In 2015, Detective Mat Mustard of the Vallejo, California police department investigated the mysterious disappearance of Denise Huskins from her boyfriend’s home. Viewers of the Netflix documentary American Nightmare are aware if not for Mustard’s incompetent police work, the case may have had a different outcome.
As the three-part Netflix documentary explains, Aaron Quinn, Huskins’ boyfriend, told Mustard an outrageous story about the night she disappeared. A man barged into his house and took his girlfriend in a scheme so complicated it wouldn’t even be believable in a Hollywood movie — oh, Quinn and Huskins had also argued earlier that night about Quinn’s unresolved feelings for his ex-fiancée, Andrea Roberts.
While Mustard is not solely responsible for how the investigation turned out, he was one of many law enforcement officers who failed to consider Quinn might be telling the truth despite his far-fetched claims.
Instead, Mustard accused Quinn of murder and forced him to take a lie detector test. Meanwhile, when Huskins appears two days later, it’s Mustard who makes sexist assumptions about women who have been sexually traumatized.
Mustard won Officer of the Year
Once the truth came out about what happened to Denise Huskins and how Detective Mat Mustard and the Vallejo police handled what happened, Mustard faced no disciplinary action for falsely accusing Quinn of murder and then suggesting Huskins staged her own kidnapping in a ploy inspired by Gone Girl. Instead, Mustard was named Officer of the Year in 2015, according to LADbible.
Mustard also served as president of the Vallejo Police Officers Association from 2009 to 2019, and he was reportedly accused of lowering promotion standards to secure his promotion to sergeant in 2018 after failing the written exam, according to the Vallejo Sun.
That same year, Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn settled their suit against Vallejo police related to officer conduct during the 2015 investigation for $2.5 million. It’s widely reported that Mustard still serves as a detective sergeant for the Vallejo police department.
Vallejo PD got review bombed
When American Nightmare premiered, bringing added attention to Mat Mustard’s incompetence and alleged misconduct related to the case, viewers streamed to the police department’s Yelp page, and Mustard was targeted in several complaints.
One review said, “Mat Mustard’s disgusting treatment of Denise Huskins and the department’s enabling behavior stains their reputation.”
Another added,
“Absolutely disgusting and vile. Mat Mustard and other people in power should be held accountable for the absolutely horrific actions that was done against Denise. How dare you! So grateful in these WONDERFUL police officers that watch Ben Afflex movies instead of solving rapes. May these crimes follow you to the grave”
via Yelp
American Nightmare is available to stream now on Netflix.
