Source: Netflix

Except the couple were actually telling the truth, and the real kidnapper was caught a few months later by police. The tale of Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn’s experience — which made headlines around the world — is now at the center of a Netflix docuseries, “American Nightmare.” Here’s everything to know about the kidnapping, the fallout with the police, and what happened next.

A kidnapper seized Huskins and sent Quinn ransom demands

It all started in the early hours of March 23, 2015, when an intruder entered Aaron Quinn’s San Francisco Bay Area home, where he and his girlfriend Denise Huskins were staying. A  kidnapper showing a fake gun blindfolded and tied up the couple, and made them drink a sedative. 

In fact, he also played a prerecorded message that says the home invasion was being carried out by a professional group collecting financial debts, and threatening them with violence if they didn’t follow his instructions. Huskins was taken away by the kidnapper, and Quinn received two ransom demands for $17,000, though this was never paid.

Quinn Called the Police but the Police Turned on Quinn

As per the lawsuit the couple later filed against the City of Vallejo and members of its police force, when Quinn woke up from the sedative hours later, he “agonized for the next several hours about what to do,” terrified about what the kidnapper would do to his girlfriend if he told police.

The same day at around 2 p.m., Quinn decided to report the incident.  But the lawsuit alleged police failed to carry out a routine investigation and missed key evidence of the kidnap. “Rather than even entertain that Quinn was telling the truth and that Huskins — and the public — were in extreme danger from a violent predator, [the police] immediately and recklessly assumed, based on nothing but fanciful speculation, that Huskins was already dead and that Quinn had killed her”, the lawsuits stated. 

“Thus, they proceeded to interrogate Quinn aggressively for 18 straight hours, while Huskins was still in the hands of a violent kidnapper and being subjected to even more grievous harm.” The lawsuit further said that Quinn was also subjected to a lie-detector test, and told he had failed.

Denise Huskins Re-emerged and the Police called it a complete Hoax

On March 25, two days later, Kidnapper freed Huskins near her parents’ house in Huntington Beach, Calif. The lawsuit stated that Mathew Mustard, a detective with the Vallejo Police Department, “instantaneously and tactically discounted his ‘Quinn murdered Huskins’ theory and entertained a salacious and absurd ‘Gone Girl’ theory” — in reference to the book and 2014 movie adaptation of the same name, in which a woman elaborately stages her own kidnap.

A few hours later, Vallejo police publicly said that they believed the couple had made the whole story up. Their exact words were: “Mr. Quinn and Ms. Huskins have plundered valuable resources away from our community and have taken focus away from the true victims of our community while instilling fear amongst our community members,” Vallejo Police Lt. Kenny Park said in a news conference that night. He also added that the couple “owe this community an apology” and described the case as “a wild-goose chase.” Moreover, Park said the couple could face criminal charges, The Washington Post reported at the time.

A Major Twist

Source: ABC7

Now when everyone believed what the police said about the case, a bizarre twist came, The San Francisco Chronicle said it received several emails from someone claiming to be Huskins’s kidnapper, saying her ordeal had been real, they wanted to clear her name, and demanding the police apologize to Huskins and Quinn.

According to the report, the kidnapper sent the first email before Huskins’s release which contained a “proof of life” message from a woman who identified herself as Huskins. Further emails had a large number of details of the alleged kidnapping, the newspaper said. 

A Huskins’s lawyer told the San Francisco Chronicle that the account “contains details that only Denise, Aaron, and kidnappers would know.” Later it was, including in an FBI affidavit, that the emails had actually come from Huskins’s kidnapper.

The Kidnapper was Finally Caught

Another twist in the case came a few months later when officers from Dublin Police Services of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department investigating another break-in arrested a Harvard-trained attorney and former U.S. Marine named Matthew Muller. When they searched his home in South Lake Tahoe they eventually found evidence of the kidnapping.

An FBI investigation further uncovered more evidence, including two videos of Muller sexually assaulting Huskins, who was blindfolded. In 2017, Muller was finally arrested and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. The judge explained the case as “a heinous, atrocious, horrible crime,” according to the Associated Press. 

During the sentencing, Huskins stated she still struggles from nightmares “every night,” while Quinn said he “cannot and will not ever be the same,” the AP reported.

The Couple Sued and the Police Publicly Apologized

Source: Money

A year later, after their ordeal began in March 2016, Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Vallejo, accusing the city and members of its police department of “a vicious and shocking attack on two victims of a terrifying home invasion, kidnapping, and rape,” and of creating “a destructive nationwide media frenzy” by publicly accusing the couple of faking the crime.

According to their lawsuit, “the City of Vallejo privately offered a self-serving and halfhearted apology” via letter after Muller’s arrest, but refused “to publicize this apology, opting rather to protect their own self-interest at the expense of the rights of these two innocent victims.” The pair later announced that the city later agreed to pay a $2.5 million settlement, saying in a statement quoted in local media at the time. They said, “What happened to us should not happen to anyone.”

In 2021, Vallejo police ultimately apologized for how the couple was treated and said it appeared that a promised public apology never took place — but Quinn a reporter that the department “only apologized after major news outlets reached out” as the couple published a book on their ordeal. The public apology, published by ABC7, stated the case had not been “publicly managed with the type of sensitivity a case of this nature should have been handled with.”

Where are Huskins and Quinn now?

After this rough period and settlement, the pair married in 2018 and now have two daughters. Huskins and Quinn said in media interviews they went through therapy to try to “rebuild” their lives, and also resumed their work as physical therapists.  The lawyers who helped defend them, and a Dublin detective who assisted link Muller to their case, were among the guests at their wedding, ABC7 reported. The couple also co-authored a book about their devastating experience.

Bernadette Higgins, the co-creator of the Netflix series American Nightmare, told Vanity Fair that she reached out to both Vallejo police and the FBI to offer them the opportunity to take part in the series, but both declined.  Huskins told in an interview that the couple still has questions about their ordeal, saying “We’re never going to get the answers. We’ve had a long road of trying to accept that.”