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While supposed kidnapping victim Denise Huskins and boyfriend Aaron Quinn lawyer up and go quiet, there are more details emerging from the lengthy email/"manifesto" that Huskins' lawyer, following one sent to the Chronicle, received from the supposed kidnappers. Either somebody has a terrific imagination and some serious cajones, or they are wildly backpedaling from an insanely dumb idea in an effort to avoid prosecution, or both. Or, as ABC's Nightline wants to have it, there actually is some gang of Ocean's Eleven gentlemen criminals out there deftly escaping capture. AND/OR, there is just something in the water up in Vallejo that makes every crime story to come out of that town that much more bizarre than anywhere else in the Bay Area.
The latest details in the "manifesto," which Huskins' lawyer appears to accept wholesale in the interview with ABC, suggest that not only was Huskins not the kidnappers' intended victim there's no explanation of who else in the neighborhood might have been but that the entire kidnapping was meant to be a "dry run" so that these "gentlemen criminals" could go after "a higher profile target" in the future. And presumably they would ask for more than the chump change ($8500) that they asked for in this case.
You can read the full recaps of what happened here and here, and Vallejo police and the FBI started using the word hoax immediately after Huskins briefly disappeared after agreeing to be questioned by the FBI, and immediately hired a lawyer before then appearing back in Vallejo for interrogation.
We have not yet heard her side of the story, but via the lawyer and the kidnappers we learn that she was supposedly outfitted with an electro-shock dog collar to keep her from screaming, and the kidnappers just felt so awful about taking her that there was a case of "reverse Stockholm Syndrome" and they just decided to drop her off at her father's house in Huntington Beach without collecting any ransom.
The best part: ABC pulls in professional kidnapping sensationalist Nancy Grace to call bullshit on the whole affair. "Everything about this kidnap[ping] screams out hoax," says Grace. "She was returned without the kidnappers ever getting any ransom money. She gave a 'proof of life' audio file. She basically says, 'I'm fine. I'm kidnapped.' No."
She's especially amused by the "gentlemen bandits" part, and so am I! And the references to Gone Girl and Ocean's Eleven it all seems too clever and odd to be true. So, once again, thank you, Vallejo. Now you're on Nancy Grace's radar.
