Post Mortem | Denise and Aaron Quinn Get the Last Word

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1:30Welcome back to Postmortem. I'm 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty stepping in is host today to talk with CBS News correspondent Tracy Smith on the West Coast about the high profile case of Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn. In March 2015, Denise was abducted by an intruder at her boyfriend Aaron's home in Vallejo, California. The couple told detectives that both of them had been drugged, blindfolded, and tied up, but they felt that police didn't believe their stories. Since then, they've gotten married, continued to fight for justice for other victims of their attacker, Matthew Mueller. Tracy, thanks for joining me and sharing many more details about this very strange case.

2:19Tracy Smith:Thanks so much for having me, Erin. You know, I love the phrase, be your own hero. I tell my kids that sometimes. Denise and Erin Quinn are examples of that, be your own hero. They were determined to find out what other crimes Mueller had committed. And thanks in part to their work, Mueller admitted to a list of crimes going all the way back to 1993. And that's how we got in touch with a woman who Mueller says was his very first victim. She felt that law enforcement didn't believe her back in 1993. She went three decades with no answers. And thanks to Denise and Aaron and the team that they worked with, she finally found some justice.

3:01Tracy, this is such a strange story with a very strange defendant, and I am anxious to get into these details. But before we get into our conversation, just a quick reminder. If you haven't watched or listened to this episode, and it's called Denise and Aaron Quinn Get the Last Word, Go check it out now and then come back for our conversation. So, Tracy, a lot of our listeners may have heard about this case from watching the Netflix docuseries American Nightmare. In that series, Denise and Aaron share details about their March 2015 attack and Denise's kidnapping. She was held captive for two days and raped before her attacker drove her to Huntington Beach and then released her near her childhood home.

3:49But when they reported this attack to the police, the couple said they were accused of making the whole thing up until nearly three months later, when another California home invasion led investigators to arrest their attacker. He was 38-year-old Matthew Mueller. So what did you learn about Mueller through your reporting, Tracy?

4:13Tracy Smith:Well, you know, a lot was made at the time that Mueller was arrested of how he was a Harvard-educated lawyer and a former Marine. He'd also been an immigration attorney. He didn't have an extensive criminal history at the time of his arrest in 2015, which was for the second California home invasion, and then soon after he was connected to Aaron and Denise Quinn's attack. But Denise and Aaron were convinced that he had done this before. He had told Denise when he had her in captivity, that he had done this before. And sure enough, they were right. So what's due then in our 48 Hours report? Well, we tell the truly remarkable story about what has happened since American Nightmare was released in 2024.

4:56Tracy Smith:Denise and Erin told their story back then, but they didn't want to stop there. They didn't want to move on. They knew that there were other victims out there. So they They teamed up with police chief Nick Borges from Seaside, California, and a DA named Byrne Pearson, who's the district attorney of El Dorado County, to uncover additional crimes that Mueller committed. And they really became this super team that found other victims and gave them some closure. Part of the reason that they wanted to investigate further is that not only did Denise and Aaron think there were other victims out there, they thought he wasn't working alone and that those people could still be out there.

5:35Tracy Smith:When Mueller attacked them, he drugged them. He gave them blacked out goggles. But they thought they heard several voices. He told them that he wasn't working alone. So in your report, we also hear from police chief Nick Borges, you mentioned him, about how he wanted to help Denise and Aaron get answers, even though he wasn't even involved in the original investigation. So how did he get involved? He was watching Netflix and was, you know, just stunned by what happened to them. And so he reached out to Denise to apologize on behalf of all of law enforcement. I mean, as your show also indicated, there was a real problem with the initial investigation.

6:19After Denise was abducted and Aaron had no idea what had happened to her, he went to the police. But to Aaron's horror, the police appeared not to believe him and even seemed to accuse him of killing Denise.

6:35Tracy Smith:In the hour, we see the interview with the lead detective that he conducted with Aaron. And we have a portion of it. This is an edited portion of it, but I just want to play this for you because you'll get the tone. Denise is going to be found. And when I say she's found, she's dead. They did not come into your house and kidnap her and take her for ransom. That did not happen. It didn't. No, it did not. Oh, my God. It even gets worse. Two days after being kidnapped, Denise was released, as we mentioned, in Huntington Beach. And so she spoke to the police there. She sensed she wasn't being believed either, even though her story matched Aaron's account and they hadn't been able to communicate since the attack.

7:19I was also shocked that Denise says that even though her attorney told the Vallejo police that she had been raped, they wouldn't set up a sexual assault exam until she spoke directly with them. And we know that with these rape kits, time is of the essence. You have to do it right away. Oh, yeah.

7:40Tracy Smith:Denise says that the Vallejo police told her that since she'd only talked to the Huntington Beach police and not to them, they wouldn't let her get this rape kit until after she talked to them. So she says they interviewed her for six hours before they set up the test. And she actually told Chief Borges that not being believed and going through that was actually more traumatic than the assault itself. I mean, one thing that Denise and Aaron hope that law enforcement learns from this case is that there's no typical way for a victim to react. And they really felt like everything they did was seen through this lens of, well, they're guilty, they're lying.

8:20Tracy Smith:I mean, Aaron was saying that if we were too stoic, then we're psychopaths. And if we're emotional, then we're playing for the cameras. He said, you know, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. There were allegations of additional issues with the original investigation, too. Right, Tracy? Oh, yeah. Denise and Aaron learned later that the Vallejo police actually put Aaron's phone, which is the way that he was supposed to communicate with the kidnappers, on airplane mode. So they missed at least two calls from Mueller while Aaron was there at the police department being interviewed. Mueller also sent anonymous emails to the San Francisco Chronicle and the Vallejo PD saying this isn't a hoax.

9:01Tracy Smith:And he even included a photo of where Denise was held captive. And Aaron says that even after Mueller was arrested and connected to their crime, that he felt like the police were still trying to tie the three of them together, saying, oh, well, then all three of them must have been in on it. Your investigation also shows that the media has to be held accountable, too, because reporters also played a role in shaping the story. I remember seeing headlines back in 2015 calling the kidnapping a hoax. Yes, this is a bizarre case. So, of course, the media latched onto it and definitely played up this idea that it was a hoax.

9:40Tracy Smith:And I think it does require some reflection on all of our parts, you know, even if we weren't covering that case at the time. In fact, Julie Watts, who's the investigative correspondent for CBS News California, who we interviewed for this hour, she didn't report on it back in 2015, but she's since done a lot of coverage of Denise and Aaron's story. And she said it changed how she reports stories that now she thinks, OK, what if investigators have this wrong and the suspect is is innocent? You know, let me think about how this will affect not just the victim, but the suspect if the story changes.

10:15I mean, it is a reminder that reporters have to question the prosecutors and investigators, too, because they can get it wrong. Matthew Mueller took a plea deal. And in 2017, he received a sentence of 40 years. And that was total for both a home invasion in Dublin, California, and Denise and Aaron's attack. Denise and Aaron filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Vallejo and eventually settled for$2.5 million. Yeah, that's right.

10:48Tracy Smith:The Vallejo Police Department did release a statement after the settlement. And here's a portion of what they said. The Huskins-Quinn case was not publicly handled with the type of sensitivity a case of this nature should have been handled with. So they did release that statement. The police chief did apologize for the department's comments in a letter that he sent to the Quinns. We reached out to the Vallejo PD and they did not respond to our request for a comment. I would have liked to have heard what they had to say. Me too. So fast forward to 2024. After Chief Borges saw the Netflix documentary and connected with Denise and Aaron, he did something kind of interesting.

11:28He decided to write to Mueller in prison in an effort to get answers. and Mueller wrote back.

11:36Tracy Smith:Yes, Mueller wrote back. Chief Borges actually jokes that the two of them became pen pals. So he writes to Mueller. Mueller sends this package of letters. And we have a clip where Borges talks about being alone in the police station when he gets this package of letters. So I was at my desk and there was the mail and I went, oh, he wrote another letter. And I remember feeling the weight to it. I thought, I don't know what's in here, but it's a lot, a lot of pages. and I started to read these things. I'm by myself and to understand my world, I'm the police chief, the police officers are out on the street and I'm reading these declarations.

12:14He was giving details that I knew were accurate. I felt like this guy's confessing and I was bouncing off my walls. I couldn't, there was no one to talk to, but I was just bouncing off my walls. Like, I can't believe this guy just sent this. You know, I really like the police chief. I mean, he just seems like he really was trying to get to the bottom of it. And it does seem that Mueller was ready to come clean. So what did he actually tell Chief Borges?

12:44Tracy Smith:I have an excerpt from one of his declarations where he actually confesses to another crime from 2009. So he says, the idea to raid a home and rape a woman developed in August or September of 2009. I was in a manic state at the time due to bipolar disorder, though I do not believe I was psychotic. In other words, it seems my decision making was impaired and warped, but I did not believe reality to be other than it would seem to another healthy person. Since I could not sleep at night, I began taking long walks in the vicinity of my Menlo Park apartment. At some point, out of boredom or curiosity, I began watching people in their homes, first from the curb or driveway, but soon from outside their windows.

13:25Okay, this gives me the creeps. This really makes me want to pull down shades all the time. And this case also reminds me a little of the Golden State killer who had once worked as a police officer. Both of these cases, neither man on the surface seems like a violent criminal.

13:42Tracy Smith:And the crimes escalate in both of those cases. And they also went for years without being caught. In that declaration, Mueller confessed to two crimes in Santa Clara County in 2009. So that's six years before Denise and Aaron's attack. And he wrote that in those cases, he cased the neighborhood. He was researching which residences would be easy to get into. He tried the locks. And he also hinted that there were more crimes. But he kind of just teased the details in those letters that he wrote to Borges.

14:24Welcome back. So in 2024, El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pearson was also looking into Matthew Mueller, even though, like Chief Borges, he wasn't involved in the original investigation. He wanted to speak with Mueller directly and thought the best way to get him to open up more was to use a strategy called science-based interviewing. Tracy, I've never heard about this. So can you talk about how science-based interviewing is different from other law enforcement interrogation techniques? Sure, oh, it's fascinating to me.

15:01Tracy Smith:So in science-based interviewing, you don't have an established point of view going in. It's almost like you're, instead of playing know-it-all, like, well, we know what happened here, you're playing naive. And the idea is to just make somebody comfortable so that they're willing to give you this information that you can then go investigate to see what's true and what's not. And Vern Pearson is a leading advocate for this type of investigating. And he says the goal here is a little different than old school law enforcement interviewing in that you're not trying to get a confession. You're just trying to get information.

15:36I feel that we as journalists take a similar approach when we're talking to people who are accused or convicted because we want them to talk. We want them just to tell us their side of the story without accusing them or going into the interview overly aggressive.

15:55Tracy Smith:Yes, I think this totally applies to what you and I do. I was asking Pearson, actually, after the interview, like, what books should I get and how can I find out more information about science based interviewing? Because it's just so interesting to me. I mean, I think personally, it made me think about how there's a performative aspect to what we do, where sometimes I feel like, to be honest, I'm asking a question because it's good TV and not because it's going to elicit the information that I might need. So it really made me think about, you know, when I ask a question like, how could you murder the mother of your children?

16:26Tracy Smith:Am I really expecting to get information there? And also, you do so much research. I do so much research when we do these cases. I do also feel like sometimes I just want to show how much I know in a question instead of playing naive like Pearson is talking about and just letting the information come out. Well, and I'm guilty as charged in that. Sometimes I go into that prosecutor mode, but I also sometimes do it to see how they react. Maybe they'll get mad at me and show some kind of their personality. But in this case, D.A. Byrne Pearson was trying to get information. So he brought in a highly skilled FBI interviewer, and that was in November 2024.

17:09To meet personally with Matthew Mueller, he was serving his sentence at an Arizona prison. Pearson was anxious to see what else Mueller might confess to. So, Tracy, what did he think the FBI interviewer would get Mueller to reveal?

17:25Tracy Smith:DA Pearson believes that Mueller is very manipulative. So he really wanted to bring in the best of the best, and that was this FBI interviewer. Now, the FBI interviewer has to remain anonymous, which is why we blurred his face in the hour. But he specializes in this science-based technique. And the goal was to see if Mueller would confess to more crimes, reveal his motivation, reveal whether he had accomplices. But boy, did this require patience because Mueller would talk for hours. He would go off on unrelatable tangents. I mean, I think the first interview was eight hours. So can you imagine just sitting there trying to stay focused?

18:01Tracy Smith:I mean, just your rear end hurts after that time. That's a long time to sit there in an interview, but they hung in. And I think when we do two or three hours, that's really long. I have to hand it to them. My big question now was, did it sound like Mueller was telling the truth? Because it also sounds like he wants attention. He has these police officers, an FBI agent listening to him. Was he bragging? Well, he said that he had a religious transformation in prison, and so he wanted to be upfront about the crimes that he'd committed. And, you know, as we know now, some of what he was saying was indeed the truth when they followed up on it.

18:41This is incredible, really. Mueller told a story about attacking a young couple at a campsite and then sexually assaulting the woman. He claimed that that was his first victim. You happened to meet that incredibly brave woman in the hour when you sat down with her. She had asked us to call her Lynn, that is not a real name, and asked us not to show her face. This was the first time that she was speaking publicly about something that had happened to her 30 or so years ago. What was that interview like, Tracy?

19:17Tracy Smith:Oh, my goodness. I mean, you know how this is. I'm sitting down across from this person asking her to tell me about the most horrible moment of her life, a complete stranger with cameras rolling. So it was incredibly emotional, but she was so strong. I wish you could see her face because she was just remarkably composed and strong. Her husband was sitting right off camera. This is the guy who was there when she was attacked. They've since gotten married and you could tell that they've leaned on each other through these years. And you also could see the trauma that's weighed on her for three decades.

19:51Tracy Smith:I mean, think about this. She would go home at night and she would draw the shades. She couldn't have the windows open. She loved camping when she was a kid. She wouldn't go camping in a tent because of what happened. She wouldn't wear sandals or flip-flops in case she had to run from an attacker. So for her to be able to share that with us was incredible. And we're so grateful that she sat with us to do that. You know, Tracy, this hour really shows the impact on victims when they're not believed or listened to. Matthew Muller was flown back to California to face charges for the two attempted rapes.

20:26There in January 2025, Muller wrote another letter to Chief Borges indicating he had additional information, but this time he wanted to provide to Denise and Aaron. And Denise and Aaron wanted to speak with Mueller in person too, but investigators advised them to sit in another room and listen. Mueller and his attorney met with D.A. Pearson, the FBI interviewer, and also Police Chief Borges. I'm curious, why did Denise and Aaron want to face Mueller after everything they had gone through with him? I asked Denise the

21:03Tracy Smith:same thing. Why would you want to sit with this guy? And she explained it really clearly. She said she felt like he had the power, obviously, when he had her in captivity. And even afterward, because of the way that the police, the media handled it, she felt like he controlled the narrative. This Harvard-trained lawyer, where did he go wrong? So she wanted to take that back. investigators thought that Muller may have wanted to further manipulate Denise and Aaron by getting them in a room with him. And meanwhile, Denise and Aaron really wanted to get to the bottom of whether he was acting alone and whether there were other victims out there.

21:43Tracy Smith:So I totally saw, once I asked her from her perspective, why she wanted to do that. I know, but I think she probably would have been disappointed because he might have withheld that. I mean, I think the police were smart on this. And as you just point out, Denise and Aaron were convinced that they heard other people with Mueller the night of the attack. And I really believed Aaron when I was listening to him talk. And while Denise was being held in captivity, she thought she heard people, too. Is there any evidence that Mueller was working with more people? So Chief Borges won't rule it out. And, you know, Aaron, like you said, he said, well, this guy is not Inspector Gadget.

22:22Tracy Smith:Like, how can he be three places at once? But Pearson told us, as of now, there's no solid evidence of other people. And we do have to remember that both Denise and Aaron were drugged and wearing blacked out goggles. You know, Mueller claims that he was able to make it sound like he was in several different places. He used a bunch of techniques to do that. The important thing that I thought D.A. Pearson said is that because of the way that the initial investigation was handled, we may never know. Oh, that is so worrisome. Although I don't know why Mueller would withhold that information, but it is worrisome.

22:58So finally, by the summer of 2025, Matthew Mueller was convicted of all the charges brought as a result of the investigation spurred on by Denise and Aaron, including his first victim, Lynn's case. We see at the end of the hour that Denise and Aaron continue to speak to law enforcement, and they're trying to change how officers interview victims and suspects. Can you tell me more about their advocacy?