Watch : "Dirty John's" Real-Life Victim Speaks Out The long con is over. Bravo's hit series Dirty John ended its eight-episode run on Sunday night, depicting John Meehan's (Eric Bana) violent demise at the unlikely hands of Debra Newell's (Connie Britton) youngest daughter, Terra (Julia Garner). Based on the hit podcast from Wondery and the L.A. Times and the six-part L.A. Times article written by Christopher Goffard (who also penned an installment of the show), Dirty John has become one of Bravo's most successful shows ever, breaking ratings records for the network. Given the too-crazy-to-be-made-up storyline—a sociopath cons a businesswoman he met online, mayhem ensues—it's easy to think that the show had to have embellished or made up certain parts of the story to ramp up the drama for TV. But fans of the podcast know all too well that when it came to John Meehan, anything was possible.<doc-sep>Debra Newell discovered too late the deceptions of John Meehan, a serial con man she married after a 2-month courtship — inspiring Bravo's Dirty John Warning: This article contains spoilers about the real-life events dramatized in Bravo’s Dirty John. The red flags in her relationship with John Meehan went up early, but Tonia Bales was slow to see them. Get push notifications with news, features and more. His stated age and the birthdate on his driver’s license didn’t match. After a two-year courtship, he didn’t invite his family to their 1990 wedding — and in watching the wedding video by herself later, Bales overheard for the first time that his college friends called him “Filthy John.” His dismissive explanation: “They’re just drunk. It means nothing.” “He was charming, and he seemed very interested in me, and of course that always feels good,” Bales tells PEOPLE of their early days, when she was a nurse and Meehan was attending law school, before he abruptly opted to change careers and let Bales support him during his transition. By the time of their 2002 divorce, after Meehan got another woman pregnant, Bales, then a mom to their two girls, had learned he was expert at hiding secrets, including his past arrest for cocaine trafficking. She’d found his mother’s phone number and reached out. “This is Tonia. I’m married to your son John,’ ” Bales said. “She [his mom] was totally quiet. Then she said, ‘Oh Tonia, I knew you would call me one day.’ ” “That just led to the whole conversation that he’s changed his age, he altered his name, he’s been arrested before, he’s been lying and cheating and messing around with other women his whole life,” Bales says. But that was far from the end: Meehan’s deceptions would grow much darker — and more deadly. US_NEWS_DIRTYJOHN-3_3_LA TNS_preview From left: John Meehan and Debra Newell | Credit: Courtesy Debra Newell A New Mark? In 2014, Meehan found Debra Newell on an over-50 dating website, Newell tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. Their two-month courtship led first to marriage and then to tragedy, inspiring the hit scripted Bravo series DirtyJohn, itself adapted from a same-named podcast from the Los Angeles Times. A companion documentary, Dirty John: The Dirty Truth, premieres Jan. 14 on Oxygen. Newell, a wealthy and successful interior designer looking for love after four failed marriages, “couldn’t wait to spend my evening with him,” she tells PEOPLE of their initial connection. “He’d tell me how beautiful I was, ask me about my day and rub my back,” Newell says. “I was infatuated with him.” • For more on the real-life romance and surprising revelations that inspired Dirty John, subscribe now to PEOPLE or pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday. Her four adult children were not. They quickly became skeptics as Meehan, who by then claimed to be an anesthesiologist just back to Southern California after a year volunteering in Iraq with Doctors Without Borders, moved in with their mother, evaded questions about his past, started driving only her cars and then tried to distance Newell from her kids. They hired a private investigator who validated their fears: Not only had Meehan never attended medical school, he had a felony rap sheet that revealed he’d served time in California and Michigan for stealing narcotics from hospitals where he worked as a nurse and had swindled and terrorized multiple other women he’d met online. In fact, Meehan had only been out of prison for a few days before his first date with Newell. “I was in shock,” she says. “And I was scared and angry.” Dirty John real life: John and Debra's Wedding in Vegas.Courtesy Debra Newell From left: John Meehan and Debra Newell | Credit: Courtesy Debra Newell A Troubling History The year before that first date in 2014, Meehan was arrested after police followed up a complaint by another woman he’d pursued and extorted for money, police investigator Julia Bowman tells PEOPLE. The woman was a wealthy writer who had encountered Meehan in a hospital where she was recovering after surgery, and he falsely portrayed himself as her anesthesiologist. “She wakes up to see a man in scrubs at her bedside and he gives her his phone number and says, ‘If you have any issues following your surgery, give me a call,’ ” says Bowman. “He has a type,” she explains. “He would meet as many women as possible and then find the one that is the wealthiest, and then attach to that person.” Contact between Meehan and the writer led to a relationship and he “convinced her to wire him all of her money in two separate bank accounts that totaled almost $40 million,” Bowman says. Before the money was in Meehan’s hands, however, the woman balked. An alarmed friend searched his name online and found “all these women who were trying to warn other women that he had extorted them and stalked them,” says Bowman. • Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. Meehan “was able to dismiss every allegation — ‘This was just a bad breakup’ or ‘She’s jealous of me,’ ” Bowman says. But after he learned the woman had blocked the transfer, a financial tussle broke out as Meehan spent the cash she’d already given him — $30,000 — cut her off from her family and wreaked havoc on her life with threats and demands. When police intervened to arrest Meehan, he was driving a car apparently extorted from another woman and living in a cluttered RV that he’d conned from a third woman, according to the former investigator. (He eventually pleaded guilty in the case to stalking, burglary and being a felon in possession of a handgun.) In the freezer of his RV police found Meehan had stashed a backpack that contained a revolver, ammunition, binoculars, duct tape, zip ties, a GPS unit and capsules of cyanide — what Bowman calls “pretty much a killing, kidnapping kit.” “He seemed like he was someone who was very experienced in doing exactly what he was doing,” she says. “It just seemed so calculated and polished.” Meehan succeeded thanks in part to that level of calculation and polish and expert exploitation of his targets. “A lot of times women think they’ve put themselves in this position or that it’s their own fault that they’ve gotten into this relationship and it got messy, or that the person will eventually leave them alone, and that’s not the case,” Bowman says. “The problem with stalking, the thing that makes it so volatile,” she says, “is that you don’t know how a stalker is going to respond.” • Read the shocking tales of people lured into cults and controversial groups in PEOPLE’s True Crime Stories: Cults, available now on Amazon and wherever magazines are sold. A Con Man’s Demise In the case of Newell, her children’s discoveries made her realize she did not really know the man she had married. She sought an annulment of their Las Vegas vows, even as Meehan tearfully told her he deserved a chance to prove he was innocent of any accusations. His pleas prompted a short reconciliation. And then Newell went into hiding, and Meehan responded with a violent turn. He filed for divorce himself, demanding half of Newell’s income and ownership in her business. He lit her Tesla on fire, emailed nude images of her to her family and began to stalk her, repeating the same terroristic tactics he’d used before. “I lived in constant fear,” says Newell. On Aug. 20, 2016, for reasons that remain unclear — whether out of desperation or revenge, hoping to track Newell down or punish her — Meehan waited outside the Newport Beach apartment of her daughter Terra and attacked her. Terra, though injured, successfully fought him off — kicking his knife from his hand, then grabbing it herself and stabbing him in the chest, forehead and eyes. Meehan died four days later. “It’s poetic justice in the strongest degree,” Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy tells PEOPLE.<doc-sep>Before Dirty John was a star-studded Bravo series, it was a podcast. But before that, it was Debra Newell's life story. She was a real person who became embroiled with the real John Meehan until it ended with the bloodiest conclusion of all: Meehan attacking Newell's daughter Terra, who killed him in self-defense. Now that that has played out on the show, it's natural to wonder: what does Debra Newell think of the Dirty John show? Some of the toughest moments of Newell's life were depicted on the Bravo series, but she ultimately approved of how they were handled. "Overall, seeing my family's story out there has been a good [experience] because the good people won!" she told Forbes, before explaining that she believed they went through all this for a reason: to help others. That was why it she wanted her story told in the first place. She thought if other women could see it as something of a cautionary tale, it might help them avoid the same fate. But while it was important for Newell to share what happened, everyone in her family wasn't on the same page. Though she didn't name names specifically, Newell told Us Weekly that some of her relatives were hesitant to get involved with the series. However, since it was going to happen with or without their involvement, Newell preferred to be included. "Wouldn't it be better if we were able to have an opinion or share our story?" Newell said. "At that point, it was pretty easy." Rich Fury/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images That allowed Newell to meet with the cast and visit the set to see how it compared to the real home she shared with Meehan. She told Bravo Home & Design that she loved the look of the condo and "thought it was close in style [to my actual house at the time]." However, the color scheme was a little different: Newell favored glam blacks and golds, while the show went for a more neutral, beachy look. Newell also shared multiple lunches and chats with Connie Britton, who starred as the fictionalized Debra Newell on the series. While talking to Us Weekly, Newell described being played by Britton as a "dream come true" and praised the accuracy of the performance. She felt Britton nailed her mannerisms and the way she spoke, but also tried to get into her mindset by asking her thought-provoking questions about love. Newell thought that Eric Bana did a good job of portraying Meehan as well, though she was conflicted in her reaction to him. She said she didn't know whether to slap him or kiss him. "I have a little bit of mixed feelings here," she said. "He played the part very well." Newell was able to get her story out there while remaining involved behind the scenes, which may have helped the show stay truthful — even if a detail here and there (like the sets) was altered for the adaptation. She told Us Weekly that the process of filming the show was a "whirlwind," but it seems to have been ultimately positive. After a very frustrating first birth experience, this Deaf mother wanted a change. Will the help of two Deaf doulas give the quality communication and birth experience this mom wants and deserves? Watch Episode Four of Romper's Doula Diaries, Season Two, below, and visit Bustle Digital Group's YouTube page for more episodes.<doc-sep>
Spoilers ahead. Dirty John, Bravo’s new true crime show based on the Wondery/Los Angeles Times podcast of the same name, is a stunning reminder that you can’t be too careful when it comes to online dating—or meeting someone new anywhere, for that matter. The show, which premiered on Nov. 25, derives from L.A. Times reporter Christopher Goffard’s detailed research on what happened to Newport Beach-based businesswoman Debra Newell when she fell in love with a man named John Meehan, who turned out to be a con artist. In 2016, Debra’s daughter Terra stabbed John in self-defense after he showed up with a knife and attacked her in the parking lot of her apartment building. He died four days later. On Nov. 13, the real life Debra and her family walked the red carpet for the world premiere of Dirty John, which resulted in this: (L-R) Eric Bana, Connie Britton, the real Debra Newell, Juno Temple, and the real Terra Newell. Getty Below, a breakdown of what some of the major characters of Dirty John look like in real life: Debra Newell (Connie Britton) Bravo | Getty The Friday Night Lights and American Horror Story alum was one of the first stars to be attached to the Bravo adaptation. “I didn’t have to be convinced at all, because I was really pulled in by the story,” Connie said at Vulture Festival on Nov. 17. “And I was intrigued it had already been pulled into the zeitgeist… I just jumped right in.” The real Debra’s interior design business is called Ambrosia Interior Design (it’s Madeira on the show), a company she founded in the 1980s. She’s currently listed as the president and owner of Ambrosia Home, based in Nevada. John Meehan (Eric Bana) Bravo | Michigan Department of Corrections Per Christopher Goffard’s reporting and the podcast, the real John had “seduced, swindled and terrorized multiple women” from 2005 to 2014, aka from when he was released from prison in Michigan until he met Debra. In most of these encounters, court records showed, he posed as a doctor when in reality, he was a former nurse anesthetist who was hooked on surgical painkillers. Arlane Hart, Debra’s mother (Jean Smart) Bravo | Getty The real Arlane had lost a daughter more than 30 years before the events of Dirty John. Part of the podcast’s fourth episode, “Forgiveness,” dives into Arlane’s grieving process following the death of Debra’s older sister Cindi, who was killed by her own husband Billy Vickers with a gun. Veronica Newell, Debra’s daughter (Juno Temple) Actress Juno Temple plays Veronica, based on Jacquelyn, in Dirty John. Bravo For the show, Bravo changed the name of Debra’s other daughter from Jacquelyn to Veronica. Jacquelyn has apparently taken a back seat throughout the TV show’s development compared to Debra and Terra, who appeared on various programs earlier this year to promote their Dateline NBC special and was recently on E! ahead of the Bravo show’s premiere. Terra Newell, Debra’s daughter (Julia Garner) Bravo | Getty In a January 2018 interview with Meghan Kelly, the real Terra explained how she defended herself against John in her building’s parking lot. It wasn’t self-defense training (she had never taken any classes up until that moment), but her love for The Walking Dead. “When I got the knife from him, I just stabbed him,” she said. “I didn’t give it a second thought, I just thought it’s him or me. And then also, the last one was to the head, and I think that’s like, oh, the zombie kill.” Cash, Terra’s Australian Shepherd As detailed in the podcast’s final episode, this good boy was with Terra on the day John attacked her in 2016 and even “lunged for” John’s ankles during the struggle. After the incident, Cash was allowed to ride in the ambulance with Terra and was with her throughout her recovery. These days, you can find Cash hamming it up on his own Instagram page (managed by Terra). If you only have time for a quick video (versus endless browsing on his Insta feed), might I suggest this sweet video of Cash courtesy of Dateline? A very small creature plays a very big role in Friday’s #Dateline.