- Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn don't think kidnapper Matthew Muller worked alone.
- Muller was given a 40-year sentence for kidnapping Huskins in 2015.
Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn don't think that kidnapper Matthew Muller worked alone when he forcibly took Huskins from Quinn's Mare Island, California home in the middle of the night on March 23, 2015.
Netflix's hit true crime docuseries "American Nightmare," released in January, examines the bizarre kidnapping case using interviews with the victims, police officers, and lawyers involved.
Quinn, who was 30 at the time, reported to the police that a man in a wetsuit broke into his home and restrained the couple. Quinn was told that the kidnappers were installing security cameras to monitor him and warned that they would kill Huskins if he went to the police.
Muller took Huskins to a property in South Lake Tahoe, where she says he sexually assaulted her. During her time in captivity, she alleged that she heard Muller speaking with other people at the property about holding her hostage. Two days later, she was released near her family home in Huntington Beach, over 400 miles away.
The Vallejo Police Department was quick to brand the case as a hoax, even comparing it to Gillian Flynn's crime thriller "Gone Girl." But the authorities were led to Muller after his botched attempted kidnapping in Dublin, California, and he was arrested in June 2015.
Nobody else was arrested in connection with the case. But Quinn and Huskins believe that Muller did not act alone back in 2015.
In a new interview with Today about Netflix's "American Nightmare," Quinn recalled how the Vallejo police didn't look further after finding Muller.
"We know that (the authorities) decided that he acted alone from the get go," Quinn said. "It's because he went to Harvard that people think he fooled us. And that's the only reason. I don't think Harvard has any classes to teach you how to do this."
Quinn pointed out that his car was also stolen from the property, but Muller took Huskins away in a Mustang. He said: "I had a white Camry, Denise was taken in a white Mustang — it's impossible for Muller to drive both cars at once."
"There was also a white male seen outside my house at five o'clock in the morning after they left, when Muller had Denise in the car," he added.
Quinn married Huskins in 2018, and they live in California with their two daughters. While they have personally moved on from the harrowing incident and received a settlement for how they were mistreated by authorities, they say that the police did not do their job properly.
"None of those things were followed up on. So unfortunately, the police are going to let dangerous criminals get away with it, just like they did before," Quinn said. "Because they've always, always taken the easiest route."
He also noted that even now, nearly a decade later, the Vallejo police department has yet to apologize to them personally.
"They have only apologized through the media, so that the media will say they apologize, but they have never spoken to us directly," Quinn said.
"American Nightmare" is streaming on Netflix.