Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn were accused of perpetrating a "Gone Girl"-esque hoax after Huskins was kidnapped and raped by Matthew Muller in 2015.
NetflixDenise Huskins, whose brutal kidnapping was initially dismissed by police as a hoax.
Denise Huskins was a physical therapist living in California when her life took a horrifying turn in 2015. What began as a romantic evening with her boyfriend Aaron Quinn ended in a shocking home invasion, with Huskins kidnapped by a terrifying stranger. Though she survived the ordeal and returned home two days later, things then got worse.
No one — especially the police — believed her or Quinn.
As seen in the Netflix docuseries American Nightmare, Huskins and Quinn were accused of perpetrating a “Gone Girl”-type hoax. It wasn’t until their kidnapper struck again that police realized they’d been telling the truth.
Denise Huskins And Aaron Quinn Before The Home Invasion
Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn were both physical therapists living in Vallejo, California, when they met and started dating in 2014. The couple quickly grew close, often spending their time together at Quinn’s home on Mare Island. But their relationship wasn’t without complications. Quinn had recently ended an engagement to another physical therapist, Andrea.
By early 2015, tension began to grow. Huskins discovered that Quinn had continued communicating with Andrea and had even talked about possibly rekindling things. This discovery led to serious arguments between the couple. But Quinn was committed to the relationship. And on March 22, 2015, they agreed to stay together and make things work.
NetflixDenise Huskins with Aaron Quinn.
Just hours later, everything would change.
The Kidnapping Of Denise Huskins
At 3 a.m. on March 23, Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn awoke to an intruder in their bedroom. The stranger tied them up, covered their eyes with swimming goggles obscured by duct tape, and forced them to take sedatives. The kidnapper took Huskins, and told Quinn that if he went to the police, he would kill her.
Hours later, Quinn woke from the sedatives and found messages from the kidnapper demanding $8,500. Mindful of the kidnapper’s threats, he did not call the police, but instead called his brother, an FBI agent. His brother told him to call 911. Quinn obeyed.
But when police arrived at Quinn’s Mare Island home, they were immediately suspicious. They asked him if he was on drugs or if he had been partying. And they seemed to have doubts about his story, which was unusual and sounded more like something from a movie than a real-life crime.
Vallejo Police DepartmentA screenshot from Aaron Quinn’s interrogation with the police following Denise Huskins’ kidnapping.
After taking him to the police station, investigators began to interrogate Quinn about the nature of his relationship with Huskins. They asked about “tensions” and if Quinn were “cheating.” Less than an hour into the interrogation, a detective told Quinn: “I don’t think you’re being truthful, and I don’t think anybody came into your house.”
In other words, the police seemingly believed that Aaron Quinn was lying — and that he’d had something to do with his girlfriend’s disappearance.
Meanwhile, Huskins was held captive in her kidnapper’s home for two days. She was blindfolded, sexually assaulted on camera, and forced to record a “proof-of-life” tape that her kidnapper sent to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Denise Huskins and Aaron QuinnDenise Huskins was shocked when she survived her kidnapping — only to be accused of perpetrating a hoax.
Then, two days after she vanished, Huskins reappeared in Huntington Beach, California, 400 miles away from Mare Island. She was near where her parents lived, and Huskins was able to walk to her father’s house.
But instead of being welcomed back from her horrifying ordeal, Denise Huskins found that the Vallejo Police Department suspected that she and Quinn had perpetrated a “Gone Girl”-esque hoax. The police stated that the crimes committed against Huskins and Quinn were an “orchestrated event and not a kidnapping” and Vallejo police spokesperson Lt. Kenny Park suggested in a press conference that they should apologize.
In an interview with Netflix’s Tudum, Quinn recalled how surreal it all felt. He understood being considered a person of interest at first; he was the last one with Huskins. But he was shocked when the police decided they’d solved the case before doing a real investigation. “Even after saying I killed Denise,” Quinn said, “they made up a crazy story that we did it together.”
But the truth of Denise Huskins’ kidnapping would come to light.
How Matthew Muller Was Finally Caught
In June 2015, police responded to a home invasion in Dublin, California. A suspect had broken into a house and tried to tie up a husband and wife — but the husband fought back and the suspect fled. The suspect left his phone behind, which police were able to trace to a man named Matthew Muller.
Misty Carausu of the Dublin Police Department went to Muller’s South Lake Tahoe home with several other police officers, where Muller was arrested. Inside the home, she found a pair of blacked-out swim goggles with a long blonde hair attached. This was strange, as the couple attacked in Dublin were not blonde. It seemed Muller had had other victims.
NetflixMisty Carausu played a key role in unraveling the truth behind Denise Huskins’ abduction.
“Looking back at all the evidence, there was just no denying that this wasn’t his first time committing a crime,” Carausu told ABC News in 2021. “I just had to figure out where these other crimes occurred.”
Carausu found that Muller, a former U.S. Marine and a graduate of Harvard Law School, had been a person of interest in several similar crimes. She remembered the “Gone Girl” case in Vallejo, and was soon able to connect Matthew Muller to Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskins.
Damningly, Quinn’s stolen laptop was found at the South Lake Tahoe cabin, and detectives found the Huntington Beach address where Huskins had been dropped off programmed into a car Muller had stolen.
NetflixMatthew Muller had committed a number of similar crimes.
Detectives soon realized that Muller had been behind a number of other attacks. In 2009, he broke into two women’s’ homes and tied them up. Muller threatened to rape one, and started sexually assaulting the other before she persuaded him to stop. In 2015, he kidnapped Huskins and attacked the couple in Dublin.
But Muller had finally been caught. After his arrest, he was charged with kidnapping for ransom.
The Legal End To An ‘American Nightmare’
Matthew Muller ultimately plead guilty to kidnapping. He has also been charged with kidnapping for ransom, two counts of forcible rape, robbery, burglary, and false imprisonment. He was initially sentenced to 40 years in prison, then sentenced to an additional two life sentences.
“I didn’t know how I’d feel, but it hit me deeper than I expected,” Huskins wrote in a post on Instagram.
Though Muller was finally brought to justice, his arrest came far too late to undo the damage done against Quinn and Huskins’ reputations. They filed a defamation lawsuit against the City of Vallejo and its police department, accusing them of negligence, public shaming, and spreading falsehoods. And in 2021, they settled out of court for $2.5 million.
It wasn’t just about the money. For them, the settlement was an acknowledgment of the trauma they endured — from both the kidnapping and the accusations that followed. They had been victims twice over.
Facebook/Denise HuskinsDenise Huskins and Aaron Quinn are now building a quiet life together with their growing family.
Since their nightmare has ended, Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn have built a new life together. They eventually married and now have two young daughters. Their story has been told both in their memoir, Victim F: From Crime Victims to Suspects to Survivors and in the Netflix docuseries American Nightmare. They described the fear, the confusion, and the betrayal they felt from the people who were supposed to help them. Huskins and Quinn are now advocates for victims’ rights and police accountability.
After reading about the kidnapping of Denise Huskins, read about Sherri Papini, the woman who staged her own disappearance. Then, read about how 13-year-old Jayme Closs escaped her kidnapper.
