When California couple Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn fell victim to a bizarre kidnapping-for-ransom plot in 2015, they turned to police for help.
But, instead, local cops and media accused them of being hoaxers and Huskins of being a real life “Gone Girl.”
Their story is the subject of the Netflix docuseries “American Nightmare,” now streaming, and created by “The Tinder Swindler” filmmakers Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins.
“Not only is this a really twisty-turny crime thriller, but it’s also important for us that there’s a wider reason to be telling a story,” Higgins told The Post.
“There are so many things that run through this: systemic and institutional misogyny, armchair detective work, media not checking sources and not being able to rely on law enforcement. How victims of sexual assault are treated…We did digging to try to find the source of that — who started the ‘Gone Girl’ thing?
“[Police and media] were determined not to believe this couple, for whatever reason. That is genuinely the question that hangs over all of this. Why were they so determined to paint this couple as liars?”
As the three-episode documentary shows, in March 2015, armed intruders wearing scuba suits invaded the Vallejo, Calif. home of physical therapist Aaron Quinn, where they terrorized him and his then-girlfriend (now wife), Denise Huskins, who was 29 at the time.
The men took Huskins to a remote location, drugged her, raped her, demanded ransom money from Quinn and returned Huskins two days later, to a location near her mother’s Huntington Beach, Calif. home.
While she was abducted, Quinn went to the cops for help. However, the detectives insisted his story was too far-fetched, treated him as the main suspect in what they presumed was Huskins’ murder, stripped him naked for police photographs, interrogated him for 18 hours and gave him a lie-detector test.
“They’re white, middle class; Aaron’s brother is an FBI agent. They thought that if anybody is going to help them, it’s going to be the police,” said Higgins.
After Huskins was released, the press and police dubbed the case the “Gone Girl” kidnapping, referencing the famous Gillian Flynn novel (and movie starring Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck), which is about a woman who fakes her own kidnapping.
“There are several things that are shocking,” Morris told The Post.
“The crime itself, the home invasion — Denise being taken from her bed in the middle of the night. That is horrifying, and I think everybody’s worst nightmare. And just as we got into looking at the police archival footage… First [the police assumption] was Aaron that had killed Denise. Then when she was released, digging their heels in further and accusing her of making the whole thing up.
“The most shocking part of it — aside from what happened to Denise — is that before they had even spoken to Denise, the police went on national television and called Denise and Aaron liars. That got things rolling so fast, without taking time to listen and investigate and explore what had happened.”
The couple was vindicated in August 2015, when police investigated the case of a masked intruder 40 miles away in Alameda County, Calif., and found evidence including Huskins’ hair.
Matthew Muller, a former Marine and disbarred attorney educated at Harvard, pleaded guilty in 2016 to one count of federal kidnapping and was sentenced to 40 years. In November 2020, he was found mentally unfit to stand trial and is currently serving time at a secure mental health facility in Solano County, Calif.
(The couple went on to sue the Vallejo Police Department for compensation and were awarded $2.5 million in an out-of-court settlement).
“So many people’s worst nightmare is that somebody comes into your home – your safe space – when you’re at your most vulnerable, and takes you away,” said Higgins. “It’s like stories you hear as a child about the bogeyman. Another big worst fear is to be accused of a crime that you haven’t committed, and Aaron went through that.”
“The whole story really speaks to this idea of the perfect victim, and how victims should behave,” said Morris.
“Denise will say herself that she turned up seemingly unscathed. But if you look at the ending of ‘Gone Girl,’ Rosamund Pike’s character, Amy, turns up bloodied, injured…and yet, she was the person lying about what happened to her.”
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Lauren Sarner
