What Happened To Sherri Papini? Husband's Quotes Describe Mysterious Disappearance And Return Home

The return of Sherri Papini, the mother found on Thanksgiving morning after she disappeared while jogging on Nov. 2, was celebrated by hundreds of residents of Redding, California, Saturday at a public welcome-home party.

"We never lost hope," Redding Mayor Missy McArthur told the gathering of more than 200 community members, according to ABC News Monday. "We kept working and we made it happen. So, we're so proud of this community."

Sherri Papini was found by a passing motorist on the side of the Interstate 5 highway outside of Sacramento bound by restraints with her blond hair lopped off. Her husband, Keith Papini, had alerted local police about her disappearance after learning she didn’t pick their two children up from day care, prompting law enforcement officials to scour through hundreds of phone tips and hours of video surveillance of the area she went missing for the next three weeks. Keith Papini said his wife weighed just 87 pound when he first visited her in the hospital after being discovered.

Authorities were still searching this week for the alleged kidnappers, who Sherri Papini described as two armed Hispanic women driving in a dark sport-utility vehicle. Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko told ABC News last week there was “no reason to disbelieve” Papini’s story, and that law enforcement officers were now focused on circumstances from her past, including her first spouse, divorce and online activity that could have had an impact on why she was kidnapped.

As the investigation continues, here are 10 quotes from Keith Papini about what happened to his wife:

-“I received a text message from her at 10:37 a.m. that day asking me if I was coming home for lunch. I usually don’t bring my personal phone in on my job. So I didn’t respond to that message until 1:39 p.m. that day.”

-“Knowing that she didn’t pick up our kids — there is no way that ever happens. She could drop her phone, but she would never in a million years not pick up our children on a time that she normally would have. Everybody who knows my wife knows that there’s no reason for her to leave… She was definitely taken against her will”

- “The first thing I said was, ‘What time did Sherri pick up the kids today?’ And she said, ‘The kids are here.’ It was like, ‘Something is wrong, there is something wrong right now.’”

-“People would see me and start crying and give me hugs ... total strangers.”

-“I just said, ‘Son, mommy went running and she didn’t come home and we’re all looking for her right now. And we just held each other ... and I said, ‘We’re going to find her and we’re going to get her back.’”

-“Immediately after that, my home phone rang. It was my wife screaming in the background, yelling my name, and a CHP [California High Patrol] officer that seemed somewhat confused at the moment, like, ‘What is going on?’… [the officer] said, ‘I need you to be calm. I need you to be calm.’ … I already know it’s her. I can tell her voice. I get the phone and, [I said], ‘Oh my God, honey.’ And of course she's screaming. It's very emotional. And, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, Oh my God, you're here. You're back. Where are you?’"

-“My first sight was my wife in a hospital bed, her face covered in bruises ranging from yellow to black because of repeated beatings, the bridge of her nose broken."

-“She has been branded and I could feel the rise of her scabs under my fingers.”

- "She screamed so much, she’s coughing up blood from the screaming trying to get somebody to stop"

-"She was bound … she had a metal chain around her waist. She had a bag over her head … she was chained anytime she was in a vehicle. They opened the door, she doesn’t know because she had a bag over her head, they cut something to free her restraint that was holding her into the vehicle and then, kind of, pushed her out of the vehicle.”