The man at the center of the so-called “Gone Girl” Vallejo kidnapping case who was recently charged with two more sexual assaults in Santa Clara County is now being charged with an alleged kidnapping in unincorporated San Ramon, authorities announced Monday.
The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office filed a three-count felony complaint against Matthew Muller, 47, according to Ted Asregadoo, spokesperson for the office. He has been given three felony charges of kidnapping for ransom.
Muller, 47, was convicted in 2015 for the Vallejo kidnapping of Denise Huskins.
According to prosecutors, the new charges against Muller allege that he confessed to another kidnapping and ransom case in 2015 in an unincorporated area of San Ramon.
Authorities were made aware of the new case during a series of communications with Muller, who confessed to multiple crimes throughout Northern California, Asregadoo said, adding that the DA’s office met with Muller about the San Ramon allegations on Dec. 13.
According to Asregadoo, in the spring of 2015, Muller held two John Does and one Jane Doe for ransom, demanding that one of them withdraw tens of thousands of dollars from their bank account to secure the release of the others. After getting the money, Muller fled, and the victims never reported what happened to them.
“To this day, they have chosen to remain anonymous,” said Asregadoo in a statement released by his office.
Similar circumstances
At the end of December, The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office announced that DNA testing led authorities to charge Muller in two 2009 home invasions and sexual assaults in Mountain View and Palo Alto.
The newest charges show a pattern similar to the case that first burst Muller’s name into national news, showing an alleged history of home invasions, rapes and drugging of victims.
Huskins’ abduction in Vallejo by Muller in 2015 was the subject of “American Nightmare,” a Netflix documentary series that chronicled her kidnapping, and police and FBI suspicions that the abduction had been staged with her boyfriend Aaron Quinn.
Muller, a former U.S. Marine, broke into a Vallejo home on March 23, 2015, and tied up the young couple.
He took Huskins to a cabin in South Lake Tahoe, where he sexually assaulted her. Two days later, he drove Huskins to Southern California and released her, according to police.
Vallejo police initially believed the invasion and kidnapping was a hoax perpetrated by Huskins’ boyfriend, generating the reference to the novel and film “Gone Girl.”
Muller was eventually arrested for both the Vallejo kidnapping and a violent Dublin home invasion.
He pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and sexual assaults of Huskins and is serving a 40-year prison sentence at a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona.
In the Santa Clara County cases that recently came to light, Muller’s DNA was found on straps he allegedly used to bind one of the victims in the 2009 assaults.
In the early hours of Sept. 29, 2009, authorities allege Muller broke into a woman’s Mountain View home, attacked and then tied her up, made her drink a concoction of medications, and said he was going to rape her.
“After the victim, in her 30s, persuaded him against it, he suggested the victim get a dog, then fled,” the district attorney’s office said.
In the second attack, on Oct. 18, 2009, Muller allegedly “broke into a Palo Alto home, bound and gagged a woman in her 30s and made her drink NyQuil,” prosecutors said. Muller allegedly started to assault her but was persuaded by the victim to stop. “Muller gave the victim crime prevention advice, then fled,” the district attorney’s office said.