Sherri Papini Case

Many of you have written to me asking me my opinion on the Sherri Papini case.

It’s one of the strangest cases we’ve seen in a long, long time.  You have a husband who comes home from work to find his family is nowhere to be found.  He quickly comes to the conclusion his wife is missing and calls police after finding her phone.

Then we have a shady character by the name of Cameron Gamble, who is a self-proclaimed expert in abductions. He gets involved in the case, separate of law enforcement.  Supposedly an anonymous donor offers money for Sherri’s return and Gamble is the designated spokesperson.  The sheriff was adamantly opposed to his involvement, but the husband, Keith Papini, goes forward anyway.

But in a strange twist, Gamble takes the money off the table just hours before Papini is found alive on a highway at 4 a.m. Thanksgiving morning.

What are the odds?

Taking a few minutes to look at the case closer, I am flagged on several levels.  The husband’s behavior raises my eyebrows as well as Cameron Gamble, and I haven’t seen Sherri at all.

I can’t come to any conclusions at this point, but I will tell you I have a lot of questions I’d like answered!! Things aren’t passing the sniff test for me at this point.

What do you think?

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Expression of the Day

Reading the news this morning, I came across the story of  little Etan Kalil Patz who disappeared from lower Manhattan in 1979.

Apparently this man, Pedro Hernandez, was interviewed by police in 2012 and confessed to killing Etan.

The courts will determine this week  if Pedro Hernandez‘s statements are admissible in this case.

Statistically speaking, 25% of confessions made by people are false, so just because someone confesses, it does not  automatically mean they are one responsible for committing the crime.

When I saw this news story and I looked at this suspect shown in the article, his facial expression stopped me dead in my tracks.  Hernandez’s expression here is extremely threatening. If I saw him on the street, I would immediately look away and take actions to get as far away from him as I could. I would try to become invisible in the shortest amount of time.

What expression is Hernandez making here?  I will share my answer in my comments below (on the blog for those of you reading this elsewhere).

Abduction of Quinn Gray on Dateline


Originally posted September 2011 (re-run)

If you didn’t see Friday night’s Dateline, you missed a whopper of a story.  It was two-hours of action, deception and lies.  I would have to say this was one of the most hotspot littered cases I think I’ve ever watched.  Quinn Gray couldn’t have been a better subject!

For those of you who saw the show, here is Quinn Gray’s ransom note

So many hot spots:

  1. Notice Quinn’s normal bubbly written text?  When people are held at gunpoint, they get nervous and nervous hand writing isn’t so sweet and smooth! Hello.
  2. Quinn writes, “I need you read this and be calm!!”  Who under duress is going to think like this?   Just be calm, honey!
  3. Quinn writes, “…do not be a hero.”  Hero?  Who would think about heroes when you have a gun pointing to your head? 
  4. Quinn writes, “This is professional.”  What victim of a crime is ever going to think her abductors are “professional”?   I could see law enforcement calling someone professional, but not a victim unless they were talking about a crime in hindsight–not during the actual crime.  How does she know they are “professional” at this point? She hasn’t seen them do anything, if this is real and they just broke into her house. It’s ridiculous.
  5. I find it very odd she tells her husband they want $50,000, but he cannot get more than $9,500.00 out of the bank.  Had she tried at one point?  Would you know this if you were held at gun point?  Very odd information for a “victim” to have… She could have called the bank with the kidnappers and asked about  how much she could withdrawal, but she makes no mention of it.
  6. Then she says they only have $7,000, which makes it even more perplexing that she should would know about the $9,500 number because why ask if you don’t have it?
  7. Her use of the word “stupid” stands out to me as well.  When you are facing life and death, and you may not see a loved one again, and I can’t imagine you would worry about them doing stupid things.  You would worry about their life instead.  It’s odd to say the least. She doesn’t seem worried about him at all, does she?
  8. It’s odd how she is so sure she will be fine if he just gets the money.  Why would she be so sure?  A kidnapper wouldn’t give her the time to write that over and over again!  Time is of the essence if they are all standing around in her house, mind you.
  9. She writes, “Please do this honey!” Honey?  Again, its ridiculous!! 

Clearly, by her own word choices, she was not a woman under duress.  Had I found this ransom note, I couldn’t help but chuckle!!!! It tells a heck of a lot information, and while you couldn’t write it off, I would have been very skeptical. 

Word choices tell us so much…