Chapter 1: What happened to Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn in March 2015?
When beloved family patriarch Gary Ferris went missing, his family looked everywhere on their property until they came across something horrifying. It's a homicide. Absolutely. The blame game in this family went round and round. This is Blood is Thicker, The Ferris Wheel.
I don't see how anyone can look at this story and think they were happy.
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When you're 19, you think you know where you're going to end up, but then life has a way of taking its own turns.
Back in 1993, this young couple was camping.
In the middle of the night, we were awakened to someone hitting the back of our tent.
They were ordered out of their tent by a stranger with a gun.
A towel was put over my head, and my hands and feet were tied up. And then my boyfriend was tied up.
The suspect then carried the female away.
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Chapter 2: How did Denise and Aaron's kidnapping unfold?
I did not investigate this case, but I wanted to give Denise and Aaron answers. I told them, I've always believed you guys, and words are not enough. I'm an action guy, so I started writing letters to Matthew Moeller. Dear Mr. Moeller, I have followed and come to learn quite a bit about the Vallejo case involving Ms. Huskins and Mr. Quinn. He ended up responding. This is incredible.
I did not expect him to start confessing. Tracy Smith reports, Denise and Aaron Quinn get the last word. In the pre-dawn hours of March 23rd, 2015, Aaron Quinn and his girlfriend Denise Huskins were asleep in his Vallejo, California home, unaware they were being watched. Around 3 a.m., we were awoken to a strange man saying, this is a robbery. We are not here to hurt you. Stay calm.
They never saw his face, but he was oddly wearing a wetsuit. He said he was part of a group of people there to rob them, but he did all the talking. In recalling what happened to them, Denise and Aaron call him The Voice. And I saw a flashing white light on the walls and red laser dots scanning the walls. The voice instructed me to tie Aaron up with zip ties, left him on the edge of the bed.
I'm tied up. He makes me hop to my closet. I can hear people downstairs going through the kitchen cabinet. I can hear a drill running.
Denise was ordered to go into the same closet There, the voice also tied her up and made them drink a sedative. Blacked-out swim goggles were placed over her eyes, and eventually I was told that I was going to be taken for 48 hours, and I was going to be held until Aaron could complete some tasks for my release. Those tasks included going to a bank for ransom money.
The voice took Aaron downstairs to the living room, where a security camera had been mounted to monitor him.
The voice tells me that if I try to go to the police, they'll kill Denise. So I can hear him put Denise in the trunk of my car. I just hear Denise say, OK. And I'm just hoping that's not going to be the last thing I hear from her.
Aaron says he soon passed out from the sedative. He woke in a stupor later that morning. The voice had taken Aaron's laptop, but had left his cell phone, saying they would contact him. Aaron says he wiggled his hands free from the zip ties, but then struggled with whether he should call for help. What was that like, weighing that decision?
My thought was, if I call the police, I know I'm going to be safe. But then my fear is, am I actually killing Denise?
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Aaron face when reporting the kidnapping?
I don't blame him for being a little skeptical, but I gave him permission to search everything, and I agreed to go down to the station to provide a statement. My whole goal, which I thought everyone's goal, was to find Denise.
Aaron gave the police his cell phone and his clothes to test for evidence. He was given prison clothing to change into. And then the lead detective, Matthew Mustard, began to question him.
And it's about 40 minutes into our interview, he basically leans back and says, what I'm telling him is far-fetched and he doesn't believe me.
I don't think she was kidnapped from your home. I think something bad happened in your house.
Not only did he appear not to believe Aaron, he seemed to be accusing Aaron of killing Denise.
Denise is going to be found. And when I say she's found, she's dead. They did not come into your house and kidnap her and take her for ransom. That did not happen. It didn't. No, it did not.
I have nothing to admit to. I didn't do anything.
Meanwhile, word got out to the media that Denise was missing. Officers converged on the home where Denise was reportedly kidnapped. Julie Watts is an investigative correspondent for CBS News California. I think immediately people were captivated. Search teams have been checking area fields.
Cadaver dogs are among the searchers.
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Chapter 4: Why were Denise and Aaron initially disbelieved by law enforcement?
And that was, I think, the most terrifying thing, knowing they will do this again. We know that the only way that we'll be vindicated and the truth will come out is if they attack another family.
In June 2015, nearly three months after Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn were attacked, a home invasion was reported in Dublin, California, about an hour south of Vallejo. An intruder came in. The wife called 911 while the husband fought back. The intruder escaped, but in the chaos, he left his cell phone behind. Detectives traced it to this house in South Lake Tahoe.
So they get their investigators together and they show up at the Tahoe cabin. Inside was 38-year-old Matthew Muller. He was arrested on the spot for the Dublin attack. He is a Harvard educated lawyer. He is formerly a Marine. He is not the type of person that you would expect. And when they searched the house, they found some interesting evidence. They found Aaron's laptop at Mueller's cabin.
Authorities also searched a stolen car parked nearby. Investigators looked at the car GPS, and they saw that it had the GPS point where the kidnapper had dropped off Denise Huskins. And in the back of the car... They found goggles, blacked-out swim goggles, with a single strand of blonde hair. The hair was later confirmed to be Denise's.
the goggles, the GPS address, and the laptop, all of it was strong evidence supporting the bizarre story Denise and Aaron had been telling all along.
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Chapter 5: What evidence led to the arrest of Matthew Muller?
The only way they were vindicated was not by police work. It was by other people being harmed. The voice finally had a name. Matthew Muller would be charged with Denise Huskin's kidnapping and rape. Did Mueller's arrest make you feel safe? A little safer?
The arrest made us feel a little safer, but we still believe there's other people out there.
But no one else was charged. Denise and Aaron steeled themselves to face Mueller in court. So you're preparing for him to go to trial. What happened?
Well, he ended up taking a plea deal.
Mueller ultimately received a sentence of 40 years total for the Dublin attack and their attack. Denise and Erin had hoped for a life sentence. The idea that he'll be too old when he gets out to do something like this again, I don't think that's true. Around this time, Denise and Aaron filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Vallejo, claiming defamation and emotional distress.
They eventually settled for $2.5 million. Did the Vallejo police ever vindicate you?
No. It was always, this case was too strange to believe.
The Vallejo Police Department did not respond to our request for a comment, but they did issue a statement after the settlement, saying, The Huskins-Quinn case was not publicly handled with the type of sensitivity a case of this nature should have been handled with.
Although their case seemed to be over, Denise and Aaron hoped authorities would continue to investigate Mueller for other crimes and possible accomplices. And there was still so many questions that were left unanswered. A big piece of that was what else was he involved in? We just knew that our case wasn't the only one. You knew, but did you feel like anyone was listening to you?
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Chapter 6: What confessions did Muller make about his past crimes?
So you start this kind of writing relationship with Mueller. Yeah.
He sent me back a second letter, and this one was thick.
In the letter, Mueller confessed to two crimes in Santa Clara County in 2009, six years before Denise and Aaron's attack. One was in Palo Alto, one was in Mountain View. He broke in, sort of disguised, and attempted sexual assault. Back then, Palo Alto police had identified Mueller as a suspect because he'd been caught prowling in the area, but they didn't have enough to charge him.
Now, he was coming clean.
There were full-blown confessions with specific details that only the suspect would know.
Mueller also indicated there were even more crimes, but only teased the details in his letters.
We know that Mueller did some really awful things.
Vern Pearson is the district attorney of El Dorado County, where Denise Huskins was held captive. Although he was not involved with the original investigation, in 2024, Pearson also offered to help and wanted to speak with Mueller directly. Pearson thought the best way to get him to open up more was to use a strategy called science-based interviewing.
One of the hallmarks of science-based interviewing is speaking to somebody without revealing any judgment you might have about either what they're saying or what you think about them as a person. It just strikes me how different what you're talking about is from the way that the Vallejo PD handled Aaron and Denise's case. Yeah, they passed judgment.
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