True crime fans have been gripped by the latest Netflix series and it turns out the story has some disturbing parallels with another documentary.
American Nightmare centres on the shocking case of Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn after an intruder broke into their home Vallejo, California, in the dead of night and kidnapped Huskins.
However, when a distraught Quinn called the police he found the finger of suspicion pointed at him - and when his partner returned home 48-hours later the case began to be compared to Gone Girl.
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For those who haven’t read the book by Gillian Flynn, or seen the movie adaptation, Gone Girl is a fictional story about a woman who fakes her own kidnap to seek revenge on her husband.
Upon her return, Huskins and Quinn were accused of coordinating an elaborate kidnapping hoax.
Vallejo Police Department even held a press conference where they accused the couple of wasting resources.
The force said: "Mr Quinn and Ms Huskins have plundered valuable resources away from our community and taken the focus away from the true victims of our community while instilling fear among our community members.”
However, the couple were eventually vindicated after an attempted kidnapping in Dublin, California was found to have several similarities to Huskins’ case.
An ex-marine named Matthew Muller was arrested for the Dublin kidnapping attempt after he left his phone at the scene.
Muller was later identified as Huskins’ kidnapper and was eventually sentenced to 40 years in prison for kidnapping, robbery, and rape.
Opening up about the ordeal, Huskins said: “It didn’t make any sense to have law enforcement - the people who have the power to investigate and to help - just turn against you. It made it that much more frightening.”
She added: “I don’t know what needs to happen to me, what needs to happen to any woman for them to be believed.”
The sentiments expressed by Huskins in the docu-series mirror those in the Netflix documentary Victim/Suspect.
Much like what Huskins went through, Victim/Suspect hears from several young women who reported sexual assaults to the police only to be accused of lying about their allegations.
Journalist Rae de Leon uncovered numerous cases of victim-blaming despite the women’s allegations being truthful.
One survivor told Leon: “I was raped, and they told me I lied about it.”
You can check out Victim/Suspect and American Nightmare on Netflix now.
Topics: Netflix, True Crime, TV and Film
Claire Reid