Netflix has released a true crime documentary from the makers of The Tinder Swindler about the story of the 'real-life Gone Girl'.
The doc follows the stories of Aaron Quinn and his girlfriend Denise Huskins after she was kidnapped in 2015.
In March 2015 police got a call from a man in Vallejo, California to report that his girlfriend had been kidnapped the night before.
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30-year-old Aaron soon became the prime suspect in the disappearance of his 29-year-old girlfriend Denise, and police wanted to know why he didn't place the call when the kidnapping happened.
Police interviews with Aaron feature in the first episode of American Nightmare and show how authorities thought they'd got their man in the kidnapping case.
Aaron told officers that the couple were woken up at 3.00am by intruders telling him 'this is a robbery' before sedating him and kidnapping Denise.
Detectives told him his story didn't make any sense and that he'd failed a polygraph test, but all the attention on Aaron shifted after the kidnapper sent an audio message from Denise saying she was still alive.
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When she then showed up in her hometown 400 miles away from Vallejo suspicion moved onto Denise as authorities wondered whether they'd instead been dealing with a hoax.
Pretty soon people were wondering whether there was a connection between this real life story and Gone Girl, with the movie based on Gillian Flynn's book being released only months before Denise's disappearance.
American Nightmare features interviews with Aaron and Denise, along with footage of their police interviews, as they tell their side of things.
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The true crime documentary from Netflix says it 'unravels the consequences of our cultural rush to judgment' and seeks to shine a light on the 'damage done when law enforcement decides the truth can’t possibly be true'.
If you want to know what happened to the couple, someone claiming to be the kidnapper contacted the San Francisco Chronicle to dispute claims of a hoax.
They sent images of where Denise had been held and a man was eventually arrested in connection with her kidnapping.
Police tracked down a man named Matthew Muller and arrested him, in 2016 he pleaded guilty to kidnapping, drugging and sexually assaulting Huskins, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
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Denise then sued Vallejo Police Department for claiming she was trying to pull a hoax, and eventually received a settlement and an apology.
She and Aaron ended up getting married.
American Nightmare is available to stream on Netflix.
Topics: Netflix, True Crime, US News, TV and Film
Joe Harker