Her weight loss — from her ordinary weight to the 87 pounds she weighed when she was found — was real and significant. It represented a loss of more than twenty pounds in twenty-two days. Medical assessment of the weight loss concluded that it was consistent with deliberate food restriction by someone choosing not to eat adequately, rather than with forced starvation by captors. This is a clinically meaningful distinction. The rate of loss and the pattern were consistent with a person controlling their own intake over three weeks.
During those three weeks, she and Keith Papini had no contact. Keith was publicly consumed with the search for his wife. He was giving media interviews. He was organizing community search efforts. He was the face of a family in crisis.
His wife was nine hours away, in Southern California, making her injuries.
When Papini told Reyes she missed her children and wanted to go home, they made arrangements for her to return. Reyes drove her north, to Yolo County — a drive of several hours — and released her near Interstate 5 before dawn on November 24, 2016. She was found by a passing driver at approximately 4:30 a.m.
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## The Return Scene: What Investigators Noticed
The physical scene when Papini was found on Thanksgiving morning was dramatic. She was restrained. She had a cord or chain around her waist. She was emaciated. She was visibly injured. A passing driver on Interstate 5 near Woodland found her on or near County Road 17 in Yolo County and called 911.