But investigators could not prove a staged scene in November 2016. They had physical evidence of injuries. They had a woman who described an abduction. They had a missing month accounted for, in her telling, by captivity. The investigation continued on the basis of the reported kidnapping, because the known evidence at that point was not conclusive.
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## The Composite Sketches and the Year of Frustration
For the first year after Papini’s return, investigators worked with the account she had provided. Two Hispanic women, in a dark-colored SUV, armed, masked. The sketches were the goal — a visual representation of the alleged captors that could be publicly circulated and generate leads.
The problem was that Papini was, from the beginning, a difficult interview subject. She was vague about details. She gave inconsistent accounts across different sessions. Investigators had to work through her reluctance — she attributed that reluctance to the alleged captors’ threat that they were connected to law enforcement, which she said made her afraid to cooperate fully with police. That explanation was itself convenient in a way that delayed investigative progress.
It took approximately a year — until late 2017 — to obtain enough detail from Papini to produce composite sketches of the alleged abductors. The sketches were released. They depicted two women of the description Papini had provided. The sketches were distributed publicly and generated news coverage.
The tips that came in were consistent with the community dynamics that Papini’s account had set in motion from the beginning. Community members called to report Hispanic women who seemed suspicious. The tips did not lead to any suspects because there were no suspects — the women in the sketches did not exist.