Vallejo police are defending their dismissal of a couple’s kidnapping claims last year despite a previous apology, recently released court records show.
Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn were abducted from their home by Orangevale resident Matthew Muller in March of 2015 and eventually released. But when authorities were alerted to the kidnapping, they dismissed the couple’s claim, believing it to be a hoax modeled after the 2014 thriller Gone Girl. It was only after the culprit was caught and confessed that the department realized it had made a huge mistake.
“It is now clear that there was a kidnapping” Vallejo Police Chief Andrew Bidou said at the time, acknowledging that the department’s actions had “contributed to the difficulty and personal ordeal” experienced by Huskins and Quinn.
Now, one year after that mea culpa, the officers appear to be changing their tune in the face of a lawsuit filed by the couple.
In a bid to dismiss the suit, lawyers for the city and two of its police officers have said it was the couple’s own actions that led them dismiss their claims. In the recent court filing, they claim that Quinn waited hours before reporting the abduction and admitted to having relationship problems with his girlfriend. His claims surrounding the abduction itself were outlandish, they add, and Huskins—who showed up well before a demand for ransom was due—initially refused to be reunited with her family following the kidnapping.
Again, there’s no doubt that the two were actually abducted. The recent statements are merely an attempt to provide justification for the officers’ actions. But that may prove to be a tall order.
Image Credit: Flickr User alancleaver, https://flic.kr/p/7hcnvi via (CC BY 2.0)