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♪♪ [ Insects chirping ] -When you're 19, you think you know
where you're going to end up.
00:00:12
But then life has a way
of taking its own turns. -Back in 1993,
this young couple was camping.
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-In the middle of the night, we were awakened to someone
hitting the back of our tent.
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-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
00:00:35
were tied up, and then
my boyfriend was tied up. -The suspect then carried
the female away.
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-He brought her down to this bridge?
-Yes. -You were fighting him
as best you could.
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-Yeah.
I was trying to squirm away. And then I was
sexually assaulted in the middle of what
he was trying to do.
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He said that he saw a light
and said he had to go. My boyfriend got me untied. We called the police.
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I told them what happened
and it very much seemed like they maybe didn't believe me.
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I reached out to them
many times trying to find out, have you guys found anything?
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You know,
do you know who did this? And nothing. -She's worried
for the last 30-plus years
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that he was out there
and he was going to return. -In March of 2015, there was this really
high-profile kidnapping
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coming out of Vallejo,
California. Denise Huskins went missing
from her boyfriend
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Aaron Quinn's home. -Kidnappers stormed
into Quinn's Vallejo house, bound and drugged him.
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-We could hear what sounded
like other people downstairs. I was told
that I was going to be taken.
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-And I'm told
that there was a ransom demand to get Denise back.
-For the next 48 hours,
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I was held captive
and continuously drugged. And I was raped twice. To my surprise,
in the middle of the night,
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he woke me up and said
that he was going to release me. -Relief and joy,
after Denise Huskins
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arrived home
in Southern California. -I get my life back, only to have it all
completely blown apart
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by the false accusations
of law enforcement. -Vallejo Police believe
Denise Huskins
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and her boyfriend
staged this all, sending their department on a
wild and expensive goose chase.
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-Things like this
never happen, so therefore, we can't believe you.
-This was a massive story.
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For months, the world believed
that this was a hoax. And then suddenly,
there's another attack.
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And that's what finally leads
to an arrest. -He was a Marine,
then a Harvard Law student,
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then a practicing attorney. Now Matthew Muller
is accused of being a monster. -Our hope was now
that one person's caught,
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they would continue
to investigate. -There was still
so many questions that were left unanswered.
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Was anyone else involved, and what other victims
are still out there? -My name is Nick Borges.
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I did not investigate this case, but I wanted to give Denise
and Aaron answers. I told them,
I've always believed you guys
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and words are not enough. I'm an action guy,
so I started writing letters to Matthew Muller.
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"Dear Mr. Muller, I have followed and come
to learn quite a bit about the Vallejo case involving
Miss Huskins and Mr. Quinn."
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He ended up responding.
This is incredible. -I did not expect him
to start confessing.
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♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -In the pre-dawn hours
of March 23, 2015, Aaron Quinn and
his girlfriend, Denise Huskins,
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were asleep in his Vallejo,
California, home, unaware they were being watched.
-Around 3:00 a.m.,
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we were awoken to a strange man saying, uh, "This is a robbery. We are not here to hurt you.
Stay calm."
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-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,
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but he did all the talking. In recalling
what happened to them, Denise and Aaron
call him "the voice".
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-And I saw a flashing
white light on the walls and red laser dots
scanning the walls.
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The voice instructed me
to tie Aaron up with zip ties, left him on the edge of the bed.
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-I'm tied up.
He makes me hop to my closet. I can hear people
downstairs going through
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the kitchen cabinet. I can hear a drill running. -Denise was ordered to go into
the same closet.
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There, the voice
also tied her up and made them drink a sedative. -Blacked-out swim goggles
were placed over our eyes,
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and eventually I was told that I was going to be taken
for 48 hours and I was going to be held
until Aaron
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could "complete some tasks"
for my release. -Those tasks included going to
a bank for ransom money.
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The voice took Aaron
downstairs to the living room, where a security camera
had been mounted to monitor him.
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-The voice tells me that
if I try to go to the police, they'll kill Denise,
so I could hear him
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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
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I hear from her. -Aaron says he soon passed
out from the sedative. He woke in a stupor
later that morning.
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The voice had taken
Aaron's laptop but had left his cellphone,
saying they would contact him.
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Aaron says he wiggled his
hands free from the zip ties, but then struggled with
whether he should call for help.
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-What was that like,
weighing that decision? -My thought was,
if I call the police,
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I know I'm going to be safe. But then my fear is,
am I actually killing Denise? -Aaron took the chance
and called 911.
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The Vallejo Police Department
responded. As Aaron told them
what happened, he says investigators began
to question his story.
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-I don't blame them
for being a little skeptical, but I gave them permission
to search everything
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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.
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-Aaron gave the police
his cellphone and his clothes to test for evidence. He was given prison clothing
to change into,
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and then the lead detective,
Mathew Mustard, began to question him. -And it's about 40 minutes
into our interview,
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he basically leans back
and says what I'm telling him
is far-fetched and he doesn't believe me.
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-Not only did he appear
not to believe Aaron, he seemed to be accusing
Aaron of killing Denise.
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Meanwhile,
word got out to the media that Denise was missing. -Officers converged
on the home
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where Denise was
reportedly kidnapped. -Julie Watts is
an investigative correspondent
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for CBS News California. -I think immediately
people were captivated. -Search teams have
been checking area fields.
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Cadaver dogs are
among the searchers. -Folks assumed
from the beginning that she was dead, and
immediately, her boyfriend,
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Aaron Quinn, was the suspect. -To Aaron, investigators were
so focused on him, he wondered if anyone
was looking for the people
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who had actually taken Denise. After being placed
in the trunk of Aaron's car, she was driven for a bit,
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transferred to the trunk
of another car, and driven for hours. -You think of all the possible
things that are going to happen,
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where am I going to be taken? Am I going to be tortured? Am I going to have to withstand
God knows what?
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-The voice took Denise
to a secluded home where she was kept blindfolded
and sedated.
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He told her he would keep
her there until his group received
the ransom money. She was in and out
of consciousness,
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but remembered him telling her
they'd done this before. He then raped her. The next morning,
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Denise says she heard
someone come to the house. -Then I heard what sounded like
a truck pull up to the house.
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Doors opened, closed.
People entered. There was whispering and then
they got in the car and left.
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-The assailant
then raped her again. -I told myself,
no matter what, I'm not going to beg,
cower, or scream.
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-Because you thought
that would keep you alive. -Right. I hoped
that that would keep me alive.
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-Hours passed, but then,
even without the ransom, the voice stuck with
the plan to release her,
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just not in Vallejo. He asked Denise
where her family lived, blindfolded her, and sedated
her again and drove hours south.
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He then released her near where
she grew up in Huntington Beach. A nearby security camera
caught these images of her.
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-I heard his car drive off and started walking
down this alley and turned, and I see the street
that I grew up on.
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-A neighbor called
the Huntington Beach Police and the news of Denise's
reappearance spread.
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-A Bay area woman
reportedly kidnapped for ransom is safe tonight. What exactly happened to her?
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That's still very much
a mystery. -Although Denise and Aaron hadn't communicated
since the attack,
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Denise told the Huntington Beach
officers the same story Aaron had, but she, too, began to sense
she wasn't being believed.
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-And it was, okay, yeah, yeah,
but, well, you know, we need to figure out
what's going on with Vallejo.
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And so it just felt
like something wasn't right. -Worried, Denise hired
an attorney.
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That night, as she was making
her way back to Vallejo, the Vallejo Police Department
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gave a press conference saying
they could not substantiate anything Aaron had told them
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and that Denise would
not talk to them. -Mr. Quinn and Miss Huskins has plundered valuable resources
away from our community.
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-They essentially called
the case a hoax. The media came up with
another label. -Is she a real-life "Gone Girl"?
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-In the first few days after
the kidnapper released her, all of the headlines
had the word "Gone Girl" in it,
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relating it to the blockbuster
movie that had just come out, I think, the year before
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where a beautiful blonde
fakes her own kidnapping. And it stuck. -That same night, Denise says
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her attorney
told the Vallejo Police Denise had been raped and asked
to set up a sexual assault exam,
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hoping DNA evidence could help
identify her attacker. But Denise says Vallejo Police
refused to order an exam
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until she talked to them. -I could hear whoever was
on the phone say, "Well, how do we know
she was raped?
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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."
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-Denise says
Vallejo Police made her wait until the next morning
to come in. They interviewed Denise
for six hours
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before she went to
a hospital for the exam. -So in a way,
it's like, yeah, I had to --
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to prove to them
that I was worthy enough to... -To have the exam. The initial testing
led nowhere.
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After cooperating
with the investigators, Denise and Aaron
feared they might be charged
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with lying to police, all the while knowing
the people who attacked them were still out there.
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-And that was, I think,
the most terrifying thing, knowing they will do this again.
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We know that the only way
that we'll be vindicated and the truth will come out is
if they attack another family.
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♪♪ -In June 2015,
nearly 3 months after Denise Huskins
and Aaron Quinn were attacked,
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a home invasion was reported
in Dublin, California, about an hour south of Vallejo.
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-An intruder came in. The wife called 911
while the husband fought back. -The intruder escaped,
but in the chaos,
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he left his cellphone behind. Detectives traced it to
this house in South Lake Tahoe.
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-So they get
their investigators together and they show up
at the Tahoe cabin. [ Indistinct shouting ]
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-Come back inside. -Inside was
38-year-old Matthew Muller. He was arrested on the spot
for the Dublin attack.
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-He is a Harvard
educated lawyer. He is formerly a Marine. He is not the type of person
that you would expect.
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-And when they searched
the house, they found
some interesting evidence. -They found Aaron's laptop
at Muller's cabin.
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-Authorities also searched
a stolen car parked nearby. -Investigators looked at
the car GPS,
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and they saw
that it had the GPS point where the kidnapper
had dropped off Denise Huskins.
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-And in the back of the car... -They found goggles, blacked-out swim goggles with
a single strand of blonde hair.
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-The hair was later confirmed
to be Denise's. The goggles, the GPS address,
and the laptop --
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all of it was strong evidence supporting the bizarre story
Denise and Aaron had been telling all along.
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-The only way
they were vindicated was not by police work. It was by other people
being harmed.
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-The voice finally had a name. Matthew Muller would be charged with Denise Huskins'
kidnapping and rape.
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-Did Muller's arrest
make you feel safe? -A little safer. -The arrest made us feel
a little safer,
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but we still believe
there's other people out there. -But no one else was charged.
00:15:30
Denise and Aaron
steeled themselves to face Muller in court. -So you're preparing
for him to go to trial.
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What happened? -Well, he ended up
taking a plea deal. -Muller ultimately
received a sentence
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of 40 years total for the
Dublin attack and their attack. Denise and Aaron
had hoped for a life sentence.
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-The idea that he'll be too old
when he gets out to do something like this
again --
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I don't think that's true. -Around this time,
Denise and Aaron filed a civil lawsuit
against the city of Vallejo,
00:16:07
claiming defamation
and emotional distress. They eventually settled
for $2.5 million.
00:16:15
-Did the Vallejo Police
ever vindicate you? -No.
-No. It was always, this case was too strange
to believe.
00:16:25
-The Vallejo Police Department
did not respond to our request for a comment,
but they did issue a statement
00:16:30
after the settlement saying... Although their case seemed
to be over, Denise and Aaron
00:16:43
hoped authorities would continue
to investigate Muller for other crimes
and possible accomplices.
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-And there was still
so many questions that were left unanswered. A big piece of that was,
what else was he involved in?
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We just knew that our case
wasn't the only one. -You knew, but did you feel like
anyone was listening to you?
00:17:07
-Well, no, that's the problem. -Denise and Aaron spent years
trying to move forward.
00:17:16
They got married
and started a family and eventually decided
it was time to tell their story
in their own words.
00:17:24
-We can take back control
of -- of our trauma and maybe use it for good. -They wrote a book
00:17:32
and participated in the Netflix
series "American Nightmare", which was watched
by millions of people in 2024.
00:17:41
-I was hooked as soon
as it started. -One of those people
was Nick Borges, the police chief in Seaside,
California.
00:17:50
-I'm watching this
just thinking, I want to reach out to these -- I want to hug her,
I want to hug him,
00:17:54
and just say,
"Oh, my God, I'm so sorry." -Though he wasn't involved
in their case,
00:17:59
Chief Borges reached out
to Denise on Instagram to apologize on behalf
of all law enforcement.
00:18:06
-When you read that message,
what did you think? -I think I got [voice breaks]
really emotional.
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'Cause it's not -- we're not
asking for a whole lot, you know, like...just
to be respected and listened to
00:18:23
and treated like we have value. It meant the world to feel
like we had an ally. -Chief Borges invited
Denise and Aaron
00:18:31
to Seaside to speak
about their experiences with law enforcement. -I gave them access to
everything, and it wasn't enough
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because they had
already decided I killed her. -Chief Borges
wanted to do more to help Denise and Aaron
get answers.
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-I don't have a problem
shaking the tree a little bit and flipping rocks. -He decided
to write Muller in prison.
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-I was very honest with him. I want to know
if you acted alone or not. -Within weeks,
Muller wrote back.
00:19:05
-Essentially in
his first letter back to me, he said he acted alone. -So you start
this kind of writing
00:19:10
relationship with Muller.
-Yeah. He sent me back a second letter
and this one was thick.
00:19:17
-In the letter,
Muller confessed to two crimes in Santa Clara County in 2009 -- six years before Denise
and Aaron's attack.
00:19:27
-One was in Palo Alto,
one was in Mountain View. He broke in, sort of disguised,
and attempted sexual assault.
00:19:36
-Back then, Palo Alto Police had
identified Muller as a suspect because he'd been caught
prowling in the area,
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but they didn't have
enough to charge him. Now he was coming clean. -They were full-blown
confessions
00:19:51
with specific details that
only the suspect would know. -Muller also indicated
there were even more crimes,
00:19:59
but only teased the details
in his letters. -We know that Muller did
some really awful things.
00:20:07
-Vern Pierson is the district
attorney of El Dorado County, where Denise Huskins
was held captive.
00:20:12
Although he was not involved with the original investigation
in 2024, Pierson also offered to help
00:20:19
and wanted to speak
with Muller directly. Pierson thought the best way
to get him to open up more
00:20:25
was to use a strategy called
science-based interviewing. -One of the hallmarks
of science-based interviewing
00:20:31
is -- is speaking to somebody
without revealing any judgment you might have about
either what they're saying
00:20:37
or what you think about them
as a person. -It just strikes me
how different what you're talking about is
from the way
00:20:44
that the Vallejo PD handled
Aaron and Denise's case. -Yeah, they passed judgment.
00:20:51
And they sought to confirm,
confirm, confirm. And every time he would say,
"No, that's not what happened,"
00:20:58
they would cut him off,
change the subject, go back to, you know, the theory
that they had.
00:21:04
-Pierson was determined
to do things differently. He brought in a
highly trained FBI interviewer
00:21:11
who specializes in
this technique, and their strategy
would pay off. -In November 2024,
00:21:38
Da Vern Pierson and the FBI
interviewer flew to Arizona to speak with Matthew Muller
at the prison
00:21:44
where he was serving
his 40-year sentence, to see what else
he might confess to and figure out his motivations.
00:21:51
-He's extraordinarily
manipulative, and if he's telling you
anything, there is a reason
00:21:57
why he's telling you
what he's telling you. -With an audio recorder
running, Muller claimed he now wanted
to be up front about his past
00:22:05
because he'd undergone a religious transformation
in prison. He shared that in the past,
he'd struggled with insomnia,
00:22:13
which led to taking
long walks at night. Muller described
a long history of voyeurism,
00:22:25
admitting that while at Harvard
Law School in the early 2000s, he set up a video camera
in an office bathroom.
00:22:33
This evidence video shows
him doing the same thing years later,
while on vacation in Hawaii.
00:22:39
-He installed a video camera
in a public restroom so he could look at it. -The more space
they gave Muller to talk,
00:22:46
the more depravity he revealed. After several hours, he began
talking about yet another
00:22:51
home invasion on the border
of Contra Costa County, just two weeks after
he attacked Denise and Aaron.
00:23:03
Muller described
using a ladder to climb into a family's house
and waking up a mother, father,
and their teenage son.
00:23:19
He instructed the mother to go
to a bank to withdraw a ransom. After she returned with $30,000,
00:23:25
Muller threatened that
if they ever told the police, he would come back
and harm them.
00:23:31
The family never reported it. -So there was no crime that
matched this reported back then
00:23:38
at that time?
-No, there was nothing. -That wasn't the only crime Muller said he'd gotten away
with.
00:23:45
He recalled another attack,
which he said was his first back when he was a teenager
in the suburbs of Sacramento.
00:23:52
Muller said one day
he'd walk by some campsites at a state park in nearby Folsom
and fixated on a young couple.
00:23:59
He returned that night
with a stolen gun. Muller said he tied up
the couple, then carried the woman away
and down a bike trail.
00:24:20
Then he says he saw
a light nearby. He sexually assaulted her,
then fled. -Leaving that interview,
00:24:35
Pierson set out to prove
Muller committed these crimes. -Thank you. -Starting with
the unreported home invasion.
00:24:43
-The interviewer had
him describe the location, and then we had him
draw a diagram
00:24:48
that kind of
roughly showed that. We looked on Google Maps, and we eventually came up
with a community
00:24:53
that very closely matched the
diagram that he had drawn to us. -Pierson wondered if the ladder
Muller mentioned using
00:25:00
might still be there
nine years later. It was a long shot, but his team asked
Contra Costa investigators
00:25:06
to search the ravine
behind that house. -You can imagine it's like, "Hey, this was never reported
to you.
00:25:13
You guys don't know
anything about it, but we think there
might be this ladder. Would you go look for it?"
00:25:18
And a couple hours later,
I get a text message that they found the ladder.
-But how remarkable is that?
00:25:24
-Pretty remarkable. -The family who still lived
there confirmed everything. Next, Pierson set out
to find the campsite victims.
00:25:34
His team scoured Folsom and
Sacramento County records until finally one
of his staffers
00:25:40
found a four-page state parks
report of an incident from August 7, 1993. At the time,
Muller was just 16.
00:25:50
-We look at it and it's
very close to what he described. I mean, virtually identical.
00:25:55
"Victim exited the tent with two
sleeping bags and pillows and, as told by subject,
to lay face down in the camp..."
00:26:01
-This had to be it. Pierson notified the Sacramento County
District Attorney's Office,
00:26:07
and criminal investigators
Kevin Papineau and Michelle Hendricks
took over the investigation.
00:26:13
Back in the day, in the 1990s, did it look pretty much
like this? -Essentially up here, it did.
00:26:22
-The campsites are
no longer there, and original investigators
have died. So Papineau and Hendricks
00:26:28
started by retracing
Muller's steps that night. So he brings her up here. And, again, she has no idea
what's going -- what's going on.
00:26:38
-Yeah. She doesn't know
where she's going. -My goodness.
-And at night, this place is pitch black.
00:26:45
-It must be terrifying.
Absolutely terrifying. -Yeah.
-From the report, they knew the victim's
boyfriend had found her
00:26:52
on this footbridge along
the bike trail, untied her, and they had called for help.
00:26:57
-Park rangers showed up,
a Folsom PD officer showed up, and they took a statement
from them and then they left.
00:27:04
The officers left. -Papineau and Hendricks
also found photos officers took that night,
which showed a gun
00:27:10
they believed
Muller dropped when he fled. With no other leads to follow,
they reached out to the victims.
00:27:17
-And how old were you in 1993? -I was 19. In the middle of the night,
we were awakened
00:27:22
to someone
hitting the back of our tent. -We spoke to the female victim
in 2025.
00:27:28
She's asked us not to show
her face and to call her Lynn. This is the first time
she's speaking publicly
00:27:35
about what happened to her. -The only thing I can
really remember is just praying.
00:27:39
Praying for this to stop. Praying for him to get away.
Praying that he doesn't kill me.
00:27:45
-Lynn says after she
and her boyfriend called for help that night,
it didn't feel like
00:27:49
the officers were taking
her assault seriously. -It very much felt like
they maybe didn't believe me
00:27:56
or believe my boyfriend. Just by their line
of questioning. -Like what?
-Like with my boyfriend,
00:28:02
they asked him, "You mean
you didn't see the gun? What do you mean you
didn't see the gun?"
00:28:07
Instead of just listening to us and believing what
we were telling them. -She says she called
the parks department for months
00:28:14
asking for updates, but nothing ever came of it.
-In fact, I even stopped telling people
about it as time went on.
00:28:24
-Lynn and her boyfriend
eventually married and drew strength
from each other, but Lynn says it was difficult
to ever feel truly safe.
00:28:32
-Is there a way to describe
the weight that you carry? -It's kind of hard to describe
00:28:37
because it's just kind of
part of who you are now. For many years, I didn't
go by myself out at night.
00:28:43
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.
00:28:50
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.
00:28:59
-But that began to change
when she first spoke with investigators
Papineau and Hendricks.
00:29:05
-I felt this sense of relief. I knew
that I was being believed. I knew that something was
getting done about this finally.
00:29:16
-And Lynn felt more relief when she learned her attacker
was now behind bars. But she wanted him
to be held accountable
00:29:23
for what he'd done to her. -No, you didn't get away
with this. You didn't just move
on with your life
00:29:29
and forgot that it happened. You don't get to do that. ♪♪ -To learn that he was
16 years old the first time
00:29:51
he attacked a couple... it made a lot of sense, but it's
also just incredibly disturbing.
00:30:00
-Denise Huskins
and Aaron Quinn had long suspected
Matthew Muller had attacked before,
but to learn the details
00:30:08
and have the crimes
confirmed by investigators was still devastating. -A lot of people
have suffered from this man.
00:30:18
Someone breaking in the middle
of the night, tying you up -- these are things
that are nightmares.
00:30:25
-The voyeurism, the stalking. I think it's a way of invading
people's lives to terrorize.
00:30:33
-In late 2024,
Matthew Muller was charged with the attempted rapes
in Santa Clara County,
00:30:40
the first attacks he'd confessed
to in the letters. He was flown back to California
to face those charges.
00:30:46
There, he was also charged
with attacking the family in Contra Costa. While sitting in the
Santa Clara County Jail,
00:30:53
Muller wrote another letter. -He sent a letter
to Nick Borges, essentially indicating
he had additional information
00:31:01
that he wanted to provide
to Denise and Aaron. -He's trying to lure
Denise and Aaron into coming
00:31:06
and talking to him.
-100%. I read that letter
exactly that way. -DA Vern Pierson thinks
meeting with Denise,
00:31:13
in particular, may have been
Muller's objective for confessing all along.
-DA Pierson was like,
00:31:19
he's confessing
to certain things for a reason. They're all in California. I think he wants to get
back to California
00:31:26
in hopes that he can meet
with you. -Even though they were
fully aware Muller may have
ulterior motives,
00:31:34
Denise and Aaron
did still want to talk with him. Muller had confirmed and
given details about other crimes
00:31:40
he had committed,
but still maintained he acted alone in theirs. Denise and Aaron are adamant
00:31:46
they heard other people
during their attack. -I felt like maybe
of all people he would be more honest with us.
00:31:55
-But having already spent
many hours interviewing Muller, Pierson did not want them
in a room together.
00:32:01
-I didn't think
that was a good idea. -They came up with
a compromise. On February 13, 2025,
00:32:09
Muller and his attorney
met with Pierson, the FBI interviewer, and Chief Borges
at the Santa Clara County Jail.
00:32:16
Denise and Aaron were there,
too, watching from another room. -They let him know
early on in the interview,
00:32:27
they're observing,
they're not coming in. I think that irritated him. The FBI interviewer had said
00:32:33
that conversation
was very different. -When asked
why he wanted this meeting, Muller claimed he was there
to help Denise and Aaron mostly.
00:32:50
But when the FBI agent pushed
for the answer to Denise and Aaron's
question... At first, Muller didn't directly
respond and talked in circles.
00:33:16
-I mean, he's just
an incredibly frustrating human. -Eventually, Muller again
denied he'd had accomplices.
00:33:33
But Muller did go into detail about how he said he
had tricked Denise and Aaron into believing he was working
with a group.
00:33:41
-He did various steps
to make it look as though he had somebody else with him. There was multiple people.
00:33:47
He told us
that he had used a device that he could make it sound
as though he was talking to somebody
downstairs
00:33:54
and getting a response
using a recorder. -Do you believe what
Muller was saying about,
00:34:07
"Well, I was pretending that there were other people
in the room"? -I mean, I don't believe
everything Muller says.
00:34:16
I know what we saw.
We know what we heard. -Although Denise and Aaron
didn't get the answers
00:34:21
they'd hoped for, they say
that confronting Muller, even through the interviewers,
was a form of reckoning.
00:34:28
-For us, it was more of showing
that we're not scared of you. We see you.
We see who you are.
00:34:34
-And they were determined to
see Matthew Muller face justice for all the crimes their work
and persistence had uncovered.
00:34:43
In June 2025, he was finally
charged with Lynn's attack and faced a life sentence for
each of the additional crimes
00:34:51
he was now charged with. Denise hoped this would
finally lock him away forever. -I don't believe
if he's ever free,
00:34:59
that he could help himself. I feel like he'll
always figure out a way to terrorize someone
in some way.
00:35:16
♪♪ -By the summer of 2025, Matthew Muller was convicted
of all the charges brought as a result
of the new investigation
00:35:29
spurred by Denise and Aaron. At Muller's sentencing, Lynn
read a victim impact statement,
00:35:35
three decades in the making. -I think for so many years, feeling like
my voice was silenced,
00:35:42
feeling like my voice
could be heard finally. It felt very empowering.
I got the last word.
00:35:50
Now you get to be silenced. -Muller was sentenced
to four life terms. How does that feel
that he's now serving
00:36:02
four life sentences
for four crimes that he might have
never confessed to had you not written that letter?
00:36:10
-Goosebumps.
I have them right now. -Lynn says she felt relief
knowing Muller would stay locked up
while she walked free,
00:36:21
finally able to live
without fear and enjoy old pastimes
and new ones. How are you with going outdoors
and camping now?
00:36:31
-It's -- It's easier now,
and one of the ways that we were able to do that was
through playing disc golf.
00:36:43
It gave me something to focus on
outdoors that felt safe again. -She has also connected
with Denise.
00:36:53
-She actually reached out to me
on Instagram. When I saw, you know, I'm
Matthew Muller's first victim,
00:37:01
like, I -- I was like, what? -I wanted to say thank you
and just let her know that 32 years of waiting
was finally over
00:37:12
because of her continuing
to seek answers. -While Lynn finally has
answers, Denise and Aaron
00:37:20
still questioned
whether Muller acted alone. DA Vern Pierson hoped
forensics could prove
00:37:25
if there was another assailant. Pierson learned
Vallejo Police had only done preliminary testing
on Denise's rape kit,
00:37:32
so his office had it
fully tested in 2025. -Well, the results are
essentially inconclusive.
00:37:40
-Pierson says the test
showed a mixture of DNA, including Muller's, so they
can't rule out the possibility
00:37:46
that Denise could also have
been assaulted by someone else. But Pierson doesn't think so.
00:37:52
-Based on everything I know, I don't believe
that there was an accomplice. I think that was a ruse
that he created
00:37:59
and perpetuated
very successfully. -Chief Borges isn't so sure. -Do you think
Muller had accomplices?
00:38:07
-I think it's very possible. I certainly think
it's very possible. -But Borges and Pierson
both believe
00:38:14
Muller committed
additional crimes. -Everywhere that man traveled,
he was a threat.
00:38:22
-And Chief Borges
says it's possible Muller went even further. -One of the times
I interviewed him,
00:38:29
I asked him
if he ever killed anybody. It just seemed like
an inappropriate question.
00:38:32
He kind of told me that he didn't have
the heart to do that. -Do you believe him?
00:38:38
-Not fully.
I don't fully believe him. I mean, at what point
do you actually stop?
00:38:46
-Chief Borges says
he hasn't stopped investigating, looking for other crimes
and accomplices.
00:38:53
-If anyone else is involved,
we're coming for you. Just trust me. We're going to get you
if you're involved.
00:39:00
-Today, Denise and Aaron continue to speak
to law enforcement, trying to change how officers
interview victims and suspects.
00:39:09
-Denise has said not being
believed was more traumatic in many ways to her than
the actual assaults themselves.
00:39:16
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
00:39:24
from Denise and Aaron. -We have to believe victims. When they come forward, we
have to listen to what they say
00:39:31
and follow the evidence. -Despite all
they've been through, the Quinns say that while their
case revealed a lot of problems,
00:39:38
it also shows the solutions. -We understand
it's a really hard job. People make mistakes.
00:39:45
What you're hoping is that
people recognize the mistakes, they learn from the mistakes,
00:39:50
and it changes their actions
going forward. -Again, it's bittersweet
to be able to be here
00:39:54
and reclaim this
as something positive. -And these unlikely
advocates are determined
00:40:00
to use their voices for good. -...over us in our life. -I don't think
anyone would blame you
00:40:06
if the two of you said,
"Okay, enough. We don't need to talk about this
anymore."
00:40:11
Why not just move on? -I think there's a sense
of responsibility. The publicity was so damaging
to us in the beginning,
00:40:22
and so I feel like in a way, having this strange,
unique position, it almost seems irresponsible
to not utilize it
00:40:36
in a positive way
that can maybe help others. [ Applause ] ♪♪