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this episode contains mentions of graphic or sensitive material that may be triggering listener discretion is
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[Music] advised hi everyone and welcome back to the show made by the crime junkie Ashley
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flowers for those who are crime junkie AF and today I have not one but two special guests that are here to share
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their incredible story and listen I've covered a lot of cases but this one is wild it made head lines in 2015 when it
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was falsely dubbed the real life Gone Girl and their story was also chronicled in a widely popular Netflix docu series
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American Nightmare you guys have also co-authored a book titled victim F from Crime Victims to suspects to survivors
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and you're now advocating for the wrongfully accused and convicted and so I am so honored to welcome Denise and
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Aaron Quinn doctors of physical therapy to Crime junk EF welcome thank you thank
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you for having us yeah thank you I know that uh this weekend you guys are here in Indie In the Flesh because you guys
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were at an event working with an organization that does a lot for the wrongfully convicted on your life bingo
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card is this where you thought you would end up and what you'd be doing absolutely not no yeah no I envisioned
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working as a physical therapist and yeah maybe starting a family um which check check yeah doing that but all yeah no I
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how could you even imagine yeah any of this yeah and you want to obviously people can go read your book they can
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watch the documentary but for those who don't know your story do you can you please walk us through a little bit of
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how you found yourself in the situation you are now way back in 2015 yeah so I uh I moved to Vallejo
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California in 2014 to pursue a physical therapy residency to specialize in working with people with severe
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neurological disorders so um traumatic brain injury spinal cord injury uh GBS ALS um and so it was a 9mon residency I
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was expecting to be there temporarily I was not expecting to meet the love of my
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life Aaron spoiler alert we have a happy ending um but we yeah we we met um working at the hospital together and we
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had a shared passion for what we were doing and we would just find ourselves at Social Gatherings just kind of
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gravitating towards one another um we talk about family and friends and sports and life and uh I was surprised at how
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quickly we fell in love were you oh yeah yeah without question was um yeah we just hit off right away and
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like we would just spend hours talking to each other and um it was yeah pretty amazing right I mean it
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was expected and also the timing was not ideal um cuz Aaron had just gotten out of a relationship and his ex also worked
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in the hospital with us which plays into uh a lot of also what happened um because she was the intended target of
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the kidnapping and the police chose not to believe Aaron partly because of the complicated uh relationship situation
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surrounding that um but again our our love was undeniable and uh yeah we just so that the when
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this all when the story starts when when all this takes place you guys were actually like coming together right that
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evening to like have a talk about like what is our relationships what are the next steps and obviously you guys
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decided you wanted to move forward right but then your life took a a left turn right what
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happened well we went to bed that night and we were woke into um a voice saying uh this is a robbery we aren't here to
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hurt you stay calm and continued speaking and instructing me to tie Aaron up I was tied up um they put blacked out
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swim goggles over our eyes headphones over our ears with pre-recorded messages of
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instruction um we were hoping that it was just a robbery we could hear the other Intruders downstairs opening
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drawers and and a drill being used and so we both just individually thought okay if we're compliant and we do what
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they say then they'll take our belongings take our money that's fine then it'll all be over um but that's not
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what happened and as the night progressed uh they separated me from Aaron and then uh I was told they were
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going to be taking me uh for 48 hours and um initially the the Voice who was speaking he said you know this is we
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have a problem this wasn't intended for you we got to figure out what we're going to do but ultimately they decided
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to continue with the kidnapping and um I was put in the trunk of a car what were you thinking uh at that
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point you like it can't be a robbery in your head anymore no I mean that that yeah at that point I I knew it was going
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to be taken and I didn't know what was going to happen next and we were forced to take sedative so at that point the
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sedatives already kicked in I've got zip ties binding me I don't know what's happening with Aaron and there's they're
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threatening us you know if you don't cooperate we're going to uh cut your partner's face or give electric shocks
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we could hear tasers being um or stun guns being like Zapped across the room um as threats obviously uh so it was
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hard you don't want when it's just you maybe maybe you'd fight maybe you'd try something but when they're threatening
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the person that you love you don't to do or say anything that could lead them to
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getting hurt or killed and that's what they used against us you know um and it wasn't clear what the kidnappers were
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going to ask of Aaron they didn't specifically tell me CU and I thought I mean I knew he had some money in his in
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his savings or something but there was nothing in our lives that was out of the ordinary that was that would lead us to
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think that anything like this would happen so they take her away and you wake up and then what happens well they
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had provided instructions the night before saying that I needed give them two payments of $88,500 to stay under
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the $10,000 Federal mandated reported limit they thought about it yeah so yeah the kidnappers knew where I banked they
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knew where my parents lived they had um done their research on me uh and so they
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also had threatened if I went to the police that they would go after my family they told me if I called the
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police they would kill Denise um and basically just pay the money and we can move on with our lives so they put me
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down at in my living room which I had uh taped off areas where I needed to stay there was a camera set up in The Corner
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Room saying that they were going to monitor me they also said they had put a mirroring app on my phone so they could
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see if I was texting or calling anyone and um I was supp supposed to stay there till received instructions on going to
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the bank and they were going to follow me to the bank um later in when I finally woke up from
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the stives um was like midday and I got some emails from the kidnappers communicating tell me about that they'll
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instruct I just needed to wait basically and then um at a certain point I realized I can't trust these people I
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mean obviously I didn't trust them in the first place but it realized I needed to get help
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and uh eventually I decided to call 911 um which is still like the hardest decision I ever had to make
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CU my feeling is if I call the police I know I'm going to be safe but uh if they
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kid I proce that call 911 that they will kill Denise uh and they were asking for am of money
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that I could give them but uh figured if I show up with the money they could just
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take me and kill us both and then there's no Witnesses so when the police but I decided to call the police and when they
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show up at the house are immed immediately accusatory uh asking if I've been partying if I was on drugs and I
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was like I've been drugged by the kidnappers but they kept on asking me are you partying did you have a party
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last night and I was kep going no but they that's what they seem to focus on did you feel like you were like in the
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upside down like I I feel like I would be so taken aback but like I called you for help what the [ __ ] are you talking
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about yeah even the the camera that the kidnappers had installed was making some
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noises they just went over and unplugged the camera and I was like what are you doing like there wasn't any did not seem
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like they were taking any of this seriously just like uh no gloves just no gloves yeah yeah and eventually they
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seem to back off but they said like come to station give a statement which I was
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like I'm here to help so I'll get a station and I kind of already knew that they would at some point think that was
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this like love triangle that went astray um between Denise and my ex uh but I was
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like I know that this actually happened and evidence supports me uh unfortunately I went with like a mindset
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of innocent person and you can't actually do that because they uh very quickly put me in prison clothes at the
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police station um and then started uh interrogating me for about 18 hours saying that I need to confess that I
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killed Denise um I'm just making up this crazy story that no one would believe um
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and it's either I it was an accident or I'm a cold calcula monster but there was no
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question that Denise was dead um when a detectiv said I'm not looking for alive Denise I'm looking for a dead Denise and
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I've accepted that and you need to accept that so they just hammered away for me
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at me for hours and and and um I mean they stripped him down naked took photographs of his naked body
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then put him in jail clothes so it just everything was very strategic to break him down which is what they do and they
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isolated him from his family his family was there he kept asking for his family they said I don't know where your family
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is but yeah and they wanted to see him and it's like it's like they could only operate in the box that they knew and
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what what happened to you guys was so calculated and abnormal they they only could look at it
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through this like boyfriend kills girlfriend lens mhm and they also didn't actually investigate anything and we
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find out later they literally didn't look at a single thing and they didn't bother reach out to other departments
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which if they had they would found out Theo that was done in our case there were similar crimes prior to you guys
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prior to us in the Bay Area so they they just straight up didn't do anything and just said well I
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don't believe them and they're going to try to get a confession that was like their goal even after I asked for
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attorney they didn't get me attorney they sent my brother in who's an FBI special agent telling him to try to get
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a confession from me uh he's the only reason why I got an attorney because when he when they allowed him to leave
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uh he was straight up in the parking lot Googling criminal defense attorneys for
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murder in valo and he end up finding my attorney Dan Russo who was the only reason why I got out of uh the
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interrogation cell because they were just going to keep me there indefinitely until you broke exactly and actually the
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detective told my brother I would like to try a few more things instead of get me in Turney because it does not matter
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to them cuz um cuz they just can they can hold you and just do that to you and they'll and
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people generally don't think about like why would I confess to something I didn't do and that's but if they hour
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after hour after hour that's the only thing that they'll accept they kept on telling me you need start the story over
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that makes sense we can't start with it you know three people breaking in your house that didn't happen so tell us that
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you did it and often a lot of people confess not thinking that they did the crime just to get it to stop because
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it's psychological torture it's horrible yeah I I've seen it happen over and over
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where it's it's they're like you can get out of this room and in there in everyone's mind it's like okay well I
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can get help when I'm out of this room right now I'm by myself I'm with them like once I'm out of this room we can
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all figure this out they'll they'll see that I didn't do it but there is no getting out of that room once they get
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what they want right and that's a thing confessions get convictions even false confessions and so and jurors just don't
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understand the the pressure that is put on the psychological manipulation a lot of people think well why would you
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confess to something you didn't do wait till you're in that position and and they're trying to break you down yeah
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there's about 8 80% conviction rate on if you confess regardless of physical evidence so they've there's been cases
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where someone falsely confessed they weren't even in the same state and they got a conviction because of that and
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that's a problem with um our system here is that people uh were so caught up on gain confessions as like a gold standard
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but uh it doesn't matter the confessions shouldn't matter unless there's actual evidence to back it up which there is a
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law Corpus dcti like there there is supposed to be that you're not supposed to be able to ICT someone just based on
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a confession you are supposed to be able to show in physical evidence circumstantial evidence reasons why they
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could have done it as well stuff to back up that confession but I've seen so many
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instances where that just like goes out the window MH yeah I mean and the most tragic thing of it all is that they had
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Aaron's phone they should have been monitoring it someone put it on airplane mode and that first night they missed
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phone calls from the kidnapper who was holding me captive they could have traced it they could have rescued me
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they could have spared one of the rapes that I had yeah so it um and it's just all because of their tunnel vision they
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were just so focused on Aaron and they missed evidence that could have led them to be the heroes in
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this yeah and to continue the how extreme it went so police said I had killed Denise I was able to get out
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of the police department but um eventually Denise was released by the kidnappers and they said have taken it
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seriously the police within hours um said it was a hoax and that they tried to pin Denise I against each other
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saying that one of us will get immunity but not both to say that it's all made up uh and at that point is that just to
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like cover their own ass or or do they do you think they really like believed this in their heart of hearts I mean
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they were they were angry if you see the press conference Kenny Park gives um saying that it's a wild goose chase
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we've plundered valuable resource on nothing so I guess I'm nothing uh but he he's smug he is he's angry and we find
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out later that the chief of police instructed him before he went out there to go burn that [ __ ] I mean that's the
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mindset that they were in all of these men had no idea anything about me they interviewed my family my family said all
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these positive things about me um one of the things that clicked to the lead detective was my mom told
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him that um I was molested when I was 12 and he was like oh well you know that could be a reason for some to to make up
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a story like this and at that point too I'm still missing my mom doesn't know if
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I'm really alive or dead and she's having the lead detective say oh well she was molested okay then she you know
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she must be suspicious and and they don't know you from Adam before it's not like you guys have a history with law
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enforcement like someone just decided yeah aon's brother is in the FBI I like how you know like what yeah it's hard to
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understand that level of hate and that that just that close-minded tunnel vision is just yeah and I honestly can't
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tell you what the police were thinking because like the mental gymnastics that they had to go through to get to a
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murder to now we're doing this together to and we're Den's labeled the real life
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gong girl uh I don't even know what the end goal would have been in their mind they were saying at least they mentioned
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that we were looking for our 15 minutes of fame um which I was like we have Doctorate Degrees I mean I I only I
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think I had a Facebook page I don't like we're not people trying to be out you know uh on social media trying to expand
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ourselves like we're Denise was there was there was nothing that would have given them that indication yeah and
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again they didn't um they couldn't Express like why we would like any motivation to it uh andan it literally
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was they It's s they just saw the movie and they're like aha you know I mean and
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that's the scary part that these trained professionals including the FBI you would think would know better and go by
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a different standard um instead of getting their tips from fiction and to the point of where they
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put my phone on airplane mode the kidnappers had called um they didn't track those phone calls till 24 hours
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later they actually tracked them up to South Lake Tahoe they never went to South Lake Tahoe to examine uh the area
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at all which we later find out Denise was held in Tahoe uh and after the press conference where the
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police say was a hoax the kidnappers even sent emails going like this actually happened we'll give you all
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this evidence of like because they were stealing cars on the island they had broken other people's houses they were
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they had been doing a string of crimes that they're like this is what we've been doing and we did kidnap them and
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the police said one of lawyers was potentially writing the the emails or my brother was writing the emails or we
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made it up because I had I was on next door which is like you know a community message board so they said aon's on an
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active member on next store so he knew about these crimes I'm like how the what the what the [ __ ] and there's details in
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the emails that were not posted on next door that you wouldn't be able to know like specific things that they stole and
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then things that they didn't steal they chose not to steal that whatever Xbox because they already had one or so
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there's just things in it that like there's just no way we would have had that information well that it's just
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like what's so insane to me is is this narrow-mindedness like fine look at you guys sure but like also while you're at
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least exploring all of the options but they truly went on a hunt for just the pieces that fit into this theory that
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they made up out of nowhere yeah the lead detective literally says I'm a puzzle maker and I'm going to fit the
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puzles together to make it look like you're a monster I mean it's just he said that out loud yeah I recently
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reviewed the interrogations and I was like oh my it's just every time it's it's still
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hard oh he's he's still working on payroll he's going to get the pension he got promoted um he got awarded he was given
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an officer of the year that year he's also uh was a head of Union the Union for 9 years um so he has tremendous
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power we've heard from other officers in that department who say that this is what he does he just bullies people we
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know that he's uh withheld evidence in other cases uh he lied on sworn statements in our lawsuit he's um I
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don't say it slightly he's just a dirty cop that has no accountability and no one holds him to
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any sort of standard and now he's going to retire with full pension and the city
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will be pay him he makes over 250,000 a year and they'll just be paying him for his
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retirement does that make you want to flip a table I want to flip a [ __ ] table it's well it yes it does uh maybe
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a little bit more than that too uh the problem is like you know de I are in the grand
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scheme of things like the lucky ones out this we we weren't convicted but that took uh us hiring criminal defense
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attorneys that cost us $140,000 um um my brother's an FBI agent do you think about that like the like
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$140,000 is not is not something that a huge majority of the world has has at their disposal much less like that they
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can actually like put up it's the system is is not made for the people who often need it the most right
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yeah and I mean my the only reason we could afford it my family was cuz my grandma passed away the year before and
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my dad got an inheritance it's like how would I have even you you'll lose homes you'll lose like you'll go into debt
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like hoping that get your life back we're both fortunate to have the families that we have like I've got a
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big family remember talking to my cousin I'm like how do I get cuz he's the first
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one I saw we're like okay we need a criminal defense attorney I'm like how am I going to pay for this and he's like
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don't worry Denise we're gonna figure it out we'll all be there to support you but it just it is daunting like how do
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we even how do you how do you fight the FBI like who do you turn to I mean at one point breaking point I turned to
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Aaron sobbing cuz my mom was sobbing in the Next Room she's like why are they doing this to my baby girl and I don't
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have an answer to give her and I'm crying to him going like who do we call like Obama was President at the time
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like do we call him like what a ridiculous statement you know like he's got more important things but that's
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just the desperation of and the the power of of the highest agency attacking you which is like to go back to I mean
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this this guy who's going to go live his life with his pension there's like it feels like there's no accountability no
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like you you do you wield so much power and you're given praise but like when things go wrong it's like ah innocent
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mistake I mean like it's almost like that's what they chalk it up to all the time like ah it was a mistake you know
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we tried to fix it no big deal but okay it is a big deal like people lose their livelihoods to like if they end up on
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the other side most people don't end up on the other side of it right well they also kept on saying that this case was
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too bizarre too crazy for anyone to solve and then you actually look at like well you know tracking the phone calls
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you know at your job yeah exactly so they try to say that they weren't malicious they just made mistakes um and
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still blaming us so we we pursued a lawsuit against the city and the police department and throughout the whole
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thing uh were lies and well we couldn't believe them because they weren't acting
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like victims lying saying that I didn't say that I was a victim even though I did say was a victim of kidnapping and
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and I'd be I'd be so angry at that point too and so like I I yes you're a victim
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but I also be like I I don't have to [ __ ] act any certain way for you you're coming from like my whole life MH
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it's important no there's no set way that Vic victims act and and even during our lawsuit when we're deposing um the
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chief of police he's told that yeah I'm trained that victims all act differently
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that's a really good so like how was a victim suppos act and like what we did was I called for help I answered all
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your questions I like gave you my blood my DNA I literally gave you clothes off my back Denise answered all the
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questions that she was asked until they accused her of her crime and then she got attorney which is all right but they
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said they told me that she lawyered up and therefore that was a sign of guilt not excluding the fact that they accuser
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of a crime which you know getting a defense attorney is a a good idea um they offered me a profer of agreement
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and I'm like what is that I so like I mean of course I'm going to get an attorney you know it's like you're
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diagnosed with cancer and then people go oh my God you got an oncologist like well that's so weird must faking it yeah
00:24:41
like what so all of this was to say is like um the system can railroad people and we have
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met people who have spent decades in prison and they are innocent and they eventually you know very few get
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exonerated um but they get their lives stolen and and there's tends to be very little accountability for the officers
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who um do this type of thing so uh especially ones like in this almost willfully ignorant or malicious way to
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protect themselves over protecting the public and unfortunately not only is it to officers involved in the case but to
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supervis ERS who don't do anything about it went to the local prosecutor and she
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said we asked him like like who watches the Watchmen right like who police the police and her response was well they do
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their own investigation if they bring it to us then we'll pursue it so I'm like oh you get to grade your own paper and
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guess what they always get an A+ and then they and they never get to go to the principal's office yeah and then
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they never turn away from it so I'm like so they are complicit with that too and
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that just erods like confidence and mhm uh it hurts hurts the good officers who are
00:26:02
doing their job because the bad officers get promoted and it uh affects the culture and like at every level and
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that's some of the harsh parts of this like you can understand like there's the kidnappers are you know quote bad people
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or there's people out there who aren hurt or have power in that way that's easier to understand and the quote the
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good people doing the bad things and then not again not having any sort of of safeguards for that they can just do
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that to you to you and again we're lucky that we had the resources financially and the support systems that with our
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friends and family and then uh a few months later when the kidnappers attacked another family which is even
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more of a tragedy because you when you falsely accuse or wrongfully convict people you let the real perpetrator go
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and so he was emboldened to attack another family and thankfully there was a detective on her first case
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connected him to our crime and that's why we're proven innocent we weren't not not guilty because it's one thing be
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like well yeah they're still a little shady but we're I you know we can't prove it but they probably did it
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because for whatever reason they thought but we're actually just proven innocent
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which is uh so rare and yeah she made the Hero wall I when I was watching her in the documentary she was amazing so
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there are there are they're not all bad like there are some good ones doing the work but it's really hard for them to do
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good work because they have to Wade through so much [ __ ] yeah and uh Misty the detective was has told us that
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she had people not like fill went col her back there was like lack of communication like everyone's like
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Territorial and like um it's almost like pissing matches like it's that like that
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childish and she was really disheartened that way cuz she thought hey we're all in here let's let's catch this guy like
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let's do the right thing like this is man is breaking into people's homes in the middle of night he uh he's raping
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people like this is a really dangerous person this is not um this is not someone
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who was doing like selling drugs because they had no other way to make money or that or that's what they grew up with he
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was trained he's a Harvard lawyer lawyer or trained at Harvard Law uh this is a man had like a lot of privilege in his
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life he just he's a predator he want he wanted to attack people and do it and he's a careful and patient criminal did
00:28:25
he do to the next family what he done to you like like does it seem like he stalked them knew about their lives and
00:28:30
all I don't uh I don't know if the stalking was as long or if they if there was a specific reason that he targeted
00:28:41
targeted them um other than maybe just the location of their house I think it was near a fire road so that's where he
00:28:48
escaped out of um but I don't I don't know exactly did you guys ever get an answer as to why you no not a definitive
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answer no and again it's it's the I can't trust the investigation so you know they've completely miss the
00:29:07
opportunity to catch him even after I was released maybe they didn't rescue me but they had the calls Trace them to
00:29:13
South Lake Tahoe they didn't from all the police reports we looked at including the FBI report there's no
00:29:19
indication that they actually investigated and again they attacked another family um and even after that so
00:29:26
our attorneys were writing the department of Justice to say we need new investigators like this is there the
00:29:32
lead FBI agent had had a prior relationship with Aaron's ex so there's a conflict of interest you know there's
00:29:38
clearly people's judgments are are we we can't trust them um but then we had the
00:29:45
doj say it's not our problem and it's not a problem and they can stay on the case and we're like how I mean just the
00:29:53
it makes you feel crazy well yeah I mean you really do like I was like is this am
00:29:58
I in Twilight Zone did I literally go crazy like this can't be our reality Yeah well yeah it's like it just feels
00:30:05
so black and white what is right and what is wrong and then for people to be like but this is just the way it is
00:30:10
you're like so wrong like oh yeah we got a lot of people in that position being like oh I've worked you know law
00:30:19
enforcement for 20 years I'm the professional and just like what I don't know what you've been doing but uh that
00:30:25
scares me definitely if you're if you're considered the the best that's yeah they were we were told often
00:30:34
this is like how things are done and then my brother is um my brother is one of the smartest people I know and like I
00:30:42
know a lot of colle colleagues who are like dedicated smart agents and we just happen to get frankly just incompetent
00:30:50
and shitty agents on they they aren't they're not equipped to investigate a case like this or that's not their
00:30:58
history was and they should have got more help but they would tell us like this is how things are done like well
00:31:03
actually I know these aren't how things are done and if if this is how it's done
00:31:07
then like we should probably change like uh and we're not expecting like law enforcement be infallible it's really
00:31:14
hard to solve cases um people make mistakes but like you need to like upgrade and like evolve and like and not
00:31:22
just like sit there and be like but yeah this is okay this is acceptable that we
00:31:28
didn't do our job and then protect themselves and that that's incredibly frustrating to be in that field like we
00:31:34
work in the medical field like you know in the medical field we used to do lobotomies like we did some terrible
00:31:39
stuff but we don't do those anymore because you learn and from it so like any professional should learn and and
00:31:45
change and like even the city of Leo the police department said they didn't make
00:31:50
any procedural changes um after his case uh and so they just don't want to learn
00:31:56
and they rather blame us and that's part of reason why we keep telling our stor that uh yeah again the justice
00:32:04
department can like railroad people and and from outside you might go like well they you know they they're professionals
00:32:11
they investigated like but you start digging deeper and you probably know more than us is like that there's a lot
00:32:17
of times where they just don't do their job and then they but they have someone in custody so then that person becomes a
00:32:22
scapegoat and uh people you know listeners will probably serve on jury like you should understand like just cuz
00:32:31
an officer said this person confessed like well how was that confession done was it was it actually backed up on
00:32:36
evidence like how many hours was that person put there like you need that all recorded because they leave you alone in
00:32:43
a small room air conditioning on like no warmth like I didn't get like you don't
00:32:49
have any food even if you're hungry like you're away from your family they just like they literally put you in box and
00:32:55
then keep going at you like we're mentioned ear earlier so if someone confesses after and most confessions
00:33:01
happen after like 6 hours so like someone they go like oh they confess at hour 12 and I don't give a [ __ ] what
00:33:07
that like why did it take 12 hours like do some actual investigation and uh people should really be uh skeptical of
00:33:17
like what law enforcement is saying because we are innocent till proven guilty yeah and even reviewing a lot of
00:33:23
the court documents the affidavit uh and the police reports just seeing how much
00:33:30
the narrative is manipulated and what they write and how they write um it's it it distorts the truth definitely and I
00:33:40
think I saw one officer's summary and was like oh okay this is actually objective but that was out of dozens of
00:33:48
of things that I've read from the officer so uh it's it's a little there's there's always a lot of context missing
00:33:56
I mean even when you if you just talking about confessions alone maybe there's a lot of it recorded
00:34:02
now in 2024 but when we started getting recorded confessions even we work on so many cases that are older what I see
00:34:08
more often than not is we get 20 minutes of them saying that they did it in this
00:34:13
like Perfect story and then what we don't get is the 18 12 whatever hours that led up to that and the 35 times
00:34:21
they said I didn't do it I didn't do it I didn't do it and I even had a case recently where they would like start the
00:34:26
confession and something would go wrong he's like oh no we're going to pause we're going to rewind the tape and like
00:34:30
start again oh God yeah so what people don't realize it's not just a confession it's a rewriting of the confession so
00:34:37
they won't the officers won't just take a confession they'll go they will make it or as they were telling me let's
00:34:43
start over so the story makes sense and that is not uncommon that they go the person starts not they don't know the
00:34:50
details because they're falsely confessing and go oh stop let's add that detail because then they know when they
00:34:55
get to trial they be like this person only knows details that the perpetrator would know but they fed them and if they
00:35:03
don't record it before you don't see the feeding of it so it is a rewriting of it
00:35:07
and that it's hard for people to understand even Central Park 5 case uh they had they used five different
00:35:13
confessions to convict all five boys uh and they made one person he had to give them multiple different confessions to
00:35:21
tie them all together so that obviously wouldn't hold up if you like compare them side to side mhm uh but they the
00:35:28
officers know that and again that's like they know confessions get convictions and that needs to change because we're
00:35:35
the only country that allows officer like developed country allows officers to lie to um to suspect so they will
00:35:42
continue to lie to you I'm me like we've got your fingerprints we've got your DNA
00:35:46
they'll stay that easy they lie to victims lie to family members like in our case so yeah and so like the only
00:35:55
thing that the police officer said that was truthful to me was uh that they didn't believe me I would yeah that's
00:36:01
the only thing that they said was truthful mhm when you guys so you are one of the lucky ones that not only did
00:36:07
you fight it and win but you they you got proved to be innocent right what was life like right after that I mean did
00:36:15
you dive head first into all this advocacy you've done or did you was there a moment where you just kind of
00:36:20
like had to get your feet on the ground again oh no it's it's been a almost nine
00:36:25
and a half year Journey uh initially you know it was about us trying to get all the information to defend ourselves cuz
00:36:33
we were preparing to go to court and because they were threatening us with prosecution and
00:36:38
then uh you know my cap rapist is caught for that other crime and then it's okay
00:36:43
let's focus on making sure he gets the largest sentence that he deserves to protect victims and so you know in that
00:36:52
three years of um that criminal case and then our civil lawsuit we were still silent and I was definitely not on
00:37:02
social media because I was getting death threats and just hateful just the worst
00:37:08
things that people can say um and it's just all over the board like my looks and who I am and it's just um even after
00:37:18
people knew that you didn't do it yeah and then there was still the doubt so that's the thing you know they say
00:37:23
something immediately and they put it out publicly and that's the plants that seed of doubt and so people because they
00:37:30
believe so hardly about that um they don't want to let that go because they don't want to be like oh wow I was so
00:37:37
wrong and I was so hateful with my incorrect information so some people really like just hold on to it um yeah
00:37:45
and I mean it took me a year to go back to work uh one because I didn't know people
00:37:50
would recognize me and two I didn't know if I was capable I mean and it's one thing to like have something awful as
00:37:58
violent crime but to have the whole world attack you have the people in Authority that you're supposed to turn
00:38:05
to for help attack you it really makes you feel uh terrified to even like really
00:38:13
enter life and Society again um so it was again it was just a really long journey but along the way you know again
00:38:20
aon's brother's an FBI agent so we learned a lot we learned from other survivors and paying attention to these
00:38:26
other stories going oh my gosh like it wasn't a one-off this isn't a couple bad apples and a bad Orchard and Vallejo
00:38:34
like this this happens way way too often I think we were watching confession tapes or something on Netflix way back
00:38:41
then and Aaron was able to predict verbatim What the in investigator was going to say because it was all the
00:38:48
script you know I'm going to pay you as a cold calculated you fail this miserably like it's just all these and
00:38:54
so that's what was really disheartening to see how how common it was and that's where we're like okay well this needs to
00:39:02
change and when we're ready we want to speak publicly and then also because of how misconstrued everything was in the
00:39:07
media we knew okay like we can't trust putting our our story out there through that Medium unless all the information's
00:39:17
out there so we focused then on on writing a book and that was several years of of finding the right person and
00:39:25
um and and then and we did the docu series that was released earlier this year but we you know started with one
00:39:32
production company decided no that's not working and then with this one we really
00:39:36
made them work hard to show us that their goals were aligned with ours and it wasn't about just
00:39:43
sensationalizing the event itself but what's the bigger picture issues uh cuz you know it's sad anyone can be a victim
00:39:51
of a crime but you don't really know um all the challenges you're going to face unless you're in it and then when you're
00:39:57
it you're traumatized and you're just like sink or swim you know and how do you guys think now about trying to
00:40:03
tackle some of those issues because it would be really easy if there was just one right where we could just be like if
00:40:07
we just fix this one thing but it sometimes can feel overwhelming because it feels like there are so many of them
00:40:13
yeah our our case seems like this uh just I don't know Perfect Storm of so many different
00:40:20
issues um you know the biases against women and not believing women and um I mean on the FBI affidavit it said my
00:40:28
sard exam showed quote no signs of non-consensual sex even though I told them I didn't fight back physically
00:40:35
because I was bound I was blindfolded I was held in a remote location my life was threatened his life was threatened
00:40:41
you know so it's kind of like well of course I'm not going to have like physical egregious injuries but there
00:40:47
was evidence in the sart exam that indicated that an assault did happen or intercourse did happen uh within that
00:40:55
like 24 to 48 hour period for and that uh there was bruising from him dropping me and I mean there was consistency in
00:41:05
and what they found in the in the start exam to what what I was saying and of course the police never used that
00:41:11
there's a lot of aspects in our case that reach across culture it's or um current culture uh for us it's just
00:41:19
trying to focus on it because there's so many worthy causes you can't do it all right so I we you just don't have the
00:41:26
like even the emot capacity to to do this you know ABC D you have to kind of focus on that so yeah one one
00:41:34
organization we paid attention to early on was the joyful Heart Foundation which
00:41:39
was um they were working on ending the backlog of rape tests because that was something that was so insulting to me
00:41:44
you know they like say that I this thing didn't happen I have to take this 4H hour long startart exam wondering the
00:41:52
whole time if they're going to use this against me because I didn't fight back so I'm like what are they going to find
00:41:57
what are they not going to you know there was a female FBI agent in the room that I never talked to was just like
00:42:01
watching this um it just was all very you mean you have to do it within 48 Hours of being being attacked it's like
00:42:10
one of the most exposing and vulnerable things you could do uh being a victim of
00:42:14
assault and and then they just kind of they didn't use it you know six months later we're talking to the a USA and I'm
00:42:22
asking him where's my sard exam and he's kind of looking around the room going like oh I don't know
00:42:28
wasn't it so important that I get this done or was this just again like the lie detector test deploy to see yeah uh
00:42:37
let's just degrade her and demean her as much as we can I mean that's just what it feels like right so yeah there's like
00:42:44
with us it's complicated because even going through the court process we see how many rights uh are the kidnapper um
00:42:53
Matthew mhler he how many rights he had compared to us like he represented himself at one point he was able to
00:43:00
watch the the rape um videos he had videoed me while he assaulted me um so he was able to rewatch it and he in the
00:43:09
preliminary hearing he had the the right to cross-examine me and Aaron and it was
00:43:15
only because he chose not to but I'm sitting up there the whole time answering the most humiliating questions
00:43:21
with the prosecutor and in front of you know media my family about the details of the assaults my as salent is watching
00:43:29
me as I'm giving this description and I don't know if he's then going to cross-examine me and then he goes oh no
00:43:35
I'm not going to like oh thank you you're the hero now you know but it was so it was it was a lot to to realize how
00:43:42
little rights we had as victims um but at the same time I do believe because we were suspects that suspects need to have
00:43:49
rights as well um so that's another thing that I I learned about was Marcy's law and and that organization is working
00:43:57
to try to um make amendments to each State's Constitution to add a Bill of Rights for victims and some of the
00:44:04
things I've when I was researching it you know the critics kind of saying well no if you if you give victims rights and
00:44:10
that's going to take the away the rights of the suspect and I'm like well how that just because you name rights for
00:44:17
one group of people doesn't mean that you're taking away the rights of other people you know with within reason right
00:44:23
but like these things are like treat victims with respect and decency keep them informed make sure that they're
00:44:29
protected and they have a level of privacy like really basic like basic stuff but like we have to put that in
00:44:36
and what was really discouraging too was to realize that California has one of the most extensive um amendments for for
00:44:43
victims but in our case it wasn't implemented so if the people on the field don't believe in this or maybe
00:44:50
don't know it but if if they're not implementing it then what power does it have um so again those are just you know
00:44:57
and then we've been paying attention to the Innocence Project and and like watching case after case you know those
00:45:04
the confession tapes and other like U making a murder you know all all these things where you're like seeing the
00:45:10
trend um and now that the series is out we've had the pleasure of being able to speak in front of group groups of law
00:45:17
enforcement for interrogations or in dealing with sexual assault and we tell them you know we we understand we're all
00:45:23
human we're fallible we work in the medical field we make mistakes so see that it happens but what's really
00:45:29
important especially if you're working with people human beings especially going through a trauma and they come to
00:45:35
you for help you need to be able to self-reflect you need to be able to say how how could I do better and and name
00:45:42
it okay I we made this mistake now let's let's figure out how to yeah just to to
00:45:49
change and to help protect people better we get a lot of [ __ ] on the show cuz like we talk about a lot of the things
00:45:55
that go wrong like we're not usually talking about a case on crime junkie if everything went right and what I keep
00:46:00
saying is I was like there are a lot of great people I've worked with a lot of great people but like if you exactly
00:46:05
what you're saying if you don't talk about what went wrong and if you don't analyze what could have been better like
00:46:11
how nothing will ever change ever and it's not about like necessarily even like tearing any one individual or or
00:46:19
anything apart sometimes they deserve it but I like I just don't expect like this
00:46:23
band of Brotherhood kind of thing right where it's just like like no like like you got to talk about when it goes bad
00:46:29
right yeah it's like we have to be able to have this conversation yeah or I don't trust you right so what what are
00:46:35
the some of the cases that you guys have gotten involved with because my understanding is you guys have a kind of
00:46:42
like not only are you working with these bigger organizations but are there some
00:46:46
cases that you guys are really paying attention to right now I mean I think we pay attention to a lot we notice a lot
00:46:53
um there's also a balance of it can be a little overwhelming you know to to still try to navigate because this
00:47:02
is your whole life right like we we've got two young kids we've got a two and a four-year-old which are amazing um and
00:47:09
they uh yeah it takes a lot of energy I I have one two and a halfy old and like sucks up my whole life which is great
00:47:16
it's like that's what I I do want to put my focus on right and we're still working as physical therapist and
00:47:22
advocating for our patients and so a big part of this and advocating is using your voice and so it's been a long
00:47:30
journey to find out who we can trust to help us amplify our voice so then we can
00:47:35
talk about these serious issues because what's helped us over the years is hearing from other survivors and seeing
00:47:41
them speak out Against All Odds and so it makes us think okay well then let's do that let's let's turn our pain into
00:47:47
purpose and keep this conversation going um and so that's kind of where we're at
00:47:52
right now is um again we're able to speak in front of law enfor forcement which is what we've always wanted to do
00:47:59
you know we're not against them we want to work with them um and advocating for for survivors of sexual assaults because
00:48:07
there was so there's still it's just so sad like 2024 there's still this misconception
00:48:13
about women how they should behave uh what's their fault what's not their fault and we do it to ourselves too
00:48:20
because that is so entrenched in our culture that it's really easy to self-blame and um you know and as we've
00:48:27
spoken out I have to recognize sometimes that I need help again you know so I've
00:48:33
gone back to therapy and that's another thing I want to advocate for because it's it's been such a huge help for us
00:48:40
um in this whole process yeah I think with law enforcement there's obviously a lot of law enforcement want to do better
00:48:48
and like for me a big part is just try to advocate for different types of interrogation and get away from this
00:48:55
idea of like professions um are the goal should really should just be gain information so uh there's models like
00:49:03
the peace model which is more of a journalistic approach where you're just gathering information from the person
00:49:09
you're talking to and you're not CER trying to say uh you're not in a guilt presumptive mindset which is what
00:49:16
happened to me when that's based off the read technique or baddy is another version it's just a cousin of Reed uh
00:49:23
and that Reed is the most commonly used interrogation Techni te in the world um and not just with law enforcement they
00:49:30
teach corporations corporations and schools so you will use this technique I I'll put technique in quote
00:49:39
uh or his method against children and the problem with it is that even the re technique started from in the 19 late
00:49:49
1940s early 1950s after police W unable to beat suspects into confessions they figure out how can we logically pressure
00:49:58
them I would say it's torture and John Reed in the 50 early 50s got a confession from a man and end
00:50:05
up being a false confession it was overturned 17 years later but that was a big this is what starts his whole thing
00:50:11
that starts the whole and then that makes Reed popular so the problem with Reed is it can get confessions it can
00:50:16
also get false confessions uh and so the case that made it popular was already based off false confession and it was
00:50:23
just some detective from Chicago making this method up there's not so there's not really any science behind it U so
00:50:32
now there are other like uh he will do where it's more of a science-based interrogation technique so um bring in
00:50:39
psychologists bring in like other disciplines to help the officers understand those pressures because they
00:50:45
I don't think they really understand what type of pressure they're doing and that's another reason why we talked in
00:50:50
law enforcement is that they don't get much followup with they interact with someone during the worst potentially one
00:50:55
of the worst moments or life uh which is got to be hard day after day to be interacting with people that way but
00:51:01
they don't get to follow up on cases they don't hear from the other side um so when we speak we're just trying to
00:51:07
give them a sense of what it's like to be getting Railroad by like when they turn that that Machinery turns on you so
00:51:15
that hopefully if they run into a case where it's you know maybe it sounds a little bizarre a little strange to them
00:51:22
that they don't just rush to judgment have the confirmation bias and tunnel vision they can think of case and pause
00:51:27
go like well what if you know let's look at X Y and Z and not just focus on this
00:51:33
one route and uh because we have to do at the ground level right they're the ones interacting at day-to-day basis so
00:51:41
um that's one of the things we hope for that get away from this because it's awful yeah I love that you guys are
00:51:47
going and speaking to them because I think that's where so much change can actually happen I think one of the
00:51:52
things I was most surprised by as I really got into this world and dealing with law enforcement is that there was
00:51:59
no standard like there is no standard training to be an investigator across you're really only as good as the the
00:52:07
guy before you that trained you and when you think about I mean as you guys as doctors of physical therapy I mean the
00:52:12
amount of training that you had to do education you had to do continued I know I worked in a hospital for a long time
00:52:17
there's continued medical education and because you guys have people's lives in your hands which is
00:52:23
important and these people have people's lives in their hands and we just we cross our fingers and
00:52:29
hope hope they got trained right yeah one of the the talks that we gave it was for science-based interrogation so it's
00:52:36
about improving interrogation tactics and we sat in for a couple of the talks and some of the psychologists were
00:52:42
talking and we're like oh thank God there's a psychologist in the room um but certain things were so basic that
00:52:48
we're like we learn this in PT school like how is this revolutionary how is this a thing right now that's being
00:52:55
taught so like this Bittersweet situation going okay well at least someone's doing it and they are
00:53:03
having these conferences and these this type of training but then it was equally
00:53:08
as infuriating because we're like why weren't we treated this way um and why is this not something that is being done
00:53:16
and and yeah why do they have to fight to get people to to buy into it um yeah I don't know but if there's one message
00:53:26
you have for the law enforcement that listens to our show and the survivors who listen to our show what are what
00:53:32
would each of those messages be uh I think with law enforcement really is just recognize that we all have
00:53:41
different biases we've all grown up having our own life experiences that shape who we are and how we see the
00:53:49
world and the people in it and so kind of recognizing some of those judgments that you might have um and trying to
00:53:57
keep an open mind and self-reflect um it's okay that you make a mistake um but let's just try to learn
00:54:04
from it and encourage that not just from yourself but your peers the people you work with as well uh for
00:54:12
survivors I me the biggest thing is just always believe in yourself um you know when you have people consistently trying
00:54:20
to Gaslight you and tell you what you experienced either a didn't happen or isn't that bad um um it it can it really
00:54:29
uh is ret traumatizing and it makes the healing that much harder and so it's easy to give in and just believe that
00:54:37
and um God if we didn't believe in ourselves we wouldn't be here and doing the work that we're doing so that's a
00:54:44
big thing yeah for me to pay back off what Den said with law enforcement the idea I think sometimes law enforcement
00:54:54
thinks they're being objective and they're trying their best to be objective but no one actually can be
00:54:58
objective like you need to recognize regardless of who you are there's always some sort of bias that you are either
00:55:04
conscious of or unconscious of uh no one is strictly objective we see the world through our own lens so you need to if
00:55:12
you're in law enforcement you need to recognize that you cannot is impossible be fully objective so you should put a
00:55:19
lot of different safeguards to try to be as objective as possible and that means
00:55:23
bringing other people um and for survivors as Den is saying like believe in yourself um find help like find the
00:55:34
people that you can trust that um will not necessarily um not necessarily even try to provide
00:55:43
answers but we'll just listen there's a big part of like just having someone who
00:55:47
will be there for you and uh for myself I used to think I could just handle stuff I would like try to avoid
00:55:56
like burning my parents with stress or my friends because I'm like I I'll just handle it I can do it on my own um and
00:56:03
that uh didn't work out like I you can't like you need like and uh being such a life altering trauma I realized that I
00:56:14
need like to go to my friends and my family and and therapists and we've I mean we've done years and years of
00:56:20
therapy but have um that trusted group that I could go to and and help lift me up and that's uh really important to
00:56:29
find those people in your lives because we all go through different variations of trauma um it doesn't have to be a
00:56:36
kidnapping it doesn't have to be like this extreme but people have stuff that happens in their lives and we need the
00:56:42
help of our close ones to to heal from it and and integrate it uh because you can't actually just move on like there's
00:56:51
sometimes people say just forget about move on but you can't you have to learn how to integrate this into your life cuz
00:56:55
it's part of you and it's part it's going to impact your decisions e either you like it or not um it's a little bit
00:57:00
like your Shadow it's always there you be aware of it or not and uh so by gain help from other people I've
00:57:08
uh have helped me integrate it to make something positive out of it and that will be a continued thing it's never
00:57:14
there's no end to this it's just um different levels of it well you guys I think are like a
00:57:22
beautiful example to survivors of what life can be if you put in the work what life can be afterwards I I said you
00:57:29
didn't see this on your bingo card for life did you get other good surprises like things you did see coming on your
00:57:36
bingo card or things you didn't I mean you guys are you both are now practicing right in physical therapy you've got a
00:57:42
family you obviously got married after this life does move forward you know so it's it's nice that we were able to
00:57:49
still have all those Joys that we were able to stay together as a couple um again a large part of that was the
00:57:56
people in our lives that help support us and um yeah I mean we were able to return to our careers and we started
00:58:03
this beautiful family and um and and now we we get to meet with people and have these connections with other survivors
00:58:11
or again in law enforcement that we can share and and use such a horrible thing to maybe do something better for other
00:58:19
people who aren't as lucky as we are who might not have all the resources or who
00:58:24
are still threatened into silence that we can at least um we can we can keep the conversation at least going and
00:58:31
see if something can change and thank you for doing that I mean you guys have every right to to go live your lives and
00:58:39
not do anything and take care of yourselves and I think it's really beautiful what you guys are doing so
00:58:43
thank you yeah thank you and thank you for coming on here it was wonderful to meet you and for sharing your story I
00:58:49
think it will touch a lot of people so I really appreciate it thank you yeah thank you all right everyone don't
00:58:54
forget to follow this show and add it to your library and don't forget to follow
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00:59:03
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