‘It’s all geared towards breaking you’: Denise Huskins, Aaron Quinn speak out after ‘American Nightmare’
By Lindsay Weber
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SACRAMENTO, California (KCRA) — Denise Huskins, whose home invasion kidnapping was initially dismissed as a hoax by law enforcement, sat down exclusively with Tamron Hall on Monday.
Huskins was kidnapped by a masked intruder who broke into her and her boyfriend’s Vallejo home in 2015.
“For two days, I believed that I would be killed,” Huskins told Hall in an emotional interview. “I had to make peace with the end of my life, but at the same time I had to keep fighting.”
For Huskins, the escape was not the end of her terrifying ordeal. The same day she was found unharmed outside her father’s apartment, Vallejo police announced in a news conference they found no evidence of a kidnapping and accused Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn, of faking the abduction. The couple later married.
“The psychological torture that he went through with the police, there was so many parallels to how I was treated in captivity,” Huskins told Hall.
“[The police] try to isolate you, they keep you from your family, they manipulate the environment, and it’s all geared toward breaking you,” Huskins said.
The couple said the police quickly went on national news calling them liars and destroying their reputation.
“We couldn’t return to work,” Huskins said. “We couldn’t really walk outside the house without being recognized and being thought of as these horrible people.”
Huskins’ case is getting renewed attention as the subject of Netflix docuseries, “American Nightmare.”
Despite the terror, the couple believed sharing their story was important.
“It always brings back a lot of deep pain from the past,” Huskins said. “Victims being blamed, not being believed, it happens all too often, we’re not alone in that, sadly. So it was really important for us to keep sharing what happened to us because we know that so many others out there might not have a chance to speak out.”
The kidnapping suspect was later arrested and identified as Matthew Mueller. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
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