The real-life case of one couple's horrifying experiences and the damaging speculation surrounding those events is depicted in Netflix's new docuseries "American Nightmare."
In March 2015, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, were awakened in the dead of night by armed home intruders before Huskins was kidnapped and sexually assaulted on camera by her captor. The harrowing tale garnered widespread media scrutiny, with many comparing Huskins’ disappearance to David Fincher’s 2014 adaptation of “Gone Girl,” Gillian Flynn's novel in which a woman fakes her own murder and frames her husband as an act of revenge. Both the police and the media bought into doubts about the case they felt did not add up.
However, nothing about Huskins' abduction was an “orchestrated event,” as police initially regarded the case, which is explored in Netflix’s “American Nightmare,” the latest docuseries from “The Tinder Swindler” filmmakers Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins. The three-part series features interrogation footage and interviews with Huskins and Quinn to chronicle the disturbing saga of a sexual assault victim further victimized by law enforcement.
Here's everything you need to know about the so-called “Gone Girl” case:
Huskins’ March 2015 abduction
Huskins and Quinn met in 2014, in the Bay Area city of Vallejo, Calif., while working as physical therapists. On March 23, 2015, the pair was awakened from sleep around 3 in the morning by a bright white light, three laser dots and a group of intruders wearing wetsuits. The intruders, armed with tasers, instructed Huskins to restrain Quinn with zip ties. They then put swim goggles over his eyes and placed foam headphones over his ears. Quinn’s blood pressure was also taken before he was drugged with NyQuil and Diazepam.
In the docuseries, Quinn revealed that one of the intruders approached him after taking Huskins to a separate room: “We have a problem,” the intruder said. “This was intended for Andrea.” Andrea Roberts was Quinn’s ex-fiancée. The couple had broken up months before the kidnapping, per Quinn.
The intruder then told Quinn that they would still kidnap Huskins because Quinn “could pay him enough money to make it worth their while.” The ransom would be $15,000 in total. The intruder would also install a camera that would monitor Quinn at all times. Quinn was told that if he went outside the view of the camera, Huskins would get hurt.
The intruder put Huskins in the trunk of Quinn’s car before fleeing. She was taken to a property in South Lake Tahoe, where she was sexually assaulted twice on camera. Huskins reappeared two days after her abduction, 400 miles away in Huntington Beach, Calif., near her family’s house.
The police have doubts
During Huskins’ disappearance, Quinn was being interrogated by Vallejo detectives and FBI agents. Quinn was also being threatened by the kidnapper, who demanded a ransom for Huskins' return and warned him to not speak to authorities.
Vallejo police were initially skeptical of Huskins’ kidnapping because Quinn's ex-fiancée had told authorities that she and Quinn had discussed getting back together while he was still dating Huskins. Police accused Huskins of staging her abduction and likened the events of the case to Gillian Flynn's 2012 crime thriller, "Gone Girl," which was adapted into a 2014 film by David Fincher. Flynn’s bestselling novel centers on a resentful, small-town wife who stages her own murder to get back at her husband for having an affair.
Vallejo police publicly declared Huskins' abduction an “orchestrated event,” even though a San Francisco Chronicle journalist received messages from an individual admitting to kidnapping Huskins.
The truth finally comes out
Sergeant Misty Carausu brought information that exposed the real perpetrator. She linked Huskins’ case to a separate kidnapping attempt in in Dublin, Calif., The culprit in the kidnapping attempt was ex-Marine Matthew Muller, who had left his phone behind at the crime scene in Dublin. An investigation into Muller’s South Lake Tahoe cabin, where he was living at the time, revealed several unsettling items, including a toy gun with an attached laser pointer and duct-taped goggles. Authorities also found Quinn's stolen computer and a long strand of blonde hair, which was hanging from one of the pairs of goggles. Additionally, the Huntington Beach address where Huskins was dropped off was still in Muller's GPS history.
On March 16, 2017, Muller was sentenced to 40 years in prison for kidnapping, robbery and rape in connection with the Vallejo invasion. Muller’s plea agreement reveals he told a KPIX reporter while detained in the Alameda County Jail that the abduction of Huskins hadn't been random. Muller, however, never disclosed why Huskins and Quinn were targeted. Muller also said he sent emails to the San Francisco Chronicle reporter after he learned that the kidnapping had been labeled a hoax by police. He initially claimed that he was part of a group of kidnappers, but later admitted that he’d acted alone.
The Vallejo police department’s overdue apology
Then-Vallejo Police Chief Andrew Bidou wrote a letter apologizing to Huskins and Quinn after the case was solved. In it, Bidou simply said the department’s “conclusions were incorrect.” The Vallejo police department, however, failed to provide an immediate apology and only issued one when contacted for a television news story six years later. Huskins and Quinn sued the city of Vallejo for defamation and received $2.5 million in an out-of-court settlement.
"American Nightmare" is currently available for streaming on Netflix. Watch the trailer for it below, via YouTube:
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