Quinn and Huskins continue to believe that there were others involved in the home invasion and kidnapping, but Muller is the only person who has ever been charged. Muller previously pleaded guilty in federal court to kidnapping Huskins and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. The 20/20 special will share their story with more detail, in the hopes of helping other victims who were not believed by authorities. In 2016, Matthew pleaded guilty to the count upon him and subsequently got sentenced to 40 years in prison. They also discovered goggles with duct tape on them, similar to what was used on Denise and Aaron, as well as a strand of blonde hair attached to one pair of goggles. He abducted Denise Huskins for two days and demanded a $15,000. Get Morning Report and other email newsletters. When he was handed his phone, Quinn says a member of his legal team noticed that it had been placed in airplane mode, even though it was the only means of communication with the kidnappers. During questioning, Quinn recounted what had happened the night before. He will serve this concurrently with the 40-year sentence he received in a federal case against him in September 2016. Photo: Under state law, a defendant who is considered unable to help in his or her defense or understand court proceedings cannot be tried. Mullerwas arrested in South Lake Tahoe on June 8, 2015, after evidence, including a video ofMullerand Huskins, was found at his mothers home. The only difference was that the victims successfully managed to attack and scare their assailant into running away before any damage was done. In 2015, an intruder broke into his home and kidnapped his then-girlfriend Denise Huskins. When officers from the Vallejo Police Department appeared at his home, it had been more than nine hours since Huskins had been taken. On Nov. 2, Healy received a doctors report and later ordered Muller placed in the care of MHM Services, a nationwide firm which contracts with governmental agencies for inmate care and has offices in Vallejo, a secured facility. They said, Well, just have her sleep in her clothes and dont take a shower and well talk in the morning., Marianna Quinn said she was shocked when the police, too, started calling Huskins Gone Girl., You go through something like that, and every moment, every ounce of energy is about How do I live to see another second? That is all you can think about, said Huskins. The last thing that youre thinking about is, If I do survive, I need to make sure that Im believable.. Matthew Muller was implicated in a separate but similar crime in Dublin, California. The City of Vallejo. Soon-to-be-detective Misty Carausu remembered the case in Vallejo, and also found Muller had been a person of interest in several alarming cases. Aaron Quinn said their first song together as husband and wife was Dierks Bentleys Riser. It is, he said, very much about overcoming a tragedy and rising like a phoenix from the ashes., 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. As a former decorated officer with qualifications that proved his intelligence, Matthew was able to get a stable job as an immigration attorney at a San Francisco law firm. It was later discovered that the kidnapper had called the phone three times. Matthew Muller, a Harvard-educated lawyer, also is accused of raping Denise Huskins and assaulting her boyfriend Aaron Quinn. First published on March 19, 2022 / 6:34 AM. Matthew Muller, 39, of South Lake Tahoe previously pleaded not guilty to a kidnapping charge for the March 23, 2015, incident. Although he once served as his own lawyer, Muller is now represented by the Solano County Alternate Public Defender. However, proceedings were put on hold last year when Muller was admitted to Napa State Hospital and ordered to take antipsychotic medication until he was declared mentally competent. The intruder placed blacked out goggles over their eyes and forced them to drink a sleep-inducing liquid, federal authorities said in 2016. Meanwhile, Huskins reappearance had set off a media firestorm fueled by suggestions that her case bore striking resemblance to the book and film Gone Girl. The fictional story is about a woman who fakes her own disappearance as revenge against her cheating husband. Huskins said they were drawn together., I was very conflicted because I obviously was attracted to Denise, Quinn said. Matthew Muller receives federal kidnapping charge in Denise Huskins case: Part 10 After Muller was charged, Huskins and Aaron Quinn settled a civil suit out of court with the city of Vallejo, its . In a statement obtained by Oxygen.com last year, Vallejo Police issued a public apology to Huskins and Quinn, saying said the case was not publicly handled with the type of sensitivity a case of this nature should have been handled with., What happened to Ms.Huskinsand Mr. Quinn is horrific and evil. Related Articles "Bipolar disorder has many different stages and levels. Huskins said she hoped that the confusion would result in the intruder deciding just to leave them, but that is not what happened. Crime and Public Safety | Vallejo police apologized for initially discounting the couple's story. Exhausted, worried about Huskins and anxious over the detectives refusal to believe him, Aaron Quinn said he began to doubt his own sanity. Unlike typical criminals, Matthew Daniel Muller served in the Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999 and graduated summa cum laude from Pomona College in California before eventually attending Harvard Law School. I grabbed my bags and started walking down that alley and I looked at the corner street name and I saw Utica, which is the street that I grew up on.. Denise and Aaron filed a civil lawsuit against the City of Vallejo and its police department, rightfully winning $2.5 million. When they turned airplane mode off, the phone flooded with messages. Aarons car is missing, and they know that he waited a substantial period of time before dialing 911. When Quinns parents and brother arrived at the police station, the Vallejo police questioned them, too. He was also told he would have to withdraw money from his bank and that hed have a camera monitoring his moves. Muller was sentenced to 31 years behind bars for the state-level charges as part of a plea deal with the Solano County District Attorneys Office, which will run concurrently with a 40-year federal kidnapping sentence hes already serving. Quinns older brother is an FBI agent, so he decided he would call him instead, but his brother instructed him to immediately call 911. Denise Huskins made a promise to herself in the last moments she believed her kidnapper would allow her to live. Crime and Public Safety | The Psychiatric Times notes that instances of violence amongst people with bipolar disorder are often linked to previous trauma. Quinn said he was told to call out sick at his job and to text Huskins boss that she had a family emergency and would be out for a week. Matthew Muller, 38, was arrested in connection with the March 23 kidnapping of Denise Huskins after authorities noticed similarities to a separate home invasion last month in Dublin,. In a statement to 20/20 on Monday, Vallejos public information officer Christina Lee admitted, It appears that the follow-up personal public apology did not take place.. A Harvard-educated former Marine was sentenced Friday for raping a California woman in a kidnapping plot so bizarre police once suspected it was a hoax. Maybe we were into weird sex things and something went wrong.. Eventually he would be caught but it was certainly not because of the diligent detective work of the Vallejo, Calif. police. Matthew Daniel Muller who was sentenced in 2017 in a Sacramento federal courtroom to 40 years in prison for kidnapping a couple and raping the female victim before releasing her near her familys Southern California home was scheduled to appear March 24 for a mental health placement review in Department 2 in the Justice Building in Vallejo. But according to court records, Superior Court Judge Daniel Healy received a notice that Muller had been admitted to the program. ET on ABC. I knew there was an old stain on my sheet, Quinn said. Huskins was held captive for just over 48 hours before being released, but the couple continued to fear for their lives with a kidnapper on the loose and the police dismissing their account of the incident as too incredible to be believed. I just had to figure out where these other crimes occurred.. The FBI even offered to fly Huskins back to Vallejo on its airplane. Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. And when they did call her back, they told her to contact the FBI. I peeled the tape off my eyes and I was by myself in this alleyway, she said. Muller gave an interview to KPIX in July 2015 from Dublin, Calif. where he was imprisoned at the time. Here are five things to know about the case. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. In a previous deposition related to Huskins and Aaron Quinn's civil litigation, but prior to Whitneys December 2020 lawsuit, Bidou was asked if he recalled anyone using this phrase with respect to Huskins, and he replied that he had "never heard anybody say that.". His brother, Ethan Quinn, retained attorney Dan Russo, who brought Aaron Quinn back to his office after 18 hours of police interrogation. Concerned that the camera the intruders installed was still monitoring him, he believed he could not call 911. One, in particular, had a blonde hair strand attached to the duct tape. Matthew Muller, 38, is accused of kidnapping Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn in the Bay Area city of Vallejo in March a case police initially dismissed as a hoax and subsequently . But on June 5, 2015, there was a major break in the case when police in Dublin, California, a city about an hour south of Vallejo, responded to a report of a home robbery. Crime and Public Safety | Who Is Elizabeth Holmes' Husband? In court, Muller said he was "sick with shame" for the "pain and horror" he caused. While the wife ran into the bathroom, locked the door and called 911, the husband was able to fight off the intruder, but he escaped. Denise Huskins was the victim in the kidnapping by Matthew Muller that police thought of as a hoax. The goggles that Dublin Police Department Detective Misty Carausu found with a strand of blonde hair attached. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany (Berlin, Local), South Africa, the Middle East and Canada. Quinns struggle eventually came to a head when, in February 2015, Huskins found out that Quinn had been messaging his ex-fiance about getting back together. Upon looking deeper into him, it came to light that even though hed never been charged or arrested, he was named a suspect in various other home invasion and burglary cases in the cities of California. As a result, he was handed down 31 years in prison, with the sentence to run concurrently with the 40-year term. The victims in the so-called "Gone. Once she was released, if she attempted to go to the police, she said the kidnapper told her the group would release the recording on the internet. Matthew Muller, already serving a 40-year sentence for federal crimes, was sentenced in Solano county superior court after pleading no contest to two counts of forcible rape of Denise. Dublin police were able to trace the phone to a woman who told them that it belonged to her son, a man named Matthew Muller, whod lost his phone a day earlier. They could not function.. Harriette Cole: My friend's mom didn't recognize me at my job, and she was very rude, Ask Amy: I put a security camera in my room, and what I saw was creepy, Ask Amy: My fiancee's family says I'm not invited, and she's going without me, 'Total dominance': Steph Curry breaks NBA Game 7 record, leads Warriors over Kings, Dear Abby: The reason her fiance hid his phone was something she never guessed, Mortgage fees to rise for buyers with high credit scores, fall for those with lower scores, Kurtenbach: Game 7 is likely not win-or-go-home for the Warriors it's win-or-break-up, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. tav volleyball sold. But Quinn says the detectives began to ask about his relationship with Huskins. Aaron Quinn and Huskins defense attorneys say they celebrated the developments in the case, holding a press conference in which they called for full apologies from the Vallejo Police Department. In March 2022, Matthew appeared in court from Napa State Hospital in California via Zoom. Attorney Anthony Douglas Rappaport stands with clients, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn, right, in San Francisco at a 2016 news conference. In December 2020 former Vallejo Police Captain John Whitney filed suit against the city and the police department alleging he was wrongfully terminated for speaking out on a variety of issues that he characterized as misconduct, including ones related to Huskin and Aaron Quinn's case. He is defending himself, acting as his own attorney, and on. That terrifying night, both of them were bound and Huskins was kidnapped. Denise Huskins called her experience a love story with a happy ending. On Dec. 4 last year, Healy ordered Muller committed to one of five California state hospitals for a maximum term of two years. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Instead, then-Vallejo Police Chief Andrew Bidou wrote a private letter of apology to them, saying in part that it was now clear what happened was not a hoax or orchestrated event and that [Vallejo Police Department[ conclusions were incorrect.. Matthew Muller pleaded no contest to two counts of forcible rape, robbery, burglary and false imprisonment in connection with the Vallejo kidnapping of Denise Huskins, according to Law & Crime. On the recording, the kidnappers described themselves as a professional group there to collect financial debts, according to the court documents. Dublin Police . While Matthews last known location remains the Napa State Hospital, it seems that he will be serving his sentence at a federal prison. If I went to the police, they would kill her, he said. When Denise got kidnapped and Quinn sought assistance from . Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. Matthew Muller (left in 2015, right in 2019 via image by the Solano County Sheriff's Office) has agreed to a plea agreement in his state case. Muller, a former Marine who had once studied at Harvard Law School, was sentenced to 40 years for federal kidnapping charges in 2017. The city of Vallejo now has a new lawsuit to contend with. During and after the kidnapping, Muller used an anonymous email address to send messages to a San Francisco reporter claiming that Huskins was abducted by a team of elite criminals who were practicing their tactics. After all, the sequence of events was very similar. While she waited, her father said he heard the voicemail and got word to the Huntington Beach Police Department. After Vallejo police publicly dismissed the kidnapping, the San Francisco Chronicle received letters apparently from Huskins kidnapper, who was upset investigators didnt believe the couple. The intruder says, We have a problem and he says to Aaron, Do Denise and your ex-fiance look-alike?, At that moment, Quinn said he released a guttural sigh., I was like, Yes, they both have long, blonde hair, Quinn said. TIMELINE: Denise Huskins, Matthew Muller Vallejo kidnapping case "I don't think so based on some of the evidence we had at the time," said Whitney. I told him, Look, this is going to be a nightmare and theres no way youre going to be able to pinch yourself and wake up.. Among the attendees at their wedding were the attorneys who helped defend them, and Misty Carausu, a detective from Dublin, California, who helped link Muller to their case. Vallejo police who apologized to Huskins in the summer of 2015 said they were initially skeptical of Huskins abduction because they didnt believe Quinns version of events, including that he had been drugged by intruders, according to an earlier court filing. But he had just gotten out of a relationship with a fiance who he said cheated on him. I said, We have evidence thats going to dissipate And they said the most callous thing I think Ive ever heard somebody say from law enforcement, Rappaport said. Because their accounts of what had occurred seemed too extreme and bore a striking resemblance to the book and film Gone Girl, the authorities deemed it to be an orchestrated event at first. Those are the words Denise Huskins and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, heard in the early morning of March 23, 2015. Quinn and Huskins decided to pursue the state case so he could be held accountable for his crimes in addition to the federal conviction, Solano County District Attorney Krishna Abrams told The Reporter in 2019. Huskins had been sleeping in her boyfriend Aaron Quinns bedroom when an armed man, wearing a scuba suit burst into the bedroom around 3 a.m. on March 23, 2015 and demanded the couple get into a closet, where he zip-tied their hands and feet. Court records did not indicate the doctors determination but, typically, if a defendant is sent from Solano County Jail to a mental health services agency, they are likely deemed incompetent. Huskins gave birth to a daughter, Olivia, in 2020, five years to the day that she was released by Muller. Muller, a Harvard-trained attorney and ex-Marine, concocted a plan so elaborate and bizarre that at first police accused the couple of lying, drawing national headlines. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! In a Mustang parked at Mullers home, investigators later found Quinns computer, water goggles covered with tape and a long blond strand of hair attached, a pair of two-way radios and a water pistol painted black. Henry later said she hoped the plea would bring justice to the victims., My heart goes out to them and the healing process takes a very long time, she said of Huskins and Quinn, according to KNTV. After initially being found mentally incompetent to stand trial, Matthew was ordered to take antipsychotic medication until he was declared mentally competent. When police asked if shed been sexually assaulted, she told them she hadnt. Her boyfriend had reported to police that shed been abducted from his California home at gunpoint and the kidnappers demanded an $8,500 ransom. Victim F was absolutely kidnapped, one letter read. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Muller wasn't caught until police in Dublin, Calif. had a similar case. ZipRecruiter - Post your jobs . Denise would be taken from her boyfriend's home for over 48 horrifying hours, while authorities insisted the kidnapping was a hoax. I asked for a blanket, and he goes, Oh, Im sorry. Matthew Muller Was The One Who Kidnapped Denise Huskins. Police also were doubtful because Huskins allegedly did not meet with her parents in the days after her reappearance, according to the filing. During the incident, Muller dropped his cellphone which led authorities to a cabin where he was staying in the South Lake Tahoe area. Two incidents from 2009 took place in Palo Alto and Mountain View, and involved an unknown man breaking into the homes of the female victims and threatening to rape them. 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. To make matters worse, the detectives had also found a small bloodstain on Quinns sheets. Huskins said she had thought about the safe feeling of being in his arms while in captivity, and that she was sick with anticipation wondering what he thought of her and if she was really this horrible liar. He said he was eager to see her, too. Huskins said that despite all the therapy they went through to rebuild their lives, she still felt like something was missing. They include kidnapping, two counts of forcible rape by force, robbery, burglary and false imprisonment. She said her captor told her he was being instructed to make the recording as a form of collateral over Huskins. Muller told detectives he suffered from Gulf War Illness, and in 2008 he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He was a U.S. Marine for five years and graduated summa cum laude from Pomona College in California before going to Harvard Law School. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? Denise Huskins talked about her 48-hour ordeal, and described her sexual assault by Matthew Muller, as he looked on. She attempted to reach the Vallejo police but says she initially did not get a call back. The intruder covered their eyes with swimming goggles that had been covered in duct tape to block their sight and put headphones on them. Although I was not chief in 2015 when this incident occurred, I would like to extend my deepest apology to Ms.Huskinsand Mr. Quinn for how they were treated during this ordeal.. He has since sought to have the conviction vacated, claiming ineffective. Matthew Muller in fact was the one behind the kidnapping and raping of Denise Huskins. Quinn and Ms. Huskins have plundered valuable resources away from our community and taken the focus away from the true victims of our community while instilling fear among our community members. He told the detectives about the goggles placed over their eyes, the specific directions they were given and the recordings that played on the headphones. Huskins and Quinn married in 2018 and had a daughter, Olivia, who was born five years to the day that Huskins was released by her kidnapper, she said. The Huskins Quinn case was not publicly handled with the type of sensitivity a case of this nature should have been handled with, and for that, the City extends an apology to Ms. Huskins and Mr. Quinn, the statement read. Police soon called a news conference and declared the couples report of an abduction a hoax, saying there was no evidence to support that anything had happened. Although Huskins mother and father were both in Vallejo assisting police, they contacted family back in Huntington Beach to go be with her. Dear Abby: I have a great life, so why have I fallen into this shameful behavior? They also found the address where Huskins had been dropped off in the stolen vehicles GPS, Campos said. The kidnapping of Denise Huskins on March 23, 2015, made headlines across the country. I finally just put my foot down and said, Look, I dont deserve this. And it was a couple of weeks of kind of going back and forth, she said. She recounted some of the horrific events that began on March 23, 2015, when the defendant entered the Mare Island home belonging to Huskins and Aaron Quinn, who are in their 30s. My life was coming to an end and I made peace with that., Once released, I couldnt fathom the pain that was to come, she continued. Quinn said the first question the police asked him when he answered the door was, Are you on drugs?. Matthew Muller broke into the home of Denise Huskins and her boyfriend, tied them up, and took Denise. Huskins testified at his sentencing hearing about the "hell that we have survived" and told the court that she thought at the time she would be killed and still suffered from nightly nightmares. The additional related criminal offenses of sexual assault and the robbery against Aaron were not placed on him as the federal court has no jurisdiction over them. Matthew Muller was a Harvard-educated lawyer, which just goes to show ya, don't bother judging this book by its cover.

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