American Nightmare: What Happened to Denise Huskins and The Documentary Case?
The documentary American Nightmare, which is available on Netflix, tells the story of a kidnapping that started strangely, unfolded strangely, and the victim came to be considered a real-life Gone Girl. The nickname given to her is a reference to the 2014 Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck film. The film was based on the Gillian Flynn novel of the same name, where Pike plays a woman who disappears from her home after discovering her husband’s infidelity. Affleck plays Pike’s husband, who becomes the main suspect in his wife’s case, which begins to be considered murder until she reappears out of nowhere and her husband discovers that it was all part of a revenge plan.
The film is not inspired by the case of American Nightmare and Denise Huskins, but the similarities between the two stories led Huskins to start being called the real-life Gone Girl. The Netflix documentary is a retelling of the events, where you hear the 911 call where Huskins’ boyfriend reported her kidnapping, and the series of events that led to the case becoming increasingly rare. The first true crime that Netflix released in 2024 is being a phenomenon. American Nightmare dissects in just three episodes one of the most terrifying cases that the genre has offered in recent years because it confronts the viewer not only with the fear of being the victim of a crime but also of the institution that is supposed to protect you and seek justice.
What Happened to Denise Huskins from American Nightmare?
The Denise Huskins case happened in 2015. It all started when her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, called the police and alleged that men in diving suits and flashlights had broken into their house, woke them up, tied his hands, and took Denise away in the middle of the night. According to Distractify, the thieves were planning to take Quinn, but upon seeing Huskins they decided to take her and use her to ransom her partner, whom they threatened to harm if she called the police. Quinn asked her brother for help, and he was the one who told her that she should call the police, so, the next day, that’s what she did.
The authorities thought it was strange that Quinn had not called them the night of the kidnapping, so they began to suspect him and question him, and everything got out of control when, 48 hours later, Denies Huskins appeared out of nowhere and arrived at their house. walking and apparently in good condition. Gone Girl had been released a year earlier, so the authorities came to think that they were facing a similar case, where they had two theories, either Quinn had killed his girlfriend, or she had decided to escape for some reason. So, when Denise came home, they decided to question her too. The authorities were blaming her for what had happened to her, they decided not to believe her and go with the theory that she or both of them had watched Gone Girl too many times and were doing this for attention. But things didn’t happen that way.
According to Abc 7 News, Huskins said of the kidnapping: “I remember being asleep and hearing a voice and thinking it was a dream… But the voice kept talking and I just remember my eyes flew open and I could see the walls.” illuminated with a blinking white light and I could see a couple of red laser dots crossing the wall. I could hear, ‘Wake up, this is a robbery. We’re not here to hurt you.’ And at that moment I thought, ‘Oh my God. This is not a dream”.
Furthermore, according to Huskins, the kidnappers told her at one point that they were going to take her for 48 hours and that her partner would have to complete some tasks to be released, after that they drugged them and took her away and placed her in the trunk of a car. Quinn woke up the next day and, as ABC 7 News explains, by then she already had an email asking for a ransom, 2 days later, on March 2, 2015, Huskins was finally released and reappeared in Huntington Beach, California, which was very close to his parents’ house.
Huskins called the police and they started asking him questions about what had happened to him, and eventually, he realized he was going to have to hire a lawyer because the police thought he had made it all up. And that’s when the police started calling her Gone Girl. The kidnappers then sent a message to the San Francisco Chronicle, where they shared photos and evidence of the kidnapping and the place where they had hidden Huskins, but it was weeks before the police began to believe them, and they found one of the culprits.
In June 2015, police received a report of another robbery similar to that of Huskins and Quinn. In that case, they also attacked a couple, but the husband managed to hit one of the assailants, who ended up forgetting his phone at the crime scene, and this was used to find him. The thief was Matthew Muller, a former Marine who had studied at Harvard. Muller was arrested and authorities searched his house and his stolen car, and among his things, they found evidence connecting him to what had happened to Denise Huskins and her partner. Ultimately, Muller was charged with kidnapping, robbery, and sexual abuse and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
