He also recalled how he told his two young children the news.
Keith Papini has opened up about the moment he learned his wife Sherri was still alive after she was kidnapped in early November, describing his "panic" and relief when he received the good news.
In a 20/20 special airing Friday night, he spoke about the phone call he received early Thanksgiving morning, three weeks after his wife vanished while jogging.
“It was my wife screaming in the background, yelling my name, and a CHP [California Highway Patrol] officer that seemed somewhat confused at the moment, like, ‘What is going on?'" Papini said. "And [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,” he said.
He said he “panicked” but ultimately happy because "this is the first time I've heard her voice.”
The father of two then told their children their mother had been found after missing for three weeks.
He first spoke to his 4-year-old son, Tyler, saying: “I sat him down, and I was on my knees and he was standing up. And I said, 'you know what, buddy? I found mom,' and he got the biggest grin."
Sherri was branded, her nose was broken, and she had her hair "chopped off." Many believe she was kidnapped by sex traffickers.
Jennifer Kempton is a victim of human trafficking who now runs Survivor's Ink, an organization that offers tattoos to cover up branding and other scars of sex trafficking survivors. She says she herself was branded three times. One brand called her "Property of Salen," another says "King Munch."
"Each trafficker has their own identifier to use to mark their victims as property," Kempton told Inside Edition. "We see a lot of dollar signs, we see a lot of names."
Kempton believes Sherri, the 34-year-old known as "Supermom," was a victim of sex trafficking.
The region where Sherri was abducted is known as “The Emerald Triangle” — three counties in Northern California notorious for marijuana cultivation. It is also a hotspot for sex trafficking and drug cartels.
Watch: California Jogger Found Alive After Disappearing a Month Ago, Cops Say She Was Abducted
