By Rena Abdusalam
VALLEJO, CA – On March 23, 2015, Aaron Quinn notified authorities on a 911 call that his girlfriend, Denise Huskins, was kidnapped in the middle of the night.
“I trust the police,” he thought at the time. “I think they’re going to help me.”
But his 911 call was only the beginning of the couple’s harrowing experience with the Vallejo Police Department.
American Nightmare, Netflix’s new three-part true crime documentary, revolves around the story of Quinn and Huskins. The docuseries reveals a case abundant with governmental misconduct, shockingly exposing police incompetence and their mishandled response to the couple’s cry for help.
Plot Summary
After informing authorities about his girlfriend’s disappearance, Quinn was interviewed by a detective and recounted a break-in that led to the kidnapping of Huskins, as seen in the docuseries.
According to Quinn, the couple was suddenly awakened in the middle of the night by a white light and three laser dots, blinding the two from seeing the armed intruders. The perpetrators forcefully bound Huskins and Quinn with zip ties, put tight black swimming goggles over their eyes, and fed them sedatives, depriving them of their senses.
During the event, Huskins was kidnapped. After the effects of the sedatives wore off, Quinn made the 911 call despite some hesitation, as seen in the show.
However, the detective didn’t believe his story, stating, “I mean, come on, man. It doesn’t make any frickin’ sense,” in the Netflix show. “Tell me the truth about what the hell happened.”
Quinn’s interview with the detective soon turned into tormented questioning. According to the docuseries, the Vallejo Police Department accused him of murdering his girlfriend.
The police questioned him for hours, with one officer going so far as to say in the documentary, “So was it an accident? Or are you a calculated monster who got pissed off because there was a breakup and you just decided she wasn’t gonna be with anybody else, and so you were going to just kill her and dump her?”
Miraculously, Huskins reappeared out of nowhere two days after her disappearance was reported. Huskins would recount in the docuseries that she was held captive during Quinn’s questioning with the police and faced atrocities committed by her kidnapper, including being raped twice.
As shown in the docuseries, her sudden reappearance stopped police from suspecting Quinn for kidnapping. Instead, the docuseries showed that the police twisted her story, claiming that her kidnapping was a hoax.
“Do they really think all of this is an act, this whole thing? And why? What do I have to gain? What… What’s the point?” Huskins said in the docuseries.
For three months, police and media would continue to repeat this theory, calling the kidnapping an orchestrated event and Huskins a hoaxer.
According to the documentary, it wasn’t until other investigators not associated with the Vallejo Police Department cracked the couple’s case, connecting similar evidence from a recent attempted kidnapping case to Huskins.
“Nearly four months ago, we told you that Denise Huskins was right. That she was not only innocent of perpetrating a hoax, but that she was a victim of a very serious and violent crime,” the couple’s attorney reported at a press conference shown in the docuseries. “Ms. Huskins and Mr. Quinn held their heads up high in the face of public shame and humiliation.”
Review
The docuseries follows the usual true crime show arrangement, navigating through the couple’s discomforting story with unfocused surveillance footage, news reports, first-hand accounts, and re-enactments.
Throughout the three episodes, the story adds to the viewer’s feelings of anxiety, especially in the second episode when Huskins starts to narrate her abduction with scenes of re-enactments. The series conveys there’s no doubt that what the Huskins and Quinn experienced was an absolute nightmare and executes it flawlessly, yet distressingly.
But what really elevates American Nightmare is the police misconduct that held back Quinn and Huskins, the actual prolonged and horrific reality.
Denise’s denial for a sexual assault exam, the berating of Aaron’s questioning, the police’s dismissive attitude are just a few examples of governmental misconduct the docuseries conveys and brings to light.
The documentary gradually uncovered the botched police investigation. According to the series, the police even said Huskins “plundered valuable resources away” and owes the community “an apology.”
By the third episode, the docuseries really emphasized the role the police, press and public had in the couple’s case, headlining the effects police misconduct has on society today.
American Nightmare is truly unsettling. However, unlike other true crime media, the show examines the lack of protection, and stark understanding faced by the couple of the type of people employed to allegedly defend individuals like them.
And that is what makes it so disturbing.
