Warning: This article mentions sexual assault. Please proceed with caution.
It’s hard to believe there could be more to Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskins‘ unbelievable true story, covered in the Netflix true crime documentary American Nightmare. Like any adaptation, however — based on real-life or otherwise — Netflix producers left some details out of the show.
To recap, in 2015, Huskins was kidnapped for ransom late one night from her boyfriend Aaron Quinn’s house in Vallejo, California. Quinn went to the police the next day, but at first, the cops thought Quinn murdered Huskins and contrived a far-fetched story as an alibi. When Huskins returned two days later, hundreds of miles away in Huntington Beach, California, the police assumed Huskins planned her abduction, inspired by the recent book and movie Gone Girl. But in the end, Huskins and Quinn were telling the truth the whole time.
As well as the Netflix series, Huskins and Quinn’s harrowing ordeal inspired a 2021 ABC News 20/20 episode, Taken, and that same year, Quinn and Huskins published Victim F: From Crime Victims to Suspects to Survivors, about their Gone Girl kidnapping experience.
With some spoilers, here’s a closer look at a few things from Huskins and Quinn’s book and the 20/20 episode that were absent or only briefly mentioned in the Netflix version.
Did Matt Muller act alone?
Matt Muller, an ex-Marine and disbarred lawyer, was sentenced to 40 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to Huskins’ rape and kidnapping. To this day, Muller is the only person charged with any crime related to the case. Though touched on in the Netflix series, Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn have insisted Muller’s plot involved other people. Muller also told a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle there were others, but he later said he acted alone, according to Business Insider.
Still, Huskins told ABC News in 2021 she saw two sets of legs the night she was taken. “There were things that happened that we saw, that we heard. It just would have been impossible to have been done by one guy. There are other people out there. That’s something that we’ve had to live with and somehow make peace with,” Huskins said.
In the closet
While it’s mentioned in American Nightmare that Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskins were zip-tied the night the abduction happened, the show does not specify that the couple were then told to get into the closet. In the headphones they were forced to wear, they were given a series of instructions. Huskins and Quinn would be given sedatives, the prerecorded message said, either willingly or intravenously, among other threats, according to TikToker Positivelyuncensored. Huskins and Quinn were assured they would not be harmed; instead, the plot was for financial gain.
The full extent of the information the perpetrator had about Quinn and Huskins was not fully explained in the Netflix show, either, indicating how Huskins’ kidnapping was carefully planned. Quinn, in particular, was asked for personal financial information. When Huskins was taken from the home, the perpetrators took Quinn’s car, which was not directly mentioned in the Netflix series.
Quinn’s brother
A point from the 20/20 Taken episode about Quinn and Huskins left on the Netflix cutting room floor is that Quinn’s brother, Ethan, worked for the FBI. While the Netflix show does mention Quinn was told not to contact the police, it doesn’t say that when he woke up from the effects of the sedatives the next day, Quinn called his brother Ethan first or that Quinn’s brother urged Aaron to call the police.
Denise’s bag and sunglasses
In American Nightmare, Huskins is seen on security footage once she was freed from captivity, wearing sunglasses and carrying what appears to be a duffel bag near her father’s house in Huntington Beach, California. However, it’s never explained where she got the sunglasses or where the bag came from.
As revealed in Huskins and Aaron Quinn’s book and the ABC News coverage, the kidnappers gave Huskins the sunglasses, and before she was taken from Quinn’s home, she was forced to pack the bag. American Nightmare also offers little information about Muller’s trial or that Huskins testified against him, recounting in detail what she went through, an aspect of the true story covered more closely in other tellings.
Referring to her sexual assault experience, Huskins had this to say: “I told myself, no matter what they do, I’m not going to beg and scream. If it is the last moments that I am going to be living, I am just going to stay calm and be grateful for the life I had.”
