Denise Huskins is opening up about her horrifying ordeal.
Nearly 10 years after the mysterious abduction involving her and now-husband Aaron Quinn led to accusations of a Gone Girl-inspired ruse, Denise—whose story was recently explored on the Netflix docuseries American Nightmare—recounted the terrifying night of March 23, 2015.
"I was dead asleep," she explained to Alex Cooper on an April 2 episode of Call Her Daddy. "I thought I was dreaming. I could hear a strange man's voice and it's like my subconscious was conflicted. It was almost as if it were saying, ‘Don't wake up, don't wake up.'"
That night, Denise and Aaron, then 29, had a long, emotional conversation about the status of their budding relationship at his home in Vallejo, Calif., before going to sleep. Then, at around 3 a.m., the couple awoke to bright, flashing white lights, a group of men in their room, and a "distinct, almost robotic" voice that demanded Denise restrain her boyfriend using zip ties.
"There were so many little pieces of it that was just so hard to even process," the 38-year-old explained. "It isn't what you'd normally think—you watch true crime or horror movies and you see this crazy, passionate violence and realizing that criminals can be patient and in control and planned out was even more horrifying to process."
And when Denise and Aaron had first woken up, she said the intruders insisted that they had only planned to rob them and forced them to take sedatives and put headphones on that played "pre-recorded messages."
"Even in that moment I'm thinking, ‘maybe this is just a robbery,'" she added. "The night progressively got worse and they separated me from Aaron and brought me downstairs and then he came in—there was just one man who was speaking and it was the man who held me captive. And he said ‘This wasn't meant for you, this was meant for—' and he named Aaron's ex by her first and last name. We need to figure out what we're going to do.'"
And as the man—later revealed to be Matthew Muller who is amid a 40-year sentence for the kidnapping—spoke to her, Denise recalled thinking, "‘How is this meant for anybody and what the f--k is this?'"
During her 40-hour disappearance during which she was taken to a remote cabin, Denise has detailed that she was raped multiple times while being recorded, and forced to film a proof of life tape. Her captor finally decided to take her to her father Mike Huskins, after showing her a video of him pleading for her safe return on the local news.
"You have to almost detach because you can't be present in the horror of the situation," Denise told Alex. "You have to think of all the possibilities that anything can go wrong."
After she returned to safety, Denise was surprised to find that the police were investigating the validity of her and Aaron's kidnapping claims.
The couple proved they were telling the truth, and they later sued the city of Vallejo for the way they were treated by authorities, which they settled for $2.5 million in 2018. The same year, Aaron and Denise got married, and now share two daughters, Olivia, 3, and Naomi, 17 months.
And when Alex asked Denise if she could go back and not see Aaron to discuss continuing their relationship on the night she was taken captive, she explained why she wouldn't trade it away for her now-husband.
"It would mean that I wouldn't have him in my life," she said. "He is my person—I knew that as soon as I met him."