Dateline NBC - Twisted Tale

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

An abduction appears to have been a hoax until a similar case pops up. Josh Mankiewicz reports.Josh Mankiewicz and Blayne Alexander go behind the scenes of the making of this episode in ‘Talking Dateline’Listen on Apple: https://apple.co/3GCGhEX Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/73wTYZaO5pdDmyrfZhncdp 

The details are so crazy, I couldn't make sense of it. A successful young couple. Ambush, they said, in the dead of night. Attacked. Abducted. We're like, wow, where is she? I didn't have a clue what happened. But the real question, was their story even true?

We were not able to substantiate any of the things that he was saying. They branded the couple as liars. Could this be some kind of hoax that he was saying. They branded the couple as liars. Could this be some kind of hoax? Who was really behind it all? Normal people don't do things like this. This whole story could take another crazy turn. He said, I know that I need to pay for what I did. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline.

Here's Josh Mankiewicz with Twisted Tale. I was asleep in bed. It was about five o'clock in the morning. Frightening doesn't begin to describe what she went through. And the next thing I knew there was someone laying on top of me. She was instantly the losing player in someone else's game of power and control. Their hand was over my mouth. If you're wondering, there was no way to fight back.

I must have been screaming. This woman doesn't want us to use her real name. We're calling her Samantha, and she's sharing with us things she's told to very few people. This was a man. A man. Bigger than you?

Felt very big and strong. I couldn't move. September 29, 2009. The sun wasn't up yet and in Samantha's bedroom a masked intruder was holding her down. She had no idea who the man was or what he was planning. He said, well, this is going to take a couple hours. I was, you know, I was, I think, just in shock. The details of what happened to Samantha are not only frightening, but also deeply strange. She's come forward because she believes her long night of terror may shed light

on a different case in a different town with victims she's never met. It's a bizarre mystery that riveted California's Bay Area, then rippled across the country and around the world. March 24th, 2015, a young woman was missing. Ms. Huskin stands at 5'7", 150 pounds. She's got blonde hair and blue eyes.

Her abductors wanted money in exchange for her return. We are treating this as a kidnapping ransom, and we're requesting the public's help in locating her. It happened 30 miles north of San Francisco, in the city of Vallejo. Henry Lee was then a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. I immediately was struck with the fact that you don't see these kinds of cases too often and this crime victim did not strike me as someone who would usually be targeted. The kidnapped victim Denise Huskins had been staying with her boyfriend Aaron Quinn at

his house in Vallejo. At the time, both were physical therapists at a nearby hospital. Aaron was the one who reported Denise missing. We're doing everything that we can and then some to ensure her safe return. Police dogs and dive teams were soon part of a huge search for Denise Huskins. Across the country, Denise's good friend Ashley saw the news. There was an article posted online. Someone sent it to me and said,

oh my god, this is Denise. But I started just texting everybody. Including Denise. I tried to text her. I figured better than not doing anything. There was no reply. She texted another friend, Danika. I couldn't even believe what I was reading.

It didn't even seem real. That was pretty much the reaction the Vallejo cops had to the story Denise's boyfriend was telling them. We have a lot of information still to sift through. We don't have all of the facts in yet. The story Aaron told the cops that night, eventually spelled out in an FBI affidavit, would seem frankly preposterous. Something invented by someone with too much imagination and too much free time. Aaron said he and Denise were asleep at his house when, at about

3 a.m., he was awakened by a bright light and an electrical noise that sounded like a stun gun. Then a man's voice telling them to lie face down on the bed. Aaron said the man told Denise to bind Aaron's hands and feet. Then he said his eyes were covered with swim goggles, which had been blacked out so he couldn't see. He's been blindfolded, zip-tied. Aaron said the intruder demanded his private banking and email information, and then put

headphones on him that played calming music, along with instructions to use Denise's phone, to text her work and say she'd be out for a couple of days and to let his work know the same. Aaron also claimed he was given a mixture of Nyquil and Valium to knock him out and told to stay in one spot in his living room that was outlined in red duct tape and monitored by a webcam. Then he said the intruders left with Denise. His story sounded so implausible,

police wondered if he'd made it up to hide something even more sinister. At first blush when a woman is missing and her husband or boyfriend says, oh yeah, she was abducted. Well, certainly the first thing I think, maybe because of what I do for a living, is the guy had something to do with this.

In these kinds of situations, always look at the significant other. Is he a suspect? Is he making it up? What is going on here? What's the real story? Police treated Aaron less like a victim and more like a murder suspect.

They confiscated his cell phone and read him his rights. They were suspicious about why he waited 11 hours before calling 911. Aaron Quinn, it took him hours. It wasn't until that afternoon that the Vallejo police were able to talk to him after he came forward. Aaron's mother later told us police polygraphed him five times. He was put in jail clothing, given little food or water, and held in a small interrogation room for hours. Across the country, Denise's friends didn't know any of this.

But they knew enough to be worried. I mean, someone being kidnapped, to be honest, a lot of those stories don't end well. And you don't want to think about those things, but you think maybe they're not going to be alive. Then about 33 hours after Denise Huskins disappeared, reporter Henry Lee was standing outside Aaron's home when his phone buzzed. An email. And what was chilling was that this email came attached

with an audio file. And this audio file. And this audio file, there was a woman's voice. The soft spoken woman on the recording said she was Denise. This very strange tale was about to get much stranger. What had happened to Denise? When we come back? We still don't know where Denise Heskens is. That cryptic recording, exactly what kind of message was it? She sounded absolutely calm, not terrified, not distressed at all.

Not like someone in fear for their life. Right, as if she was talking to a friend over coffee. When Dateline continues. The Gate Line continues. Denise Huskin's boyfriend said she'd been kidnapped, but his story seemed hard to believe. Police wondered if he'd murdered her and was now trying to cover it up. Then a day and a half after Denise disappeared, reporter Henry Lee received a mysterious email with an audio file attached. Okay, I just need to get my test kit and get my match, otherwise I'm fine.

She talked about the day's biggest news. A German airliner had gone down. Earlier today there was a plane crash in the house. 150 people died. She shared obscure biographical details. My first concert with Bethany and her mom, took me to that religion. It's a proof of life audio trying to prove that A, she's Denise and B, yes, she is the

kidnapped victim. And she's aware of events that have happened that day. And she's aware of events that have happened to prove that she was in fact alive. So clearly this wasn't a murder case. But was it a kidnapping, as Aaron claimed? Lee found it odd that Denise didn't sound at all frightened. She sounded absolutely calm, not terrified, not distressed at all. Not like someone in fear for their life.

Right, as if she was talking to a friend over coffee. I shared it with my editors and colleagues working the story, and I think the subject line was like, WTF, what is this? The recording soon hit the web, where Denise's friend Ashley heard it. It was sort of reassuring that she was making an audio that clearly dated that day, but also still scary because you still have no idea if the person's safe, how they're being treated, people are putting her through.

And if Denise didn't sound panicked, her friends say that made perfect sense. After all, the three of them had already lived through what should have been the most traumatic event of their lives. Ashley, Danica, and Denise went to watch the Boston Marathon in 2013. They say it was Denise who remained calm that day. We were all scared and we were all sort of rocked by it, but I think of all of us, she was probably the best equipped to keep her cool.

She was the one who kind of was my rock. She grabbed my hand and she's like, let's go. But where was Denise now? This is a bizarre case with a lot of twists. Very bizarre, Roz. Cheryl Heard covered the story for NBC station KNTV. So day two, we still don't know where Denise Huskins is. We're really not sure what her boyfriend,

Aaron Quinn, is telling police. All we know is they can't find her. But then the story took another whiplash turn. About 45 hours after Denise was reported missing, police made a dramatic announcement. Approximately 10.30 this morning, Miss Denise Huskins was located safely. It seemed over.

Denise's cousin told KNBC how thrilled everyone was. You hear these stories all the time and you watch TV about them and you never know. And I just was happy to hear that she was alive and safe and home. But to police and reporters, all professional skeptics, this story hadn't smelled right from the start. And Denise's sudden reappearance did nothing to change that. She was alive, she was well, and they found her. That was great. But there was still something funny going on because no one had all the answers. For one thing, Denise turned up in Huntington Beach, which was 400 miles south of Vallejo,

and which was also her hometown. She was dropped off right by her mom's house. She wasn't released out of state. She was not released in the desert. She was not released in the middle of California. Where did she show up? Right near her parents' house. That seemed too convenient.

Another thing, the ransom the kidnapper supposedly demanded had never been paid. Denise told police in her hometown the same story her boyfriend had told up north about the swim goggles, the Nyquil, the threat of electric shock. But then, when Vallejo police wanted to question her... Denise Huskins disappeared and wouldn't cooperate, would not fly up in a plane offered by the FBI to talk to the police.

After she was released? After she was released. Suspicion was building. Neither Denise nor Erin made any public statement. But they did hire separate attorneys. Everyone's thinking, why are they doing that? Lots of questions and not many answers. But then, less than 12 hours after Denise reappeared...

Then we get a tip that police are holding a news conference. So I jump in the car, photographer and I, and we haul ass back to Vallejo to be a part of this news conference. Let me know when you guys are ready. And that's when the bombshell came down. Coming up... We were not able to substantiate any of the things that he was saying. Was this all some kind of prank? Was there some chance that Denise and her boyfriend were going to be prosecuted?

It was a very strong possibility. Emails, photos, some strange new clues are about to emerge from the shadows. When Dateline continues. I didn't have a clue what happened. Even Denise Huskin's friends had to admit her sudden disappearance and reappearance seemed almost unbelievable. The details of the story are so crazy. I just, you know, I really couldn't, I couldn't make sense of it.

Neither could the Vallejo Police Department. A day after Denise came home, spokesman Kenny Park held a remarkable news conference. First he spoke about Denise's boyfriend, Aaron Quinn. The statement that Mr. Quinn provided was such an incredible story. We initially had a hard time believing it, and upon further investigation, we were not able to substantiate any of the things that he was saying. Then about Denise herself. Ms. Husskens indicated that she would be happy to meet with our police detectives and provide us a full detail statement on what had occurred.

As of right now, we have not heard from Ms. Husskens. And then finally, this. Mr. Quinn and Ms. Husskens has plundered valuable resources away from our community while instilling fear amongst our community members. So if anything, it is Mr. Quinn and Ms. Huskins that owes this community an apology. After a search and about 54 hours of investigation, Vallejo police had concluded that the whole kidnapping story was phony. That all of this was one of those made-for-California dramas, not so much Shakespearean as Kardashian. Police seemed to think Denise and Aaron were, for some reason known only to them, seeking

publicity and telling an elaborate lie. Left unanswered was why anyone would want to become famous for fooling the police. The stranger than fiction kidnapping story involving a young California couple. Remember, no ransom was ever paid. Aaron told police the kidnappers took his bank information, but no one tried to access his accounts. Someone did try to call Aaron's cell phone a couple of times while Denise was missing from a blocked number. According call Aaron's cell phone a couple of times while Denise was missing from a blocked number.

According to Aaron's mother, police suspected Aaron had somehow programmed another phone to call his own cell while he was with investigators. Was there some chance that Denise and her boyfriend were going to be prosecuted? It was a very strong possibility based on those public pronouncements. Denise's friends didn't know Aaron, but they had every confidence Denise was telling the truth. Everyone that knew or that knows her personally and actually cares about her believed her. The day after police branded the kidnapping a hoax, Denise finally did show up at Vallejo

PD to tell the cops they were wrong. She said that not only had she been kidnapped, she had also been raped. That same day reporter Henry Lee received another email, a long message soon followed by more supporting Denise's claim that this was no hoax from a person claiming to have been one of the kidnappers. They were very articulate, clearly written by someone who's extremely intelligent. books, from a person claiming to have been one of the kidnappers. They were very articulate, clearly written by someone who was extremely intelligent. Ms. Huskins was absolutely kidnapped. We did it. We will provide incontrovertible proof.

The writer claimed to be part of a group, more than two and fewer than eight in number. They go into extreme length about a series of crimes that they say they pulled, including car thefts, break-ins, home invasions, you name it. Some of us have a tech background and are very good at overcoming electronic anti-theft measures, stealing late model cars. According to the email, the group decided to try kidnapping because, we wanted something with a high payout, that we only had to do once or a few times. What is going on? Why are you apparently confessing?

The writer admitted that the reality of the kidnapping was much more upsetting than expected. We fancied ourselves a sort of Ocean's Eleven gentleman criminals who only took stuff that was insured from people who could afford it. The horrifying reality of what we had become and what we were doing did not set in until being confronted directly with Denise's suffering and humanity. At least one of the abductors seemed to, you know, sympathize with Denise. And now the e-mail said they were angry that Denise was being accused of making the whole thing up.

We will not stand by and see the life of a really good person ruined. Attached to the e-mails were photos. One showed a water gun, spray painted to look more threatening, at least in the dark, with a laser pointer and flashlight duct tape to it. Another showed a room with cardboard partially covering a window where Denise was supposedly held. Was this visual proof of Denise and Aaron's story, or an elaborate deception? You thought legit or more hoax?

Well, I thought it was certainly part of a prank. In fact, the emails were so cleverly written, Henry Lee wondered if they might have been sent by an attorney hired by Denise or Erin. That so-called gone girl mystery. Reporters started referring to the case as the gone girl kidnapping, after the book and movie

about a young blonde who fakes her own disappearance. That reference infuriated Denise's friends. But when it's not accurate, it makes you mad. It was sort of like a fictional character created out of a good person. So then suddenly you stop being Denise Huskins and you start being... Labeled as gone girl. A gone girl. That wasn't Denise at all, they said. But to the rest of the world,

Denise and Aaron were portrayed as liars, schemers, maybe even criminals themselves. That is, until the next big twist. Coming up... He said, we have your daughter. Another story as strange and eerie as Denise and Aaron's. Terrifying. Yes, they were terrified. when Dateline continues.

This began as a high-tech kidnapping that sounded like a TV movie. We were not able to substantiate any of the things Then police announced it was really an elaborate hoax. Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn, branded as liars or attention addicts, retreated from sight. Thank you. And that might have been the end of it.

Until a little over two months later. This story took another unbelievable turn. June 5, 2015, 3.34 a.m. June 5, 2015, 3.34 a.m. She thinks that they possibly have her daughter. Police were called to a house in Dublin, California. Locked herself in the bedroom. An intruder was inside. Husband possibly has a head injury.

We're having medical started. By the time police arrived, the man was gone, leaving behind a shaken family with a frightening story. The woman told police that she and her husband woke up in the early morning hours to find a man standing at the foot of their bed, a flashlight shining in their faces. He told them that face down, get face down on your bed and don't look at me. Terrifying. Yes, they were terrified.

Dublin police detectives Miguel Campos and Rafael Alvarez led the investigation. He said, we have your daughter and she's okay. The couple's 22-year-old daughter had been sleeping in the next room. He tells the parents that I'm going to tie you up. The father jumps on him, says, you know, I'm not going to let you tie me up. You know, something's going on with my daughter. A struggle ensues on the ground. His wife grabbed her cell phone and locked herself in the bathroom to call 911.

The husband yells out at her, honey, go get the gun, go get the gun. Now, this was very smart on the father's part because they have no gun, but he had to say anything to try to scare this guy away. The father continued to fight until finally the intruder fled. But in the struggle, he left some things behind. Zip ties, for one. And what turned out to be the key to the case, a cell phone, which led the Dublin detectives to a home near Sacramento.

They called the family there, and the woman who answered said the phone belonged to her adult son, a man named Matthew Muller. And it said, he told me he lost it this morning. And then we said, okay, where is he? We'd like to give it to him. They told us, well, he's on his way to South Lake Tahoe to our cabin. The Dublin cops knew their next stop was South Lake Tahoe. First, they put in a call to the local sheriff

to ask if there had ever been trouble at the cabin. There hadn't, but a stolen car had just been found right near it, and in the car was a driver's license for 38-year-old Matthew Muller. I said, okay, you just kind of made my day now. Now we have some more information to go on. With a search warrant and an arrest warrant, the Dublin cops went to find Matthew Muller.

The neighbors watched it happen. You know, I'm just peeking out my window, trying to get an idea what's happening. More cars are coming. My whole front area is filled with dark sedans, like something out of the movies. The neighbors were surprised, but maybe Matthew Muller was not.

When we broke down the front door, it didn't open all the way because it was barricaded with chairs and just various household items. And upon entry, I could hear my detectives screaming, you know, get on the ground, get on the ground, and you know, your heart rate kind of jumps up. Okay, he's there. This is Mueller just after he was arrested. He did not put up a fight. In the house, detectives found a room with cardboard

on the windows blocking out the light. They searched that stolen car and found a few more items of interest. One was a BB gun. One was a super-shulker that was painted black with a flashlight duct tape to it with a laser pointer. So these have been made to look like real guns? If you were in the dark and all you saw was the shape and the bulkness of it, then yes.

Absolutely. There were also swim goggles with tape covering the lenses. A long blonde hair stuck to the tape. And when they traced the stolen car... That vehicle comes back, it comes back stolen out of Vallejo. So the Dublin cops called Vallejo PD and started comparing notes. We're showing pictures of everything we've recovered at the search warrant and they're showing us pictures that you know had been sent to them. Those would be the photos emailed to reporter Henry Lee from that anonymous address. Shots of spray-painted water pistols and a room with cardboard

on the windows. That's kind of when the light really clicked on and we all kind of went, oh, here we go. Coming up, Ivy League, former Marine, respected attorney. I would much more have suspected Matt to be sitting behind the desk in some elected capacity. Who was this guy? When Dateline continues. when Dateline continues. When the strange tale of Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn first made headlines, another bizarre twist in a kidnapping case we've been following out of California,

Dublin police detectives Miguel Campos and Rafael Alvarez found it just as puzzling as everyone else did. There were a lot of reasons to sort of think that the Vallejo story at first blush was a very strange story. It was. Yeah, it does sound like it could be fabricated. But now they found themselves working a home invasion that seemed to link the man they'd

arrested, Matthew Muller, to the alleged kidnapping of Denise Huskins. Not just the photos of toy guns painted to look real, or the room in the suspect's home they saw during the arrest that matched the photos sent to Henry Lee. There was more. Significant clues pointing to a real kidnapping that Vallejo cops seemed to have overlooked or ignored from the start. Window screens at Aaron's house had been slit and the window locks drilled. And the missed calls made to Aaron Quinn's cell phone while he was being interrogated that first night. Calls of the Vallejo

cops suspected Aaron had somehow faked. Turns out they were placed from this intersection right near Muller's cabin in Tahoe, where Dublin police later found that stolen car. When law enforcement hacked into the car's navigation history, they found this address in Huntington Beach, the exact spot where Denise said she'd been left by her kidnapper. As they continued to investigate, detectives learned their suspect was just as unusual as the crimes he was implicated in, maybe more so.

I haven't dealt with somebody like him. You know, this is the kind of stuff that you typically see in movies. A California native, Mueller served in the U.S. Marine Corps where he was a trumpet player. He then attended Pomona College. Alex Volberding was a classmate. I would much more have suspected Matt to be sitting behind the desk in some elected capacity as opposed to be sitting in a jail cell right now. Mueller married in 2002 and graduated from Pomona summa cum laude a year later.

His next stop was another place you might have heard of, Harvard Law School. He graduated in 2006, then stayed on as a teaching fellow. Andrea Sines was a student of Muellerer's at Harvard's Immigration and Refugee Clinic. Matt, as I remembered him at Harvard, was incredibly intelligent, hardworking, and someone who was really dedicated to the work that we were doing. After Harvard, Muller moved back to California

and practiced immigration law in San Francisco. But soon, Muller's life seemed to go off the rails. In 2013, he lost his privileges to practice law and was eventually disbarred. He got divorced, stopped paying rent. In 2014, he filed for bankruptcy. It's not clear what went wrong. His defense lawyer says Mueller suffers from bipolar disorder.

He's unimposing, nearly forgettable, certainly not someone to fear. It doesn't really fit the profile of your typical guy who's doing home invasions. If you're looking at typical home invasions, it doesn't. But when you're looking at the type of crimes that he's committing, it does more fit the profile. It seems to be done for the thrill of the crime, the thrill of the game. Glenn Lipson is a forensic psychologist. He has not met Matthew Mueller. But he has read those emails that were sent to reporter Henry Lee. Emails that Lee suspected at the time

were written by a lawyer, a lawyer police now believe was Matthew Muller. What emerges from the emails is a complex picture of someone who needs attention, who needs to be perceived a certain way. For example, the way the writer of the emails was outraged when Denise was accused of a hoax. So when he says, how dare you not believe, Miss Huskins, that she was kidnapped, what he's really saying is, how dare you not believe that I committed this crime and pulled it off? You can't see my handiwork because you're,

you lack talent because the police here are failing miserably and they need to recognize how flawed they are and how wonderful I am. He's a master criminal. He is a master criminal and he is running circles around everyone else. Maybe he was.

Remember, from the beginning, Vallejo police apparently just couldn't believe the elaborate details of the kidnapping. When Aaron told them he took so long to call 911 because he was drugged and confined to a square of red tape and monitored by a webcam, they didn't buy it. And when Denise wouldn't get on that plane to talk to Vallejo PD, they thought it was because she had something to hide. She says it was because she was afraid the cops would treat her as they treated her boyfriend Aaron like a suspect. Now, everything was about to change.

Three months after Vallejo police accused Denise and Aaron of concocting a hoax, the FBI announced that Matthew Muller was the prime suspect in Denise's very real kidnapping. I was glad, you know, and I never doubted that there was someone who kidnapped her. Neither did the woman we're calling Samantha. To her, Denise's story was very real. Coming up... My hands were handcuffed behind my back. My feet were zip-tied.

Could Matthew Mueller be behind this crime, too? We're about to ask him. He kind of opened his eyes really wide. He couldn't believe that I was bringing this up. Dateline continues. Mountain View, California, the heart of Silicon Valley, the headquarters of Google. And in September 2009, the scene of a strange and terrifying crime. I was asleep in bed and the next thing I knew, there was someone laying on top of me. Their hand was over my mouth. The woman we're calling Samantha hadn't heard the names Denise Huskins or Matthew Mueller

until we contacted her. But as you'll see, the details of what happened to her seemed frighteningly familiar. My hands were handcuffed behind my back. My feet were zip-tied. Then he put swim goggles on that were blacked out. I couldn't see. Zip ties, blacked out swim goggles. Her captor claimed he was part of a group, and the point of it all, he said, was money. You give and the point of it all he said was money. You give him the information that we're all taught not to give to anyone.

Right, exactly. My social security number, mother's maiden name, account numbers, my bank account number, my PIN. As with Denise and Aaron, the intruder made sure no help would be coming anytime soon. He figured out who my boss was from my emails and he emailed my boss that I was sick and I couldn't come into work that day. She says, just as Denise and Erin did, that she was sedated. In her case, it was just Nyquil. She became drowsy but never passed out. She was completely helpless, completely in his control. When it got even worse, the

intruder told her, I have some bad news for you and now I'm going to have to rape you. Tied up, blindfolded, she pleaded with her captor not to do it. His response? He got very quiet and he kind of muttered, ugh, I can't do this. And then the man who had terrorized her for hours suddenly seemed remorseful. He said, you know, I'm sorry about this. You know, I've been through this too. He even offered some helpful home security advice.

He recommended that I get a dog so that I could have protection in the future. So he's advising you how to keep this from happening again. Yeah, I know it's incredible. The man soon left without letting Samantha see his face. And when she called the police, the response she received might sound familiar to Denise Huskins.

Did police believe you? I don't think so. What they told me was they thought maybe I just had a bad dream and that I had called 911 after my bad dream. Then less than a month later, a similar case in nearby Palo Alto. A man broke into this house and restrained the woman living there with zip ties and swim goggles. Then he threatened to rape her. Was it the same man? Was it Muller? Police investigating Samantha's assault weren't sure. But Lieutenant Zach Perrin with the

Palo Alto police believed the same person was responsible for both crimes. We were able to identify one suspect in the case and he's our prime suspect, Matthew Mueller. We wanted to hear from Mueller himself. His attorney did not want Mueller to do an interview. However, Mueller agreed to see a visitor. Dateline associate producer Kayla Ward spent 30 minutes talking with Mueller in jail, through glass, on the phone. No camera, no recording, no note-taking allowed.

What's your initial impression of him? Extremely talkative. It was like he was in his element. He was laughing, we were joking about the books that he was reading. What's his answer to whether or not he is guilty of the crimes that he's accused of? He wouldn't say, he wouldn't deny anything, but he wouldn't say that he was guilty of anything. She asked him about Samantha. And I said, well, we recently interviewed a woman and her case matches Denise Huskins'

and Erin Quinn's case. And he kind of opened his eyes really wide. It's like in a way he couldn't believe that I was bringing this up. But he denied knowing anything about Samantha's case or the one in Palo Alto. Then Kayla asked about Denise Huskins. He looked at me intensely and said, can you imagine being woken up in the middle of the night, taken from your home, sexually assaulted, and then you're brave and then it's used against you by the police.

And there was tears in his eyes. He was very emotional about it. Putting on a show? He might have been putting on a show. He's very smart, very, very smart. And very eager to talk about his own troubles. He wanted to be very clear that the last six years of his life have been spent in depression. He's had a few suicide attempts.

He said, you know, he's in jail now and he's happy to be there because it's a safe place for him, a safe place for the community. Mueller did say that in his professional life, he'd always wanted to do good for others. He told me my hope for my life was that my primary identifier would be helping people. I wanted to be the guy that helped people. So what went wrong? I asked him, you know, how do you feel now sitting here because you've now done the opposite, you've hurt people.

And he kind of just stared at me for a minute. And then he said, I don't even know where to begin with that. And then he kind of like put his head down and he started to cry and he said, I'm so sorry. Exactly what he was sorry for, he didn't say. But Mueller did say he thought he was exactly where he belonged. He had said, the facts are pretty clear. I think I'll spend a few decades in jail, and I'm fine with that. About a year after he spoke with Dateline,

Mueller pleaded guilty in federal court to kidnapping Denise Huskins. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, and he also pleaded no contest in the home invasion. In 2018, Mueller faced new state charges of kidnapping for ransom, rape, robbery, burglary, and false imprisonment. He pleaded no contest. Then, in January 2025, Mueller confessed to attacking Samantha and the woman in Palo Alto. He pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault during a home invasion and received two consecutive life sentences. There is plenty we still don't know.

For example, Denise and Aaron are convinced there was more than one kidnapper. Do you have any reason to believe there were other people out there? I don't, no. He used we, I believe it was to instill more fear in the victims. Another unknown, how the victims were chosen. Denise may not have been the target of the kidnapping. The emails sent to Henry Lee claimed the kidnappers were after Aaron's ex-fiancee who had previously lived with him but then grabbed up Denise instead. Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn will live

forever with the emotional scars of their ordeal. Home invasion, kidnapping and then public humiliation. Their attorney was Jim Wagstaff. They were innocent of their alleged crimes, yet they were painted to the world as having been involved in a terrible hoax. Vallejo PD, so eager to talk in those first few days, soon clammed up. The department did send Denise and Erin

each a letter of apology, but made no public statement to correct the impression of these two as liars and publicity hounds. Denise and Aaron sued the city of Vallejo, and in March of 2018, they settled that case for $2.5 million. It took years and a new police chief for the city to publicly admit its mistake. In June 2021, Chief Shawnee Williams issued a statement acknowledging the case wasn't handled with sensitivity.

He also extended his deepest apology to Denise and Erin for how they were treated. He said to you right at the end, was, I'm really sorry about this. This is gonna mess you up. Yeah. He was right about this, this is gonna mess you up. Yeah. He was right about that, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah, it definitely messed me up for quite a while.

Sometimes the truest story is the one that sounds like a lie. Why'd you wanna talk to us? If I can contribute in any way to making sure that this is taken seriously and just basically say this is not a hoax, I lived firsthand through this and I know for a fact that it's true.

That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.