In March 2015, Denise Huskins made headlines when she was held at gunpoint in her home, drugged and kidnapped, then dropped off at her mother’s house two days later.
Her boyfriend Aaron Quinn was also drugged and put in a closet, yet many people struggled to believe their story when police publicly expressed skepticism about the case. Police claimed that Quinn and Huskins’ didn’t ‘act’ like victims – as Huskins did not meet with her parents in the days after she was found, and Quinn’s version of the story didn’t add up.
In March 2016, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend sued the Vallejo police department for defamation, false arrest and false imprisonment, however Vallejo city argued that public statements made by police were protected under the state’s ‘absolute immunity’.
PEOPLE reports that though suspect Matthew Muller has since been arrested, pleading guilty to kidnapping in September 2016, and is scheduled to be sentenced in March this year, Denise Huskins is still facing abuse from online trolls.
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Huskins recently took to Facebook to increase awareness about the effects that online trolls can have on sufferers of PTSD. She shared a screenshot of an aggressive message she received over Facebook.
The message read, “Are you that horrible lying woman who faked her own kidnapping??? Oh wow you are such a horrible person. You are going to hell for the [stuff] u have done. I’d like to slap you a few times…. And just so u known, ur not as pretty as u think. I’d put u at being 5 outta 10.”
She went on to explain why fixing the problem isn’t as simple as just ‘ignoring’ the messages.
“Unfortunately this is just one example of countless messages like this that I have received,” she wrote. “And like the ones before this, unfortunately this guy won. After reading this I went into one of my many PTSD episodes of terror.
“My jaw and back are sore from the deep powerful shaking and reflexive tension that my whole body goes into. My eyes are sore and red from uncontrollable tears. I am thoroughly exhausted, every inch of my body is tired from the fit of terror it was battling.
“This was his goal, and I couldn’t fight it. Congratulations, person I have never met, never heard of who hates me so much that he went out of his way to message me this disgusting, demeaning, dehumanizing outrage.”
She ended the message by encouraging people to think twice before spreading hate in 2017.
“We must admit that there are many things that we don’t know, even if we so strongly believe certain things. It does no one, especially ourselves, any good to blindly judge, spreading hate and anger. We may be wrong, or misinformed. Please keep that in mind when thinking of new beginnings in this new year.”
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