'American Nightmare' perpetrator Matthew Muller committed first kidnapping at 16, DA says
Couple who survived ordeal once branded hoax speak out as their attacker faces more charges
Denise Huskins. who was kidnapped and raped by an intruder, and her husband Aaron Quinn, both of whom had been accused of orchestrating her ordeal, speak out as their attacker Matthew Muller is charged with additional crimes.
SEASIDE, Calif. - A man who kidnapped and sexually assaulted Denise Huskins, who was abducted from her Vallejo home in 2015 in what police initially thought was a hoax, allegedly committed his first kidnapping and sexual assault at the age of 16.
El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson revealed at a press conference Tuesday that Matthew Muller, already serving a 40-year sentence in the Huskins case, had been terrorizing the community for two decades before the widely known "American Nightmare" case.
"We now know that as far back as when he was 16 years old, Muller had committed his first kidnapping and sexual assault. That was in 1993. That case is still under investigation," Pierson said, adding that he could not comment further on the case.
Pierson said investigators had spoken with Muller, 47, at length about the 1993 incident and verified that the crime did happen, though he has not been charged in the case. He underscored that the case is still under investigation.
What we know:
Since last week, prosecutors have announced new charges against Muller after he confessed to multiple crimes in Northern California.
Most recently, he was charged in a 2015 kidnapping and ransom case that happened in unincorporated San Ramon. On Monday, the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office said they were notified about the incident by the El Dorado County District Attorney's Office.
Muller allegedly confessed in 2024 that he was the perpetrator in the San Ramon case, along with other crimes.
The Contra Costa District Attorney's Office said that in the spring of 2015, Muller unlawfully held two John Does and one Jane Doe for ransom. He demanded that one of the victims withdraw tens of thousands of dollars from their bank account to secure the release of the others. Muller was able to secure the ransom money and fled the home.
Officials said the victims feared retribution, so they never reported the crime and have chosen to remain anonymous to this day.
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Muller was also recently charged in two 15-year-old home invasions and sexual assaults.
Prosecutors allege Muller broke into a woman’s home in Mountain View in September 2009, attacked her, tied her up and made her drink medications. He then told the woman in her 30s that he was going to rape her, but she convinced him not to, prosecutors said. Muller left after recommending the woman get a dog.
The following month, prosecutors say he broke into a home in Palo Alto, bound and gagged a woman and forced her to drink Nyquil. He started assaulting the woman in her 30s, but she also convinced him to stop, prosecutors said.
In those 2009 cases, the charges carry a possible sentence of life in prison.
Muller, a disbarred, Harvard-educated attorney, pleaded guilty to the 2015 kidnapping of Denise Huskins. He was also sentenced in 2022 to 31 years in state prison after pleading no contest to two counts of forcible rape of Huskins.
The backstory:
Huskins was abducted by a masked intruder who broke into her boyfriend’s home in Vallejo. Her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, told detectives he woke up to a bright light on his face and that intruders had drugged, blindfolded and tied both of them up before kidnapping Huskins in the middle of the night. Quinn also said the kidnappers were demanding an $8,500 ransom.
A Vallejo police detective interrogated Quinn for hours, at times suggesting he may have been involved in Huskins’ disappearance. Quinn took a polygraph test, which an FBI agent told him he failed, the couple said later in a book about their ordeal.
Huskins, who was 29 at the time, turned up unharmed two days later outside her father’s apartment in Huntington Beach, where she said she was dropped off. She reappeared just hours before the ransom was due.
That same day, police in Vallejo announced in a news conference that they had found no evidence of a kidnapping and accused Huskins and Quinn of faking the abduction, which spurred a massive search.
Investigators dropped that theory after Muller was arrested by police in Dublin for a similar home invasion. Authorities said they found a cellphone that they traced to Muller, and a subsequent search of a car and home turned up evidence, including a computer Muller stole from Quinn, linking the disbarred attorney to the abduction.
Huskins and Quinn sued Vallejo and were awarded $2.5 million.
The case was also the subject of the 2024 Netflix series, American Nightmare. Her abduction gripped the entire Bay Area and beyond nearly a decade ago.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Source: Information for this report came from the El Dorado County District Attorney's Office, the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office, the Seaside Police Department, and previous reporting.