Six years before he abducted Denise Huskins in a notorious case that generated the “American Nightmare” documentary series, Matthew Muller allegedly assaulted two women in the South Bay, authorities said Monday.
Muller, convicted in the 2015 Vallejo kidnapping of Huskins, is facing new charges in a series of previously unsolved home invasions, prosecutors said.
Advanced forensic DNA testing led authorities to charge Muller, 47, in two 2009 home invasions and sexual assaults, in Mountain View and Palo Alto, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
Muller’s DNA was found on straps he allegedly used to bind one of the victims in the 2009 assaults. He was arraigned Monday afternoon in Santa Clara County Superior Court on suspicion of two felony counts of committing a sexual assault during a home invasion.
In the early hours of Sept. 29, 2009, authorities allege Muller broke into a woman’s Mountain View home, attacked and then tied her up, made her drink a concoction of medications, and said he was going to rape her.
“After the victim, in her 30s, persuaded him against it, he suggested the victim get a dog, then fled,” the district attorney’s office said.
In the second attack, on Oct. 18, 2009, Muller allegedly “broke into a Palo Alto home, bound and gagged a woman in her 30s and made her drink NyQuil,” prosecutors said. Muller allegedly started to assault her but was persuaded by the victim to stop. “Muller gave the victim crime prevention advice, then fled,” the district attorney’s office said.
Echoes of Vallejo case
Huskins’ abduction in 2015 was the the subject of “American Nightmare”, a Netflix documentary series that chronicled her kidnapping, and police and FBI suspicions that the abduction had been staged with her boyfriend Aaron Quinn.
Muller, a former U.S. Marine, broke into a Vallejo home on March 23, 2015, and tied up the young couple.
He took Huskins to a cabin in South Lake Tahoe, where he sexually assaulted her. Two days later, he drove Huskins to Southern California and released her, according to police.
Vallejo police initially believed the invasion and kidnapping was a hoax perpetrated by Huskins’ boyfriend, generating the reference to the novel and film “Gone Girl.”
Muller was eventually arrested for both the Vallejo kidnapping and a violent Dublin home invasion.
He pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and sexual assaults of Huskins and is serving a 40-year prison sentence at a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona.
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