When Matthew Muller broke into Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskins’ home before kidnapping Denise, he told the couple that Andrea was the intended target. Andrea was Aaron’s former fiancee who had lived with him before their breakup. Despite Andrea supposedly being his original target, Matthew still kidnapped Denise.
Throughout American Nightmare’s 3 episodes, it’s never revealed why Matthew was targeting Andrea. The American Nightmare team, Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins, spoke with Variety about whether or not they ever got an answer as to why Matthew told Aaron and Denise that the kidnapping was “meant” for Aaron’s ex.
“Not really. Aaron spoke to Andrea, and she said that the police had told her that they thought it was just a case of mistaken identity — that Matthew had been casing the house, and simply thought that Denise was Andrea, basically,” Higgins said. “We’ve got no reason to think anything other than that. We know that Matthew Muller had been casing the neighborhood for quite a few months beforehand, so it’s entirely possible that he just it was a case of mistaken identity, but there’s no other real dotted line between Matthew and Andrea.”
In the docuseries, Aaron and Andrea had been engaged prior to him dating Denise. After their breakup, Aaron and Andrea were still working together, which was causing “issues” in his relationship with Denise. Aaron, Andrea, and Denise all worked in the same hospital and same rehab unit. Andrea was brought in by Vallejo police to talk about her relationship with Aaron.
Andrea said that her relationship with Aaron ended on “very bad terms.” Aaron revealed that they broke up after he found out Andrea was cheating on him. During her conversation with police, Andrea said she thought Aaron would be “open to the idea” of getting back together. Aaron explained that Denise was upset over his ties to Andrea. The night of the kidnapping, Denise and Aaron discussed moving forward with their relationship and past the Andrea drama.
Matthew kidnapped Denise and held her captive in his South Lake Tahoe cabin. He raped her twice before driving her to Huntington Beach and releasing her. During his trial, it was revealed that Matthew had used a “remote-controlled drone” to spy on Denise and Aaron before the home invasion and kidnapping,” CBS News reported. Denise and Aaron claimed that there were two kidnappers, but Matthew had played a pre-recorded message to make it appear as if that were the case.
Andrea’s name is brought up again in the docuseries when it’s revealed that she dated David Sesma, the lead FBI agent on Denise and Aaron’s case. The couple tried to have Sesma removed from their case because of the conflict of interest, but he wasn’t.
The American Nightmare team reached out to Andrea about the docuseries, but she was not interviewed. “I think she probably was dragged into it more than she ever wanted to be in the first place,” Higgins said. “We obviously knew that she had nothing to do with it. It was just a terrible set of coincidences.” American Nightmare is now streaming on Netflix.