True Crime Campfire - Survivor: Debra Newell Moves Past Dirty John

Episode Date: August 27, 2021

So, campers, today we’re excited to have a special guest with us. I’m sure most of you are familiar by now with the “Dirty John” story, either because of the six-part LA Times podcast or the TV series with Eric Bana and Connie Britton. They tell the story of con man and serial predator John Meehan, who seems to have devoted his entire life to using and abusing other people, especially women, to satisfy his drug addiction and his sadistic desire for control. Today we’re joined by Debra Newell, whose life with John Meehan inspired the podcast and the miniseries. Debra has written a new book, along with veteran true crime writer M. William Phelps. It’s called Surviving Dirty John: My True Story of Love, Lies, and Murder, and Debra is a woman on a mission: To educate us about predators like John and how to protect ourselves from them. That is a goal that is dear to our hearts here at True Crime Campfire, so we’re thrilled to do what we can to help her get her message out. Sources:Surviving Dirty John: My True Story of Love, Lies, and Murder by Debra Newell, with M. William PhelpsPodcast "Dirty John," LA TimesDocumentary "Dirty John: The Dirty Truth"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]: https://shop.spreadshirt.com/true-crime-campfire/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Shop with Racketon, and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping. So join Racketon and start getting cash back at Sephora, Uniglo, Expedia, and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cashback. Just start your shopping with Racketon to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at racketon.ca. Or download the Racketon app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N, Racketon.ca.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. So, campers, today we're excited to have a special guest with us. I'm sure most of you are familiar by now with the dirty John story, either because of the six-parts. L.A. Times podcast or the TV series with Eric Banna and Connie Britton. They tell the story of con man and serial predator John Mehan, who seems to have devoted his entire life to using and abusing other people, especially women, to satisfy his drug addiction and his sadistic desire for control. Today we're joined by Deborah Newell, whose life with John Mehan inspired the podcast and the miniseries. Deborah has written a new book, along with veteran true crime writer M. William Phelps. It's called Surviving Dirty John, My True Story of Love, Love,

love, lies, and murder. And Deborah is a woman on a mission. To educate us about predators like John and how to protect ourselves from them. That is a goal that's dear to our hearts here at True Crime Camp Fire, so we're thrilled to do what we can to help her get our message out. This is Survivor. Deborah Newell moves past Dirty John. So for those of you who aren't familiar with the Dirty John story, I'll give you a thumbnail sketch. We don't have time to tell the whole story, and it is one hell of a story, so if you haven't listened to the L.A. Times podcast yet, we highly recommend checking it out. But in a nutshell, John Meehan was a serial predator who blazed through the lives of his victims

like a wildfire. He moved from con to con, crime to crime, dealing cocaine for a while, posing as a roofer, taking people's money, and bailing on the work, running credit card scams and housing scams. After flunking out of law school, he began a career as a nurse anesthetist, but soon got booted from that profession for stealing the drugs he was supposed to be administering. He was in and out of prison. To feed his drug addiction and his increasing need for power and control, Meehan then began a chilling pattern of seducing smart, accomplished women and sucking them dry, financially and emotionally. Following the predator playbook we've talked about a lot on True Crime Camp Fire, he'd worm his way in by love bombing the women.

turning himself into the kind of lifetime movie leading man we all dream about, and weaving a sparkly web of lies about his past and accomplishments. He was a doctor. He'd served in Iraq with doctors without borders. He had millions of dollars in the bank. He'd push for a quick marriage. Once the women started to realize who he really was, the breathtaking array of lies he told them, they'd try to leave. And then their nightmare would begin. John Meehan was a virtuoso of threats, stalking and revenge. There was no boundary he wouldn't cross, no low too low for him to stoop to, from sending private sexy pictures to the women's family members and co-workers to threatening to hire a hitman to kill them or their families. He had no fear of consequences, which made him twice as

dangerous. A detective who worked with one ex-wife's stalking case against him said he was the most devious person he'd ever come across in 40 years. Meehan went from one woman to the next, robbing them and their families of their security and joy. He even stalked a female detective who worked on one of the many cases against him, accusing her of stealing money from him during a search. She and her boyfriend lived in fear of him for months. Oh, please, he didn't have any money to steal. And then, in the fall of 2014,

fresh out of a prison stint for stealing drugs from several hospitals and leading police on a violent chase in an attempt to resist arrest, this champ of a man went on the over-50 dating site, Our Time. casting his net for his next mark. And he found Deborah Newell, smart, beautiful, a self-made millionaire who built a successful interior design firm from the ground up, a perfect score for our boy. Little did he know that his marriage to Deborah would be his last.

After working hard to drive a wedge between Deborah and her grown children, who had bad vibes from him from day one, John began to show her who he really was. With the help of a private investigator, she and her kids uncovered the stunning true history of this man who had presented himself as Prince Charming. And soon they were fearing for their lives, under constant threat from an increasingly unhinged John,

who was unraveling as he realized Deborah, and any chance he had of getting his hands on her money, were slipping out of his control. Nobody could have predicted the way it would end. On August 20, 2016, John Mehan attempted to abduct Deborah's grown daughter, Tara, at knife point. But Tara wasn't interested in that. She fought back like a tiger,

determined not to let him drag her into his car. They struggled over the knife, and in a moment straight out of Tara's favorite show, The Walking Dead, she managed to get a hold of it. In a panic, Tara stabbed John over a dozen times. The fight finally came to an end when she plunged the knife into his eye. Mehan died in the hospital four days later. It was quite possibly the only way anything would ever have stopped him from damaging as many lives as he could. So, Deborah Newell, welcome. We are just thrilled to have you.

you and we were just both riveted oh yeah thank you for being here i'm sorry i'm i'm nervous to meet our very very first famous guest oh well that's sweet of you i'm not famous i just had something bad happen to me yeah i i choose to look at it like you know it's it's giving you wings to fly you know we were both just riveted by the podcast and i always listen to podcasts on my walks and i think my neighbors decided i'd lost it completely that summer because I just kept like gasping and shouting back at the show and arguing, you know, with the show. And obviously we could not put your book down. It was nice to get a chance to kind of get to know you better because more than I think any of the other tellings of this story,

we really get a look at your interior life during all this drama with John, and that's so valuable. In a lot of ways, your story is very Hollywood and dramatic and extreme. I mean, most people are never going to meet somebody quite as bad. as John Meahan, but on the other hand, I think it's a story that a lot of women are going to relate to and one that can teach us a lot about predatory behavior and kind of what makes us vulnerable to it. So if you would, talk a little bit about why you wanted to write this book, why you wanted to be here talking about it, kind of what are your goals for this work that you're doing now? Okay, well, first of all, I was not happy, and I probably shouldn't say

this, but I was not happy how the Dirty John podcast and the series portrayed me because there was so much time and effort that went into hiding, number one, research of who John is, along with, oh gosh, there's so many things. But I think they miss why I actually went back that first time. Absolutely. And I think in the book, it sort of shares. But also so many details were missed. So many details.

Oh, absolutely. I couldn't believe how much more we learned from the book. Yeah, yeah. And then on top of it, I really felt that people needed to understand what love bombing is, what coercive control is, basically a sociopath, psychopath, you name it, narcissists, so that they know in the future the red flags to look out for. Yeah, absolutely. I think what the previous tellings of this story have really missed is that, you know,

what I think you've gotten a lot of pushback for is when you, quote, unquote, went back to him after finding out a lot of his secrets and about the lies that he had told and the fact that he was really quite a dangerous guy. But the thing is, you weren't really buying his stick at that point anymore. I mean, that's what the book made clear to me. It was more about trying to placate him, it seemed to me, and give yourself time to formulate a safety plan and extricate yourself with as little dangerous as possible.

I mean, it's really easy to Monday morning quarterback when you weren't there and it wasn't your life. But, yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good point. And a safety plan is essential. You can't just leave because that's the really dangerous time, right? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yes. Yeah, a plan is essential.

If you walk away, I believe the stats, they may have changed recently, but 75% of a woman that is actually killed happens when she leaves without a plan. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And you did get some pushback after the podcast and after the Bravo series from people who didn't understand why you stayed with him and why you went back to him. So I'm curious as to whether you feel like you got more of that kind of critical. criticism from women than for men, because I feel like women can be extra hard on each other about this stuff, which is so kind of counterintuitive and weird to me, but I don't know, did you feel that way or did it was a pretty equally matched? No, it was a lot more women. I kind of suspected that. I was shocked. When you look back at what I went through, what my daughters

went through, I can't begin to tell you how close I am to my kids and how they have met the world to me my whole life, or their whole lives, let's put it that way. Right. And so a lot of, I had people beating me up for that I wasn't a good mom. Well, first of all, they were raised. They were in their 20s and 30s. Right, right. So they were on their own and I finally thought, okay, time for me. And so when I looked online, I don't know if you guys know this, but I went online. And because I had no time, it was kids and work, kids and work. Sure. And so when I did go online, I looked for a man that literally I felt had children

because they could relate to the time and energy that goes into kids, even adult kids and grandkids. And then I also looked for a man, obviously, that had been married, so he could understand what I've gone through with divorce and all. And then I also looked for one that liked animals because I'm an animal lover. Oh, that's huge. That's huge for me, too. You have to love animals. And for me, yes. And what I thought was someone that's fairly successful so that, number one, I'm working hard.

I don't want someone that's going to live on. off of me. Sure. Absolutely. You know. And then educated and intelligent, just because I want to have those conversations and be able to discuss things, you know, boom there, you name it. Absolutely.

So as far as I was concerned, he actually checked all the boxes. Oh, he sure did. But what I realized, yeah, but what I realized is he was a con man. And he was good at his game. So good. So there I was. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. He almost, it seems like he put a lot of effort into designing that profile. You know, he just picked every single thing. If you were to pin down what the Lifetime movie leading man that every woman dreams about is like, it would be this guy. I mean, doctors without borders and, you know, going and doing humanitarian work and he loves dogs and he's got this megawatt smile. I mean, you know, you're going to be. disarmed going into that for sure. Right. And I wonder if part of the reason why people are so hard on you is because there's this thing called the just world theory, you know, which is the tendency to

believe that if something awful happens to you, you must have done something wrong. Right. You must have made some terrible mistake. It's got to be your fault because if we can lull ourselves into thinking that, then it's not going to happen to us, right? So they like to think, well, I would have seen that profile and known it was a lie. It's too perfect, you know, red flag, red flag. But you know what? You weren't there. So he was real good at what he did. Yeah, not only that, but what you realize is a con man gets better and better and better. So he had probably done research on me and knew exactly what to say. And the one thing that I've noticed with a lot of the victims that I talked to do and the people that have survived is they're usually intelligent, self-made or have a great job,

great career, and they're so focused, and they have a lot of them have just a pure heart. Oh, yeah, of course. They can smell that a mile off. Oh, yeah. And because I get calls, I still get text, emails every single day. And the woman will say, yeah, I actually met him. I was his boss. Or he showed up at this restaurant and I'm a successful business owner, whatever it may be.

They were usually successful. And a lot of them just wanted love. And that's it. Yeah. So. How terrible, right? Yeah, it really is. I'm so sad.

Yeah, it totally is. And reading your book, it stood out to me that a lot of things in your life made you just a perfect target for somebody like John. I mean, let's go back to the murder of your sister, Cindy, by her husband, Billy, in 1984. Which is just awful. We're so sorry for your loss and to even have to talk about that. I can't imagine what a horrible thing that must have been to live through. And I really felt like we got a sense of Cindy and who she was. And it just kicked me right in the gut that part in the book.

So sad. Oh, well, thank you. I actually cried at that part. Oh, yeah. It was so clear how much you loved her and cared for her. Bless her heart. Yeah, we've become best friends. It just, yeah, well, thank you.

Billy killed Sidney, as so many spouse killers do. And as you mentioned, when she tried to leave him. This was obviously a traumatic loss for you. I mean, how could it not be? And the really shocking thing for me is that your mom, supported Billy after the murder. Yeah, I mean, she told you she not only forgave him, but would, quote, stand in support of him. I actually underlined that in the book.

It just blew my mind so much. And then testified for him at his trial, told the jury she loved him. And just really seems to have kind of furthered whether intentionally or not a victim blaming narrative about your sister, which is just incredible to me. Well, what I, well, okay, let's go back to why. She felt that way because I get it. Okay. I'm different than her. I had to literally get in and research and understand things in order to form the opinion I had.

But with my mom, first of all, Billy was charming. Billy was chrismatic. Billy seemed like he was the perfect husband. He acted like he was the victim of Cindy. Oh, yeah. And then on top of it, he literally acted like it was self-defense at one point. The stories that have come out of his mouth are crazy. My mom had no idea the abuse my sister was going through until I actually researched because she was very quiet about it.

So my mom's thinking that here's this man, it's either self-defense or this man that in the here, He had a rage lost it. Mm-hmm. Right. And so she's looking at it, those poor boys, you know, this poor guy, he just had a really hard time with his wife leading. And it wasn't really until I put two and two together and did the research that I understood who he was. Of course. Yeah, sure. I don't think there's any situation in which a mother would defend her child's killer unless she felt like she had a reason.

Oh, and my mom is one of the most wonderful, wonderful women out there, kind, loving, sweet, funny. And I think she just thought that's what you do as a Christian. Yeah, I was going to say, it seems like she felt like, to an extent, it was a mandate from her faith. You know, it's a forgiveness as part of her religion. And, you know, I do think that can be a factor. I mean, it's an extreme example. but I think whether, you know, your example is an extreme example, but whether they grew up in religious families or not,

women in our culture are really conditioned to do that. Even if you're not a devout Christian, I think we're just conditioned to be like that. Yeah, and it's about being nice, agreeable, forgiving, don't make waves. Yeah. So, Deborah, if you could, can you talk about that? Like, how did your mom's treatment of your sister's killer affect you?

And do you feel like it has anything to do with how you responded to the men in your life later on? A hundred percent. As far as the way I was raised was to forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive and be submissive. And honestly, I had, my dad was an incredible human being. He was literally loving. He was words of affirmation all the time. I never saw my parents have one fight, which is an issue. Don't get me wrong.

Yeah. Because I had no idea how to fight. But he was so good to my mom and so loving to my mom that I thought all men were like that. Sure. Yeah. So you don't see red flags. You are not subjected to a bad man. So you think, oh, you know, men are like this.

Plus, I was a little bit sheltered in the regard that we went to church three, four times a week. And I'm a Christian, okay? And I believe in all that. But I also believe that forgiveness, you don't put that person back in your life. Yeah. Forgiveness is for you, number one. Right. And number two, there's a process.

There is a process of trying to understand the church. what happened, why it happened, how it happened. And so that was more, I wanted answers. I wanted to understand what happened to my sister. And because I was just taught to instantly forgive without any kind of getting through it. Right. And maybe a different definition of forgiveness than the one that you have become comfortable with as an adult. You know, whereas you're looking at forgiveness now as you have no power.

over me. I have let this go. I'm not going to harbor all this cancerous hate, you know, against somebody else. That doesn't necessarily mean you're going to invite this person over for Thanksgiving. Exactly. Yeah. But he was. He was invited to everything. I can't even imagine. I know. It was awful. You feel so uneasy and you can't figure out. You think it's something wrong with you. Yeah. Oh yeah. I was going to say it's almost like gaslight. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my And I literally thought I was like the bad person in the family at one point because I was uneasy with it. Good grief. I had a hard time forgiving this man and allowing him at birthday parties and in the home and everything else.

So I was actually the one a little bit more judged than he was. That is unbelievable. Yeah. And how could that not reverberate through the rest of your life? life. Like you said, you didn't know what a bad man was and, you know, because your father was a good man. And then when there was a bad man, it was presented to you as, well, it's just a good person who snap. It's a good person who had one bad day or whatever. Yes. And you had several abusive relationships before John, one of whom drained you of your savings before you got away

from him. This is the one that you called Tim in the book. And I was going to say, can I have his address? I just want to talk. I'm not going to pelt his house with flaming bags of dog poop. I promise. But, oh, man, I hated that guy reading that book. I had to take breaks. I was so mad. Oh, I can't begin to tell you how, you know, he was perfect why we dated. Yeah. And perfect is usually a sign.

Sure, you would think, right? Yeah. Oh, Tim. Yeah, but he was good at, you know, acting like he was Mr. How do we put it? well perfect Mr. Wonderful Mr. Wonderful

Yeah Mr. Wonderful Yeah And then it was the day We got married That's the astounding thing The day we got married How fast it was And you hear that a lot

From survivors of abusive marriages Is that as soon as they get that ring On your finger man It's like it just turns on a dime Unreal And it seems like one of the reasons Why John appealed to you So much in the beginning

Is because he treated you So much better than these previous men had. And that brings me to the first of a list of sort of predator tactics that I'd like for us to talk about. Love bombing being one you already mentioned. We talk a lot about love bombing on true crime campfire because surprise, surprise, it comes up a lot in murder cases. And John Meehan seems to have been a true master at it. I mean, so tell me a little bit about, and I bet a lot of people listening are going to relate to this, the experience of being love bombed by a professional like John.

I mean, what kind of stuff would he do for you to dazzle you? Well, the first thing he did was when we were talking online, he said you are so like S-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O my type. And I was like, oh. That's good to hear. And I'm his type. Yay. And then he would ask me questions where I felt like a lot of men,

just talk about themselves. Yes, absolutely. So I'm thinking, wow, he's interested in me. I love this. And I obviously asked him questions also, but they always came back with the perfect answer. And so I'm thinking, wow, what a great catch. You know, this guy's great.

Of course. Finally, I did it right. Oh, God, that is so heartbreaking. Like, oh, this time, this is going to be the one. And, you know, you don't think when he's asking you questions about your life that he's like data gathering, you know, that he's trying to figure out a way in. It's just so creepy when you think of it in hindsight, but at the time, you know, you've got, I mean, didn't he be, there was one scene where you got home and he put a rose in your mouth and was

like dancing you around the room to your favorite music. Who does that? That's like leading man in a romantic comedy kind of stuff. Oh, no, he knew what to do to win me over. Obviously. Yeah, he was unbelievable. Yeah. So on the one hand, you've got some sketchy stuff going on, like your daughter's really early on found his paperwork and realized that he was lying about being a doctor, that he was actually a nurse anesthetist. And then we find out he wasn't even licensed anymore because he was stealing drugs. But on the other hand, you've got this intoxicating fairy tale relationship developing with a man who makes you feel like a queen. And what's that Maya Angelou quote that people will forget what you say, they'll forget what you do, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. And that was his magic, is he made you feel amazing. And, I mean, I've even heard people say later on, I still miss the asshole sometimes. And it's not that they miss him. It's that they miss the way that he made them feel about themselves, you know?

Right. So, I mean, it's a hard thing to then look at these red flags and think, okay, I need to slow this down or I need to shut this down because he makes you feel so good. And he would often use these kind of love mommy tactics to kind of distract you when you would ask him difficult questions, right? Oh, yes. Oh, 100% yes. Yeah. John was known to, I would walk in the door from work and we'd rub my back. Oh. He would say, let's go for a walk.

I want to hear about your day. Oh, my God. Who doesn't love that? Or turn on my favorite song. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, okay. Oh, my God. And I go, you really want to hear about my day?

He goes, oh, of course, I'd love to hear about your day, and I want to do whatever you want me to do to make you feel better, whether it's a back rub or take a walk on the beach or whatever it may be. So here I am. This man's walking into my life, and I'm thinking, wow, this is amazing. But I'm also, I don't know if you know the Myers-Briggs test. The personality test? Yeah, I know a little bit about it.

So I'm an ENFB. And that feeling, intuitive, perceptive. Right. Literally, John had spent years and years and years mastering and had conned woman after woman after woman. Yeah. And he just got better and better and better at it. Yes, and if I remember the list of women that he conned were all like you,

like really smart, accomplished. There was a woman who, I can't remember where she was from, maybe somewhere in Latin America. I can't remember, but she was a famous author and a, you know, multimillionaire. Really, I mean, these are not, you know, women who are easily fooled. They're not gullible people. They're not people you'd expect to, you know, so obviously it's either that he was a master at what he did or that one accomplished smart woman after another is just making toweringly bad choices. You know what I mean?

Yeah, so he's a master of what he does, obviously. Yeah, yeah. Well, and one of them was actually a, well, his first wife didn't have a clue for 10 years. That's amazing. Ten years. Yeah, and she was, yeah, she's a nurse anesthetist. Yeah. So, and very intelligent.

Mm-hmm. And another woman was a gynaecologist, obstetrician, I believe, one of the two. So, again, very successful. He goes after women that are successful and that probably have money of some sort or can make good money at some point. Yeah. So I think that he just really, he had a type and the type wasn't looks, it was money. Right. And also it probably made him feel better about himself to be with women who were gorgeous and successful.

That probably stroked his ego to be able to attract them. Yes, and John also had an extremely high IQ. That doesn't surprise me. So I don't know if he, yeah, I don't know if he was a genius, but he was pretty close to it. Yeah, that's creepy. I think you have to be. I think his EQ was probably off the charts. He was so emotionally intelligent to be able to manipulate, you and women like you.

Yeah, which is creepy when it comes with a lack of empathy. There's a word for it. It's like cognitive emotional intelligence, I think, is what they call. something like that. Okay. And where it means that you don't relate to the emotions necessarily, but you can, you get what the other person is feeling and how to work them. Oh, 100%.

He would cry. Yes. And I realize he's not really crying. It's an entire act that he was mastered. Gross. That's so creepy. Scary. Yeah.

Yeah. Yikes. And of course, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm so. sorry. Oh, yeah, you've fallen in a course. Because you're a person that, like, can relate to somebody else's feelings. Yes. And you feel sad when somebody else is sad.

Exactly. But he doesn't. Yeah, I'm an empath. I'm an empath on top of it. Right. Well, that doesn't surprise me. That's who these predators are attracted to. You know, people with a lot to give.

If you're a giver, you know, who a taker is going to want to be all over you because they want to take. Exactly. And you want to give. Right. And with love bombing often comes moving the relationship along at just lightning speed. John was relentless about asking you to marry him so much that he was a pest about it. Even at the time you were like, this is too much. Oh, it was constant. Not yet, not yet. He just kept pushing. Yeah. So he's ignoring your boundaries, but like doing it in this really romantic, charming way, so it must have been hard to, like, get mad about it. So remind us how long was it after you started dating that you married him? It was pretty fast, right? Oh, do we have to talk about this?

No, we don't have to talk about anything. Not at all. It was two months. It was two months. It seems like you gave in just to shut him up, honestly. Just to get him to leave you the hell alone about it. Honestly, I did. I don't tell you. I mean, what was I thinking? But again, they say you're so you're so enamored with this person. You don't even realize what you're doing at one point because they are so manipulative that you're even guessing yourself. Yeah, absolutely. They make you doubt your own truth. In the book, you were talking about how you were standing there in that little Vegas wedding chapel and you knew you were making a mistake, right? But you went through with it. And that's the power of that kind of manipulation.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. As I'm standing there, I'm going, what am I going to tell my kids? Oh, yeah. Should I be doing this? I'd ask for a pre-nup. I asked for time. Yeah. And he's getting his way. Yeah, you were trying to do, you were trying to do it right. And he just, he was like a freight train coming after you all the time. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. All the time. Yeah, absolutely. Daily, sometimes, oh gosh, now that I look back, I think it was probably some days, 20, 30 times a day. Good grief.

Wow. But I love you. I love you more than anything on earth. I can't imagine life without you. I want to die in your arms. Yeah. Please make me the happiest man on earth. Mm-hmm.

And then he, and I'm a Christian. And he said to me, we're living in sin. Oh, man, that's a powerful tool. Yeah. Yeah. Let's make this right with God. You know, God will bless this, you know, blah, blah, blah. So he used every tactic he possibly could.

Man, he is good. Yeah. Yeah, he was good. Very powerful stuff. And the thing is, I really believe that because he, he has, he has, knew your kids were so wary of him. I think this was also probably not only a tactic to get his foot in the door in terms of his goals with your money and everything, but also I think he knew how much that would isolate you from them. And of course, you know, abusers use isolation. It's

their best tool because it makes it so much easier to manipulate you. So how did he, how did he do that? I mean, what were some of his tactics to isolate you from the kids and other people in your life who might have helped you slow this down? well it's interesting because I realized early on he was we would take walks and he'd say you know you have worked so hard for 30 years I don't think you should be giving your kids how how should I put an interest in the company I think you need to take that back yeah and I'd be like oh no no no she's worked there 18 years right and she's one of the hardest workers and most talented and smart girl and we would literally argue about this in the beginning then i got to a point where i'll just let them say it but i know differently you know i know my daughter sure and then it was he would talk badly about my kids how they only love me for my money which is 100% not the true of course not but what they're doing is they're they're sort of painting and putting

this wedge in between your kids and yourself and And then what he would do is he would say, I want to put, when that woman came in to the house. Oh, we're going to talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. When she came into the house, I really felt that there we go again. He's putting a wedge in there. And then he has to move in because he hadn't moved in yet.

Yes. Oh, yeah. He has to move in to protect me. Yeah. And got the, but he was also saying everything right to my mom because he probably. knew she was an easy target yeah oh for sure she definitely i think was prime prime real estate for him and she was one of the only people that was kind of encouraging you and saying i like him i think he seems nice and so you had yes one important person in your life who was actually he was doing things

yeah he was yeah he was fixing things for her he was oh yeah he was paying bills for her he was going out of his way to do anything for my mom which i love Oh, sure. You know, it's my mom. Of course. So, yeah, so there was a lot that he did. Katie, you were going to be. mentioned that story that she just brought up about the woman who broke in and everything,

because I think that is a fascinating incident to pull out from all the many crazy things that happened to you with this man. And it's sort of like gaslighting and manipulation 101, that incident where, you know, the lady broke in and, yeah. So the woman that broke in, I'll never know the truth. I did some investigating and she would not answer back but I did find out that

I think she was successful at one point and I'm assuming that he knew her through drugs. Yeah. Yeah. So because because if you look at her, I was able to investigate her Facebook. I found an old little sticky that had her name on it.

and so I started looking her up. She's under like three or four different names. Oh, interesting. But she looked normal in about 2005, and you can see her going downhill and looking awful, like a drug user. Right, right. And just in case the campers aren't familiar with this story, what happened was one night Deborah and John came home from dinner someplace and found that this woman had broken into Deborah's house. house and she had like taken a shower and she was like sitting in a chair just drinking like Ovaltine and reading a book or something and you know wasn't hadn't like trash the place or

stolen anything but it was obviously extremely creepy and unsettling to come home and find you know somebody in your house and john like restrained her kind of violently it seemed like while you called the police and then as the police were leading her out he like leaned over and whispered something to her and it kind of tickled your antennae a little bit like wait a minute do you know this person? And he's like, of course not. Yeah, she wouldn't look at me at all. Right.

So I thought something is just, this is the oddest thing, you know, that you can imagine walking in your house, having a woman sit in a wing back chair staring at the ocean. So strange. Drinking Noble team that she had brought. Yeah. And she wore all my clothes and that she was in complete white shoes, white socks, white pants, white shirt. And reading this tiny miniature Bible. Wow.

Yeah. Very strange. Of course, it was this incident that, as you were just saying, made him say, or that's it. I'm moving in. It's not safe here. I'm going to move in full time. And we're going to put security cameras all around the house, like inside the house

that he then later was using to watch you. And I just think that is a classic example of manipulation where I totally agree with you. I think he told that woman to break in. I think he hired her to do it. totally think they knew each other. I'm 100% on your side about that. Don't you think so, Katie? Absolutely.

We talk about how, you know, a normal contributing member to society would never think to, oh, I'm going to hire this woman to pretend to break into the house, to make sure I can get cameras in, to make sure I can watch my girlfriend slash wife. Right. Because that would never occur to us. but that's the lengths that somebody, like John, would go through to gain control over somebody. Right. Yep.

And it worked. The games were so creative. And so you don't really realize what's going on, but you think, how in the world can something like this happen? Right. You know, to someone. And especially because. Just have someone sitting in your house. Well, yeah, it's bizarre.

And it doesn't fit the profile of somebody that is going to burglarize a nice house. Right. One, they know your schedule. Two, they aren't, they don't stick around to be found. Three, they don't bring their own refreshments. That's weird. Right, right. The other thing that's really interesting is she took a shower, had wet hair.

Yeah. And she brought her, she had gone into my shower, and she brought bed and shoulders. Washed her hair. She brought her own shampoo. Yeah. So as I'm walking towards the back area of the house, what bedroom is. I'm like, you could smell head and shoulders. And you're thinking, oh, my gosh, this is crazy.

Yeah. Good grief. Yeah. Wow, because I thought maybe he just paid her to scare you. But it sounds like he just told her, hey, you can stay in this house for free, bring your own stuff. That's crazy. That's probably how he talked her into it. It was the lure of, like, a nice shower and some clothes.

Possibly, because when we had left for church that morning, he walked to the side of the house, which was very odd because there's nothing on that side of the house. And then he came and got in the car, and I'm thinking, why is he even walking over there? Oh, wow. And I have a feeling that he went and told her, hey, we're leaving now. You can go in the house. Yep. Oh, yeah. I think so. Yeah. So I have my analogies of what happened.

Oh, yeah. I think you're dead right. I can't imagine a scenario in which he did not hire that woman to break into because he got exactly what he wanted out of it. And that's what a manipulator does. I mean, that's what a manipulator does. And then, you know, gaslighting. He was a master of that too. And just projection and like he would do something wrong. And then he would accuse you of doing that thing. Oh, yeah. That same exact thing. Just what? One story that stands out to me from your book was when you checked the mail one day and found a letter to John from one of his former prison buddies. Yeah. Yes.

No. Yes. He told you he was an anesthesiologist. Yes. Certainly never told you he'd spent time in jail. And this was a huge lie by omission. And you had every right to be upset with him about it. Right.

But instead of opening up and telling you the truth, what did he do? Yeah. Well, he gaslit me. Yeah. So what he did was when I asked him, what is this? He said, how dare you open my mail? This is a felony. So instead of answering my questions about who is this, and this is from jail,

and he acts like he was in jail with you. Yeah. And he turns it on me, starts threatening me that this is a felony. how there you do this. Don't you ever do this again. I could get you in trouble. So I'm sitting there thinking, oh, oh, this is a felony. You know, well, obviously, I haven't even hardly ever had a speeding ticket. So not really knowing the law, I'm like, oh, okay, but never got those answers. But that was, again, something to where I was all of a sudden going, hmm, this guy isn't who he says, he is.

Yeah, and putting you on the defensive so that in the moment, at least, you don't get the answers you're after. And this just blew my mind. He originally told you he was in Iraq with Doctors Without Borders, right? But then later, you're having a conversation, and he said he killed five people over there and, like, it traumatized him. Like, okay, I didn't know those humanitarian doctors doubled as mercenaries. That's a new one on me. Or maybe he was just really bad doctor. Yeah.

Okay. So what happens is John literally had like weird scars on his feet and legs. And they were small little scars along with obviously the huge almost probably 10 inch cut down his stomach abdomen. And then he also had about a six inch scar in his back. so I finally one day said what are all those scars yeah and one of the things that he did say about his legs is that they were from jumping out of the helicopter he always had a story yeah oh yeah and it always made him look like a hero yeah oh yeah yeah good grief and that he had to save people and he had to kill people kill enemy in order to save other people. As a doctor without borders. That's just not what they do.

And I'm thinking, huh, okay. Somehow this just doesn't add up. Oh, and of course you knew it didn't. Of course you knew it didn't. But he would always manage to kind of do that fancy footwork of changing the subject. He was so good, so good, that by the time you actually, are like, oh, there's no way. He's talking about something else, moved on to something else.

And so you're not even going there. But when I'm not with him, I'm thinking, okay, something doesn't add up, this doesn't add up, this doesn't add up. So anyway. Yeah, and when this kind of stuff happens, unbelievable. I mean, this is why everybody, you have to read the book because if you think you know this story, you don't. You really, I mean, and I have devoured that podcast and I did not know the story. Like there's so many more just amazing stories in there. My jaw was on the floor the entire time.

When this kind of stuff happens enough, you know, those kinds where he'll say at one point that he was in Iraq for 15 months. And the next time it'll be 18 months. And he'll always guess, like I didn't say 15 months. It was always 18 months. And after a while, it's like you're living in an episode of the Twilight Zone. It just shakes your trust in yourself so much, which of course is exactly what it's designed to do. And when we don't trust ourselves, we are prime real estate.

for abusers. Right. Like Laura Richards said to me one time, she said, you're going to work every day. You're focused on your work. You're focused on what you have to get done. You have a million things in your mind that you're trying to accomplish,

and you're going home, you know, and then having whatever kind of evening with whoever. He goes, but when it's the sociopath, psychopath, psychopath, or the person trying to curse of control you, They are planning what they're going to say, what they're going to do, how they can make you love them more, and they're researching you. And it's so different because that's what they're spending their day doing. Oh, you're so right. It's his full-time job.

Yeah. Yeah. It's their full-time job to figure you out, and that's what he was doing. Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, it actually, it's funny that you said that because the very next thing I was going to bring up is a quote in your book from Dr. Laura Richards, and she's awesome. We've mentioned her on the show before, but she's a badass British criminal psychologist.

She's an expert in domestic violence and coercive control. She trains law enforcement officers in the UK. She's amazing. And she says that the abuser uses, quote, pseudo-caring tactics that appear to be attentive and thoughtful, while in reality the perpetrator is actually just micromanaging the victim and limiting their space for action, which is such a good way of putting something like that story

with the woman who broke into your house, for example, where now he's moving in, and now he's got security cameras on you, and he's gotten exactly what he wanted. Right, right. And what's sad for any victim out there is it happens so slowly that you aren't seeing it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and because to an outsider, for example, like Whitney and I were like, you got married after two months pretty quick but for you he was with you 24-7 he was in your

year talking to you talking about how much he loved you hitting you with all his love bombing tactics like that's not a short amount of time yeah oh not only that but i'm getting older i don't want to waste any more time sure but the smartest thing you can do is look for red flags look into who their friends are, look into their family, and really pay attention. Time is on your side. Yeah, where's the fire? That's the thing. If somebody wants, if they're that desperate to force you into moving faster than you're comfortable moving, you've got to ask yourself why.

You know, and your intuition knew that. You know, it didn't feel right to you. Right. Right. I think we want to believe the best in people, especially people we love. It's so easy to talk ourselves out of our bad feelings. Yeah. And we are way too good at ignoring our intuition.

In fact, we did a whole episode on that a while back based on Gavin DeBekker's book, The Gift of Fear. And plus, people like John are so good at keeping that mask in place. Me, his was really well practiced. Like you said, he'd been at this a while. was modeled after the perfect guy trademark, you know, but it's impossible to keep that intact all the time. I mean, under stress, in moments of anger, that mask is going to slip sometimes. And we have a patron who actually sent in a question, Vi, she wanted to know, you know, was there a timer that first, what she calls butterfly moment of getting a little sense of

something hinky, something amiss, but then you managed to talk yourself out of it or he managed to pull you out of it. So what was kind of the first thing? Was it that first night when he didn't want to leave? Yes, the first night when he didn't want to leave. What I realized, looking back, is he probably had just gotten out of jail, and my bed did feel great to him, with probably what he was used to. I kept thinking, why does he keep bringing up the mattress?

How great this mattress is still. I know, right? Because, you know, he says he's an anesthesia. he all just like don't you have a nice mattress at home he was not wanting to leave so that that's so interesting though that was the first night but then if I remember from your book like it was obvious to him that you weren't pleased about that and he managed to lure you back in I'm so sorry I was really tired and then the next two dates were just superb right because he altered he camellioned yeah yeah he changed the next several yeah he was yeah he was Mr. Prince Charming yeah absolutely

And they're so good at that people like him, sort of adapting to the person that they're with. And we've seen that so many times in the cases we've covered on this show. I mean, I could go on all day. It's so important to understand that, you know, abuse isn't just hitting. You know, we've talked a lot about coercion. I mean, that's what he's doing there when he's love bombing you and treating you like a princess. That's coercion and control. That's abuse, too.

Financial control, emotional control. isolating you from your support system and a lot of times we can lull ourselves into this idea that well this guy might be a liar he might be a little manipulative he's controlling but he never hit me but in fact in a lot of cases of domestic homicide the murder is the first violent thing that's ever happened in the relationship but there will be this long history of coercive control and emotional abuse and I also think it can be hard for for smart successful women to see themselves as being in an abusive relationship. It's like, no, no, that happens to other types of women. I wouldn't allow myself to be in an abusive relationship. But of course, people like John, because he's so

narcissistic, he probably went after women like you because it fed his ego in because, of course, you have money and he wanted to get him some of that. So, yeah, it's not just about hitting. And that's why, you know, even if you feel like, well, he's never been violent, it's so important have a safety plan before you leave because that is such a dangerous time when they start to feel that control slipping that's when it's real real dangerous for the for the victim for the survivor yeah that's something that we can't emphasize enough have a plan absolutely um i feel because i had a plan that's how i was able to save myself unfortunately when he couldn't get to me though he went after my daughter and i was going to ask you

probably my biggest question in this entire thing is, why do you think he went after Tara? Not you, not one of your other children. Why did he choose her, do you think? I don't think he could get to me. I hid well. Yeah, because you had wigs and sunglasses. I mean, it was like, yeah. Well, anytime you're going to go into hiding and you own a company,

and it has to still run. Yeah. And successfully run. You really have to come up with a plan. You have to train people. You don't know how long you're going to be gone. And I was hiding literally from state to state. I had to change what I wore.

I had to be very plain Jane looking. Nothing bright, anything that would have me stand out. I had burner phones. I did everything to literally, I never went to the places that I had normally gone to. I was, it was a different lifestyle. It's like you had to transform into Jason Bourne to get away from this idiot, you know, who is so good at stalking you. And he was so creepy about like he had all your banking passwords somehow, like you kept changing him, but he'd get in somehow anyway. And it was like he was just, it must have seemed like he was everywhere, just watching you all the time, like the great eye of Sauron in the sky or something.

It just must have been horrible. Oh, yeah. Well, when you come up with a plan, you can't do it quickly. You really have to, like one week I changed three or four passwords. I was all of a sudden cashing my paychecks and putting the money aside so that I could live on cash. You don't want to use credit cards. I actually had to borrow. I had rental cars in my assistant's name.

I had to hire a new assistant because I didn't want him to know her name. Of course. So there's so many things that you have to do. God, that's so smart. is I always sat with my, my back against the wall looking out. You're always on. You're always thinking they could be there. So you're changing your hotels, probably every couple days.

Yeah. God, and it's interesting because it's almost the exact opposite kind of mindset that John had to have had, where he's thinking of, okay, how do I make her do what I want her to do? and you're thinking, okay, how do I become less predictable for him? Well, not only that, but I hired a forensic psychologist that actually specialized in sociopaths and psychopaths. And so he was trying to help me, yeah, he was trying to help me understand what I was dealing with. Yeah, and I think you made really smart decisions.

I mean, he once got out of him. Absolutely. And I think you did everything right. It's just nobody could have really predicted that he would choose to go after your, daughter because of course you're thinking you're the target and i don't think he had a history of that did he he would always aim it right at the woman not the woman's daughter or or you know family members so yeah it was nobody could have predicted i guess crazy well even the professionals didn't predict that they thought it was me all along so i wasn't really that worried at that point

in the game yeah about that he would be going after my kids because he had everything to lose if he hurt one of my children where he had nothing to lose, I was the one with the money. Yeah, it's really very bizarre. I just, I wonder if he just figured at that point, he was just unglued to the point where I'm just going to hurt you any way I can. And maybe the best way he thought to hurt you was to go after one of your kids. Well, he, he picked the wrong one, didn't he? Yeah. He picked the wrong girl.

He sure did. And, of course, you found evidence, didn't you, that he was, he was amping up toward violence for a while, because you found evidence that he was, trying to buy gun parts. You know, he couldn't buy a gun, you know, legally as a convicted felon. So he was trying to make one with the component parts. So I think it was very clear he was escalating. He was ramping up to violence. And I noticed something scary that I don't think I've ever heard anybody say in any of the other tellings of the story, which is that in that documentary called Dirty John the Dirty Truth, there was a photo that the police had of one

of his stashes of stolen drugs. And I noticed, in addition to the opiates and stuff that he was probably abusing himself or selling, there were several vials of a drug called succinal coline. And I don't know if y'all know what that is. I know you do, Katie, but it's a paralytic agent. And they use it in operating rooms to completely paralyze the muscles before they intubate you. And if you don't intubate the patient immediately, they're going to suffocate because it paralyzes every muscle in your body you can't breathe. It's probably one of the scariest ways to die I can imagine the closest thing to being buried alive because you'd be completely awake and aware while you slowly suffocate it to death.

And it's been used as a murder weapon in a few cases that I know of. And I just can't think of any possible reason why this man would have that drug other than to think he might murder someone with it. You can't abuse that drug. Well, I don't think you know this also, but when I went back to the house where I put him, and this doesn't show in the series, I actually bought a house in Vegas, to where he had to stay out there and make sure the workers were doing their job. Kind of a way to get him out of the way.

Going into hiding. Yes. Right. And when I went back to that house, after John was dead, I found kidnapping kits. Oh, my God. with rope, zip ties, binoculars. Yeah, he had duffel bags of kidnapping kits. That's terrifying.

God, he's a scary dude. Yeah. He was a scary dude. And I really honestly think, I mean, you hate to say this. You hate to wish anybody dead. But what happened in this case might have literally been the only thing that was going to stop him from doing more harm. Oh, absolutely.

A hundred percent. The man needed killing. I'm sorry to say it, but he needed killing. Like, yeah. He was a scary man. Very much so, yes. So God bless you, Tara. And God bless you, Deborah.

Absolutely. Gosh. Oh, well, thank you. While it's true that people like John are master manipulators, real, real good at what they do, it's also true that they tend to follow the same playbook. And if we can learn what to watch for, then we stand a much better chance of not falling victim to it.

And, Deborah, this may sound like an odd question, given that you were married to him. You slept next to him at night. You lived with him. Right. But did you know John Mehan? Absolutely not. I have spent more time trying to figure him out

and what was the truth and what was a lot. than anything else. I wanted to understand this mind of this, what we now call him, he was a psychopath, and he checks off all 20 boxes. Oh, I have no doubt of whatsoever of that. Yeah, yeah. And a very dangerous one, not all psychopaths are violent.

This one was, and he's about as scary a dude as I've ever heard. And I think one way maybe we can wrap up a little bit. You're doing so much great work right now. You helped get California Senate Bill 1141 passed, right? Which is going to do a lot of good, I think, for women in these kinds of situations. What would you advise people to do? I mean, you know, obviously you've been through this now. You've been through it more than once.

And spectacularly the last time. Right, exactly. Pretty spectacularly badly. the last time. But like if, you know, if one of your daughters or if I were, I mean, thank God, I'm happily married to the best guy in the world. But if I were a friend of yours and I told you, I just met this guy. He's perfect. He checks every box on the perfect guy list. And I told you some of the things. Like, he's really pressing me to marry him. We've only known each other for a couple of months. If you started to get your antennae tingling a little bit about some of those red flags,

what could somebody do if we are in a situation either where we've got this guy in our lives ourselves or even perhaps more importantly if somebody we love is in this situation what should we do how can we help okay never ever think that you're not going to have anything to do with her any longer stay in her life right she needs that support she's going to come hopefully at some point come to the realization what she's in and she's going to need you secondly it takes a woman an average of seven times to leave that's right for numerous reasons it could be financial it could be the kids it could be religion sure but don't give up on them it's they need you yeah so stay supportive you know it doesn't mean you can't want to shake them sometimes and say come on why don't

You see this, but it's so true. I'm going back to what we said about isolation being their number one tool. I think that's terrific advice to stay in their lives and be there for them and let them know that when you're ready, I'm here. Yes, another thing that I have to mention is educate them. A lot of people had their friends watch Dirty John. Yeah. They had them sent them red flags, narcissists, you know, all the different things. And they would have them educated because a lot of women have no clue.

You're right. So it's important to at least, yeah, do it in a loving way, don't do it enough because they already feel awful, you know, because of the victim blaming out there. So just love them, educate them, and be their form. I think that's awesome advice. And I agree 100% with you saying to do it in a non-judgmental way because when we feel judge, we retreat, right? And we start hiding things because we don't want to be judged. Right.

And then you're just helping your abuser isolate you and you don't want to choose that. Exactly. Yeah. And validating the feelings that they're going through because I think a big part of gaslighting is you can't trust yourself. So if your friend comes to you and says, I had this interaction and I could have sworn they said this, but they said they said this. You can kind of validate them and say, like, I'm sure you heard them right or I heard them say the same thing you did. Yep.

I think that's hugely helpful for somebody going through something like that. Exactly. Right. Yeah, to kind of be a touchstone for reality. Mm-hmm. Right. And trust themselves. Deborah, I'm sorry. I have one more quick question.

I know what it is. What was it like working with Emily and Feld? We are huge fans. We are huge M. William Phelps fans. Oh, working with who? With M. William Phelps, who was one of your writing partners on the book, right? Okay. I know Ms. Matthew. Oh, really? Is that what the M stands for? Oh, my God.

You're hearing it here, campers. That's what the M stands for. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I had to literally share my life story. and no he's he's incredible doesn't he have like 43 bestseller oh he's incredibly prolific he's an amazing writer yeah he's incredible yes the only thing that was really funny about is that sometimes i said this is in my words not in your words oh yeah the writers will do that because he's yeah i go oh no no no no no that's not how i would say it well good for you for standing up for yourself with that Like, I do that to Katie sometimes, too, because we write our episodes together, but I'm usually the final drafter, and sometimes I'll have to, she'll have to tell me to, right? Yeah.

That's not, I don't use those words that way. It was. It was pretty interesting. I bet it was. So is there anything? I would write, I wrote it all. Yes. I would write it all, and then he would put his magic on it.

He's incredible. He seems like a nice guy, just from what I've seen of him on interviews and stuff. Yeah. He is. He's very nice. He was a great choice. I don't think he could have picked a better true crime writer to help you tell this story, really. So is there anything else that you would like to say to all the campers, this is what we call our listeners and everybody listening, anything else we haven't gotten to that you would like to get out there? Yes. So with my story, came a lot of victim blaming. And one thing that I want people to know is we are at the first. victims. We are not the ones to be blamed. Cony and so on are master manipulators. We just want love. So be easy on us. And also understanding because you might have a friend, a mother, a daughter, someone that's going through what we're going through. Yeah. And Deborah, I went

through what you went through. So I couldn't agree more when I was much younger, but he was a very bad man. And we don't do victim blaming on true crime campfire. So I think that's a hugely important message. Yeah. Absolutely. So, Debra, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much for joining us. And we really appreciate the work you're doing. It's so important and that you've chosen to use this experience, which must have just been hell on earth for something good, which, I mean, how many people do that? So we thank you for that and bless you for that. And Camper's Debra's book is Surviving Dirty John, my true story of love, lies, and murder, and it comes out on August 31st, right? Yes, it does.

So buy it, read it, give it to your daughters. It's fantastic. True Crime Campfire, steal of approval. So that was a wild one, right, campers? You know we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the True Crime Campfire. And we want to send a shout out to a few of our newest patrons. Thank you so much to Jade, Honey, Andrea, Krista, Raina, and Tina.

We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free at least a day early, sometimes two, plus an extra episode a month. And once you hit the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker at $5, a rad enamel pin while supplies last at 10, virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us. Thank you.