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Speaker 3: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 3: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 3: written about them Gaesy Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 3: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 3: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 3: host journalist and author Dan.
Speaker 2: Zufanski, Good Evening. In March twenty fifteen, Denise Hoskins and
Speaker 2: her boyfriend Aaron Quinn awoke from a sound sleep into
Speaker 2: a nightmare. Our men bound and drug them, then abducted
Speaker 2: Denise war not to call the police or Denise would
Speaker 2: be killed. Aarin, agonized about what to do, finally put
Speaker 2: his trust in law enforcement and dialed nine to one one.
Speaker 2: But instead of searching for Denise, the police accused Aaron
Speaker 2: of a murder. His story, they told them, was just unbelievable.
Speaker 2: When Denise was released alive, the police turned their fire
Speaker 2: on her, dubbing her the real life gone girl who
Speaker 2: had faked their own kidnapping. In Victim f Aaron and
Speaker 2: Denise recount the horrific ordeal that almost cost them everything.
Speaker 2: Like too many victims of sexual violence. They were dismissed, disbelieved,
Speaker 2: and dragged through the mud with no one to rely
Speaker 2: on accept each other. They took on the victim, blaming harassment, misogyny,
Speaker 2: and abusive power running rife in the criminal justice system.
Speaker 2: Their story is, in the end, a love story, but
Speaker 2: one that sheds necessary light on sexual assault and the
Speaker 2: abuse by law enforcement that all too frequently compounds crime
Speaker 2: victims suffering. Book they were featuring this evening is Victim
Speaker 2: f from crime victims to suspects to Survivors with my
Speaker 2: special guests, authors Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn. Welcome to
Speaker 2: the program and thank you so much for this interview.
Speaker 2: Denise Huskins and Aaron.
Speaker 1: Quinn, Hi, thank you for having us.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. This is extraordinary and heart wrenching story.
Speaker 2: Let's start off with I know that this book is
Speaker 2: credited to yourself as authors, but also Nicole Wisen's the
Speaker 2: Egan and people of the program listeners might know her
Speaker 2: from my interview with her discussing her book Chasing Cosby
Speaker 2: and also her podcast. Can you tell us Nicole wisenes
Speaker 2: Egan's role in this book? Please?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean she is a great retour us to
Speaker 1: have and helping us, help guiding us in the writing process.
Speaker 1: We wrote the book from both my perspective and Aaron's perspective,
Speaker 1: as well as interleaving some third person perspectives of our
Speaker 1: family and what was going on the media and law enforcement.
Speaker 1: So she was just a really great advocate to have
Speaker 1: in helping us really share the truth of what happened
Speaker 1: through our voices, because a lot of our story had
Speaker 1: been hijacked by the media and with the lives that
Speaker 1: the police put out.
Speaker 2: You start off this book with talking about a little
Speaker 2: just a little bit about your background before this incredible
Speaker 2: event in twenty fourteen, our pardon me, this incredible event.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Aaron. When you first met Denise, what
Speaker 2: year and tell us a little bit about your your
Speaker 2: move from move to northern California.
Speaker 4: I was working neurological rehab as a physical therapist in
Speaker 4: the city of Lehou where I met Denise in the
Speaker 4: summer of twenty fourteen. During that time, or prior to
Speaker 4: the Antonise, I had broken up with my ex fiance
Speaker 4: due to her infidelity. So when we met, I was
Speaker 4: in a tough situations really from that past relationship, but
Speaker 4: we immediately connected just for our love for therapy, and
Speaker 4: we have similar families and just became a very easy conversation.
Speaker 4: So we quickly fell in love, and up to that
Speaker 4: point of the home invasion, we had time to reach
Speaker 4: across the roads of our relationship as I needed to
Speaker 4: move forward for our past my X and so we
Speaker 4: ended up having a very emotional talk that night. We
Speaker 4: sided that we were going we we're gone commit each other,
Speaker 4: and we went to bed around midnight. We're content on
Speaker 4: the starting over, and then then all this chaos happened.
Speaker 2: Around three am that morning. You write what happened while
Speaker 2: you were asleep? What happened to rouse you from your sleep?
Speaker 2: Both of you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So I I was in a deep sleep and
Speaker 1: was woken too a strange man's voice repeating phrases over
Speaker 1: and over. Wake up. This is a robbery. We are
Speaker 1: not here to hurt you. At first, I just I
Speaker 1: thought it was a nightmare. But when my eyes popped open,
Speaker 1: I stopped flashing white light against the wall and multiple
Speaker 1: red scanning, so we knew that they were armed and
Speaker 1: there was a few people in there. I was instructed
Speaker 1: to tie up Aaron and its ties were left at
Speaker 1: the edge of the bed. I tied him up. I
Speaker 1: was then tied up in the closet. We were given
Speaker 1: blocked out swim goggles to blindfold us, and headphones that
Speaker 1: played these pre recorded messages of instruction. We were eventually
Speaker 1: forced to take a sedative and as a night went on,
Speaker 1: things just got worse and worse, and we realized it's
Speaker 1: not a robbery. And I was told that I would
Speaker 1: be taken for forty eight hours where Aaron would have
Speaker 1: to complete some tasks for my return.
Speaker 2: What was part of the these intruders instructions were not instructions,
Speaker 2: but some of the things that they said in terms
Speaker 2: of monitoring you.
Speaker 4: The kin efforts had set up constraints to force my compliance.
Speaker 4: Though One of them was playing a mirroring app on
Speaker 4: my phone which would allow them to see and I
Speaker 4: text my visits or outgoing calls. They also had set
Speaker 4: up my house up a home prison where they have
Speaker 4: put a camera that would give them by speed what
Speaker 4: I was doing, and I needed to stay within the
Speaker 4: confines of that camera's view. The threats were if I
Speaker 4: went to the police, they would kill Denise. If I
Speaker 4: didn't comply, they would hurt den eath or just as important,
Speaker 4: they would hurt my family as they knew where my
Speaker 4: parents had lived.
Speaker 2: They also said that they talked about your ex girlfriend Jennifer.
Speaker 2: What was it that they asked regarding Jennifer and niece.
Speaker 4: Yes, there was a moment at the beginning of the
Speaker 4: home invasions. I were in my master closet, but they
Speaker 4: eventually separated the two of us, and at one moment,
Speaker 4: the person that we called a voice came back to
Speaker 4: the closet and asked me if if Denise and my
Speaker 4: ex Jennifer look alike, and they gave out a long,
Speaker 4: guttural sigh and I said yes, they both have long
Speaker 4: blonde hair. He replied that this was intended for my
Speaker 4: ex and they got the wrong intel and they needed
Speaker 4: to side what they're going to do next, which we
Speaker 4: had hoped maybe they would just leave because they hadn't
Speaker 4: seen their faces, they had covertly got in, and because
Speaker 4: it wasn't intended for Denise, maybe they'll less go. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: they came back and told me that they were going
Speaker 4: to take Denise for forty eight hours because they leads
Speaker 4: would be good practice for their group, which was a
Speaker 4: black market operation that could get people personal and financial debts,
Speaker 4: for people to hire for personal and financial debts. So
Speaker 4: they were going to take deneth practice their protocols, and
Speaker 4: I would need to pay money than the seventeen thousand
Speaker 4: dollars to get hurt back.
Speaker 2: And how did they make these arrangements? What were their
Speaker 2: planned arrangements to be able to get this money?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the kin Evers had been stocking me for
Speaker 4: at least half a year. Part of reason once they
Speaker 4: said they confused Denise and my ex was that months
Speaker 4: ago they had found a piece of mail addressed to
Speaker 4: my ex fiancee who and that tells us that they
Speaker 4: had been my house long before, because then they all
Speaker 4: had stopped at least half a year before this. They
Speaker 4: actually knew my final ancel records, they knew where I bank,
Speaker 4: they knew my social Security number, and so at this
Speaker 4: point I had about twenty thousand in my bank account
Speaker 4: at the time, and so they wanted two payments of
Speaker 4: eighty five hundred to maintain or to stay under the
Speaker 4: mandated that will reporting limit. In turn, I think it's
Speaker 4: a fairly smart design because they wanted it to be
Speaker 4: a self contained, forty eight hour event. You know, obviously
Speaker 4: if they asked for any amount of money, I would
Speaker 4: be given them to get Denise back. But if they
Speaker 4: asked for a couple of million dollars, one I don't
Speaker 4: have it, and two that would require a lot more paperwork.
Speaker 4: So internity, they wanted something quick, access to the money
Speaker 4: and then get away with it.
Speaker 2: Did they talk about their operation whatsoever?
Speaker 4: Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Was just going to say. And when I was in captivity,
Speaker 1: that's when the man who was with me during that
Speaker 1: forty eight hours, he would describe what that organization was.
Speaker 1: And the same thing Aaron said about it being a
Speaker 1: black market startup company that someone could hire to spell
Speaker 1: personal or financial debts. They said, they've done this before,
Speaker 1: and you know, they are really sophisticated in technology and
Speaker 1: the psychological effects of victims, and so you know, they
Speaker 1: even after the release, will know with the victim appears
Speaker 1: to be wanting to speak to the police, and have
Speaker 1: taken measures to prevent that from happening, like threatening a
Speaker 1: family member. And I mean there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: along the way that just indicated how well thought out
Speaker 1: and planned this was. It is quite obvious that they
Speaker 1: knew what they were doing, and that they would follow
Speaker 1: through with any of.
Speaker 2: Those stretchs with this with Denise going to be kidnapped
Speaker 2: and separated from you, and you even heard the car startup,
Speaker 2: and you say even the trunk being closed. How did
Speaker 2: they How did this group tell you that they were
Speaker 2: going to plan for you to comply? What were those
Speaker 2: assurances for them that you would comply with their orders? Well,
Speaker 2: they took Denise for this forty eight hours.
Speaker 4: So they had installed a mirroring app on my phone
Speaker 4: that would allow them to see my text messages and
Speaker 4: phone calls them. Then they also had installed a camera
Speaker 4: that would allow them to see me within my home.
Speaker 4: I was instructed to keep the blind shot if anyone
Speaker 4: tried to come to my house and they redirect them.
Speaker 4: And they were also going to monitor me when I
Speaker 4: went to the bank. So they had taken Denise in
Speaker 4: my car, but they had told me that they would
Speaker 4: transfer her to a different car in the morning. They
Speaker 4: would give me instruction on where to find my car.
Speaker 4: We found out later that they actually they had a
Speaker 4: high powered drone and they had put red tape on
Speaker 4: top of my car that would allow them to follow
Speaker 4: me with a drone. As I went to the bank.
Speaker 2: Now, given the warnings that they gave you not to
Speaker 2: contact police and that you were being monitored, do you
Speaker 2: believe that they were watching you constantly? What did you
Speaker 2: decide to do and why?
Speaker 4: As one of the perpetrators brought me down to my
Speaker 4: living area where I was supposed to stay for forty
Speaker 4: eight hours, as we're crossing the kitchen tile, electronic dunge
Speaker 4: sound coming from the corner, and I knew right away
Speaker 4: if that sound kept going for forty eight hours that
Speaker 4: I would lose my mind. And I asked them if
Speaker 4: it would continue to make that noise the entire time,
Speaker 4: and then he made a mistake of saying that they
Speaker 4: weren't allowed to get into my router, or they weren't
Speaker 4: they were unable to get into my router and turn
Speaker 4: they were loading the camera through Wi Fi and by
Speaker 4: the morning that pounds just stop once the camera's fully loaded. However,
Speaker 4: I had passed out with the dude seative after they
Speaker 4: had taken denise. Eventually, they will stay awake by eleven
Speaker 4: thirty that morning, and the camera continued to make that
Speaker 4: noise whenever I moved. Finally, the kidnappers as they community
Speaker 4: came through text messers and emails said that I would
Speaker 4: drop the money off Tuesday night and they would turn
Speaker 4: Denise Wednesday morning. And I started thinking that if I
Speaker 4: came with the money, they would take me as well
Speaker 4: and kill us both and the camera continue to make
Speaker 4: that noise. So maybe it wasn't operating fully and I
Speaker 4: needed to risk gain help because I can't trust these
Speaker 4: guys anymore. And that's when I I thought nine one
Speaker 4: one wasn't an option because I could still probably see
Speaker 4: what if I was making phone calls. So I called
Speaker 4: my brother, who's an FBI special agent, and I made
Speaker 4: a decision add to lie some how. My brother's supposed
Speaker 4: to come over and maybe avoid any serious hanson Denise.
Speaker 4: My brother told me to call nine one one because
Speaker 4: they needed to. We needed the full force of law
Speaker 4: enforcement behind behind us to help find Denise, and unfortunately
Speaker 4: the police made everything worse.
Speaker 2: Yes, you you write about that. Immediately after you tell
Speaker 2: your story to police, you know, you recognize that they
Speaker 2: are believing and accusing you of killing Denise, and they're
Speaker 2: talking in that way, I aren't they.
Speaker 4: Please for accusatory. From basically the start, I always knew
Speaker 4: that they would look at me as a suspect.
Speaker 1: They should.
Speaker 4: I'm the last person to see Denise. I didn't realize
Speaker 4: that I was going to be the only suspect. And
Speaker 4: they stripped me down, put me in prison clothes, took
Speaker 4: pictures of me naked, kept me in a terrogation room
Speaker 4: with no clock, no access to the bathroom without them watching,
Speaker 4: separate from my family. And so for the next eighteen hours,
Speaker 4: a I aggressively interrogated me, saying that the story I
Speaker 4: was saying was too bizarre to be believable. And they
Speaker 4: know I killed Denise, and I can either say it's
Speaker 4: an accident, or if I keep denying it, they'll paint
Speaker 4: me as a cold, calculated monster.
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, you are absolutely concerned about Denise and also
Speaker 2: feeling guilty that you've made this decision to call police,
Speaker 2: contrary to what the abductors had cautioned you not to do.
Speaker 4: I knew once I called the police at the clock
Speaker 4: was ticking. I mean, the clock was already taken. Once
Speaker 4: you took then took her in my car. Sous in
Speaker 4: this impossible situation of trying to convince the police to
Speaker 4: investigate and try to save her while they're aggressively going
Speaker 4: after me, So I can't alienate them because I need
Speaker 4: their help. But also I don't want to be in
Speaker 4: that room being psychologically tortured as well, and the difficult
Speaker 4: describe unless you've been in there. But they are trained
Speaker 4: professionals trying to get a confession because they were convinced
Speaker 4: that I had killed her. There was no other option
Speaker 4: and turn we found out later that they they had
Speaker 4: evidence and phone calls that will let him to Deneath
Speaker 4: that day, but they ignored.
Speaker 2: All of it. Now, Denise, while Aaron is worried, and
Speaker 2: Aaron is in now being questioned like he's a suspect,
Speaker 2: take us to what happens to you you're on this
Speaker 2: car ride. Tell us how they keep you unaware of
Speaker 2: where you are and not able to identify your what
Speaker 2: you call the voice the person that has abducted you.
Speaker 2: Tell us about your ordeal and what happens when you
Speaker 2: get to the location.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I when I was placed in the trunk
Speaker 1: of the car, I was still blindfolded and bound. Also
Speaker 1: the saidatives we were forced to take for starting to
Speaker 1: kick in. They had me in the trunk of a
Speaker 1: car for hours to where my body became numb and
Speaker 1: I was in and out of consciousness. So I you know,
Speaker 1: by the time we got to the location where we
Speaker 1: were at, I knew, you know, it had been hours,
Speaker 1: but but couldn't be sure how many. Anytime in that
Speaker 1: next two days, uh, that the voice would come in.
Speaker 1: I had to be blindfolded, so I never saw him,
Speaker 1: you know, but he, uh the first day, had said
Speaker 1: because this wasn't meant for me, they didn't have any
Speaker 1: information on me to hold against me, and so it
Speaker 1: was decided that one of them him would have to
Speaker 1: have sex with me and it would have to be recorded,
Speaker 1: so that way, in the event of my release, if
Speaker 1: they thought I was going to speak to the police,
Speaker 1: they would release it on the internet. And again because
Speaker 1: that it needed to look to my consensual and that
Speaker 1: first assault, I still have these blacked out swim goggles
Speaker 1: on and thought this is not going to look consensual.
Speaker 1: And of course the next day he said it, you know,
Speaker 1: the video footage wasn't good enough or believable enough. For
Speaker 1: the next time, he taped my eyes shut and said
Speaker 1: I had to perform in a way that made it
Speaker 1: seem like we were a couple, and I had to
Speaker 1: get a kiss, and he had to do I had
Speaker 1: to do and say things God, and so I did
Speaker 1: because I one didn't want it to happen again. And too,
Speaker 1: they had complete power over me, so I knew it
Speaker 1: was going to happen one way or another, and I
Speaker 1: was just trying to minimize the violence and the trauma
Speaker 1: of it all. But you know, in the end, he
Speaker 1: did release me. By the end of that forty eight hours,
Speaker 1: he told me that Aaron had gone to the police
Speaker 1: and the media was reporting it. But it didn't scare them,
Speaker 1: to scare them or worry them. They thought it would
Speaker 1: be good pr for the group that they're able to,
Speaker 1: you know, fulfill this this quote unquote mission without harming
Speaker 1: the victim. And yeah, I mean, and I mean the
Speaker 1: whole time in today's captivity, I kept telling him, I
Speaker 1: believe that you're gonna kill me, and I was making
Speaker 1: peace of the end of my life. And so I was.
Speaker 1: I was in shock that he actually did follow through
Speaker 1: with releasing me.
Speaker 2: You were finally released, and you didn't know even though
Speaker 2: he kept assuring you that they were not to hurt you,
Speaker 2: they he would not hurt you. He had those assurances
Speaker 2: that you would not be heard you were finally released.
Speaker 2: We won't go into the circumstances when you were released
Speaker 2: and how the police get to you right away, but
Speaker 2: suffice to say that when you speak to police now
Speaker 2: that they had accused Aaron of this, of your kidnap
Speaker 2: and murder, now that police realize that you are free,
Speaker 2: you recount your story to them. What is their response
Speaker 2: to your story once you've been released.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it was clear later on because the second
Speaker 1: day of captivity, I was forced to record a proof
Speaker 1: of life. And by the way, when I was still
Speaker 1: in captivity, the way that the police spoke to my
Speaker 1: family and the text questions that they had, they even
Speaker 1: mentioned the gone girl thing, it was clear just because
Speaker 1: I was alive that they believed that this was a hoax.
Speaker 1: So before even me being released, it was clear that
Speaker 1: was a decision. I was released in my hometown in
Speaker 1: Huntington Beach, California, and I spoke to the local police
Speaker 1: within an hour or so. I was at a neighbor
Speaker 1: of my dad and I told them about the home
Speaker 1: invasion and the kidnapping, and the whole time I'm speaking
Speaker 1: to them, I'm worried about what might be released publicly,
Speaker 1: as especially as media was gathering outside, because before I
Speaker 1: was let go, the voice had said, you know, you're
Speaker 1: going to have to speak to the police, and went
Speaker 1: to the police. You can tell them about what happened,
Speaker 1: except you can't say that any one of us is
Speaker 1: in the military or anything about the sexual assaults. And
Speaker 1: so I had that kind of way over me as
Speaker 1: I was speaking to Huntington Beach Police at the end
Speaker 1: of it. The first contact that I had with a
Speaker 1: Vallet Hoe Police detective Matt Mustard, he told a family
Speaker 1: member that he basically he didn't believe me. He was
Speaker 1: going to be offering me immunity and he was going
Speaker 1: to offer it to me and Aaron, whoever took it first,
Speaker 1: would get it.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 1: That was the indication that I needed a criminal defense
Speaker 1: attorney to help protect me.
Speaker 2: What about the FBI's involvement in this? I talked about
Speaker 2: Valletjo PD and Matt Mustard, But how do the how
Speaker 2: and why did the FBI get involved and who do
Speaker 2: you both get to speak to in that regard?
Speaker 4: During my interrogation, I was told that because of the
Speaker 4: adult connecting for ransom, that the FBI would be involved,
Speaker 4: and this was maybe twelve hours after I had gone
Speaker 4: to the Blehoe police.
Speaker 2: They asked at.
Speaker 4: One point for me to take up polygraph to eliminate
Speaker 4: me as a suspect, which I agreed to mainly I
Speaker 4: think because I was sleep deprived and traumatize. A special agent,
Speaker 4: Peter French, administered a polygraph, which he said I had
Speaker 4: failed miserably and again went on the fact I killed
Speaker 4: the niece. Later on, a couple other FBI agents get
Speaker 4: involved and one of them ends up question Denise but
Speaker 4: doesn't question me. I'll let her take up from here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So once I obtained a criminal defense attorney, we
Speaker 1: decided that I was going to go in for questioning
Speaker 1: because that was the only way to potentially capture these
Speaker 1: terrorists and I didn't want this to happen to anyone else.
Speaker 1: And I was told by my defense attorney, you know,
Speaker 1: the FBI is going to be involved, and I thought, okay, great,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe this is just a bad decision making
Speaker 1: from local police department. The FBI has a lot of resources,
Speaker 1: Aaron's brothers an FBI agent, it would be great. But
Speaker 1: they treated me the same way and threatened me with prosecution,
Speaker 1: and that lead FBI agent who questioned me. At the
Speaker 1: end of the questioning told my attorney was ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent sure I was lying, and that my attorney should
Speaker 1: watch the movie Gone Girl. It would help explain a lot.
Speaker 1: About six or so weeks later, as Aaron and I
Speaker 1: are talking and going, you know, why were we questioned
Speaker 1: by different people? And I couldn't remember the guy's name,
Speaker 1: And when we discovered what his name was, Aaron remembered
Speaker 1: that his ex who was the intended targe of this kidnapping,
Speaker 1: had had a prior relationship with the lead at the
Speaker 1: iagent and it was never disclosed to eid In one
Speaker 1: of us.
Speaker 2: Are attorneys interesting? Let's stop for a second for these messages.
Speaker 3: Lucky Land casino asking people what's the weirdest place you've
Speaker 3: gotten lucky?
Speaker 4: Lucky?
Speaker 3: In line at the Delhi I guess Ahi, in my
Speaker 3: dentist's office more than once. Actually do I.
Speaker 4: Have to say? Yes? You do?
Speaker 1: In the car before my kid's PTA meeting?
Speaker 3: Really? Yes, excuse me?
Speaker 4: What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 1: I never win in tell?
Speaker 3: Well, there you have it. You could get lucky anywhere.
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Speaker 4: Are you feeling lucky?
Speaker 1: No, we're not necessary void my long eighteen plus terms
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Speaker 2: Now you've mentioned this Jennifer Aaron's Aaron, your ex Jennifer
Speaker 2: had dated an FBI agent, and then you just mentioned
Speaker 2: denisus mentioned that she was interviewed by n FBI agent
Speaker 2: and didn't put two and two together till later tell
Speaker 2: us about Dave Sesma and more about this seeming conflict
Speaker 2: of interest, and then you talk about your lawyer, Denise
Speaker 2: making a formal complaint to the FBI about this. So
Speaker 2: tell us about what happens with this complaint and this
Speaker 2: investigation now that there's someone else to look at seriously.
Speaker 1: I mean, we finding this out, We're like, well, this
Speaker 1: is I mean, this is outrageous, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: at the very least, this is this conflict of interest
Speaker 1: could potentially bias his investigation. And it was clear for
Speaker 1: months after the kidnapping that their sites were only on
Speaker 1: Aaron and me. And so we tell this to the
Speaker 1: federal prosecutor to let him know, and then yeah, I
Speaker 1: just sent attorney rights the Department of Justice, and we're
Speaker 1: trying to get people to realize that we need new
Speaker 1: investigators on this case if if they ever have a
Speaker 1: chance in catching these criminals. And it was essentially all
Speaker 1: ignored and dismissed or saying, you know, it's not our problem.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, the kidnappers were free to hurt
Speaker 1: more people. And in fact, the one who held me
Speaker 1: captain and rape me was then caught just a few
Speaker 1: months after my kidnapping by a different police department for
Speaker 1: terrorizing another family. And it was just really devastating to
Speaker 1: find out that the only way that the truth came
Speaker 1: out was because they were free to attack other people.
Speaker 2: You write about your s s art, your sexual assault exam,
Speaker 2: and your treatment by staff and police regarding your allegation
Speaker 2: that you were sexually assaulted. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 2: about this ordeal of yours.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, once I've spoke to my criminal defense attorney and
Speaker 1: told them how I was threatened not to mention the
Speaker 1: sexual assaults, he had said, you know, if you speak
Speaker 1: to police, you have to let them know you can't
Speaker 1: let these these people have power over you. And the
Speaker 1: first thing we need to do is get you to
Speaker 1: the hospital. So when he was calling the police to
Speaker 1: try to get an exam scheduled right away. Their response was,
Speaker 1: you know, how do we know she was raped? And
Speaker 1: you know, we'll wait to set up the exam until
Speaker 1: she comes in and talks to us, and that I
Speaker 1: needed to keep my clothes on and not shower, not
Speaker 1: wash my hands or brush my teeth, and I had
Speaker 1: to essentially wait another twenty four hours. I had to
Speaker 1: go in and and prove to them that the exam
Speaker 1: was worth setting up. And the whole time, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm terrified that the decision to talk to the police
Speaker 1: is going to not just hurt me, but my family,
Speaker 1: because my family was threatened and too. I had told
Speaker 1: them that based on the defenseless position I was in,
Speaker 1: I didn't fight. I didn't they weren't violent, quote unquote
Speaker 1: violent assaults. And I the whole time I'm in the exam,
Speaker 1: you know, my legs open and being examined. Internally, I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: you know, is my body going to betray me? Should
Speaker 1: I have fought and made this more obvious that it's
Speaker 1: a rape? And sure enough later and the FBI Affidavid
Speaker 1: for the rest of Matthew Moeller. It says in the
Speaker 1: affid David that there was no signs of non consensual sex,
Speaker 1: which again discounts the fact that I was raped. I
Speaker 1: do want to say though, that the nurses who did
Speaker 1: perform the start exam were really kind and respectful and
Speaker 1: they I didn't ever feel judgment or biased from them.
Speaker 1: I mean, they were really helpful. So it wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: the staff, but it was law enforcement that that really
Speaker 1: revictimized me.
Speaker 2: Talking about revictimization, Aaron, I'll ask you first right away,
Speaker 2: when you were released from questioning, what was the media response?
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about the police press conferences
Speaker 2: that they that they had they held. Tell us about
Speaker 2: the media response and what the police said in those
Speaker 2: at those media conferences.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Sin Denise was released Wednesday morning and spoke to
Speaker 4: the local police at Hunton Beach them was offered community
Speaker 4: to say the whole thing was made up. During that
Speaker 4: time period, I was also offered by the police community
Speaker 4: to say the whole thing was made up as well.
Speaker 4: And then later that night, so by nine point thirty
Speaker 4: that night, you know, just less than twelve hours after
Speaker 4: Denise was released and without gaining speaking to her directly,
Speaker 4: the Voho Police with Lieutenant Kane Park when and held
Speaker 4: a press conference and he declared the whole thing a
Speaker 4: wild goose shape and that we had waste of valuable
Speaker 4: resources from the community and still feared into the community,
Speaker 4: and that we owed the public apology. And unfortunately the
Speaker 4: media just ran with that statement and didn't question law
Speaker 4: enforcements portrayal and repeated there and not repeated but amplified
Speaker 4: their false claims, and in turn, Denise was labeled the
Speaker 4: real life gone girl, that the case went international news
Speaker 4: and our reputations were destroyed in an instant. And if
Speaker 4: it wasn't for the fact that Matthew Moore attacked another
Speaker 4: family and the Dublin Police did their job, our reputations
Speaker 4: would never been restored. And again when the real tragedy
Speaker 4: is another family got attacked. Though police misconduct makes the
Speaker 4: public unsafe. Now it hurts the victims, but also hurts
Speaker 4: the community as a whole.
Speaker 2: What we haven't spoken about and I guess we won't
Speaker 2: have full time to explore, But it's the police pressure
Speaker 2: on you and Denise when they talk about this offer immunity.
Speaker 2: Only one of you is going to get it all
Speaker 2: along this time you have When Denise speaks about finally
Speaker 2: attorney Doug Roboport believing her story. That's what you have
Speaker 2: for an extended period of time. Only family believes your story.
Speaker 2: Almost everyone else believes that this is a concocted story,
Speaker 2: don't they.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're fortunate that we have the financial means to
Speaker 4: hire lawyers like Doug Rappaport and Dan Russo and Amy Morton.
Speaker 4: We spent about one hundred and forty thousand dollars on
Speaker 4: criminal defense attorneys and we weren't even charged with the crime.
Speaker 4: Fortunately for us, they really advocate for us and believed
Speaker 4: our account, partly because if I are, details of the
Speaker 4: home invasion matched perfectly, and for two people that come
Speaker 4: up with that crazy of a story that matches would
Speaker 4: be almost impossible, and that's something law enforcement should have
Speaker 4: known as well. So during this time we had a
Speaker 4: great safety unit as far as our family and our
Speaker 4: close friends who believed us, but otherwise our jobs were
Speaker 4: looking to fire us. We kind of worked this because
Speaker 4: the trauma, but even if we wanted to, we weren't
Speaker 4: able to, and we just were kind of nomad, just
Speaker 4: with each other and our family in real desperate situation,
Speaker 4: trying to figure out how we're ever going to get
Speaker 4: out of this deep and dark hole.
Speaker 2: How did the attorney wrap for fair with the FDI
Speaker 2: making the complaint about Dave Seesma and this magnificent conflict
Speaker 2: of interest being able to interview Denise made. What comes
Speaker 2: of this investigation that he tries to bring to the
Speaker 2: FBI to investigate their own.
Speaker 1: Really nothing comes of it. That was you know, the
Speaker 1: difficult part about all of this is you can kind
Speaker 1: of wrap your head around people who are motivated to
Speaker 1: cause harm and terrorize, but you think, you know, there's
Speaker 1: law enforcement that's going to help help you that you
Speaker 1: can turn to and just step by step, every bit
Speaker 1: of the way, it was just one blow after another
Speaker 1: after another. It's just this great disappointment, especially knowing how
Speaker 1: good law enforcement can be. You know, Aaron's brothers an
Speaker 1: FBI agent, and his colleagues that he work with, you know,
Speaker 1: they do incredible work and they're really intelligent, and so
Speaker 1: it was just deeply disappointing that that all of this
Speaker 1: occurred and then there's no accountability. There was nothing changed.
Speaker 1: It was the same investigators on the case throughout, and
Speaker 1: so we as victims who have really no power to investigate,
Speaker 1: are just sitting there going Okay, I guess this is
Speaker 1: what we're this is what we're stuck with.
Speaker 2: Doing this. What is the status of your relationship. I
Speaker 2: know that you were separated for a firm amount of
Speaker 2: time and that you had that difficult conversation before this
Speaker 2: home invasion ever occurred. What was your relationship like during
Speaker 2: this ordeal?
Speaker 1: I mean, our bond just grew stronger, you know. We
Speaker 1: our connection when we first met and first started hanging
Speaker 1: out was just it was instant. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: think of what a soulmate is and could be, I've
Speaker 1: we've felt that with each other, you know. So we
Speaker 1: are perhaps in a rare position of going through a
Speaker 1: trauma like this where we were able to work through it.
Speaker 1: And a big part of that, too, is that we
Speaker 1: never blamed each other for any of it, and we've
Speaker 1: have a unique understanding for what each other is going
Speaker 1: through as far as PTSD and you know, having our
Speaker 1: names and reputations being dragged through the mud. We also
Speaker 1: have really strong, you know, family support and a core
Speaker 1: group of friends that I think all of that combined
Speaker 1: helped help strengthen our relationship.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about this home invasion in South Lake Tahoe.
Speaker 2: Give us some of the details that you were well,
Speaker 2: that you were aware of. This is in Dublin, California.
Speaker 4: Then, so, in the middle of the night, a intruder
Speaker 4: came into house, the family's home in Dublin and had
Speaker 4: a similar m o of wakem to go with a
Speaker 4: red laser site. This time, however, the intruder said your
Speaker 4: daughter is safe to the father and was close enough
Speaker 4: that the father decided to fight back, where in our
Speaker 4: scenario the kidnappers that zip tied on the bed instead
Speaker 4: ten to fifteen feet away. During that struggle, the wife
Speaker 4: was able to get her phone and call nine one one,
Speaker 4: and the home invader fled, but he left his personal
Speaker 4: cell phone, which the police were able to track to
Speaker 4: Matthew Moeller and then Ki Molar and South Lake Tahoe,
Speaker 4: which matched the location of where Denise was held. And
Speaker 4: in South Lake Tahoe they found evidence that connected him
Speaker 4: to our crime as well. So my laptop was there
Speaker 4: Denise's The address where the ki nappers dropped Denise off
Speaker 4: was in the cards jup yet and they eventually found
Speaker 4: the recordings of the sexual assault at in at South
Speaker 4: Lake Tahoe home.
Speaker 2: What was the conversation like, once the FBI realized that
Speaker 2: what you would both had said was the absolute truth,
Speaker 2: what was that conversation? Like?
Speaker 4: The FBI didn't contact us til about three weeks after
Speaker 4: this Dublin evasion, and it was I think more than
Speaker 4: a week after they knew that Moeller had was connected
Speaker 4: to our crime. They basically told us that they ran
Speaker 4: with this case and there was no way to solve it.
Speaker 4: We found out later that the knappers had been calling
Speaker 4: my phone and they had tried to angulate these three
Speaker 4: phone calls to South Lake Tahoe within two hundred square
Speaker 4: meters of the house. So they had its evidence for
Speaker 4: months and that on it and did nothing. And unfortunately,
Speaker 4: there haven't been accountability or their you know, the conflict
Speaker 4: of interest and their sheer lack of basic police work.
Speaker 4: And so we're as these said, we were left with
Speaker 4: the same vestigators who said I killed her, and the
Speaker 4: same bestgaters of the hoaster, and they haven't they really
Speaker 4: haven't course corrected.
Speaker 2: What was the media response to this new information clashed
Speaker 2: with the information that they've been releasing for all this time.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, for the most part, the media coverage
Speaker 1: changed in our favor Uh, and I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess in a way, it was a lot of
Speaker 1: blame to the Valeo police. How could they have messed
Speaker 1: this up? There was also a lot of responsibility from
Speaker 1: the media that they could have asked the appropriate questions
Speaker 1: early on and could have minimized some of the the
Speaker 1: trauma that we had gone through. But at least now
Speaker 1: things were shifted in our favor and the truth was out.
Speaker 1: Yet still, you know, you plant that seed of doubt,
Speaker 1: and there's certain people in the public that still blamed us,
Speaker 1: and in particular me, you know, thought I might have
Speaker 1: still been involved in some way, or said that I
Speaker 1: was shady, or you know, still reached out and sent
Speaker 1: hateful messages. In time, that's gotten less and less, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's still people who refused to accept that
Speaker 1: they were wrong about their belief of us.
Speaker 4: Our civil attorneys ascribed to a verbal tattoo, and I
Speaker 4: think that's an accurate portrayal of what happened.
Speaker 2: Before. We talk about that civil action, legal action. What
Speaker 2: about Matthew Mahler's plea deal? What about his legal situation?
Speaker 2: How was it dealt with?
Speaker 4: So he played guilty to federal crime and has received
Speaker 4: a forty year sentence. Currently, he's also being charge at
Speaker 4: the state level, which is a pending case. I think
Speaker 4: for us, we know that he is a dangerous individual
Speaker 4: or we just don't want him to hurt anyone else. Again,
Speaker 4: maybe more importantly, we were able to speak at the
Speaker 4: victim statement and actually be able to have our voices
Speaker 4: heard through us, not through our attorneys or through the media.
Speaker 4: And that was an empowering situation. And let Jeans talked
Speaker 4: about her experience during a victim statement.
Speaker 1: I mean for me to finally look, you know, my
Speaker 1: captor and rapist and the eye, uh, because anytime I
Speaker 1: was with him, I was blindfolded, and you know, he
Speaker 1: did what he wanted with my body in my life.
Speaker 1: So for me to see him face to face and
Speaker 1: have him really see me, and it was empowering. And
Speaker 1: not only him, but we had you know, the whole
Speaker 1: courtroom was full of our friends and our family, and
Speaker 1: then also a lot of reporters who had initially been
Speaker 1: reporting the lives that the police gave. So it was
Speaker 1: helpful to to have everyone see ces. You know, we
Speaker 1: weren't just a story or a headline. We're real people
Speaker 1: that were suffering.
Speaker 2: What about the idea of the civil of a civil lawsuit?
Speaker 2: Tell us about that?
Speaker 4: So we end up doing the City of Lejo and
Speaker 4: Detective Muttern and King Park and the Chief for defamation
Speaker 4: and false imprisonment, whether violation due process. You know, Fortunately,
Speaker 4: we would like to have seen some sort of change
Speaker 4: within this department, but they haven't shown any interest in
Speaker 4: policing themselves or holding themselves accountable, and you know, public
Speaker 4: attention and civil lawsuits are a way to create pressure
Speaker 4: and change. We were able to reach a settlement for
Speaker 4: two point five million with the city in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: But even during this civil process that the Layhill kept
Speaker 4: doubling down on that it was just too bizarre of
Speaker 4: a story to believed, or what they said, Denisan act like
Speaker 4: a victim, despite saying depositions that they're trained that no
Speaker 4: victims act the same, and the detective Monster lies in
Speaker 4: a foreign statement as well, saying that he refused to
Speaker 4: talk to police, which was categorically untrue. So they they
Speaker 4: have continued this lack of accountability, that the city councils
Speaker 4: continue to inflate and protect them, and unfortunately that the
Speaker 4: lay Hill police have a terrible relationship with the community
Speaker 4: and poor track record, and we're helping, maybe even pressure
Speaker 4: from the book and that they will make something improved
Speaker 4: because the community deserves better and the good officers within
Speaker 4: there and that department deserved better as well.
Speaker 2: How did they explain that Dave Sesma was able to
Speaker 2: question denise? Did they ever answer that?
Speaker 4: All right? No? And on top of that, my brother
Speaker 4: had sent did an internal affairs report and the response
Speaker 4: was that agent Sesma just close his relationship with the prosecutor,
Speaker 4: and the prosecutor deemed it wasn't important, even though that
Speaker 4: is not actually the process. Jess No needed to actually
Speaker 4: disclose it to supervisor, although he is an acting supervisor
Speaker 4: for his regional agency at the time, so we don't
Speaker 4: know if he We haven't been shown that he disclosed
Speaker 4: it in a sort of proper manner. And unfortunately he's
Speaker 4: also been promoted during this time period as well.
Speaker 2: Jus wow, was there any official word from Jennifer about
Speaker 2: any of this? No.
Speaker 4: I think some of the problems are what happens our
Speaker 4: case is where there's a lot of questions with how answers.
Speaker 4: That's not unique to victims. You know, many people have
Speaker 4: the trauma happened to them, and then you can't find
Speaker 4: as desperate as you want to find answers, you're not
Speaker 4: going to be there. So for us, it's more about
Speaker 4: moving forward with the pillars that are important to us,
Speaker 4: and that would be our relationship. We were married in
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen. We have a beautiful daughter who was born
Speaker 4: exactly five years to the day of Denise's release, and
Speaker 4: we're able to get back to being physical therapists and
Speaker 4: helping people, which is hard of reason why we fell
Speaker 4: in love with each other in the first place. And
Speaker 4: we're hoping that the book will be another way to
Speaker 4: help at larger scale.
Speaker 2: And what about your work at this Kaiser clinic and
Speaker 2: what about the job that you were about to start
Speaker 2: and again as a therapist, Denise? What about that work?
Speaker 2: What about that future?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I was at Kaiser in Balletje to specialize
Speaker 1: in the neurological population. So I was there for a
Speaker 1: nine month residency and that was literally just finishing up
Speaker 1: that week that I was kidnapped. But there was a
Speaker 1: job opening in a nearby town that I could potentially
Speaker 1: transfer to and stay in the Kaiser system because there
Speaker 1: was also another fellowship of training that was going to
Speaker 1: be a year and a half long that I was
Speaker 1: applying to as well. So basically all, you know, everything
Speaker 1: just went away and I was eventually able to There
Speaker 1: was one exam left for the residency I was in.
Speaker 1: I was finally able to schedule it, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: allowed to go into the hospital to take it. I
Speaker 1: took it out in essentially a trailer next to the hospital,
Speaker 1: but I completed it. It took me a year to
Speaker 1: build up the courage to try to start working again.
Speaker 1: I was afraid that people would see me as a
Speaker 1: liar and hoaxter and wouldn't trust me with their care.
Speaker 1: You know, we literally put our hands on people to
Speaker 1: help promote healing and rehabilitation, and who would trust me
Speaker 1: if they think of me like that? But you know,
Speaker 1: we both were able to to start working in a
Speaker 1: different way, and we moved out of town and so
Speaker 1: now we're back to doing what we love. And in
Speaker 1: some ways, the trauma, you know, the kidnapping and the
Speaker 1: assaults have helped me dive deeper with some of my patients. Uh,
Speaker 1: not only the physical trauma that they endure, but the
Speaker 1: emotional psychological component and how that affects the body.
Speaker 2: And what is the message that you have both of you,
Speaker 2: Aaron and Denise, For people that read this book, what
Speaker 2: is the overall message? What would you like to impart
Speaker 2: the people that read this book.
Speaker 1: I think above anything, there is hope, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you could go through the unimaginable where you know you're
Speaker 1: dealing with trauma and at some points you feel like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm never going to get past us, this
Speaker 1: is hopeless. There is still hope. There's a light at
Speaker 1: the end of the tunnel. And if you're still struggling,
Speaker 1: I think us sharing our story and hearing from other survivors,
Speaker 1: it really does help give you strength to keep fighting.
Speaker 2: Anything that you would like to impart Aaron from this story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the other part of what we liked why we
Speaker 4: told it from our point of view, from this point
Speaker 4: view myself, to walk people through our experience as victims
Speaker 4: and as we say, transition to survivors. I hope as
Speaker 4: people read this book, maybe they before they pause a
Speaker 4: break on rushing to judgment when they see a story
Speaker 4: or they see a headline, because you don't really know
Speaker 4: the whole story, and I think there's an opportunity now
Speaker 4: with social media to send real hurt and hate to
Speaker 4: people with very little consequences, with the person typing out,
Speaker 4: who's going through something bad? And you don't need to
Speaker 4: throw stones. It's okay to they I don't know, it's
Speaker 4: okay to pause. And we're hoping that we provide a
Speaker 4: little empathy and compassion to this world through by sharing
Speaker 4: our experience.
Speaker 2: Yes, it certainly is a fantastic example of again not
Speaker 2: rushing to judgment, especially considering this dramatic end to the
Speaker 2: story with the smaller being convicted and having all this
Speaker 2: evidence right at that crime scene too. It really must
Speaker 2: have been hard for you to realize that it took
Speaker 2: that that event, It took that extraordinary effort and that
Speaker 2: extraordinary event to be able to prove your innocence.
Speaker 4: Finally, Yeah, we're in many ways, we're actually the fortunate ones.
Speaker 4: They're estimated over two hundred thousand innocent people in prison
Speaker 4: in the US system. There are many mythcaracters of justice.
Speaker 4: We were fortunate that ours actually was turned around within
Speaker 4: months and seven years or decades orherever. But I did
Speaker 4: take a massive break and some luck and quality police
Speaker 4: work from Dublin and from detective misty and without her
Speaker 4: our I don't know where we would be. And uh,
Speaker 4: they're awful police work by the FBI and Lahook Police,
Speaker 4: but on Yasta and there's great work by Detective Carolussu
Speaker 4: And she is a real hero of ours and was
Speaker 4: at our wedding and at our baby shower and we're
Speaker 4: very lucky to have her in our lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, incredible, You right too, that she wasn't she was
Speaker 2: a brand new detective, wasn't even going to be a
Speaker 2: detective to the next day, So it was incredible the
Speaker 2: extraordinary effort that she did do in this case. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you both for coming on and
Speaker 2: talking about victim F from crime Victims to suspects to survivors.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us if there's a Facebook page or
Speaker 2: where they might find out more information about this book
Speaker 2: and this case.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a Facebook page under the same title of
Speaker 4: victim F and they also find more about us and
Speaker 4: where to perch the book at victimth dot com.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you so much, Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn.
Speaker 2: This has been extraordinarily compelling interview. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Victim F from crime Victims to suspects to survivors Denise
Speaker 2: Huskins and Aaron Quinn. Thank you so much for this
Speaker 2: interview and you have a great evening. Good night, thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you. Good night.