Police called boyfriend's kidnapping report 'fake.' Four months later, a strand of hair proved them wrong

Trigger Warning: This article contains themes of sexual assault that some readers may find distressing.

At midnight on March 23, 2015, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, were sound asleep in their house in Vallejo when Matthew Muller, a Harvard Law graduate, broke in. With his face covered by a mask, Muller drugged the couple, blindfolded them with blacked-out swim goggles, and forced Huskins to bind Quinn’s hands and feet with zip ties before Muller tied hers, CBS Mornings reported on March 27, 2026.

Headphones playing a pre-recorded voicemail were placed over Quinn’s ears, and Huskins was dragged out of the house, tossed inside a car trunk, and taken to a property in South Lake Tahoe, where she was sexually assaulted twice on camera. Muller threatened to release the footage if she went to the police after release, Fox News reports. The following morning, when Quinn shook awake and the search for Huskins was initiated, the plot kept getting more complicated with each passing day, as they later documented in a book, which was adapted into a 2024 Netflix docuseries, American Nightmare.

Quinn found not only Huskins but also some of his belongings, and his car was missing. The bedsheet was stained with blood. It turned out to be a kidnapping-for-ransom. KCRA reported that the ransom was demanded through emails sent from dummy accounts like huskinskidnappinghotmail.com. A ransom of $8,500 was chosen because it was less than the cash withdrawal limit of $10,000.

Despite sharing the email passwords and his blood samples with the police, Quinn was put into custody. Police thought he had murdered Huskins, for which Quinn was repeatedly questioned about why he waited eight to nine hours before calling the police. In an episode of the Criminal Podcast, he revealed that he was afraid his phone was tapped and he was being monitored on a webcam by the suspect. 

The Indian Journal of Integrated Research reports that about 20 to 25% of the confessions are false confessions, often made under coercion by the police or on distorted accounts of eyewitnesses. Quinn also denied the accusations for 18 long hours while the police interrogated him, coercing him to confess to a crime he didn't commit. “I didn’t do anything,” Quinn kept on saying, but an officer quickly shut him down, saying, “Yeah, you did,” per PEOPLE. Then, something happened that left the police furiously skeptical of the entire case.

Two days later, the kidnapper dropped Huskins at the front door of her parents’ house in Huntington Beach, just hours before the ransom was due, per NBC Bay Area. She emerged wearing sunglasses and carrying an overnight bag. She refused to reunite with her family or cooperate with the police. Strangest of all, she denied being a victim. Police told reporters that Huskins’ kidnapping was a hoax. The couple was lying, they asserted, calling the case a real-life version of “Gone Girl,” a novel-turned-movie that depicts a woman who staged her own murder. Their doubt was further fuelled when Quinn shared that he and Huskins had been going through relationship challenges because Huskins was trying to rekindle romance with his ex-fiancée, who had cheated on him with a police officer. 

In 2016, Vallejo police detectives filed documents in the US District Court, revealing reasons why they thought the kidnapping was a hoax, per the LA Times. Officer Kenny Park expressed disgust over the resources that had been squandered during the investigation and the fear it spread among the locals. For Huskins, it felt “insulting” and “crushing,” according to NBC News. The case was dismissed, and the police didn’t investigate any further.

Their lives took a devastating turn, their reputation was destroyed, and they had to move out. Four months later, they were proven innocent, thanks to Julie Watts, investigative correspondent for CBS News, California. On June 8, Watts and her team were investigating a home-invasion robbery in Dublin. A search uncovered Quinn's lost laptop, blacked-out goggles similar to the ones he was forced to wear earlier, and a strand of Huskins' hair. The navigation system of his car showed Huntington Beach's address, where he had dropped Huskins after the assault. 

Chief Nick Borges from Seaside, California, wanted to give answers to the couple. Despite not being involved in the case, he started writing letters to Muller, who eventually confessed to his crime. Borges apologized on behalf of law enforcement and Muller was charged with a lifetime sentence in prison. However, after he made a guilty plea deal in September 2016, his sentence was reduced to 40 years, per ABC News. “You’ll never suspect the truth,” the Netflix trailer says, but the truth, as it turns out, always reveals itself, eventually.

If you’ve been sexually assaulted and need help, please reach out to the National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN) at 1‑800‑656‑HOPE (4673). 

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