American Nightmare is streaming on Netflix. Photo:
An American journalist covering a kidnapping case believed he could be the next victim after receiving emails from the alleged perpetrators.
American Nightmare, a three-part docuseries screening on Netflix about the case, is currently sitting at number one in New Zealand.
Henry Lee, a crime reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle at the time of the kidnapping in 2015, features heavily in the docuseries.
He told First Up that American Nightmare focuses on the kidnapping of Denise Huskins after her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, reports it to the Vallejo Police Department in California.
But police thought Quinn's story was just too far fetched, Lee said, and they did not believe him.
Lee said Quinn spoke of people in wetsuits invading his home, placing cameras all over the place, red tape on the ground, and putting goggles and headphones on him and Huskins.
Police thought his story could not be true and accused him of killing Huskins.
It was believed to be a real-life version of Gone Girl, a 2014 psychological film starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.
Days later, Lee said Huskins reappears 400 miles (643 kilometres) away in southern California near her family home.
She seemed okay physically, so police come to the conclusion that Huskins made up the whole kidnapping with help of Quinn, he said.
They called it an "elaborate hoax" and labelled them liars.
When Huskins was still missing, Lee said he began receiving emails regarding the kidnapping.
"Even when she was still away, kidnapped we believe, I receive this so-called proof of life audio file.
"It's a woman's voice. She says 'I'm Denise Huskins. I'm kidnapped, otherwise I'm fine', so I'm looking around, actually physically in the neighbourhood of the couple's home, this is the first day and I thought you know, someone is playing a prank on me.
"I'm looking around, trying to see if a fellow reporter is laughing at me, joking, and days later after she reappeared, I get these emails accusing Vallejo Police - no, you are ridiculous, you need to believe her, I kidnapped her, it really happened, and you need to believe her.
"So here is someone, or a group, reportedly confessing to a crime, you know, when does that ever happen?"
Lee said part of him believed the audio file could have been any woman claiming to be Huskins to try gain notoriety.
But others in his newsroom thought it could be her so it was sent on to the police.
Lee said he was receiving emails "at all hours of the day or night" from the group claiming to have taken Huskins.
They were throwing out all sorts of allegations, accusations and other crimes, he said.
There were "psychologically scary" elements to the emails, including the sender saying they knew where he had gone to school, which had Lee thinking "am I next"?
Lee said it was surreal to be part of a docuseries that has now gone global.
"You have to feel bad about what this couple went through. I'm not going to spoil it for you but there are a lot of twists and turns in this very true crime story out of the Bay Area."
