By Kyarra Harris
Monterey Daily Herald
SEASIDE, Calif. — Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges is credited with bringing light to two 2009 assault cases against a man, now imprisoned, who was featured in Netflix’s most recent season of “American Nightmare”
Matthew Muller, 47, was charged with two felonies of sexual assault during a home invasion in Santa Clara County thanks to, in part, information Borges acquired in correspondence with Muller. Muller is currently serving a 40-year prison term for a different incident, the kidnapping in Vallejo in 2015 featured in “American Nightmare.”
Muller eventually sent a confession to Borges for the two sexual assaults and police say they believe there are other incidents involving Muller.
Borges said he worked with Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant Misty Carausu and asked permission from Denise and Aaron Quinn, victims in the 2015 Vallejo kidnapping case, before initially writing to Muller in prison in March.
The chief didn’t specify the content of the letters due to the new charges, but said he told Muller who he was and told him he wasn’t being investigated.
“It was really a group effort,” Borges said in a press conference Tuesday in Seaside. “I haven’t heard back from him yet, hopefully I will. Misty and I originally tossed the idea around of going to visit Muller in prison, but we felt it might be more reasonable to reach out to him first to see if he’s willing to communicate.”
Denise Quinn said she was nervous when law enforcement reached out to her because of her previous experiences with police. But when she learned Borges’ and Carausu’s reasoning, she and her husband Aaron Quinn agreed it was a good way to potentially find other cases.
When the Quinns originally reported the kidnapping to Vallejo police in 2015, authorities accused the two of making up the abduction, which would eventually lead to police issuing a public apology and the city paying the couple a $2.5 million settlement.
Borges “sent us a message on Instagram from their police department and said ‘I want you to know that there’s people in law enforcement who believe in you, who are standing with you and we don’t think it’s acceptable how this was handled,’” Denise Quinn said at the press conference. “He told us it could be a good learning opportunity for law enforcement and asked us to host and come speak to a group of officers. We jumped on that opportunity, because that’s something we’ve always wanted to do, work with law enforcement. We’ve always felt kind of ostracized and treated as something difficult to deal with and so words can’t describe what it means to feel supported in that way.”
Quinn said she and her husband had thought about speaking to Muller directly. “… we knew that there were things that just weren’t followed up on, and we felt like perhaps in his own way, he felt connected or bonded to us.
“…so when Chief Borges presented that, it was an opportunity to see what Muller had to say with some barrier of protection.”
In April and May, Borges reportedly received letters from Muller in which he volunteered information implicating himself in 2009 home invasion assaults in Mountain View and Palo Alto . In those exchanges, Muller allegedly offered details that closely aligned with police reports and the victims’ accounts, which were not readily available to the public, authorities said.
In one letter, he reportedly described his coming forward as part “of a common goal of (protecting) victims and strengthening laws for future potential victims.”
The Bay Area News Group contributed to this report.
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