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The FBI announced Monday that Matthew Muller, a disbarred Harvard-trained lawyer and former marine, has been arrested in the “Gone Girl”-like kidnapping case of Denise Huskins, who was abducted in March from her house in Vallejo, California, but returned safely later. Local police earlier believed the case — registered as a complaint by Huskins’ boyfriend Aaron Quinn — was a hoax.
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A June 29 complaint charging Matthew Muller, 38, with kidnapping was unsealed on Monday, and Muller was in custody, according to court documents provided by the FBI.
The FBI declined to confirm the identities of the victims for privacy reasons, but local media have connected it to the case of a woman whose boyfriend called Vallejo police in March to report that his live-in girlfriend had been abducted.
The boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, reported that Denise Huskins was being held for $8,500 in ransom. Huskins reappeared safely two days later nearly 400 miles (640 km) away in her hometown of Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles.
Vallejo detectives who interviewed Huskins said at the time there was no evidence to support a kidnapping, calling the incident “an orchestrated event and not a crime,” though lawyers for Quinn have stood by the claim.
On Monday, the FBI provided an affidavit saying the boyfriend had initially called police reporting a home invasion in which both he and his girlfriend were drugged, and that she was forced to bind him with zip ties before they were ordered into a bedroom closet.
Headphones were placed over the boyfriend’s ears with a prerecorded message saying a group that collects debts was robbing them and that they would be subjected to electric shocks or slashed in the face if they did not comply, the affidavit said.
The boyfriend, under the influence of the drugs, fell asleep and upon waking found his girlfriend missing, along with his laptop and car, the FBI said. He was able to free himself and call the police, according to the affidavit, which did not name the couple.
Several months later, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office arrested Muller over a separate robbery and the FBI said it later found similarities between that case and the Vallejo kidnapping.
The Vallejo Police Department could not be immediately reached on Monday, and attorneys for Huskins and Quinn could not immediately be reached for comment.
Agencies/Canadajournal
