A Harvard-trained lawyer with a violent criminal history who appeared in the Netflix documentary “American Nightmare” has been charged in separate Bay Area home invasions, the latest in a series of incidents in recent weeks. It is a suspicion.
But tracing the decades-long criminal connections has been a long and strange journey.
A ragtag and unlikely law enforcement team assembled by the two victims featured in the documentary, Dennis Haskins and Aaron Quinn, spent the last 10 months before approaching local authorities. He said he received clues about the crime and even an alleged confession from Matthew Mueller. Jurisdiction of the case.
In total, Mueller, 47, is currently charged with or convicted of at least six different violent crimes that began when he was 16 years old.
“It’s unfortunate it took this long,” Haskins said Tuesday. “I truly believe this is the tip of the iceberg.”
In the infamous episode chronicled on “American Nightmare,” Mueller broke into a Vallejo home in March 2015, drugged and detained Haskins and her boyfriend at the time, Quinn. Mueller put Haskin in Quinn’s car and they drove together, eventually taking him to the family’s cabin in South Lake Tahoe. He held her there for two days and sexually assaulted her before driving her across California and releasing her in Huntington Beach.
Vallejo police accused the couple of lying about the kidnapping and went public claiming it was a hoax.
Nevertheless, several months later, evidence collected from a June 5, 2015 home invasion robbery in the Bay Area community of Dublin helped authorities link Mueller to the kidnapping. Mueller ultimately pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexual assault and is serving a 40-year sentence at federal prison in Tuscon.
Haskins and Quinn, who have since married, sued the Vallejo Police Department for defamation and reached a $2.5 million settlement in 2018.
On Monday, Mueller was charged in Contra Costa County with three counts of kidnapping for ransom in a separate 2015 incident that occurred two weeks after Mueller kidnapped Haskins.
In the Contra Costa case, Mueller broke into homes in multiple incidents, culminating in an early morning in April when he carried a ladder two miles to the San Ramon family’s home and climbed into a second-story window. It is said that he climbed up and tied up the husband and wife. And their son. Authorities allege Mueller forced her mother to go to the bank that morning and withdrew $30,000, threatening to harm her family if she asked for help.
Authorities said the woman complied, but her family did not report the crime because they feared Mueller would threaten them.
The charges come more than a week after Mueller was indicted in Santa Clara County on two counts of attempted burglary and attempted rape that allegedly occurred in 2009, both against Haskins. It was uncovered by a team assembled by Quinn. Superior Court Judge Hector Ramon ordered Mueller to return to court on January 17th for arguments in the case, and he remains in the Santa Clara County Jail. No arraignment date has been set in the Contra Costa case.
“We knew from the beginning that there was more to this, and obviously the way things were handled from the beginning led to a lot of mistakes,” Haskins said in an interview Tuesday. . “There was no one in our law enforcement agency that I could trust and feel was doing the right thing in this case.”
Haskins said she has had two questions over the years that authorities have no interest in answering. The question is: Did Mueller act alone, or were there other victims? While she was in Mueller’s custody, Haskins told her that he was working with a “team” that would continue to monitor her after she was released and threaten to harm her if she complained to authorities, the complaint said.
“What he told me in captivity had the hallmarks of a serial predator,” Haskins said. “Mueller said he had done this before.”
It wasn’t until the release of “American Nightmare” last January that Haskins and Quinn found the law enforcement help they were looking for.
Nick Borges, the police chief for the Monterey Bay town of Seaside, is a true crime buff and felt he had to contact Haskins after watching the show. Borges said she wanted people to know that despite her past experiences, she has law enforcement support.
“Words can’t explain how it feels to be supported like this,” Haskins said at a press conference in Seaside on Tuesday.
Even if Borges had nothing to do with this incident, that did not stop him from getting involved. He grew up in Monterey, the son of Portuguese immigrants who became firefighters, and grew up a “juvenile delinquent,” he said, having run-ins with the law until he decided to wear a badge. This background has given him the belief that police must focus on relationships and trust.
He invited Haskins and Quinn to a Seaside law enforcement meeting and shared his belief that the police’s focus on Quinn’s guilt led the investigation in the wrong direction. Borges also persuaded Detective Misty Caraus, who was ultimately responsible for Mueller’s arrest, to come.
There the four met in the El Dorado County area. Atty. Byrne Pearson — and the seeds of a new investigation were sown.
In addition to having jurisdiction over the South Lake Tahoe cabin where Haskin was held, Pearson has long sought to change the way detectives are trained in California and across the country.
While old-fashioned interrogation methods popularized by TV shows like “Law & Order” glorify detectives who rely on their gut to hunt down suspects, Pearson said investigators rely more on gathering facts than making demands. I believe that they need to be trained in scientifically supported interrogation methods. Confession.
California has moved in recent years to train detectives in an evidence-based interrogation model, but a 2021 bill that would have required such training to become standard going forward was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. It was done.
At lunch after the meeting, Mr. Haskins and Mr. Quinn expressed their grievances to Mr. Borges and expressed their desire to contact Mr. Mueller personally for answers. But the couple feared it could pose a risk. Borges offered to write to Müller on their behalf.
With Caraus’ help, the four spent several weeks writing the first letter before Borges mailed it. Borges said he wrote: [Muller’s] “Fear,” and said he believes “people are inherently good.”
Borges said he received an immediate response and swore that Mueller had acted alone. Borges said Mueller claimed to have new religious beliefs and began detailing other crimes to increase his credibility.
Borges said Mueller wrote back to him, which was followed by a letter from Mueller, which allegedly contained legal declarations confessing to other crimes.
“He just started spilling the beans,” Karaus said. “Literally, when I read some of the letters, I couldn’t believe he was so proactive.”
Mr. Pearson, who was working with the FBI and other agencies, received new information and traveled to Tuscon, where Mr. Mueller is imprisoned, in November to interview Mr. Mueller in person. Pearson said Mueller shared more information over two days, including information about the Northern California attack he claims he committed when he was 16 years old. Pearson said the incident is still under investigation.
In the San Ramon incident, Pearson said he helped Mueller draw a map of the canyon where he abandoned the ladder he used to climb into a second-story window. Pearson said his office contacted the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, which searched the area and found the ladder nine years after the crime.
“This is a very unusual and frankly crazy set of facts,” Pearson said. “But the investigation leads us to where they are.”
Mr. Haskins, Mr. Quinn, Mr. Borges, Mr. Caraus and Mr. Pearson say the investigation is not yet complete and contend there may be more unsolved crimes committed by Mr. Mueller.
But they also have other goals. It supports Pearson’s efforts to change the way detectives are trained to handle interrogations. Quinn and Haskins said they want to prevent what they went through at the hands of law enforcement from happening to others.
“The reality is they didn’t believe me from the beginning, and that led the entire investigation in the wrong direction,” Quinn said.
Authorities questioned Quinn for several days while Haskins was in custody, pressing false suspicions that Quinn had harmed her and tried to cover it up.
Later, after Mueller released Ms. Haskin, police would accuse her of lying about the kidnapping.
“I’m really happy that we finally have a team that’s going to do things differently,” Haskins said. “The overall message is how powerful it is to listen to victims and take what they say seriously, and how easy it is to follow the facts and evidence.”
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