The man who kidnapped and sexually assaulted a Northern California woman in a horrific crime that police initially dismissed as a Gone Girl-style hoax has now been charged with two home invasions and sexual assaults committed 15 years ago.
Matthew Muller, 47, pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping charges and was sentenced to 40 years behind bars in 2017 after Vallejo police eventually charged him with kidnapping Denise Huskins and taking her to a secluded cabin.
The former Marine told prosecutors he suffered from bipolar disorder and was on medication when he kidnapped Huskins two years earlier.
A month after the arrest, the FBI said Muller may have committed other crimes that resembled Huskins’ nightmarish kidnapping, offering new details of the crime and asking for the public’s help. Mercury News reports.
Now, as Muller serves his prison sentence for the 2015 kidnapping that shocked the United States, he faces two new felony charges of assault with intent to commit rape during a robbery. according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The first incident occurred in September 2009, when Muller allegedly broke into a woman’s home in Mountain View, California.
The victim told police she woke up to see a masked man pushing her face down on her bed and telling her he was committing identity theft, prosecutors say.
The intruder reportedly handcuffed the woman and bound her ankles with “some sort of Velcro restraint.”
Matthew Muller, 47, pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping charges and was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2017.
Over the next two hours, the intruder allegedly made several phone calls and at one point carried the victim downstairs before returning her to the bedroom.
She also allegedly made the victim drink Nyquil and used her phone to send text messages to her employer telling her she was sick.
The intruder allegedly told the woman in her 30s that he was going to rape her, but she convinced him not to.
Muller then left after recommending the woman get a dog, prosecutors said.
The following month, prosecutors say, Muller allegedly broke into a Palo Alto home and ambushed a sleeping woman while he wore a mask over his head.
A police report states that the man spoke with a ‘low growl,’ as if he was ‘consciously trying to disguise his voice,’ while he restrained her with cloth closures on her ankles and arms, put earplugs in her ears, and covered her. the eyes surgical tape.
The victim was also allegedly forced to drink Nyquil, and at some point, the suspect allegedly stated his intention to rape her before she pleaded with him by describing a past sexual assault, which police say caused him to relent.
Muller is then accused of warning the woman not to call the police when he left.
Denise Huskins and her then-boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, claimed a man broke into their Vallejo, California, home in 2015.
Detective Mat Mustard (left) initially suspected Quinn (right) before pushing the theory that the abduction was an elaborate hoax similar to the plot of the movie Gone Girl.
Years later, Muller kidnapped Huskins from the home she shared with her boyfriend Aaron Quinn in Vallejo, California.
She claimed she saw a man in her room brandishing a fake gun, and said she and Quinn were drugged and blindfolded with tinted glasses before she was thrown into the trunk of a car and driven nearly 500 miles away.
When police arrived at the scene, they found blood splattered throughout the house, zip ties, toy guns and even an inflatable doll.
Suspicion first fell on Quinn, who was questioned about an argument with his girlfriend over messages she had found on his phone shortly before his disappearance.
The culprit had been demanding a $15,000 ransom for Huskins’ safe return during the two-day ordeal.
But days later, her captor inexplicably left her in an alley outside her parents’ house, to everyone’s astonishment.
The unusual circumstances led police to begin to suspect that the episode was a hoax.
‘We couldn’t substantiate any of the things he said. If anything, it is Mr. Quinn and Ms. Huskins who owe this community an apology,’ Vallejo Police Lt. Kenny Park said at a news conference.
Muller, a former Marine, was eventually linked to the crime after he was arrested by police in Dublin, California, for a similar home invasion.
Muller was eventually linked to the crime after he was arrested by police in Dublin, California, for a similar home invasion.
Authorities said they found a cellphone they traced to Muller and a subsequent search of his car and home turned up evidence, including a computer Muller stole from Quinn, linking him to the invasion.
Muller was then sentenced in 2022 to 31 years in state prison after pleading no contest to two counts of forcible rape while Huskins and Quinn were getting married.
They welcomed their first child in 2020 and their second in 2022.
Amid renewed attention to the case following a Netflix documentary series called American Nightmare, Palo Alto police revived investigations into the two home invasions after they were contacted by Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges.
Borges had been corresponding with Muller in his Arizona prison, and said he received letters from Muller in April and May from the suspect offering information implicating him in the 2009 home invasions and robberies.
The police chief said he offered details that closely matched police reports and the victim’s accounts, which were not publicly available.
In a letter, Muller allegedly described presenting himself as the aggressor as the art of a “common goal of (protecting) victims and strengthening the laws for potential future victims.”
As part of the renewed investigation, Palo Alto police re-examined DNA traces from cloth fasteners used in the home invasions and connected Muller to the scene.
“The details of this person’s violent crime spree seem written in a Hollywood script, but they are tragically real,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement.
‘Our goal is to make sure this defendant is held accountable and never hurts or terrorizes anyone again.
“Our hope is that this nightmare ends.”
Muller now faces a possible sentence of life behind bars and is due back in court on January 17.