American Nightmare showed us how even trained minds, who have to take every possibility into consideration, often fall prey to their own biases and give a lot of weight to stereotypical patterns. The ability to treat each case on its merit is often not present in a lot of people, and that’s what causes a lot of problems, especially for the ones who are suffering. In this particular case of the documentary American Nightmare, we saw how Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskin suffered so much without being at fault. After watching the documentary series, I couldn’t help but imagine the kind of emotions the two victims would have felt when the entire world didn’t believe in their narrative. They were lucky that SGT Misty Carasau came to their rescue, but a lot of times, no help arrived, and the victims suffered throughout their lives. It is the most agonizing thing, to tell the truth and not be believed by the people. The couple had already gone through the worst nightmare of their lives, and they had to prove their own innocence as well when the police should have been trying to find the kidnapper who gave them a life-long trauma to deal with. So let’s find out what happened with Aaron Quinn during the period when the investigation was going on, how he coped with everything, and where he is as of now.
Why did Aaron file a late complaint?
The first thing that made the police officers suspicious of Aaron Quinn was that he called the police several hours after Denise was kidnapped. Detective Smith and even the FBI were not buying anything that he said because everything was so bizarre and unique in its own way that they believed that Aaron was making it all up. Aaron told the police officers that he was drugged, and then the kidnapper put swimming goggles on his eyes with duct tape stuck over the lenses. He then told them that he was not able to see the face of the kidnapper since he was wearing a wetsuit. Moreover, neither Aaron nor Denise made any sort of noise, and that made the police officers even more suspicious of their intentions. The kidnapper was contacting Aaron on his phone, and as soon as he was taken into custody by the police officers, his mobile phone was confiscated. It might have been the protocol, but clearly, they should have been aware of the fact that by closing all channels of communication, they were putting Denise’s life in jeopardy. The police officers kept grilling him, and Detective Mustard and others went to the extent of telling him that they would make him look like a monster in front of the world.
Aaron didn’t understand what he had done to deserve such treatment. Yes, the modus operandi of the entire kidnapping was very strange. He had no concrete answers about why he had called the police so late, but that didn’t mean that all the other possibilities should have been ignored. A lot of officers were on the case, and apart from just questioning him, a division should have been searching for the actual kidnappers because, at that point in the American Nightmare, they didn’t have substantial proof to make the investigation all about Aaron. The police officers had presumed that he had killed his girlfriend and hidden his body somewhere where they would never find it. Even if they had been right, the chances that he was innocent were not absolutely zero. Aaron didn’t know what Denise was going through, and he didn’t even have time to process his own trauma. Imagine being woken up in the middle of the night and then injected with drugs, and then finding yourself in the police station, where your credibility was being questioned. Aaron would have been very mighty spirited, and even Denise, as otherwise, to survive the attack and come out of it in one piece was not possible.
What happened during the investigation?
Aaron’s ex-fiancé, Andrea, was called in during the investigation when the police learned that the last conversation he had with Denise was about her. The police had created an entire narrative in their minds, and they were not ready to investigate any other angle. They believed that because Aaron wanted to be with Andrea, he had killed Denise, and now he was falsifying facts and acting ignorant. Aaron did have some unfinished business with Andrea, and he accepted that because they worked in the same place, he kept meeting her. Andrea also told how Denise always gave her a cold shoulder. The FBI conducted a polygraph test on Aaron, and Detective Peter French told him that he had failed miserably when, in reality, the results were inconclusive. The police force and the FBI wanted to lay a trap for Aaron, and they hoped he would fall right into it. But luck favored him, and before charges were pressed, Misty Carasau from the Dublin Police Department found enough evidence to prove that it was Matthew Muller who was behind the kidnapping. It was a near escape for Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskin, and he knew that.
Where is Aaron Quinn now?
Aaron Quinn and Denise decide to get married and leave the past behind them. They had two lovely daughters, and as Aaron puts it at the end of American Nightmare, he would be happiest if his children grew up to be like his wife. They have a beautiful life together, but the past keeps haunting them. In moments of weakness, when they are troubled by dark thoughts, they try to focus on the positive aspects and how the entire tragedy got them even closer. There was a point in time when Aaron felt that Denise wouldn’t be able to accept him back in her life, but luckily, that didn’t happen, and he found out that she craved to be with him as much as he did with her. Both Aaron and Denise have been quite vocal about what they went through, and they reach out to people through social media who are stuck in a similar kind of situation and try to provide all the assistance they can.
