SAN JOSE — Matthew Muller, who is serving multiple lengthy prison sentences for kidnapping and raping a Vallejo woman in a case that drew international infamy after police wrongly accused the victim of fabricating the ordeal, is now being charged with home invasions in Mountain View and Palo Alto reported several years earlier.
Matthew Muller (Dublin Police Dept.)
Muller, 47, was transferred last week from a federal prison facility in Arizona back to the Bay Area, where he is being held in the Santa Clara County Main Jail, records show. He was scheduled to be arraigned on the new charges Monday afternoon.
In the wake of the botched Vallejo police investigation that eventually gave way to Muller being prosecuted for the 2015 home invasion and kidnapping of Denise Huskins, the FBI alleged that in 2009, Muller broke into the homes of three women in Mountain View and Palo Alto, then drugged and interrogated them before fleeing.
Those allegations have now culminated in criminal charges in Santa Clara County, where the district attorney’s office announced Monday that DNA from Muller was found on crime scene evidence from two of the 2009 home invasions.
One of the cases was reported Sept. 29 of that year when Muller allegedly broke into a woman’s Mountain View home, assaulted and tied her up, forced her to drink a “concoction of medications,” and threatened to rape her. After the victim pleaded with him, he did not sexually assault her and reportedly gave a bizarre directive to the victim by telling her to get a dog before leaving.
A few weeks later on Oct. 28, Muller is accused of breaking into a Palo Alto home and binding and gagging a woman before making her drink Nyquil. After again being talked out of committing a rape by the victim, he “gave the victim crime prevention advice” then fled, according to prosecutors.
The DA’s office said in a news release that District Attorney’s Office had its crime lab reexamine evidence gathered by Mountain View and Palo Alto police, which led to Muller’s DNA being found on straps used to bind one of the women.
Muller is serving a 40-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to the Vallejo kidnapping, and in 2022 he was sentenced concurrently to 31 years in state prison after pleading no contest to two felony rape charges that were charged separately in Solano County. During the state prosecution, he was held in Napa State Hospital and ordered to take antipsychotic medication until he was declared legally competent to participate in his legal defense.
According to authorities, on March 23, 2015, Muller broke into the home of Huskins and her husband Aaron Quinn, bound them with zip ties and blindfolds, then drugged them with a sleep-inducing substance. The victims had headphones placed over their ears, and were played a recording that suggested more than one kidnapper was at work.
Muller left Quinn behind and put Huskins into the trunk of Quinn’s car and drove her to a family home in South Lake Tahoe. At the Tahoe residence, Muller twice raped Huskins, and held her for two days before driving her to Huntington Beach in Southern California where he released her.
When Huskins and Quinn reported the kidnapping to Vallejo police, they accused the two of making up the abduction, which would eventually lead to police issuing a public apology and the city paying the couple of a $2.5 million settlement.
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The kidnapping was compared by media at the time to the 2014 film “Gone Girl,” which involves a false kidnapping as a central plot point. Like in that film and the book that preceded it, Quinn was initially treated as a primary suspect in his wife’s disappearance.
Muller, a former Marine and Harvard-educated attorney, was arrested in June 2015 in connection with a home invasion in Dublin, and a subsequent investigation recovered evidence from the Vallejo case, including a video of him and Huskins was recovered at the South Lake Tahoe home. Prior to that he had contacted a San Francisco Chronicle reporter to argue that the crime had actually happened at the hands of a group of elite criminals.
Authorities would later contend that Muller used a drone to spy on Huskins and Quinn prior to breaking into their home.
The crime continues to capture the imagination of Hollywood and media, with a Netflix documentary “American Nightmare” released earlier this year and the victims authoring a book about their experiences in 2021.
“Our goal is to make sure this defendant is held accountable and will never hurt or terrorize anyone ever again,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in statement. “Our hope is that this nightmare is over.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
