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A man who was convicted of kidnapping and raping a Vallejo woman in a case featured in a Netflix documentary series is facing new charges of sexual assault that allegedly took place during two prior Bay Area home invasions.
Six years before former Marine Matthew Muller invaded the home of a Vallejo couple in 2015, he was active in the South Bay, authorities said.
Muller is accused of breaking into the homes of two women in 2009, restraining them and forcing them to drink medication. He threatened to rape the first woman in Mountain View, but she talked him out of assaulting her, prosecutors said. The next month, in Palo Alto, he began to sexually assault the second woman before she convinced him to stop, according to the new charges.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said DNA on bindings used during one of the break-ins led to the two new felony charges against Muller. He was arraigned Monday afternoon in Santa Clara County Superior Court on suspicion of committing a sexual assault during a home invasion. He is expected to return to court for a possible plea on Jan. 17.
Muller, 47, is currently serving a 40-year prison sentence for kidnapping and sexual assault in the 2015 Vallejo case, which became the subject of the Netflix documentary series American Nightmare. The series depicted the victim’s bizarre abduction, assault and subsequent release, as well as law enforcement’s initial suspicions that the couple themselves had staged the crime, drawing comparisons to the novel and film Gone Girl.
Muller was eventually arrested for both the Vallejo kidnapping and a violent Dublin home invasion and is currently serving time at a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona.
