Search on for Vallejo woman reported kidnapped for ransom

Denise Huskins. Denise Huskins. Photo: Courtesy, Vallejo Police Photo: Courtesy, Vallejo Police Image 1 of / 17 Caption Close Search on for Vallejo woman reported kidnapped for ransom 1 / 17 Back to Gallery

Teams of searchers fanned out across Vallejo’s Mare Island on Tuesday, looking for any sign of a missing Kaiser Permanente physical therapist whose boyfriend told police a horrifying story — that she was kidnapped for ransom from their home in the middle of the night.

Federal agents streamed into Vallejo to join the hunt, as did family members of 29-year-old Denise Huskins, who said they were overcome by shock and fear and confounded by what had happened to her on the isolated peninsula that once housed a Navy base.

“This is a nightmare that I can’t wake up from. She’s my baby. It’s just terrible,” said Huskins’ father, Mike Huskins, who arrived from Huntington Beach (Orange County). He urged any potential captors not to hurt his daughter, and said the marathon runner would not have gone without a fight.

“She isn’t the type of person who would go with someone who just came up and grabbed her arm,” he said. “She’s a strong woman. She could hold her own with a lot of men.”

“Denise is tough,” her cousin, Amy Mattison, said in a telephone interview. “If somebody did take her, she would have put up one heck of a fight.”

A man who lives with Denise Huskins — identified by neighbors and relatives as her boyfriend and a fellow Kaiser physical therapist, 30-year-old Aaron Quinn — called police about 2 p.m. Monday, officials said. He reported that Huskins had been forcefully taken from the home he owns at 524 Kirkland Ave. several hours earlier, and that the intruders had demanded a ransom for her return.

Police search home

Police officials said Quinn was not a person of interest as they sought evidence, searching the home, a car and the surrounding area with 75 people from multiple agencies and several police dogs. Dive teams scoured the waters around the island. At a late news conference, Lt. Kenny Park, a police spokesman, said search dogs had keyed in on a scent near the Mare Island Strait and investigators would be searching the area overnight, using both dive teams and sonar, but gave few other details about the case.

Meanwhile, in the early afternoon, The Chronicle received an e-mail from an anonymous person claiming to be holding Huskins. The newspaper decided not to immediately publish details about the communication.

Asked for a comment on the e-mail, Capt. Jim O’Connell said, “Every bit of information that comes in, every possible lead, we’re going to consider.”

Investigators were tight-lipped regarding details of the case — including in their conversations with Huskins’ family. Mattison said she and other relatives don’t know what to make of the account of the kidnapping-for-ransom, as they continued to hold out hope that Huskins is alive and well.

“I think right now there is a lack of real information about what happened. That is the part that is weighing on everybody’s mind,” Mattison said. “We are hoping and praying we get her home safe and sound.”

Boyfriend waited hours

It was not clear why Huskins’ boyfriend had apparently waited hours to alert authorities to her abduction. Attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.

Huskins’ father said he had never met Quinn, who met his daughter about seven months ago at Kaiser. “The last time I talked to her, about a week ago, I asked how things were going with him and she said they were great,” he said. She had told him, 'Dad, I’m in love,’” he said.

Asked what he would say to her, the father said, “I would tell her to stay strong, that the family is here behind her, that I think good things are going to happen and to stay strong.”

Police said a 2000 Toyota Camry registered to Quinn reportedly had been taken from the two-story yellow home Monday, with the car found later in the day at an undisclosed location in Vallejo. Officers released photos of the sedan, asking anyone who may have seen it to notify them.

“We don’t have all of the facts yet,” Park said during a Tuesday news conference. “All I can tell you is there was a ransom demand, (according to) the male person who reported this crime.”

He added that investigators “have a lot of information still to sift through. We don’t have all of the facts in yet, and that’s what he’s helping us do, to piece the puzzle together.”

Mattison said her cousin, with whom she keeps in close touch, is “smart and strong and fun and caring.”

'Larger than life’

“She just has a larger-than-life personality and cares deeply for those around her, and her family and friends, and is fiercely loyal in that respect,” Mattison said.

Huskins works as a physical therapist at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Vallejo and previously worked at a Southern California orthopedic institute. She moved to Vallejo in June 2014 from Southern California.

She had also worked in Boston and was three blocks from the finish line during the Boston Marathon bombing, her father said. The ordeal upset her and prompted her to return to Southern California, he said.

Neighbors of the couple said Tuesday that they were stunned.

“I’m scared to death — without question. I got two girls. It’s scary,” said Dana Vandeweg, 46, who lives next door to Huskins and Quinn. “I’m just beyond shocked.”

Anyone with information was asked to call Vallejo police at (707) 648-4524.

Evan Sernoffsky, Kale Williams and Henry K. Lee are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: hlee@sfchronicle.com, esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com and kwilliams@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @evansernoffsky @sfkale @henryklee