Netflix's American Nightmare: Where Are The Kidnappers, Victims, and Police Now?

It was a nightmare come true. On March 23, 2015, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, woke up to a home invasion. The kidnappers took Huskins and left Quinn drugged and tied up, leaving him unable to alert the police for hours. 

When he finally contacted authorities, the true nightmare began. 

American Nightmare is the new three-part documentary series on Netflix from the filmmakers behind The Tinder Swindler, Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins. The series details Huskins and Quinn's horrific experiences with the Vallejo Police Department, the FBI, and the media that at one time called Huskins the real-life Gone Girl.

Read on for all you need to know about this wild story, including what the major players have been up to since these bizarre events.

What Happened to Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn?

When Quinn went to the police and called 9-1-1 after that traumatic night, he expected law enforcement to start searching for his girlfriend. Instead, he was detained for hours, given a lie-detector test, and accused of harming his girlfriend after a fight. Eventually, he realized he needed a lawyer and was released, but in the meantime, the police failed to take his story seriously. 

Meanwhile, the kidnappers drove Huskins hours away to a remote place and sexually assaulted her. After two days, they released her, but her main kidnapper threatened her and said if she went to the police, video of the assault would be released and he'd come for her family next. So she delayed speaking with the police, and during that time, the Vallejo Police Department held a press conference saying she had lied and plundered valuable resources. 

Huskins contacted a lawyer to help guide her through the process, and they pushed for a medical exam to confirm her story. Eventually, she got one, but the police also interrogated her for hours and chose not to believe her story. 

Following the press conference and hot on the heels of the recent release of the movie Gone Girl (based on Gillian Flynn's book of the same name), the media deemed Huskins the real-life Gone Girl.

Who kidnapped Denise Huskins?

Finally, after months of hiding out and receiving hateful messages online, Huskins and Quinn were proven right. Police arrested a man named Matthew Muller in connection with an attempted robbery in Dublin, Calif., and the team investigating him found evidence linking him to other potential crimes. But it was a woman named Det. Misty Carausu and her steadfast investigation that put her on to Huskins' case. 

Eventually, Muller pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping charges and, in 2017, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for his various crimes. Huskins is adamant that he did not act alone, but police refused to pursue the case further. 

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Why didn't the police take this couple seriously?

The docuseries hints that there may have been some questionable connections behind the scenes in this investigation, such as one of the FBI agents having a romantic history with Quinn's ex, who was reportedly the original intended victim in this kidnapping. 

What is clear is that the investigators had tunnel vision. The case was so far-fetched that they were determined to prove Quinn and Huskins were lying. You can see that through the interrogation videos in the doc and in reading the report that the victims had access to afterward. 

Unfortunately, by closing their minds to the possibility that Quinn was telling the truth, police missed out on chances to stop Muller earlier. For example, they put Quinn's cell phone in airplane mode during their questioning, despite Quinn saying the kidnappers were going to call with ransom demands. As a result, they missed two traceable calls that could have ended everything very quickly. 

Where are Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn now?

Shared trauma bonded Huskins and Quinn. Although they were in a difficult phase of their relationship at the time of the kidnapping, they grew even closer afterward and wed in 2018. They now have two daughters and co-authored a book based on their experience, Victim F: From Crime Victims to Suspects to Survivors. The F stands for "female," a title they chose because that is the code word the FBI used to refer to Huskins during its investigation.

The couple also sued the Vallejo Police Department and settled for $2.5 million out of court. The department emailed them an apology along with the city, but no one ever apologized to them personally.

What happened to the police who botched the investigation?

Mat Mustard is among the leading law enforcement officials featured in the docuseries. He was the man who interrogated Huskins and Quinn and seemingly led the investigation. In 2016, shortly after handling their case, Mustard was named Officer of the Year, promoted to sergeant, and put in charge of the VPD's Investigations Division and the Evidence and Property Unit. 

The promotion was salt in the wound for the couple. Still, things grew worse in the years that followed. Mustard was accused of withholding exculpatory evidence from criminal defendants in 2012 and 2020, and in 2021, he was investigated for allegations of racism. At the time, his annual salary was slightly more than a reported $400,000.

In 2023, The Vallejo Sun reported that one witness to the kidnapping case had testified that the Vallejo Police Department "did not investigate misconduct by officers and promoted — rather than punished — its most violent offenders." 

American Nightmare is now streaming on Netflix.