American Nightmare – Season 1 Episode 3 Recap, Review and Ending Explained

Part Three: The Others

American Nightmare episode 3 begins on the 5th of June 2015. It’s 10 weeks after Denise’s release from captivity – There’s another break-in, this time in Dublin, California. A husband is fighting with the people who have invaded his family home. There is an attempted kidnapping of his 22-year-old daughter. In a similar situation to Aaron and Denise’s attack, there was a laser light pointing at them as they broke in. 

Sgt. Chris Shepard arrives on the scene after a frantic 911 call. The husband is covered in blood, and the suspect runs out of the back door and hops over the fence. 

Who is the home invasion kidnapper? 

The offender has left a phone behind. Lt Miguel Campos rings the mother of the person whose phone it is and doesn’t reveal what has happened but just that he wants to return the phone. The identity of the attacker is revealed as Matthew Muller. He is an ex US marine and a Harvard law graduate, and he has been accused of attempted rapes in the past. 

His mother tells Campos that Muller is staying at a cabin in South Lake Tahoe. The police descend upon the cabin and force the door open and Muller is promptly arrested. Photos are taken of the suspect. The cabin is a mess, and the police find evidence linking him to the Dublin kidnapping. They locate his white Mustang car that Denise had reported he had. They also find a blow-up doll that is made to look like a human being. They also find a pair of goggles with blonde hair attached to it. But who does the hair belong to? 

Episode 3 puts the focus back on Denise, who says she felt lost and worried about the impending hoax charge. This time, Aaron and Denise are interviewed together. Aaron says he struggled to work after the ordeal. In another shocking discovery, it turns out FBI Agent Sesma used to date Aaron’s ex, Andrea, and this conflict of interest should’ve led to him being thrown off the case. but this didn’t happen. 

Who is Sgt. Misty Carausu? 

An up-and-coming officer on the Muller case called Misty Carausu (who is revealed in interviews to now be a sergeant) is looking for the hair found at Muller’s cabin in the woods in Lake Tahoe but is having no luck locating who it belongs to. She finds out about a case in 2009 of a 32-year-old woman called Tracey, who lives in a place called Mountain View and was the victim of a home invasion. She begged not to be raped, and the offender said he was sorry, and even advised the terrified woman to get a dog and do certain things to avoid being a target. 

What happened to Denise when she was a child? 

Denise talks about the sexual assault she suffered at 12 years old. She says the perpetrator went on to molest another girl and she felt guilt for not coming forward sooner. At age 19, Denise says it happened again at a friend’s house. She fell asleep and woke up to her pants being off and the offender with his fingers inside her. She said the police talked her out of reporting it, claiming it would be a case of ‘he said, she said.’ Then the home invasion and kidnapping in 2015 happens, and they don’t believe her again. What needs to happen for her to be believed? 

Misty Carausu continues the investigation into the blonde hair. She discovers the case of ‘the mare island creeper’ who operated in a quiet neighbourhood. In 2014, a bunch of students were harassed, and the offender would peep into their windows and take photos of them. Matthew Muller is suspected of being the Mare Island creeper, and despite all incidents being reported, the investigation stopped, and the police didn’t follow it up. 

Is Muller the Mare Island creeper? 

In March 2015, now the Mare Island creeper cases have apparently stopped, and this coincides with the so-called ‘gone girl case’ involving Aaron and Denise. Carausu makes the connection between the cases and discovers the GPS found in Muller’s Mustang had Huntington Beach saved in the previous locations. The blonde hair is Denise’s, and Carausu is determined to chase it up and calls Vallejo PD but gets no answer. She continues calling and eventually gets transferred through and is told to call the FBI as Vallejo PD is no longer investigating it and the feds have taken over the case. 

She is given the number of David Sesma and tells him they have a suspect in custody similar to Denise’s kidnapper. He tells her to send them the information and they’ll have a look. They are visibly shocked and realise they were wrong during a meeting to discuss the links. Turns out, law enforcement did little work in locating Denise’s kidnapper and zeroed in on Aaron and Denise as suspects instead. It’s also revealed Aaron’s lie detector came back with unknown results and he’d been lied to to break him down. 

Also, the police claimed there was no evidence of non-consensual sex when Denise was kidnapped, and police also put Aaron’s phone in airplane mode despite him waiting for instructions from the kidnapper. He did call and the calls would’ve been traceable to 200 metres from where Denise was being held. The FBI is now sure Muller acted alone, despite claims that others were involved and are out there, it’s not investigated. Denise and Aaron attend a press conference headed up by Rappaport, who reveals the false claims against the couple. 

What happens at the end of American Nightmare? 

March 2017 – Muller pleads guilty and is sentenced. Denise and Aaron come face to face with Matthew Muller in court. He is sentenced to a total of 40 years in prison for kidnapping, robbery and rape. 

However, he wasn’t charged with the attempted rapes in Palo Alto and Mountain View or the peeping tom incidents on Mare Island. Muller also never revealed why Andrea was the original intended victim. 

2016 – Aaron and Denise sue the Vallejo police for defamation and they settle out of court for $2.5 million. 

The chief of Vallejo PD, Andrew Bidou, is deposed in the civil case, and an anonymous source says that before the press conference, Bidou told Lt Park to ‘burn that bitch,’ referring to Denise and accusing her of causing a hoax. However, no officers were disciplined in the case. Mat Mustard was awarded Officer of the Year for 2015, despite acting outrageously during the investigation. 

At the end of 2017 – Sgt. Misty Carausu meets with Aaron and Denise, and Denise says ‘She’s our hero’ for connecting the cases and believing her story. 

At the end of American Nightmare episode 3, it is revealed that Aaron and Denise got married and moved to the coast to start a new life. In March 2020 – Denise gave birth to their daughter Olivia, who was then followed by another daughter called Naomi. 


The Episode Review

Episode 3 brings everything together and, unlike a lot of true crime documentaries, it has a happy ending that leaves the audience feeling satisfied. True life doesn’t always work like that, but it’s a nice change to see the victims in the case prosper in the end. Sgt. Misty Carausu emerges as the hero of the story for linking the cases, and she epitomises how police officers should act in contrast to the unprofessional Detective Mat Mustard. 

There could’ve been further episodes to go into more detail about the unsolved crimes Muller was potentially responsible for, but this is very much Aaron and Denise’s story, so that might’ve taken away from that. This is true crime at its binge-worthy best. 

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You can look forward to a full season review when this show ends!

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1 thought on “American Nightmare – Season 1 Episode 3 Recap, Review and Ending Explained”

  1. In my opinion. The Detective Mustard should be held accountable for his duty, as an officer. Whatever a court decides, should be accountable for any law enforcement officer. I personably believe. I would charge him with possibly jail time and loss of his pension and also loss of any assets occurred during his duty, as a law abiding citizen. These are the individuals that are paid to protect society.

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