Gone Girl kidnapper Matthew Muller’s mom offers bizarre statement as he’s charged with shocking historic crimes

The mother of ‘Gone Girl’ kidnapper Matthew Muller stands defiantly behind her son even as he faces new charges.

Joyce Zarback told DailyMail.com: “We are doing well. I love my son. I think he’s incredible.’

The 79-year-old retired English teacher made her impossibly tone-deaf comment after notorious rapist Muller, 47, was hit with two more shocking crimes on December 30.

He will be arraigned on Monday, January 6 at the Hall of Justice in Santa Clara, California.

The Ivy-League-trained and decorated former Marine is currently serving 40 years behind bars in a federal prison in Tuscon, Arizona, for rape and false imprisonment following the nightmarish kidnapping of Denise Huskins, now 39, in March 2015 — which investigators believe initially insisted it was a hoax .

Police were forced into an embarrassing about-face when it emerged that Muller had indeed kidnapped Huskins from the home she shared with boyfriend Aaron Quinn in Vallejo, California, 30 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Muller broke into the home where he drugged and tied up the couple. He kidnapped Huskins, took her to his family’s cabin in South Lake Tahoe and sexually assaulted her.

Quinn told police that his girlfriend was being held for an $8,500 ransom. They in turn accused him of killing her and using the kidnapping story as a cover.

Two days later, Muller drove his victim to Huntington Beach, 420 miles south of Vallejo, where she managed to escape and make her way to relatives.

Observers noted that the events had similar plot features to director David Fincher’s 2014 psychological blockbuster drama “Gone Girl,” starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, based on the novel by Gillian Flynn.

Huskins and Quinn’s harrowing ordeal was turned into a compelling Netflix documentary, “American Nightmare,” which debuted on the streaming service last January.

Meanwhile, prosecutors from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office have said Muller is also responsible for two more crimes, both strikingly similar to the infamous 2015 home invasion.

The first, an assault and attempted rape of a woman in her 30s during a burglary, occurred in September 2009.

It is alleged that Muller, a Harvard Law School graduate, broke into the victim’s home in Mountain View, Northern California, 37 miles south of San Francisco.

According to prosecutors, she woke up to find a masked intruder poking her head into her bed. The man told her he was committing identity theft.

The attacker handcuffed the woman and also tied her ankles with “a kind of Velcro.”

He left his terrified victim bound and made several phone calls over the course of her two-hour ordeal.

At one point, Muller carried her downstairs and then took her back upstairs to her bedroom. He forced the woman to drink Nyquil and used her own cell phone to text her employer saying she had called in sick and would not be at work.

Muller, authorities said, threatened to rape the woman, but she “persuaded him against it.” He then left the house, but not before suggesting she buy a dog for companionship.

The following month, the latest lawsuit also alleges, Muller targeted a home in Palo Alto, seven miles north of Mountain View.

According to a police report of the incident, he broke into the building – again wearing a mask – with a sleeping woman inside.

He tried to disguise his voice by speaking in a “low growl” while simultaneously holding her ankles and arms with cloth shackles. He put plugs in her ears and covered her eyes with surgical tape.

He again forced the woman to drink Nyquil and threatened to rape her, but he relented when she told him about a previous sexual assault she had suffered.

Muller “gave the victim advice on crime prevention and then fled,” prosecutors said, warning her not to call police.

A new investigation was opened by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office after Muller’s DNA was found to be on straps used to tie up one of the victims. He was charged with two felony counts of assault during a home invasion for both 2009 crimes.

“The details of this individual’s violent crime may seem written for Hollywood, but they are tragically real,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. “Our goal is to ensure that this defendant is held accountable and never hurts or terrorizes anyone again.” Our hope is that this nightmare is over.”

Muller apparently maintained his unquenchable lust for scaring women when he targeted Huskins six years later.

He pleaded guilty to kidnapping in the ‘Gone Girl’ case in 2016 and to the sexual assault of Denise Huskins in 2022.

Yesterday, DailyMail.com revealed that the couple has been assisting authorities as prosecutors came forward with the latest charges.

“We continue to work with law enforcement to ensure this matter is fully investigated,” Huskins told DailyMail.com.

Huskins and Quinn, both physical therapists, are married and now live with their two young daughters in a charming coastal town in California. They sued the Vallejo Police Department for defamation and reached a $2.5 million settlement.

They said on American Nightmare that in addition to the trauma they experienced, they feared losing their jobs due to false police accusations that they had fabricated the kidnapping.

“You go through something like that, and every moment, every ounce of energy is about ‘How do I live to live through another second?’ That’s all you can think about,” Huskins told ABC News. “The last thing on your mind is, ‘If I survive, I have to make sure I’m credible.’

Muller left the Marines in 1999 after tours of Japan and the Middle East. He attended community college in California and then studied at Harvard Law School from 2003, where he graduated with a Juris Doctor degree in 2006.

In 2009, he moved back to the Golden State and began working for immigration law firms in San Francisco. His law license was suspended in 2013 for non-payment of dues.

In 2017, he was suspended in California for failing to do proper work for clients and in 2017 he was ultimately barred from working in federal immigration courts after pleading guilty in the Huskins case.

Zarback’s latest comment on DailyMail.com about Muller strikes a different tone than a 2017 interview with the Sacramento Bee when she said, “I feel terrible that it’s my son who started this.”

She told the outlet that he didn’t date when he was in high school because he was overweight and was bullied.

His parents divorced in 1995 when he was in high school. Instead of going to college, Muller joined the Marines and played trumpet in the Corps band.

In the same interview, Zarback described her son as “strong-willed.” She and her husband wanted Muller to go to college, but “he had made up his mind.”

Supreme Court Judge Hector Ramon ordered Muller to return to court on January 17 to enter a plea. He faces life behind bars if convicted of the latest charges.