'Gone Girl' Kidnapper Charged With Violent South Bay Home Invasions

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — A notorious kidnapper and convicted rapist faces new charges stemming from a series of home invasions and sexual assaults investigated in the South Bay 15 years ago, prosecutors announced Monday.

Matthew Muller, now 47, was sentenced to over three decades in federal prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping Denise Huskins from her Vallejo home in 2015. The ex-Marine and Harvard graduate was the subject of the Netflix documentary series "American Nightmare," which charts a case that police initially believed to be a hoax engineered by the woman's boyfriend, which drew comparisons to the novel and 2014 film adaptation "Gone Girl."

Investigators later learned Muller had broken into the couple's Vallejo home, then drugged and tied them up, before taking Huskins to a cabin in South Lake Tahoe where he sexually assaulted her. Two days later, Muller drove Huskins to Southern California and let her go. Three months later, he was arrested after attacking a family inside their Dublin home. He pleaded guilty in 2016 to the Vallejo kidnapping, and later to the sexual assault charges.

On Monday, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office said forensic DNA testing linked Muller to home invasions and sexual assaults in Mountain View and Palo Alto committed six years before the Vallejo case.

Early on Sept. 29, 2009, prosecutors allege Muller broke into a woman's Mountain View home, attacked and bound her, then made her drink "a concoction of medications." Investigators said the woman persuaded him against raping her, and he fled the home.

Less than a month later, prosecutors allege Muller broke into a Palo Alto home, bound and gagged a woman, and made her drink Nyquil before sexually assaulting her. According to investigators, the woman convinced him to stop and he fled the home.

Both cases went unsolved.

According to the DA's office, a new lead prompted cold case investigators to send the evidence from the South Bay cases back to the crime lab for further testing. Investigators said DNA matching Muller was found on straps used to bind one of the victims, and further investigation led to charges being filed in both 2009 cold cases.

"The details of this person's violent crime spree seem scripted for Hollywood, but they are tragically real," District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. "Our goal is to make sure this defendant is held accountable and will never hurt or terrorize anyone ever again. Our hope is that this nightmare is over.

Muller faces two new felony charges and was scheduled for an arraignment hearing Monday at the Hall of Justice in San Jose. If convicted, prosecutors said he faces life in prison. He is currently serving concurrent sentences at the Federal Correction Institution in Arizona, with a tentative release date in 2049.