The Gone Girl Kidnapping Case Is Featured on ABCs 20/20
This Kidnapping Case Resembled 'Gone Girl' Too Much for Police to Take Seriously
By Jamie LernerJun. 4 2021, Published 6:48 p.m. ET
The story of Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn might sound acquainted. The female friend is going missing, the boyfriend ultimately calls the police, and then he’s put under police scrutiny whilst he simply needs to seek out his female friend.
While some may think that’s just the plot of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, which was once later turned into a film starring Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck, it’s additionally one real-life couple’s worst nightmare.
Denise Huskins and her then-boyfriend Aaron Quinn have been residing in Vallejo, Calif., attempting to determine if they may make their courting paintings after Quinn’s agree with issues along with his ex-fiancée. Next factor they knew, they awoke to seek out to an intruder in Quinn’s home who ended up kidnapping Huskins. So who kidnapped Denise Huskins? ABC’s 20/20 places this case under the microscope.
When Denise Huskins used to be kidnapped, police thought her kidnapping case was if truth be told a ‘Gone Girl’-esque hoax.
On March 22, 2015, Huskins used to be napping over at Quinn’s space when the two had been woken up at three a.m. Huskins recalled, “I bear in mind being asleep and listening to a voice and considering it was a dream… I may hear, ‘Wake up, this is a robbery. We’re no longer right here to hurt you.’” The couple was suggested to tie each other up and were pressured to put on duct-taped goggles and headphones enjoying a pre-recorded message.
Halfway thru the robbery-turned-kidnapping, the culprits realized they'd the incorrect space. Their intended goal was once Quinn’s ex-fiancée, who bore a putting resemblance to Huskins. But as an alternative of simply leaving, they decided to kidnap Huskins for ransom.
The criminals drugged both Huskins and Quinn, and informed Quinn that he’d be given explicit instructions while they held Huskins for Forty eight hours. If he didn’t comply or called the law enforcement officials, they’d kill her.
Because of the concern and the drugging, Quinn didn’t know what to do. He referred to as his brother, an FBI agent, who advised him to name the police anyway. His wondering with the police briefly morphed him from a victim requesting lend a hand to a suspect held in captivity. When the police took his garments, they gave him prison garb to wear as a substitute.
Because Gone Girl used to be a well-liked new release at the time, police and citizens alike couldn’t lend a hand however understand the resemblance between the film and Huskins and Quinn's story. Everyone thought it used to be a planned-out hoax to distract the public from a girl on the run, as a substitute of an actual couple in misery.
It felt too outlandish to be real, and because of that, Huskins and Quinn were blamed for taking up valuable police sources.
When extra proof got here to gentle and legal professionals got involved, the reality about who abducted Denise Huskins came to gentle.
It took a while and a few more concrete physical proof to persuade the Vallejo police department that Huskins and Quinn have been telling the fact. When Huskins used to be in the end released via the kidnapper after Forty eight hours of trauma, as an alternative of being reunited together with her boyfriend, she was once additionally pressured to undergo police interrogation. She didn’t get to see Quinn for an entire week after the kidnapping occurred.
Initially, Huskins didn’t feel secure sharing two vital main points with the police: that she used to be raped and that her captor was once fascinated with the army. She was once worried that if her captor came upon that she'd shared that data, he would do something even worse to her, since he was nonetheless on the unfastened. But her attorneys knew Huskins was telling the reality.
Then, simply by happenstance, a equivalent theft was reported. The captor left his phone at the back of when the supposed objectives post a combat, and it used to be traced back to Matthew Muller. Muller used to be not like different criminals: he used to be a U.S. Marine who attended Harvard Law School. His mom pointed police to the cabin close to Lake Tahoe the place he was once staying at the time.
In his cabin, police found laptops, mobile phones, stun weapons, numerous ski masks, reproduction squirt guns, and most tellingly, goggles with duct tape over the eyes. Not just that, but one in all the sets of goggles had long blonde hair, like Huskins’, connected to it.
The detective on Muller’s case realized he should have attempted something equivalent ahead of, and was once in a position to attach it to the media-hyped Gone Girl kidnapping case.
Huskins and Quinn were in a position to look Muller move to jail, but they’re adamant that more other people were involved, and that they’re still loose and threatening. And till this episode of 20/20, Huskins and Quinn had no longer received a public apology from the Vallejo police division for the insensitive means they handled the case, even supposing the couple did get their luckily ever after.
Huskins and Quinn are now married with one daughter, transferring past their shared trauma.
Tune into 20/20 on ABC on June Four at Nine p.m. EST to dive deeper into the so-called Gone Girl kidnapping case.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pbXSramam6Ses7p6wqikaKhfnLyvsYygoKukXaC2pbrAqaeippdisKK%2FxA%3D%3D