'Gone Girl' kidnapper charged with Bay Area home invasions from 2009

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Matthew Muller, who is serving simultaneous 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 years earlier.

Authorities say Muller wrote self-incriminating letters to a Monterey County police chief, stating he wanted to reveal his crimes to expose shortcomings in modern policing.

Muller, 47, was transferred last week from a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, to the Bay Area, where he is being jailed in Santa Clara County, records show.

He was arraigned on the new charges Monday afternoon in a San Jose courtroom. Muller did not speak, did not enter a plea and stood in a court hallway during the brief hearing. He was returned to jail, with his next court appearance set for Jan. 17.

A botched Vallejo police investigation eventually gave way to Muller’s being prosecuted for the 2015 home invasion and kidnapping of Denise Huskins. About a month after Muller’s arrest, the FBI said that he may have committed other crimes that partially followed the pattern of the Vallejo kidnapping, offering new details of that crime and asking for the public’s help.

Fueled by a refreshed DNA examination, those allegations culminated in criminal charges in Santa Clara County. Muller was formally charged Nov. 18 with two counts of assault with intent to commit rape during a first-degree burglary.

The Vallejo scandal — briefly thought to emulate the fictional book and film “Gone Girl,” which feature a staged kidnapping — continues to capture the imagination of Hollywood and media, with a Netflix documentary, “American Nightmare,” released earlier this year. The documentary apparently played a role in the decision by Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges to start a letter-writing exchange with Muller that led to the new charges.

“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 a statement. “Our hope is that this nightmare is over.”

One of the then-unsolved cases was reported Sept. 29, 2009, when Muller allegedly broke into a woman’s Mountain View home in the early morning hours. The victim told police that she woke up to a man in a ski mask pushing her face down in her bed and telling her he was committing an identity theft robbery.

The intruder then reportedly handcuffed the woman and bound her ankles with “some sort of Velcro restraint,” according to a police report. Over the next two hours, the man made several phone calls and at one point carried the woman downstairs before returning her to the bedroom. He also apparently made her drink Nyquil and used her phone to send text messages to her employer stating that she was calling in sick.

The woman said the man stated his intent to rape her but that she was able to persuade him to change his mind. Eventually, he left after telling her to practice better home security.

A few weeks later, on Oct. 18, Muller allegedly broke into a Palo Alto home and ambushed a sleeping woman while wearing a mask over his head. A police report states that she described a man speaking in a “low growl” — as if he was “knowingly trying to disguise his voice” — while restraining her with fabric fasteners on her ankles and arms, putting plugs in her ears and covering her eyes with surgical tape.

The woman was also made to drink Nyquil. At some point, the man again stated his intention to rape her before she pleaded with him by describing a past sexual assault, which apparently caused him to relent.

He then warned her against calling police and left, according to the police report.

Muller was considered a suspect early on, but DNA analysis was inconclusive. Earlier this year, the investigations into the two home invasions were revived after Palo Alto police were contacted by Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges, who had been corresponding with Muller at his Arizona prison, according to a Palo Alto police report.

In April and May, Borges reportedly received letters from Muller in which he volunteered information implicating himself in the 2009 home invasion assaults, offering details that closely aligned with police reports and the victims’ accounts, which were not readily publicly available.

In one letter, he reportedly described his coming forward as the assailant as part “of a common goal of (protecting) victims and strengthening laws for future potential victims.”

Borges contacted Palo Alto police. The renewed investigation connected Muller’s apparent new confession with a reexamination of DNA traces from the fabric fasteners used in the home invasions.

Deputy District Attorney Brian King said advances in DNA analysis provided the final corroboration authorities needed.

“Over the past 15 years, we have developed testing with a combination of using different methods to develop a DNA test with higher sensitivity so that it can make more accurate comparisons,” King said.

Muller is serving a 40-year federal 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 prosecuted separately in Solano County. During the state case, he was held in Napa State Hospital and ordered to take antipsychotic medication until he was declared legally competent to participate in his defense.

On March 23, 2015, Muller broke into the home of Huskins and 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, 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 she was released.

When Huskins and Quinn reported the kidnapping to Vallejo police, authorities accused the two of making up the abduction, which would eventually lead to police issuing a public apology and the city paying the couple a $2.5 million settlement.

Muller, a former Marine and Harvard-educated attorney, was arrested in June 2015 in connection with a home invasion in Dublin; a subsequent investigation recovered evidence from the Vallejo case, including a video of him assaulting Huskins .