtful to hear those things at the moment because I’m not sleeping, I’m not eating. I'm fighting for my wife's life.
'And to know that she was going around saying these… untrue things, it’s hurtful…'
Now, Keith says he just wants to be able to 'move past it' - even though he knows his ex-wife's scheme is 'always going to be there'.
He filed for divorce from Sherri shortly after she was imprisoned, and now has sole custody of their children.
Sherri, meanwhile, currently sees her children, Tyler and Violet, now 11 and 9, once a month during supervised visits.
'I do want to provide my children an amazing childhood, but I think it will always be there,' Keith said.
