48 Hours - Denise and Aaron Quinn Get the Last Word

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

A couple is attacked as they slept. They later team up with law enforcement and get their assailant to confess to more crimes. Tracy Smith reports. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to Westjetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. 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. He brought her down to this bridge?

Yes. You were fighting him as best you could. Yeah. I was trying to squirm away and then I was sexually assaulted. In the middle of what he was trying to do, he said that he saw a light and said he had to go. My boyfriend brought me untied. We called the police. I told him what happened and it very much seemed like they maybe didn't believe me.

I reached out to them many times trying to find out, have you guys found anything? You know, do you know who did this and nothing? She's worried for the last 30-plus years that he was out there and he was going to return. In March of 2015, there was this really high-profile kidnapping coming out of Vallejo, California. Denise Huskins went missing from her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn's home. Kidnappers stormed into Quinn's Vallejo House bound and drugged him. We could hear what sounded like other people downstairs. I was told that I was going to be taken.

I'm told that there was a ransom demand to get Denise back. For the next 48 hours, I was held captive and continuously drugged, and I was raped twice. To my surprise in the middle of the night, he woke me up and said that he was going to release. he was going to release me. Relief and joy after Denise Huskins arrived home in Southern California. I get my life back only to have it all completely blown apart by the false accusations of law enforcement. Belahill Police believe Denise Huskins and her boyfriend staged us all sending their department on a wild and expensive goose chase. Things like this never happened. So therefore,

we can't believe you. This was a massive story. For months, The world believed that this was the hoax, and then suddenly there's another attack, and that's what finally leads to an arrest. He was a Marine, then a Harvard Law student, then a practicing attorney. Now Matthew Muller is accused of being a monster. Our hope was now that one person's caught,

they would continue to investigate. There was still so many questions that were left unanswered. Was anyone else involved? And what other victims are still out there? My name is Nick Borges. 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 Mueller. Dear Mr. Mueller, 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 23, 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 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 our 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, okay. 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 fears am I actually killing Denise? Emergency. My girlfriend got kidnapped last night. Aaron took the chance and called 911. The Vallejo Police Department responded. As Aaron told them what happened, he says investigators began to question his story. 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, well, I'm telling him, is far-fetched,

and he doesn't believe me. 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. Folks assumed from the beginning that she was dead. And immediately, her boyfriend, Erin Quinn, was the suspect. To Aaron, investigators were so focused on him, he wondered if anyone was looking for the people who had actually taken Denise. After being placed in the trunk of Aaron's car, she was driven for a bit, transferred to the trunk of another car, and driven for hours. You think of all the possible things that are going to happen. Where am I going to be taken? Am I going to be tortured? Am I going to have to withstand? God knows what.

The voice took Denise to a secluded home, where she was kept blindfolded and sedated. He told her he would keep her there until his group received the ransom money. She was in and out of consciousness, but remembered him telling her they'd done this before. He then raped her. The next morning, Denise says she heard someone come to the house. Then I heard what sounded like a truck pull up to the house, doors open, closed, people entered. There was whispering, and then they got in the car and left. The assailant then raped her again.

I told myself, no matter what, I'm not going to beg, cower, or scream. Because you thought that would keep you alive? Right. I hoped that that would keep me alive. Hours passed. But then, even without the ransom, the voice stuck with the plan to release her, just not in Vallejo. He asked Denise where her family lived, blindfolded her. and sedated her again and drove hours south.

He then released her near where she grew up in Huntington Beach. A nearby security camera caught these images of her. I heard his car drive off and started walking down this alley in turn, and I see the street that I grew up on. A neighbor called the Huntington Beach police, and the news of Denise's reappearance spread. A Bay Area woman reportedly kidnapped for ransom. is safe tonight.

What exactly happened to her? That's still very much a mystery. Although Denise and Aaron hadn't communicated since the attack, Denise told the Huntington Beach officers the same story Aaron had. But she too began to sense she wasn't being believed. It was, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, but well, you know, we need to figure out what's going on with Vallejo.

And so it just felt like something wasn't right. Worried, Denise hired an attorney. That night, as she was making her way back to Vallejo, the Vallejo Police Department gave a press conference, saying they could not substantiate anything Aaron had told them, and that Denise would not talk to them. Mr. Quinn and Ms. Huskins has plundered valuable resources away from our community. They essentially called the case a hoax. The media came up with another label. Is she a real-life-gone girl? In the first few days after the kidnapper released her, all of the headlines had the word Gone Girl in it, relating it to the blockbuster movie that had just come out the year before

where a beautiful blonde fakes her own kidnapping, and it stuck. That same night, Denise says her attorney told the Vallejo Police Denise had been raped and asked to set up a sexual assault exam, hoping DNA evidence could help identify her attacker. But Denise says Vallejo police refused to order an exam until she talked to them. I could hear whoever was on the phone say, well, how do we know she was raped? She won't even talk to us, you know, just tell her not to shower, keep her clothes on, don't wash her hands, brush her teeth. Denise says Vallejo police made her wait until the next morning to come in. We're not here to judge.

We're just looking to figure out the truth. They interviewed Denise for six hours before she went to a hospital. for the exam. So in a way, it's like, yeah, they had to prove to them that it was worthy enough to have it. To have the exam. The initial testing led nowhere. After cooperating with the investigators, Denise and Aaron feared they might be charged with lying to police, all the while knowing the people who attacked them were still out there.

And that was, like, think, the most terrifying thing, knowing they will do this again. We know that the only way that will be vindicated and the truth will come out is if they attack another family. Ah, where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at voila.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home.

You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in store and online, though some may vary. 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 in the Tahoe cabin. Sir George! Lookin back inside. 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 Muller'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. 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 Mueller would be charged with Denise Huskin's kidnapping and rape.

Did Mueller's arrest make you feel safe? A little safer? The arrest may 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 Aaron 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? Well, no, that's the problem. Denise and Aaron spent years trying to move forward. They got married and started a family and eventually decided it was time to tell their story in their own words. We can take back control of our trauma and maybe use it for good. They wrote a book and participated in the Netflix series American Nightmare.

which was watched by millions of people in 2024. I was hooked as soon as it started. One of those people was Nick Borges, the police chief in Seaside, California. I'm watching this just thinking, I want to reach out to these people. I want to hug her. I want to hug him and just like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. Though he wasn't involved in their case, Chief Borges reached out to Denise on Instagram to apologize on behalf of all law enforcement. When you read that message, what did you think?

I think I got really emotional. Because it's not, we're not asking for a whole lot, you know? Like, just to be respected and listened to and treated like we have value. It meant the world to feel like we had an ally. Chief Borges invited Denise and Aaron to Seaside to speak about their experiences with law enforcement. I give them access to everything. and it wasn't enough because they had already decided I killed her. Chief Borges wanted to do more to help Denise and Aaron get answers.

I don't have a problem shaking the tree a little bit and flipping rocks. He decided to write Mueller in prison. I was very honest with him. I want to know if you acted alone or not. Within weeks, Mueller wrote back. Essentially in his first letter back to me, he said he acted alone. 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.

They were full-blown confessions with specific details that only the suspect would know. Mueller also indicated there were even more crimes, but only tease 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. That did not happen. And they just sought to confirm, confirm, confirm, and every time he would say, no, that's not what happened, they would cut him off, change the subject, go back to, you know, the theory that they had. Pearson was determined to do things differently.

He brought in a highly trained FBI interviewer who specializes in this technique, and their strategy would pay off. And I ordered them out of the town, told them I had a gun. In November 2024, DA Vern Pearson and the FBI interviewer flew to Arizona to speak with Matthew Mueller at the prison where he was serving his 40-year sentence, to see what else he might confessed to and figure out his motivations. He's extraordinarily manipulative, and if he's telling you anything, there is a reason why he's telling you what he's telling you.

With an audio recorder running, Mueller claimed he now wanted to be up front about his past because he'd undergone a religious transformation in prison. He shared that in the past he'd struggled with insomnia, which led to taking long walks at night. I started then looking in windows or I started general curiosity, then went kind of sexual. Mueller described a long history of boyerism, admitting that while at Harvard Law School in the early 2000s, he set up a video camera in an office bathroom. This evidence video shows him doing the same thing years later while on vacation in Hawaii.

He installed a video camera in a public restroom so he could look at it. The more space they gave Mueller to talk, the more depravity he revealed. After several hours, he began talking about yet another home invasion on the border of Contra Costa County, just two weeks after he attacked Denise and Aaron. That night, I climbed up onto the veranda, came in. Mueller described using a ladder to climb into a family's house and waking up a mother, father, and their teenage son. Tied them up, telling them that we were some sort of criminal organization, the relative of theirs owed money to.

He instructed the mother to go to a bank to withdraw a ransom. After she returned with $30,000, Mueller threatened that if they ever told the police, he would come back and harm them. The family never reported it. So there was no crime that matched this reported back then at that time? No, there was nothing. That wasn't the only crime Mueller said he'd gotten away with.

He recalled another attack, which he said was his first, back when he was a teenager in the suburbs of Sacramento. Mueller said one day he'd walk by some campsites at a state park and nearby Folsom and fixated on a young couple. He returned that night with a stolen gun. I ordered them out of the town. I believe I put them both on their stomachs and they had to put their hands behind their back. Mueller said he tied up the couple, then carried the woman away and down a bike trail. Took the woman across to do something bad to her.

Then, he says, he saw a light nearby. He sexually assaulted her, then fled. I basically forgot about it pretty quickly. I just put it out of my mind. I didn't do it as like it didn't happen. Leaving that interview, Pearson set out to prove Mueller committed these crimes. Thank you. starting with the unreported home invasion.

The interviewer had him describe the location, and we had him draw a diagram that kind of roughly showed that. We looked on Google Maps, and we eventually came up with a community that very closely matched the diagram that he had drawn to us. Pearson wondered if the latter Mueller mentioned using might still be there nine years later. It was a long shot,

but his team asked Contra Costa investigators to search the ravine behind that house. You can imagine it's like, hey, this was never reported to you. You guys know anything about it. But we think there might be this ladder. Would you go look for it? And a couple hours later, I get a text message that they found the ladder. But how remarkable is that?

Pretty remarkable. The family who still lived there confirmed everything. Next, Pearson set out to find the campsite victims. His team scoured Folsom and Sacramento County records until five. Finally, one of his staffers found a four-page State Parks report of an incident from August 7, 1993. At the time, Mueller was just 16. We look at it, and it's very close to what he described. I mean, virtually identical.

Victim exited the tent with two sleeping bags and pillows, and as told by subject to lay face down in the camp. This had to be it. Pearson notified the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office and criminal investigators Kevin Papineau and Michelle Hendricks took over the investigation. Back in the day in the 1990s, did it look pretty much like this? Essentially up here it did. The campsites are no longer there, and original investigators have died. So Papineau and Hendricks started by retracing Mueller's steps that night.

So he brings her up here. And again, she has no idea what's going on. She doesn't know where she's going. My goodness. And at night, this place is pitch black. It must be terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Yeah.

From the report, they knew the victim's boyfriend had found her on this footbridge along the bike trail, untied her, and they had called for help. Park Rangers showed up. A fulsome PD officers showed up, and they took a statement from them. And then they left. The officers left. Papanow and Hendricks also found photos. officers took that night, which showed a gun they believed Mueller dropped when he fled. With no other leads to follow, they reached out to the victims. And how old were you in 1993? I was 19. In the middle

of the night, we were awakened to someone hitting the back of our tent. We spoke to the female victim in 2025. She's asked us not to show her face and to call her Lynn. This is the first time she's speaking publicly about what happened to her. The only thing I can really remember, member is just praying, praying for this to stop, praying for him to get away, praying that he doesn't kill me. Lynn says after she and her boyfriend called for help that night, it didn't feel like the officers were taking her assault seriously. It very much felt like they maybe didn't believe me or believe my boyfriend, just by their

line of questioning. Like what? Like with my boyfriend, they asked him, you mean you didn't see the gun? What do you mean you didn't see the gun? instead of just listening to us and believing what we were telling them. She says she called the Parks Department for months asking for updates, but nothing ever came of it. In fact, I even stopped telling people about it as time went on. Lynn and her boyfriend eventually married and drew strength from each other.

But Lynn says it was difficult to ever feel truly safe. Is there a way to describe the weight that you carry? It's kind of hard to describe because it's just kind of part of who you are now. For many years, I didn't go by myself out at night. Even during the daytime, I'd make sure I would keep an eye over my shoulder of who's around and be aware of my surroundings at all times. I didn't feel comfortable wearing shoes that I felt like I couldn't run in, so like flip-flops or sandals, just in case I need to run.

But that began to change when she first spoke with investigators Papineau and Hendricks. I felt this sense of relief. I knew that I was being believed. I knew that something was getting done about this finally. And Lynn felt more relief when she learned her attacker was now behind bars. But she wanted him to be held accountable for what he'd done to her. No, you didn't get away with this. You didn't just move on with your life and forgot that it happened.

You don't get to do that. It is not hard to destroy a college. Last season, the podcast Campus Files brought you stories of fraternity drug rings, stolen body parts, campus cults, and more. And now Campus Files is back for another season. There's a guy I screaming into his phone. He's like, I just saw Charlie Kirk just assassinated right in front of me. Every week is a new episode and a new story. It was so chaotic.

It's almost like a university on a siege. Listen to and follow Campus Files. Available now, wherever you get your podcast. podcasts. To learn that he was 16 years old the first time he attacked a couple, it made a lot of sense, but it's also just incredibly disturbing. Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn had long suspected Matthew Mueller had attacked before. But to learn the details and have the crimes confirmed by investigators was still devastating. A lot of people have suffered from this man. Someone breaking in the middle of night, tying you up.

These are things that are nightmares. The voyeurism, the stalking, I think it's a way of invading people's lives to terrorize. In late 2024, Matthew Mueller was charged with the attempted rapes in Santa Clara County, the first attacks he'd confessed to in the letters. He was flown back to California to face those charges. There, he was also charged with attacking the family. in Contra Costa. While sitting in the Santa Clara County Jail, Mueller wrote another letter. He sent a letter to Nick Borges, essentially indicating he had additional information

that he wanted to provide to Denise and Aaron. He's trying to lure Denise and Aaron into coming and talking to him. I read that letter exactly that way. D.A. Vern Pearson thinks meeting with Denise, in particular, may have been Mueller's objective for confessing all along. Pearson was like, he's confessing to certain things for a reason. They're all in California. I think he wants to get back to California in hopes that he can meet with you. Even though they were fully aware Mueller may have ulterior motives, Denise and Aaron did still want to talk with him. Muller had confirmed and given details about other crimes he had committed, but still maintained he acted alone in theirs. Denise and Aaron are adamant they

heard other people during their attack. I felt like maybe of all people, he would be more honest with us. But having already spent many hours interviewing Mueller, Pearson did not want them in a room together. I didn't think that was a good idea. They came up with a compromise. On February 13, 2025, Mueller and his attorney met with Pearson, the FBI interviewer, and Chief Borges at the Santa Clara County Jail.

Denise and Aaron were there too, watching from another room. Denise Aaron are all present in building today and observing this live. They let him know early on in the interview. They're observing, they're not coming in. I think that irritated him. The FBI interviewer had said that conversation was very different. When asked why he wanted this meeting, Mueller claimed he was there to help Denise and Aaron, mostly.

Or rather, I had an allegation to make it possible. make it possible for them to visit with me to get closure on this. It's in a way that I need closure as well. But when the FBI agent pushed for the answer to Denise and Aaron's question, they are continuing to suffer in the sense that they continue to believe that there are other people. At first, Mueller didn't directly respond and talked in circles. The only other information I could provide, and it does go back a bit into the religious matter. So, you know, if you are having events that seem to be described by the Bible or the question,

or anything else. I mean, he's just an incredibly frustrating human. Eventually, Mueller again denied he'd had accomplices. I guess the best I can do is say, look, every other thing that I've done was a load hacker situation, and I'm just sort of a loader generally. But Mueller did go into detail

about how he said he had tricked Denise and Aaron into believing he was working with a group. He did various steps to make it look as though he was had somebody else with him. There was multiple people. He told us that he had used a device that he could make it sound as though he was talking to somebody downstairs and getting a response using a recorder. I think there was like a whisper tract or something like that, and then I pretended to be whispering to someone at the same time. Do you believe what Mueller was saying about, well,

I was pretending that there were other people in the room? I mean, I don't believe everything Mueller says. I know what we saw. We know what we heard. Although Denise and Aaron didn't get the answers they'd hoped for, they say that confronting Mueller, even through the interviewers, was a form of reckoning. For us, it was more showing that we're not scared of you. We see you. We see who you are. And they were determined to see Matthew Mueller face justice for all the crimes their work and persistence had uncovered. In June 2025, he was finally charged with Lynn's attack, and faced a life sentence for each of the additional crimes he was now charged with.

Denise hoped this would finally lock him away forever. I don't believe if he's ever free that he could help himself. I feel like he'll always figure out a way to terrorize someone in some way. By the summer of 2025, Matthew Mueller was convicted of all the charges brought as a result of the new investigation spurred by Denise and Aaron. At Mueller's sentencing, Lynn read a victim impact statement, three decades in the making. I think for so many years, feeling like my voice was silenced, feeling like my voice could be heard finally, felt very empowering. I got the last word. Now you get to be silenced. Mueller was sentenced to four life terms. How does that feel that he's now serving

four life sentences for four crimes that he might have never confessed to had you not written that letter goosebumps i have them right now lynn says she felt relief knowing muller would stay locked up while she walked free finally able to live without fear and enjoy old pastimes and new ones how are you with going outdoors and camping now it's it's easier now um And one of the ways that we were able to do that was through playing disc golf. It gave me something to focus on outdoors that felt safe again. She is also connected with Denise. She actually reached out to me on Instagram.

When I saw, you know, I'm Matthew Mueller's first victim. Like, I was like, what? I wanted to say thank you. And just let her know that 32 years of waiting was finally over because of her continuing to seek answers. While Lynn finally has answers, Denise and Aaron still questioned whether Mueller acted alone. DA Vern Pearson hoped forensics could prove if there was another assailant. Pearson learned Vallejo police had only done preliminary testing on Denise's rape kit, so his office had it fully tested in 2025.

Well, the results are essentially inconclusive. Pearson says the test showed a mixture of DNA, including Muller's, so they can't rule out the possibility that Denise could also have been assaulted by someone else. But Pearson doesn't think so. Based on everything I know, I don't believe that there was an accomplice. I think that was a ruse that he created and perpetuated very successfully. Chief Borges isn't so sure. Do you think Mueller had accomplices?

I think it's very possible. I certainly think it's very possible. But Borges and Pearson both believe Mueller committed additional crimes. Everywhere that man traveled, he was a threat. And Chief Borges says it's possible Mueller went even further. One of the times I interviewed him,

I asked him if he ever killed anybody. It just seemed like an appropriate question. He kind of told me that he didn't have the heart to do that. Do you believe him? Not fully. I don't fully believe him. I mean, at what point do you actually stop? Chief Borges says he hasn't stopped investigating,

looking for other crimes and accomplices. If anyone else is involved, we're coming for you. Just trust me, we're going to get you if you're involved. Today, Denise and Aaron continue to speak to law enforcement, trying to change how officers interview victims and suspects. Denise has said not being believed was more traumatic in many ways to her

than the actual assaults themselves. If that doesn't open your eyes in law enforcement, something's wrong with you. Chief Borges says that is the biggest lesson he's learned from Denise and Aaron. We have to believe victims. When they come forward,

we have to listen to what they say and follow the evidence. Despite all they've been through, the Quinn's say that while their case revealed a lot of problems, it also shows the solutions. We understand it's a really hard job. People make mistakes. What you're hoping is that people recognize mistakes, they learn from mistakes,

and it changes their actions going forward. Again, it's better sweet to be able to be here and reclaim this is something positive. And these unlikely advocates are determined to use their voices for good. I don't think anyone would blame you if they're, The two of you said, okay, enough. We don't need to talk about this anymore. Why not just move on? I think there's a sense of responsibility.

The publicity was so damaging to us in the beginning. And so I feel like in a way, having this strange, unique position, it almost seems irresponsible to not utilize it in a positive way. that can maybe help others. ...part left the Vallejo Police Department in 2020. Matthew Mustard retired in two hours was unable to reach them for...