What You DIDN'T Hear on Netflix's 'American Nightmare' - Crime Junkie AF | Forensic Files

this episode contains mentions of graphic or sensitive material that may be triggering listener discretion is
[Music] advised hi everyone and welcome back to the show made by the crime junkie Ashley
flowers for those who are crime junkie AF and today I have not one but two special guests that are here to share
their incredible story and listen I've covered a lot of cases but this one is wild it made head lines in 2015 when it
was falsely dubbed the real life Gone Girl and their story was also chronicled in a widely popular Netflix docu series
American Nightmare you guys have also co-authored a book titled victim F from Crime Victims to suspects to survivors
and you're now advocating for the wrongfully accused and convicted and so I am so honored to welcome Denise and
Aaron Quinn doctors of physical therapy to Crime junk EF welcome thank you thank
you for having us yeah thank you I know that uh this weekend you guys are here in Indie In the Flesh because you guys
were at an event working with an organization that does a lot for the wrongfully convicted on your life bingo
card is this where you thought you would end up and what you'd be doing absolutely not no yeah no I envisioned
working as a physical therapist and yeah maybe starting a family um which check check yeah doing that but all yeah no I
how could you even imagine yeah any of this yeah and you want to obviously people can go read your book they can
watch the documentary but for those who don't know your story do you can you please walk us through a little bit of
how you found yourself in the situation you are now way back in 2015 yeah so I uh I moved to Vallejo
California in 2014 to pursue a physical therapy residency to specialize in working with people with severe
neurological disorders so um traumatic brain injury spinal cord injury uh GBS ALS um and so it was a 9mon residency I
was expecting to be there temporarily I was not expecting to meet the love of my
life Aaron spoiler alert we have a happy ending um but we yeah we we met um working at the hospital together and we
had a shared passion for what we were doing and we would just find ourselves at Social Gatherings just kind of
gravitating towards one another um we talk about family and friends and sports and life and uh I was surprised at how
quickly we fell in love were you oh yeah yeah without question was um yeah we just hit off right away and
like we would just spend hours talking to each other and um it was yeah pretty amazing right I mean it
was expected and also the timing was not ideal um cuz Aaron had just gotten out of a relationship and his ex also worked
in the hospital with us which plays into uh a lot of also what happened um because she was the intended target of
the kidnapping and the police chose not to believe Aaron partly because of the complicated uh relationship situation
surrounding that um but again our our love was undeniable and uh yeah we just so that the when
this all when the story starts when when all this takes place you guys were actually like coming together right that
evening to like have a talk about like what is our relationships what are the next steps and obviously you guys
decided you wanted to move forward right but then your life took a a left turn right what
happened well we went to bed that night and we were woke into um a voice saying uh this is a robbery we aren't here to
hurt you stay calm and continued speaking and instructing me to tie Aaron up I was tied up um they put blacked out
swim goggles over our eyes headphones over our ears with pre-recorded messages of
instruction um we were hoping that it was just a robbery we could hear the other Intruders downstairs opening
drawers and and a drill being used and so we both just individually thought okay if we're compliant and we do what
they say then they'll take our belongings take our money that's fine then it'll all be over um but that's not
what happened and as the night progressed uh they separated me from Aaron and then uh I was told they were
going to be taking me uh for 48 hours and um initially the the Voice who was speaking he said you know this is we
have a problem this wasn't intended for you we got to figure out what we're going to do but ultimately they decided
to continue with the kidnapping and um I was put in the trunk of a car what were you thinking uh at that
point you like it can't be a robbery in your head anymore no I mean that that yeah at that point I I knew it was going
to be taken and I didn't know what was going to happen next and we were forced to take sedative so at that point the
sedatives already kicked in I've got zip ties binding me I don't know what's happening with Aaron and there's they're
threatening us you know if you don't cooperate we're going to uh cut your partner's face or give electric shocks
we could hear tasers being um or stun guns being like Zapped across the room um as threats obviously uh so it was
hard you don't want when it's just you maybe maybe you'd fight maybe you'd try something but when they're threatening
the person that you love you don't to do or say anything that could lead them to
getting hurt or killed and that's what they used against us you know um and it wasn't clear what the kidnappers were
going to ask of Aaron they didn't specifically tell me CU and I thought I mean I knew he had some money in his in
his savings or something but there was nothing in our lives that was out of the ordinary that was that would lead us to
think that anything like this would happen so they take her away and you wake up and then what happens well they
had provided instructions the night before saying that I needed give them two payments of $88,500 to stay under
the $10,000 Federal mandated reported limit they thought about it yeah so yeah the kidnappers knew where I banked they
knew where my parents lived they had um done their research on me uh and so they
also had threatened if I went to the police that they would go after my family they told me if I called the
police they would kill Denise um and basically just pay the money and we can move on with our lives so they put me
down at in my living room which I had uh taped off areas where I needed to stay there was a camera set up in The Corner
Room saying that they were going to monitor me they also said they had put a mirroring app on my phone so they could
see if I was texting or calling anyone and um I was supp supposed to stay there till received instructions on going to
the bank and they were going to follow me to the bank um later in when I finally woke up from
the stives um was like midday and I got some emails from the kidnappers communicating tell me about that they'll
instruct I just needed to wait basically and then um at a certain point I realized I can't trust these people I
mean obviously I didn't trust them in the first place but it realized I needed to get help
and uh eventually I decided to call 911 um which is still like the hardest decision I ever had to make
CU my feeling is if I call the police I know I'm going to be safe but uh if they
kid I proce that call 911 that they will kill Denise uh and they were asking for am of money
that I could give them but uh figured if I show up with the money they could just
take me and kill us both and then there's no Witnesses so when the police but I decided to call the police and when they
show up at the house are immed immediately accusatory uh asking if I've been partying if I was on drugs and I
was like I've been drugged by the kidnappers but they kept on asking me are you partying did you have a party
last night and I was kep going no but they that's what they seem to focus on did you feel like you were like in the
upside down like I I feel like I would be so taken aback but like I called you for help what the [ __ ] are you talking
about yeah even the the camera that the kidnappers had installed was making some
noises they just went over and unplugged the camera and I was like what are you doing like there wasn't any did not seem
like they were taking any of this seriously just like uh no gloves just no gloves yeah yeah and eventually they
seem to back off but they said like come to station give a statement which I was
like I'm here to help so I'll get a station and I kind of already knew that they would at some point think that was
this like love triangle that went astray um between Denise and my ex uh but I was
like I know that this actually happened and evidence supports me uh unfortunately I went with like a mindset
of innocent person and you can't actually do that because they uh very quickly put me in prison clothes at the
police station um and then started uh interrogating me for about 18 hours saying that I need to confess that I
killed Denise um I'm just making up this crazy story that no one would believe um
and it's either I it was an accident or I'm a cold calcula monster but there was no
question that Denise was dead um when a detectiv said I'm not looking for alive Denise I'm looking for a dead Denise and
I've accepted that and you need to accept that so they just hammered away for me
at me for hours and and and um I mean they stripped him down naked took photographs of his naked body
then put him in jail clothes so it just everything was very strategic to break him down which is what they do and they
isolated him from his family his family was there he kept asking for his family they said I don't know where your family
is but yeah and they wanted to see him and it's like it's like they could only operate in the box that they knew and
what what happened to you guys was so calculated and abnormal they they only could look at it
through this like boyfriend kills girlfriend lens mhm and they also didn't actually investigate anything and we
find out later they literally didn't look at a single thing and they didn't bother reach out to other departments
which if they had they would found out Theo that was done in our case there were similar crimes prior to you guys
prior to us in the Bay Area so they they just straight up didn't do anything and just said well I
don't believe them and they're going to try to get a confession that was like their goal even after I asked for
attorney they didn't get me attorney they sent my brother in who's an FBI special agent telling him to try to get
a confession from me uh he's the only reason why I got an attorney because when he when they allowed him to leave
uh he was straight up in the parking lot Googling criminal defense attorneys for
murder in valo and he end up finding my attorney Dan Russo who was the only reason why I got out of uh the
interrogation cell because they were just going to keep me there indefinitely until you broke exactly and actually the
detective told my brother I would like to try a few more things instead of get me in Turney because it does not matter
to them cuz um cuz they just can they can hold you and just do that to you and they'll and
people generally don't think about like why would I confess to something I didn't do and that's but if they hour
after hour after hour that's the only thing that they'll accept they kept on telling me you need start the story over
that makes sense we can't start with it you know three people breaking in your house that didn't happen so tell us that
you did it and often a lot of people confess not thinking that they did the crime just to get it to stop because
it's psychological torture it's horrible yeah I I've seen it happen over and over
where it's it's they're like you can get out of this room and in there in everyone's mind it's like okay well I
can get help when I'm out of this room right now I'm by myself I'm with them like once I'm out of this room we can
all figure this out they'll they'll see that I didn't do it but there is no getting out of that room once they get
what they want right and that's a thing confessions get convictions even false confessions and so and jurors just don't
understand the the pressure that is put on the psychological manipulation a lot of people think well why would you
confess to something you didn't do wait till you're in that position and and they're trying to break you down yeah
there's about 8 80% conviction rate on if you confess regardless of physical evidence so they've there's been cases
where someone falsely confessed they weren't even in the same state and they got a conviction because of that and
that's a problem with um our system here is that people uh were so caught up on gain confessions as like a gold standard
but uh it doesn't matter the confessions shouldn't matter unless there's actual evidence to back it up which there is a
law Corpus dcti like there there is supposed to be that you're not supposed to be able to ICT someone just based on
a confession you are supposed to be able to show in physical evidence circumstantial evidence reasons why they
could have done it as well stuff to back up that confession but I've seen so many
instances where that just like goes out the window MH yeah I mean and the most tragic thing of it all is that they had
Aaron's phone they should have been monitoring it someone put it on airplane mode and that first night they missed
phone calls from the kidnapper who was holding me captive they could have traced it they could have rescued me
they could have spared one of the rapes that I had yeah so it um and it's just all because of their tunnel vision they
were just so focused on Aaron and they missed evidence that could have led them to be the heroes in
this yeah and to continue the how extreme it went so police said I had killed Denise I was able to get out
of the police department but um eventually Denise was released by the kidnappers and they said have taken it
seriously the police within hours um said it was a hoax and that they tried to pin Denise I against each other
saying that one of us will get immunity but not both to say that it's all made up uh and at that point is that just to
like cover their own ass or or do they do you think they really like believed this in their heart of hearts I mean
they were they were angry if you see the press conference Kenny Park gives um saying that it's a wild goose chase
we've plundered valuable resource on nothing so I guess I'm nothing uh but he he's smug he is he's angry and we find
out later that the chief of police instructed him before he went out there to go burn that [ __ ] I mean that's the
mindset that they were in all of these men had no idea anything about me they interviewed my family my family said all
these positive things about me um one of the things that clicked to the lead detective was my mom told
him that um I was molested when I was 12 and he was like oh well you know that could be a reason for some to to make up
a story like this and at that point too I'm still missing my mom doesn't know if
I'm really alive or dead and she's having the lead detective say oh well she was molested okay then she you know
she must be suspicious and and they don't know you from Adam before it's not like you guys have a history with law
enforcement like someone just decided yeah aon's brother is in the FBI I like how you know like what yeah it's hard to
understand that level of hate and that that just that close-minded tunnel vision is just yeah and I honestly can't
tell you what the police were thinking because like the mental gymnastics that they had to go through to get to a
murder to now we're doing this together to and we're Den's labeled the real life
gong girl uh I don't even know what the end goal would have been in their mind they were saying at least they mentioned
that we were looking for our 15 minutes of fame um which I was like we have Doctorate Degrees I mean I I only I
think I had a Facebook page I don't like we're not people trying to be out you know uh on social media trying to expand
ourselves like we're Denise was there was there was nothing that would have given them that indication yeah and
again they didn't um they couldn't Express like why we would like any motivation to it uh andan it literally
was they It's s they just saw the movie and they're like aha you know I mean and
that's the scary part that these trained professionals including the FBI you would think would know better and go by
a different standard um instead of getting their tips from fiction and to the point of where they
put my phone on airplane mode the kidnappers had called um they didn't track those phone calls till 24 hours
later they actually tracked them up to South Lake Tahoe they never went to South Lake Tahoe to examine uh the area
at all which we later find out Denise was held in Tahoe uh and after the press conference where the
police say was a hoax the kidnappers even sent emails going like this actually happened we'll give you all
this evidence of like because they were stealing cars on the island they had broken other people's houses they were
they had been doing a string of crimes that they're like this is what we've been doing and we did kidnap them and
the police said one of lawyers was potentially writing the the emails or my brother was writing the emails or we
made it up because I had I was on next door which is like you know a community message board so they said aon's on an
active member on next store so he knew about these crimes I'm like how the what the what the [ __ ] and there's details in
the emails that were not posted on next door that you wouldn't be able to know like specific things that they stole and
then things that they didn't steal they chose not to steal that whatever Xbox because they already had one or so
there's just things in it that like there's just no way we would have had that information well that it's just
like what's so insane to me is is this narrow-mindedness like fine look at you guys sure but like also while you're at
least exploring all of the options but they truly went on a hunt for just the pieces that fit into this theory that
they made up out of nowhere yeah the lead detective literally says I'm a puzzle maker and I'm going to fit the
puzles together to make it look like you're a monster I mean it's just he said that out loud yeah I recently
reviewed the interrogations and I was like oh my it's just every time it's it's still
hard oh he's he's still working on payroll he's going to get the pension he got promoted um he got awarded he was given
an officer of the year that year he's also uh was a head of Union the Union for 9 years um so he has tremendous
power we've heard from other officers in that department who say that this is what he does he just bullies people we
know that he's uh withheld evidence in other cases uh he lied on sworn statements in our lawsuit he's um I
don't say it slightly he's just a dirty cop that has no accountability and no one holds him to
any sort of standard and now he's going to retire with full pension and the city
will be pay him he makes over 250,000 a year and they'll just be paying him for his
retirement does that make you want to flip a table I want to flip a [ __ ] table it's well it yes it does uh maybe
a little bit more than that too uh the problem is like you know de I are in the grand
scheme of things like the lucky ones out this we we weren't convicted but that took uh us hiring criminal defense
attorneys that cost us $140,000 um um my brother's an FBI agent do you think about that like the like
$140,000 is not is not something that a huge majority of the world has has at their disposal much less like that they
can actually like put up it's the system is is not made for the people who often need it the most right
yeah and I mean my the only reason we could afford it my family was cuz my grandma passed away the year before and
my dad got an inheritance it's like how would I have even you you'll lose homes you'll lose like you'll go into debt
like hoping that get your life back we're both fortunate to have the families that we have like I've got a
big family remember talking to my cousin I'm like how do I get cuz he's the first
one I saw we're like okay we need a criminal defense attorney I'm like how am I going to pay for this and he's like
don't worry Denise we're gonna figure it out we'll all be there to support you but it just it is daunting like how do
we even how do you how do you fight the FBI like who do you turn to I mean at one point breaking point I turned to
Aaron sobbing cuz my mom was sobbing in the Next Room she's like why are they doing this to my baby girl and I don't
have an answer to give her and I'm crying to him going like who do we call like Obama was President at the time
like do we call him like what a ridiculous statement you know like he's got more important things but that's
just the desperation of and the the power of of the highest agency attacking you which is like to go back to I mean
this this guy who's going to go live his life with his pension there's like it feels like there's no accountability no
like you you do you wield so much power and you're given praise but like when things go wrong it's like ah innocent
mistake I mean like it's almost like that's what they chalk it up to all the time like ah it was a mistake you know
we tried to fix it no big deal but okay it is a big deal like people lose their livelihoods to like if they end up on
the other side most people don't end up on the other side of it right well they also kept on saying that this case was
too bizarre too crazy for anyone to solve and then you actually look at like well you know tracking the phone calls
you know at your job yeah exactly so they try to say that they weren't malicious they just made mistakes um and
still blaming us so we we pursued a lawsuit against the city and the police department and throughout the whole
thing uh were lies and well we couldn't believe them because they weren't acting
like victims lying saying that I didn't say that I was a victim even though I did say was a victim of kidnapping and
and I'd be I'd be so angry at that point too and so like I I yes you're a victim
but I also be like I I don't have to [ __ ] act any certain way for you you're coming from like my whole life MH
it's important no there's no set way that Vic victims act and and even during our lawsuit when we're deposing um the
chief of police he's told that yeah I'm trained that victims all act differently
that's a really good so like how was a victim suppos act and like what we did was I called for help I answered all
your questions I like gave you my blood my DNA I literally gave you clothes off my back Denise answered all the
questions that she was asked until they accused her of her crime and then she got attorney which is all right but they
said they told me that she lawyered up and therefore that was a sign of guilt not excluding the fact that they accuser
of a crime which you know getting a defense attorney is a a good idea um they offered me a profer of agreement
and I'm like what is that I so like I mean of course I'm going to get an attorney you know it's like you're
diagnosed with cancer and then people go oh my God you got an oncologist like well that's so weird must faking it yeah
like what so all of this was to say is like um the system can railroad people and we have
met people who have spent decades in prison and they are innocent and they eventually you know very few get
exonerated um but they get their lives stolen and and there's tends to be very little accountability for the officers
who um do this type of thing so uh especially ones like in this almost willfully ignorant or malicious way to
protect themselves over protecting the public and unfortunately not only is it to officers involved in the case but to
supervis ERS who don't do anything about it went to the local prosecutor and she
said we asked him like like who watches the Watchmen right like who police the police and her response was well they do
their own investigation if they bring it to us then we'll pursue it so I'm like oh you get to grade your own paper and
guess what they always get an A+ and then they and they never get to go to the principal's office yeah and then
they never turn away from it so I'm like so they are complicit with that too and
that just erods like confidence and mhm uh it hurts hurts the good officers who are
doing their job because the bad officers get promoted and it uh affects the culture and like at every level and
that's some of the harsh parts of this like you can understand like there's the kidnappers are you know quote bad people
or there's people out there who aren hurt or have power in that way that's easier to understand and the quote the
good people doing the bad things and then not again not having any sort of of safeguards for that they can just do
that to you to you and again we're lucky that we had the resources financially and the support systems that with our
friends and family and then uh a few months later when the kidnappers attacked another family which is even
more of a tragedy because you when you falsely accuse or wrongfully convict people you let the real perpetrator go
and so he was emboldened to attack another family and thankfully there was a detective on her first case
connected him to our crime and that's why we're proven innocent we weren't not not guilty because it's one thing be
like well yeah they're still a little shady but we're I you know we can't prove it but they probably did it
because for whatever reason they thought but we're actually just proven innocent
which is uh so rare and yeah she made the Hero wall I when I was watching her in the documentary she was amazing so
there are there are they're not all bad like there are some good ones doing the work but it's really hard for them to do
good work because they have to Wade through so much [ __ ] yeah and uh Misty the detective was has told us that
she had people not like fill went col her back there was like lack of communication like everyone's like
Territorial and like um it's almost like pissing matches like it's that like that
childish and she was really disheartened that way cuz she thought hey we're all in here let's let's catch this guy like
let's do the right thing like this is man is breaking into people's homes in the middle of night he uh he's raping
people like this is a really dangerous person this is not um this is not someone
who was doing like selling drugs because they had no other way to make money or that or that's what they grew up with he
was trained he's a Harvard lawyer lawyer or trained at Harvard Law uh this is a man had like a lot of privilege in his
life he just he's a predator he want he wanted to attack people and do it and he's a careful and patient criminal did
he do to the next family what he done to you like like does it seem like he stalked them knew about their lives and
all I don't uh I don't know if the stalking was as long or if they if there was a specific reason that he targeted
targeted them um other than maybe just the location of their house I think it was near a fire road so that's where he
escaped out of um but I don't I don't know exactly did you guys ever get an answer as to why you no not a definitive
answer no and again it's it's the I can't trust the investigation so you know they've completely miss the
opportunity to catch him even after I was released maybe they didn't rescue me but they had the calls Trace them to
South Lake Tahoe they didn't from all the police reports we looked at including the FBI report there's no
indication that they actually investigated and again they attacked another family um and even after that so
our attorneys were writing the department of Justice to say we need new investigators like this is there the
lead FBI agent had had a prior relationship with Aaron's ex so there's a conflict of interest you know there's
clearly people's judgments are are we we can't trust them um but then we had the
doj say it's not our problem and it's not a problem and they can stay on the case and we're like how I mean just the
it makes you feel crazy well yeah I mean you really do like I was like is this am
I in Twilight Zone did I literally go crazy like this can't be our reality Yeah well yeah it's like it just feels
so black and white what is right and what is wrong and then for people to be like but this is just the way it is
you're like so wrong like oh yeah we got a lot of people in that position being like oh I've worked you know law
enforcement for 20 years I'm the professional and just like what I don't know what you've been doing but uh that
scares me definitely if you're if you're considered the the best that's yeah they were we were told often
this is like how things are done and then my brother is um my brother is one of the smartest people I know and like I
know a lot of colle colleagues who are like dedicated smart agents and we just happen to get frankly just incompetent
and shitty agents on they they aren't they're not equipped to investigate a case like this or that's not their
history was and they should have got more help but they would tell us like this is how things are done like well
actually I know these aren't how things are done and if if this is how it's done
then like we should probably change like uh and we're not expecting like law enforcement be infallible it's really
hard to solve cases um people make mistakes but like you need to like upgrade and like evolve and like and not
just like sit there and be like but yeah this is okay this is acceptable that we
didn't do our job and then protect themselves and that that's incredibly frustrating to be in that field like we
work in the medical field like you know in the medical field we used to do lobotomies like we did some terrible
stuff but we don't do those anymore because you learn and from it so like any professional should learn and and
change and like even the city of Leo the police department said they didn't make
any procedural changes um after his case uh and so they just don't want to learn
and they rather blame us and that's part of reason why we keep telling our stor that uh yeah again the justice
department can like railroad people and and from outside you might go like well they you know they they're professionals
they investigated like but you start digging deeper and you probably know more than us is like that there's a lot
of times where they just don't do their job and then they but they have someone in custody so then that person becomes a
scapegoat and uh people you know listeners will probably serve on jury like you should understand like just cuz
an officer said this person confessed like well how was that confession done was it was it actually backed up on
evidence like how many hours was that person put there like you need that all recorded because they leave you alone in
a small room air conditioning on like no warmth like I didn't get like you don't
have any food even if you're hungry like you're away from your family they just like they literally put you in box and
then keep going at you like we're mentioned ear earlier so if someone confesses after and most confessions
happen after like 6 hours so like someone they go like oh they confess at hour 12 and I don't give a [ __ ] what
that like why did it take 12 hours like do some actual investigation and uh people should really be uh skeptical of
like what law enforcement is saying because we are innocent till proven guilty yeah and even reviewing a lot of
the court documents the affidavit uh and the police reports just seeing how much
the narrative is manipulated and what they write and how they write um it's it it distorts the truth definitely and I
think I saw one officer's summary and was like oh okay this is actually objective but that was out of dozens of
of things that I've read from the officer so uh it's it's a little there's there's always a lot of context missing
I mean even when you if you just talking about confessions alone maybe there's a lot of it recorded
now in 2024 but when we started getting recorded confessions even we work on so many cases that are older what I see
more often than not is we get 20 minutes of them saying that they did it in this
like Perfect story and then what we don't get is the 18 12 whatever hours that led up to that and the 35 times
they said I didn't do it I didn't do it I didn't do it and I even had a case recently where they would like start the
confession and something would go wrong he's like oh no we're going to pause we're going to rewind the tape and like
start again oh God yeah so what people don't realize it's not just a confession it's a rewriting of the confession so
they won't the officers won't just take a confession they'll go they will make it or as they were telling me let's
start over so the story makes sense and that is not uncommon that they go the person starts not they don't know the
details because they're falsely confessing and go oh stop let's add that detail because then they know when they
get to trial they be like this person only knows details that the perpetrator would know but they fed them and if they
don't record it before you don't see the feeding of it so it is a rewriting of it
and that it's hard for people to understand even Central Park 5 case uh they had they used five different
confessions to convict all five boys uh and they made one person he had to give them multiple different confessions to
tie them all together so that obviously wouldn't hold up if you like compare them side to side mhm uh but they the
officers know that and again that's like they know confessions get convictions and that needs to change because we're
the only country that allows officer like developed country allows officers to lie to um to suspect so they will
continue to lie to you I'm me like we've got your fingerprints we've got your DNA
they'll stay that easy they lie to victims lie to family members like in our case so yeah and so like the only
thing that the police officer said that was truthful to me was uh that they didn't believe me I would yeah that's
the only thing that they said was truthful mhm when you guys so you are one of the lucky ones that not only did
you fight it and win but you they you got proved to be innocent right what was life like right after that I mean did
you dive head first into all this advocacy you've done or did you was there a moment where you just kind of
like had to get your feet on the ground again oh no it's it's been a almost nine
and a half year Journey uh initially you know it was about us trying to get all the information to defend ourselves cuz
we were preparing to go to court and because they were threatening us with prosecution and
then uh you know my cap rapist is caught for that other crime and then it's okay
let's focus on making sure he gets the largest sentence that he deserves to protect victims and so you know in that
three years of um that criminal case and then our civil lawsuit we were still silent and I was definitely not on
social media because I was getting death threats and just hateful just the worst
things that people can say um and it's just all over the board like my looks and who I am and it's just um even after
people knew that you didn't do it yeah and then there was still the doubt so that's the thing you know they say
something immediately and they put it out publicly and that's the plants that seed of doubt and so people because they
believe so hardly about that um they don't want to let that go because they don't want to be like oh wow I was so
wrong and I was so hateful with my incorrect information so some people really like just hold on to it um yeah
and I mean it took me a year to go back to work uh one because I didn't know people
would recognize me and two I didn't know if I was capable I mean and it's one thing to like have something awful as
violent crime but to have the whole world attack you have the people in Authority that you're supposed to turn
to for help attack you it really makes you feel uh terrified to even like really
enter life and Society again um so it was again it was just a really long journey but along the way you know again
aon's brother's an FBI agent so we learned a lot we learned from other survivors and paying attention to these
other stories going oh my gosh like it wasn't a one-off this isn't a couple bad apples and a bad Orchard and Vallejo
like this this happens way way too often I think we were watching confession tapes or something on Netflix way back
then and Aaron was able to predict verbatim What the in investigator was going to say because it was all the
script you know I'm going to pay you as a cold calculated you fail this miserably like it's just all these and
so that's what was really disheartening to see how how common it was and that's where we're like okay well this needs to
change and when we're ready we want to speak publicly and then also because of how misconstrued everything was in the
media we knew okay like we can't trust putting our our story out there through that Medium unless all the information's
out there so we focused then on on writing a book and that was several years of of finding the right person and
um and and then and we did the docu series that was released earlier this year but we you know started with one
production company decided no that's not working and then with this one we really
made them work hard to show us that their goals were aligned with ours and it wasn't about just
sensationalizing the event itself but what's the bigger picture issues uh cuz you know it's sad anyone can be a victim
of a crime but you don't really know um all the challenges you're going to face unless you're in it and then when you're
it you're traumatized and you're just like sink or swim you know and how do you guys think now about trying to
tackle some of those issues because it would be really easy if there was just one right where we could just be like if
we just fix this one thing but it sometimes can feel overwhelming because it feels like there are so many of them
yeah our our case seems like this uh just I don't know Perfect Storm of so many different
issues um you know the biases against women and not believing women and um I mean on the FBI affidavit it said my
sard exam showed quote no signs of non-consensual sex even though I told them I didn't fight back physically
because I was bound I was blindfolded I was held in a remote location my life was threatened his life was threatened
you know so it's kind of like well of course I'm not going to have like physical egregious injuries but there
was evidence in the sart exam that indicated that an assault did happen or intercourse did happen uh within that
like 24 to 48 hour period for and that uh there was bruising from him dropping me and I mean there was consistency in
and what they found in the in the start exam to what what I was saying and of course the police never used that
there's a lot of aspects in our case that reach across culture it's or um current culture uh for us it's just
trying to focus on it because there's so many worthy causes you can't do it all right so I we you just don't have the
like even the emot capacity to to do this you know ABC D you have to kind of focus on that so yeah one one
organization we paid attention to early on was the joyful Heart Foundation which
was um they were working on ending the backlog of rape tests because that was something that was so insulting to me
you know they like say that I this thing didn't happen I have to take this 4H hour long startart exam wondering the
whole time if they're going to use this against me because I didn't fight back so I'm like what are they going to find
what are they not going to you know there was a female FBI agent in the room that I never talked to was just like
watching this um it just was all very you mean you have to do it within 48 Hours of being being attacked it's like
one of the most exposing and vulnerable things you could do uh being a victim of
assault and and then they just kind of they didn't use it you know six months later we're talking to the a USA and I'm
asking him where's my sard exam and he's kind of looking around the room going like oh I don't know
wasn't it so important that I get this done or was this just again like the lie detector test deploy to see yeah uh
let's just degrade her and demean her as much as we can I mean that's just what it feels like right so yeah there's like
with us it's complicated because even going through the court process we see how many rights uh are the kidnapper um
Matthew mhler he how many rights he had compared to us like he represented himself at one point he was able to
watch the the rape um videos he had videoed me while he assaulted me um so he was able to rewatch it and he in the
preliminary hearing he had the the right to cross-examine me and Aaron and it was
only because he chose not to but I'm sitting up there the whole time answering the most humiliating questions
with the prosecutor and in front of you know media my family about the details of the assaults my as salent is watching
me as I'm giving this description and I don't know if he's then going to cross-examine me and then he goes oh no
I'm not going to like oh thank you you're the hero now you know but it was so it was it was a lot to to realize how
little rights we had as victims um but at the same time I do believe because we were suspects that suspects need to have
rights as well um so that's another thing that I I learned about was Marcy's law and and that organization is working
to try to um make amendments to each State's Constitution to add a Bill of Rights for victims and some of the
things I've when I was researching it you know the critics kind of saying well no if you if you give victims rights and
that's going to take the away the rights of the suspect and I'm like well how that just because you name rights for
one group of people doesn't mean that you're taking away the rights of other people you know with within reason right
but like these things are like treat victims with respect and decency keep them informed make sure that they're
protected and they have a level of privacy like really basic like basic stuff but like we have to put that in
and what was really discouraging too was to realize that California has one of the most extensive um amendments for for
victims but in our case it wasn't implemented so if the people on the field don't believe in this or maybe
don't know it but if if they're not implementing it then what power does it have um so again those are just you know
and then we've been paying attention to the Innocence Project and and like watching case after case you know those
the confession tapes and other like U making a murder you know all all these things where you're like seeing the
trend um and now that the series is out we've had the pleasure of being able to speak in front of group groups of law
enforcement for interrogations or in dealing with sexual assault and we tell them you know we we understand we're all
human we're fallible we work in the medical field we make mistakes so see that it happens but what's really
important especially if you're working with people human beings especially going through a trauma and they come to
you for help you need to be able to self-reflect you need to be able to say how how could I do better and and name
it okay I we made this mistake now let's let's figure out how to yeah just to to
change and to help protect people better we get a lot of [ __ ] on the show cuz like we talk about a lot of the things
that go wrong like we're not usually talking about a case on crime junkie if everything went right and what I keep
saying is I was like there are a lot of great people I've worked with a lot of great people but like if you exactly
what you're saying if you don't talk about what went wrong and if you don't analyze what could have been better like
how nothing will ever change ever and it's not about like necessarily even like tearing any one individual or or
anything apart sometimes they deserve it but I like I just don't expect like this
band of Brotherhood kind of thing right where it's just like like no like like you got to talk about when it goes bad
right yeah it's like we have to be able to have this conversation yeah or I don't trust you right so what what are
the some of the cases that you guys have gotten involved with because my understanding is you guys have a kind of
like not only are you working with these bigger organizations but are there some
cases that you guys are really paying attention to right now I mean I think we pay attention to a lot we notice a lot
um there's also a balance of it can be a little overwhelming you know to to still try to navigate because this
is your whole life right like we we've got two young kids we've got a two and a four-year-old which are amazing um and
they uh yeah it takes a lot of energy I I have one two and a halfy old and like sucks up my whole life which is great
it's like that's what I I do want to put my focus on right and we're still working as physical therapist and
advocating for our patients and so a big part of this and advocating is using your voice and so it's been a long
journey to find out who we can trust to help us amplify our voice so then we can
talk about these serious issues because what's helped us over the years is hearing from other survivors and seeing
them speak out Against All Odds and so it makes us think okay well then let's do that let's let's turn our pain into
purpose and keep this conversation going um and so that's kind of where we're at
right now is um again we're able to speak in front of law enfor forcement which is what we've always wanted to do
you know we're not against them we want to work with them um and advocating for for survivors of sexual assaults because
there was so there's still it's just so sad like 2024 there's still this misconception
about women how they should behave uh what's their fault what's not their fault and we do it to ourselves too
because that is so entrenched in our culture that it's really easy to self-blame and um you know and as we've
spoken out I have to recognize sometimes that I need help again you know so I've
gone back to therapy and that's another thing I want to advocate for because it's it's been such a huge help for us
um in this whole process yeah I think with law enforcement there's obviously a lot of law enforcement want to do better
and like for me a big part is just try to advocate for different types of interrogation and get away from this
idea of like professions um are the goal should really should just be gain information so uh there's models like
the peace model which is more of a journalistic approach where you're just gathering information from the person
you're talking to and you're not CER trying to say uh you're not in a guilt presumptive mindset which is what
happened to me when that's based off the read technique or baddy is another version it's just a cousin of Reed uh
and that Reed is the most commonly used interrogation Techni te in the world um and not just with law enforcement they
teach corporations corporations and schools so you will use this technique I I'll put technique in quote
uh or his method against children and the problem with it is that even the re technique started from in the 19 late
1940s early 1950s after police W unable to beat suspects into confessions they figure out how can we logically pressure
them I would say it's torture and John Reed in the 50 early 50s got a confession from a man and end
up being a false confession it was overturned 17 years later but that was a big this is what starts his whole thing
that starts the whole and then that makes Reed popular so the problem with Reed is it can get confessions it can
also get false confessions uh and so the case that made it popular was already based off false confession and it was
just some detective from Chicago making this method up there's not so there's not really any science behind it U so
now there are other like uh he will do where it's more of a science-based interrogation technique so um bring in
psychologists bring in like other disciplines to help the officers understand those pressures because they
I don't think they really understand what type of pressure they're doing and that's another reason why we talked in
law enforcement is that they don't get much followup with they interact with someone during the worst potentially one
of the worst moments or life uh which is got to be hard day after day to be interacting with people that way but
they don't get to follow up on cases they don't hear from the other side um so when we speak we're just trying to
give them a sense of what it's like to be getting Railroad by like when they turn that that Machinery turns on you so
that hopefully if they run into a case where it's you know maybe it sounds a little bizarre a little strange to them
that they don't just rush to judgment have the confirmation bias and tunnel vision they can think of case and pause
go like well what if you know let's look at X Y and Z and not just focus on this
one route and uh because we have to do at the ground level right they're the ones interacting at day-to-day basis so
um that's one of the things we hope for that get away from this because it's awful yeah I love that you guys are
going and speaking to them because I think that's where so much change can actually happen I think one of the
things I was most surprised by as I really got into this world and dealing with law enforcement is that there was
no standard like there is no standard training to be an investigator across you're really only as good as the the
guy before you that trained you and when you think about I mean as you guys as doctors of physical therapy I mean the
amount of training that you had to do education you had to do continued I know I worked in a hospital for a long time
there's continued medical education and because you guys have people's lives in your hands which is
important and these people have people's lives in their hands and we just we cross our fingers and
hope hope they got trained right yeah one of the the talks that we gave it was for science-based interrogation so it's
about improving interrogation tactics and we sat in for a couple of the talks and some of the psychologists were
talking and we're like oh thank God there's a psychologist in the room um but certain things were so basic that
we're like we learn this in PT school like how is this revolutionary how is this a thing right now that's being
taught so like this Bittersweet situation going okay well at least someone's doing it and they are
having these conferences and these this type of training but then it was equally
as infuriating because we're like why weren't we treated this way um and why is this not something that is being done
and and yeah why do they have to fight to get people to to buy into it um yeah I don't know but if there's one message
you have for the law enforcement that listens to our show and the survivors who listen to our show what are what
would each of those messages be uh I think with law enforcement really is just recognize that we all have
different biases we've all grown up having our own life experiences that shape who we are and how we see the
world and the people in it and so kind of recognizing some of those judgments that you might have um and trying to
keep an open mind and self-reflect um it's okay that you make a mistake um but let's just try to learn
from it and encourage that not just from yourself but your peers the people you work with as well uh for
survivors I me the biggest thing is just always believe in yourself um you know when you have people consistently trying
to Gaslight you and tell you what you experienced either a didn't happen or isn't that bad um um it it can it really
uh is ret traumatizing and it makes the healing that much harder and so it's easy to give in and just believe that
and um God if we didn't believe in ourselves we wouldn't be here and doing the work that we're doing so that's a
big thing yeah for me to pay back off what Den said with law enforcement the idea I think sometimes law enforcement
thinks they're being objective and they're trying their best to be objective but no one actually can be
objective like you need to recognize regardless of who you are there's always some sort of bias that you are either
conscious of or unconscious of uh no one is strictly objective we see the world through our own lens so you need to if
you're in law enforcement you need to recognize that you cannot is impossible be fully objective so you should put a
lot of different safeguards to try to be as objective as possible and that means
bringing other people um and for survivors as Den is saying like believe in yourself um find help like find the
people that you can trust that um will not necessarily um not necessarily even try to provide
answers but we'll just listen there's a big part of like just having someone who
will be there for you and uh for myself I used to think I could just handle stuff I would like try to avoid
like burning my parents with stress or my friends because I'm like I I'll just handle it I can do it on my own um and
that uh didn't work out like I you can't like you need like and uh being such a life altering trauma I realized that I
need like to go to my friends and my family and and therapists and we've I mean we've done years and years of
therapy but have um that trusted group that I could go to and and help lift me up and that's uh really important to
find those people in your lives because we all go through different variations of trauma um it doesn't have to be a
kidnapping it doesn't have to be like this extreme but people have stuff that happens in their lives and we need the
help of our close ones to to heal from it and and integrate it uh because you can't actually just move on like there's
sometimes people say just forget about move on but you can't you have to learn how to integrate this into your life cuz
it's part of you and it's part it's going to impact your decisions e either you like it or not um it's a little bit
like your Shadow it's always there you be aware of it or not and uh so by gain help from other people I've
uh have helped me integrate it to make something positive out of it and that will be a continued thing it's never
there's no end to this it's just um different levels of it well you guys I think are like a
beautiful example to survivors of what life can be if you put in the work what life can be afterwards I I said you
didn't see this on your bingo card for life did you get other good surprises like things you did see coming on your
bingo card or things you didn't I mean you guys are you both are now practicing right in physical therapy you've got a
family you obviously got married after this life does move forward you know so it's it's nice that we were able to
still have all those Joys that we were able to stay together as a couple um again a large part of that was the
people in our lives that help support us and um yeah I mean we were able to return to our careers and we started
this beautiful family and um and and now we we get to meet with people and have these connections with other survivors
or again in law enforcement that we can share and and use such a horrible thing to maybe do something better for other
people who aren't as lucky as we are who might not have all the resources or who
are still threatened into silence that we can at least um we can we can keep the conversation at least going and
see if something can change and thank you for doing that I mean you guys have every right to to go live your lives and
not do anything and take care of yourselves and I think it's really beautiful what you guys are doing so
thank you yeah thank you and thank you for coming on here it was wonderful to meet you and for sharing your story I
think it will touch a lot of people so I really appreciate it thank you yeah thank you all right everyone don't
forget to follow this show and add it to your library and don't forget to follow
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This month, Ashley sat down with the real life "Gone Girl" couple, Denise and Aaron Quinn, and tell exclusive details that weren't included in their hit Netflix's docuseries, and how their lives have changed forever.

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Brief Summary

Denise and Aaron Quinn share their wrongful accusation story after a kidnapping, discussing systemic flaws in law enforcement and their advocacy work.

Key points

The Real-Life Gone Girl. Denise and Aaron share their harrowing kidnapping story, dubbed the real-life Gone Girl.
The Interrogation Nightmare. Aaron's 18-hour interrogation reveals the dark side of police procedures.
Tunnel Vision in Investigation. The police's focus on Aaron leads to missed evidence and a wrongful narrative.
The Dirty Cop's Legacy. Denise exposes the corrupt practices of the lead detective in their case.
The Cost of Defense. Hiring criminal defense attorneys can cost a fortune, often out of reach for many.
Desperation in the Face of Power. Feeling powerless against the FBI, the speaker expresses deep emotional turmoil.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I didn't know what was going to happen next.

Denise shares her fear during the kidnapping.

5:20WatchDec 6, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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