An El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office reinvestigation into the 2015 home invasion and kidnapping made nationally known by the 2024 Netflix documentary “American Nightmare” has uncovered additional crimes committed by the now-convicted Matthew Muller.

In 2015, Muller drugged and tied up Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskins (now Quinn) in their Bay Area home; Denise was transported to a cabin in South Lake Tahoe owned by Muller’s mother, where she was sexually assaulted and kept captive for two days. Though Aaron contacted the Vallejo Police Department when he came to, detectives did not believe his story, instead theorizing Aaron had killed his girlfriend.

“They use pseudoscience to train detectives with outdated interview techniques that use deception,” El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson told the Mountain Democrat Tuesday, Jan. 7. “When a detective believes the person they are talking to is lying to them, they go into a multi-step interrogation process which is inherently psychologically coercive. Well, that’s what they did in this case and it resulted in law enforcement not believing any scenario because they thought the victims didn’t behave like they should have.”

Even after Denise’s return to her parents’ home two days after the kidnapping and subsequent report to law enforcement, police refused to listen. Vallejo Police Department officials held a news conference claiming they had found no proof of kidnapping and stating the incident was a hoax.

An FBI agent is said to have told Aaron to watch the film “Gone Girl,” a story about a woman who faked her own kidnapping, because he believed it was similar to Denise’s story. That quip has followed the case since, with some news outlets referring to the case as the “Gone Girl” story even after investigation into a home invasion in Dublin in 2015 led to evidence that proved Denise and Aaron had been telling the truth the whole time. 

“Do not call it the ‘Gone Girl’ case,” Pierson told a group gathered at a press conference in Seaside on Tuesday. “That name is a derogatory term that should never have been used.”

Pierson, who has worked to fight against the same outdated detective interview tactics that led police to fail to believe Denise and Aaron, met the couple at a law enforcement event where they had been invited to speak. The Quinns were insistent Muller had been involved in more crimes than the ones he had been convicted of. 

Knowing they had jurisdiction, as the sexual assault and kidnapping occurred in South Lake Tahoe, Pierson and the county DA’s Office, alongside Alameda Sheriff’s Lt. Misty Carausu and Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges, worked to reopen the Muller case. After more than 10 months of efforts, that investigation has borne fruit, with Pierson and Borges holding a press event Tuesday to announce new breaks in the case.

“A reinvestigation of the American Nightmare case has uncovered additional serious crimes, including a kidnapping and sexual assault case from 1993, two home invasions in 2009 and a 2015 home invasion/ kidnapping for ransom case that had not been previously reported to police,” states a press release shared by the EDC DA’s Office.

Muller, who is already serving a 40-year sentence in a federal prison in Tucson for the kidnapping and rape of Denise, responded to a letter written by Borges and admitted to further crimes he’d perpetrated. The county DA’s Office investigation, conducted with aid from the FBI, also led to an interview with Muller where he admitted to further crimes. The crimes include home invasions in 2019, numerous instances of prowling and peeping, secretly recording people, three home invasions in 2015 and sexual assaults, which began when Muller was 16 years old. 

“We are hoping these new developments can serve as an example of how investigations can change in a positive direction,” Denise and Aaron state in the DA press release. “It demonstrates the power of listening to and working with victims, following facts and evidence, conducting science-based interviews and what can be accomplished when multiple agencies within law enforcement work together. Most importantly, we are hoping these new developments can bring some measure of peace and closure for the victims of his crimes.”