Review: Couple traumatized by crime set the record straight on Vallejo kidnapping

Six years ago, Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn survived a terrifying, prolonged attack in Quinn’s Vallejo home. The incident became national news and exposed them to public shaming. Huskins and her future husband endured harrowing crimes; she was kidnapped, raped and left on a roadside. Vallejo police responded by calling them liars.

Soon thereafter, Huskins began writing about the ordeal. It was a period of intense pain and frustration, and Huskins’ journal entries were a way of coping with the “doubt and resistance” she said she encountered from Vallejo police. The writing also allowed her to “hold on to all of these details” that officers found implausible. When police interrogated her, Huskins recalled in a recent video interview, “I was being treated like I was crazy. Like, ‘What you’re saying just doesn’t make sense; it’s impossible.’ And I said, ‘It is possible, because it happened.’”

Her agonizing memories are at the heart of “Victim F: From Crime Victims to Suspects to Survivors,” a powerful new book that raises important questions about policing, journalism and social media. Co-written with investigative reporter Nicole Weisensee Egan, Huskins and Quinn’s book is an urgent appeal for fairness and empathy.

CLICK FOR MORE