True Crime with Kendall Rae - Online Dating Nightmare: The Dirty John Story

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

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I wanted to cover a case that I am personally really interested in. Some of you may have seen the live special that I think was done by Bravo, and it was acted out, and of course, in an acted out version of a true story, there's going to be things that are slightly different, you know, things that are played up, but honestly, overall, I thought the show did a decent job

of sticking to the storyline, and honestly, with this story, you don't really have to exaggerate much or make things up because it's crazy enough on its own. Today I'm going to be telling you about Debra Newell and John Meahan and their crazy toxic relationship. This could almost be a cautionary tale to other people who are online dating or meeting people that you don't really know that much about them because in this modern world of online dating, when you meet someone for a date,

you may think you know a lot about them from their profile and stuff, but the truth is, you may know nothing about them. So it's always important to be cautious when meeting up with people that you meet online. And this story is a perfect example of that. I did do a podcast on this last year. I know a small percentage of you guys

listen to all of my podcasts, so I'm happy to do a podcast on this last year. I know a small percentage of you guys listen to all of my podcasts so I'm happy to do a video version and I haven't seen any other YouTube videos being made about this case. And I'm surprised honestly because it is crazy. Okay, so this is Deborah Newell. Deborah is a very fancy lady. Okay, she's very respected, she's very successful and she's got a lot of money. But she wasn't just handed this in life, she worked very hard for her wealth. She had spent years in the interior design world and was very good at what she did. And eventually she actually created her own interior design firm called Ambrose. She absolutely loved her job and truly cared about Ambrose. But she had put 30 years into this business.

And for the most part, she would design model homes or club houses, like lounge areas. And when her clients would tour these model homes that she had set up, like examples, she would ask them to picture their future in them. And she actually ended up calling this tactic, having people envision their approachable dreams. And she was super successful with this. people loved her, she was very friendly, but also

just had an excellent eye for design and was very good at what she did. So work obviously came easy to Deborah, but love not so much. In her life she had actually been married and divorced four times already. She had four kids who she loved very much and she was a very good mother to them but she just couldn't find the right guy it seemed. So Deborah at this point in her life is single, she's successful, she's looking for a man to share her life with. But before we go forward in time and start telling you about John and how he came into her life, I want to go back in time because it's important you understand Deborah's past. So we're gonna jump back to 1984. So Deborah actually had a sister named Cindy and she was really close with

her sister and Cindy was married to this guy named Billy Vickers. They were fighting all the time and Cindy actually decided to separate from him and in 1984 they were in the process of separating. But before Cindy was able to get away from him officially, they actually had a big fight in their kitchen and he ended up murdering her. He shot her right in the head at point blank range, so obviously she didn't survive this and then he shoots himself in the stomach and calls 911. EMS did try to save Cindy, but it was too late. The injury was absolutely terrible,

but Billy's stomach wound actually wasn't that bad and he ended up surviving. So months after this, they went to trial for the murder and what's so bizarre about this case, and what no one truly understands is Cindy and Deborah's mother Arlene actually sided with Billy. Not really sided with him, I guess, but defended him. She had the strangest reaction for someone

who had killed her daughter. She actually testified in his defense and said that she loved him that he had a bad moment and that he just wasn't in his right mind when he shot and killed her daughter, which makes no sense. So a lot of people speculate that there was some type of weird relationship between Cindy and Billy.

We don't know if there was an actual relationship, but it seems like Cindy kind of had a thing for Billy or I don't know, maybe just wanted to see the positive in this situation. It's very weird, but as time went on, she continued to have Billy in her life. And not only did Arlene defend Billy, she also seemed to paint Cindy in a negative light.

The lead prosecutor actually said that she just threw her daughter under the bus. And because of her defending him, the jury actually acquitted Billy of murder. And instead, he got a much lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. And he actually did plead guilty to this for a reduced sentence and only got five years for murdering his wife. That is right people, five years. So he was released in 1986. Is that not the most insane thing you've ever heard? I swear our justice system is so messed up. And if you did the math, that was five years after she was murdered. He actually only spent three years in actual jail.

And I didn't mention this earlier, but Cindy and Billy actually did have two children together and they were both extremely affected by all of this. So I know that was a huge sat track, but getting back to Deborah. Because of this whole incident that happened to her, Deborah was a very nervous person and she was also terrified of firearms

and wouldn't allow them to be anywhere near her. Many of her close friends and family actually suggested she might want to get a gun considering she lived alone a lot of the time and she was so wealthy that someone could totally want to rob her. But anyway, back to the story. Debra is single, she's looking to find another man. Now like I said, Debra really liked the finer things in life. She was a very fancy woman. She went to great lengths to look good, you know, bow talks, tons of time and money into her hair and makeup, and treatments, facials. She had gorgeous blonde hair, and she wore a lot of designer things like Gucci heels

and designer jeans, Cartier, diamonds, Chanel, the whole nine yards. And at this point in her life, she was ready to find love again. So now let's talk about John Meahan. So John was born on February 3rd, 1958 in California, I think in San Jose. And he was raised along with his sister, Karen, and Donna Meahan. And let me just cut right to it. John was a sketchy fuck. His whole life, he was a savage. And he really learned this behavior from his dad. His dad was a liar, a manipulator, a cheater, and John learned all of those things from him.

At a very young age, John was already jumping in front of moving cars, trying to pull off insurance scams at the direction of his father. That was their big thing, insurance scams, and another way that they would do it was by crushing up glass and putting it into food they ordered and then trying to eat it and cut themselves and prove that the glass was in the food before you know, classic scam and just rip off local restaurants. He also got into drugs and selling drugs very young. In his teenage years he was already dealing cocaine and he had several run-ins with the police. He got arrested one time. So his life was filled with chaos from the beginning.

In 1988, he graduated from the University of Arizona with a Bachelor of Arts degree. And then he attended the University of Dayton School of Law. And while he was going to school there, his friends that hung out with him gave him the nickname of Dirty John. And this was apparently because he had an ability to lure any woman he wanted. And I just think it says a lot about his character that people started calling him this.

Some people even called him Filthy John Mehan or just Filthy. So, sounds like a great guy. Mornings are coming on strong with dark and bold from community coffee. I feel like bustle loose, ah, bustle loose, come on! Get, get, get, get, get, get on now! Get, get, get, get on now! Get, get, get, get on now! I'm still loose when you're born to say, ah, bustle loose, baby, do your thing! Talk about bust a loop.

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or charm them. John was said to have an attitude like he thought he was smarter than everyone else that he knew that he could get any woman he wants and that he was just better than other people. So after school ended, John actually met this woman named Tanya Cells. Tanya was actually a practicing nurse anesthesiast. Now this is different than an anesthesiologist, but it's still very respected in the medical field. Normally, CRNAs give anesthetics to people before or after surgery and it's normally with supervision from an in the medical field. Normally, CRNAs give anesthetics to people before or after surgery, and it's normally with supervision

from an anesthesiologist or a different doctor. They work very closely with doctors. They also work with people when they're having babies like giving them medications and anesthetics for that. They administer drugs like pain medication morphine to patients who need it around the clock, or sometimes they're just there to observe someone after they have been on anesthetics. The school track for this isn't as hard as becoming an anesthesiologist,

but you still get paid quite a bit for this position. John and Tony Cells got married at the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Dayton, Ohio in November of 1990. And at this time, she was 25 and he was 31, but she was under the impression that he was actually 26. And most of the rest of their relationship was built on lies as well. Also, none of his family attended their wedding, which she thought was extremely weird,

but he basically said that his parents were addicts and most of his family members were like low-lifes that he didn't want to come and ruin their wedding. After they got married, they eventually had two daughters and time to help coach John through his school. She ended up convincing her school to help get him in and help coach him through the whole program so that he could become a C-R-N-A.

Now, why would an ex-drug dealer want to become a C-R-N-A? So he did. He graduated from Wright State University and then from middle Tennessee School of Anastasia. But after a while, their marriage began to sour. Tanya said John was just nasty to her that he was grumpy all the time and had mood swings and seemed to just be acting a little bit sketchy.

And then after 10 years of marriage, John actually confronted Tanya and said that he wanted a divorce. And she was pretty surprised. Tanya was starting to get really suspicious of him for a multitude of reasons, the fact that she couldn't get any information about his past or his family. So she ended up contacting his mother. And John's mother was named Dolores and she actually got in touch with her, even though John said never to do that. And when they were on the phone, Dolores went ahead and spilled all the tea about John so that he was lying about his age, his full name, and that he actually had a charge for drug dealing in California. Now at this time, Tanya was already worried that he

might be using drugs because his behavior was so wack lucky. So she decided to go ahead and search their house to see if he had been storing any drugs in the house from the hospital. And sure enough, it did not take long for Tonya to find John's secret stash of surgical anesthetics that he was hoarding. And right away, she knew that he was probably using these for recreational purposes because his behavior was so bizarre or selling them to others, which is even worse and very, very illegal. So she went ahead and called the police and informed them that John was stealing these anesthetics from the hospital. And as soon as the police heard about this, they launched their own investigation into John Meahan in September of 2000. So then two years later, in January of 2002, an investigator for the

Warren County Sheriff's Department in Ohio was investigating John, and his name is Dennis Luchin. And he was very concerned about the whole thing because hospital workers who worked with John said that he actually brought a gun into the operating room one time, and another hospital worker actually saw him stealing dermal that he was supposed to be giving to a patient and just injecting them with saline instead. And this private investigator actually said that John is one of the most deceptive, dangerous, and devious people that he's ever met. Later on in April of that year,

police actually searched John's house and found 45 different containers for six different medications in total and a loaded gun. So that really confirmed what the other hospital workers had been saying about him. So that June, John actually pled guilty to his drug charges, but instead of surrendering to the police, he got the fuck out of there. He fled the state and went to a hotel in Michigan, but it didn't take long for police to find him and when they did, they found him unconscious, surrounded by empty pill bottles. So they call an ambulance for his ass, and he is so insane that he ends up waking up while

he's in the ambulance, grabbing the drug kit, and jumps out of the fucking ambulance. I don't know what he was thinking at this time. He was clearly heavily using at this point in his life. He was quickly caught and arrested again, but this time he was sentenced to six years in prison in Michigan for resisting arrest and for his drug charges. But surprise, surprise. John only spent 17 months in jail before he was released in 2004. John was the king of manipulation. If anyone's going to get himself out of jail, it's John. So this brings us to where he met Deborah. At this time in his life, John was 55 years old and Deborah was 59. And Deborah decided to give online dating a try

So she was on an app for like 50 and older dating and so was John me. It didn't take long for the two of them to find each other on the website. And Deborah actually was very impressed by his profile and thought he seemed safe. In his profile, he claimed that he was a divorced physician who was also a Christian man, just looking for love and someone to share his life with. Around this time, Deborah had recently been on a couple of dates that just were awful, that the guys had lied about their,

you know, looks or little details in their life, not major things, but she was disappointed when she met them in real life. But she was encouraged when she met John because she said when chatting with him, he was really interested in her life and seemed just like a really wholesome grounded guy. She said he wasn't all about himself, which surprised her as most men that she had talked to

were really into themselves. I mean, Deborah was really looking for someone who was going to appreciate her and praise her for all her success. And John was already starting to do that just over messaging, so they decided to meet up. So the two of them actually had their first date in October of 2014, and they went to this restaurant called Houston's, which is a stay-couse and Irvine, California. And he was all about impressing Debra. First of all, he had all these really interesting stories from his past experience working for doctors

without borders in Iraq, which was completely made up. She was also impressed with him because he was a father. He said he had a couple of kids. And he also said he had a couple of houses, which sounds really nice. He said he had homes in Newport Beach and Palm Springs. So Deborah was really feeling John, you know, this is a doctor who has given back to the world

and has children and is single and established like the perfect companion for her. And John was also extremely into Deborah. Even though they had just met, he acted like she was the most amazing woman in the world. Like she was a queen, which is, you know, how we all want to be traded by our men. But John just took it to the next level, like praising everything that she did, saying that he wanted to meet her grandkids right away, instantly wanted to get involved in her family and take it to the next

level. He said that she made his heart stop that she was just the most beautiful woman in the world that he was fascinated by her and so impressed by her and that she was the missing woman that he has been searching for his whole life to complete his life. And Deborah was eating this shit up. Even though they had just met, she was happy to get all the attention and love and praise. But one thing that she did notice is he was extremely touchy feeling on their first date, like running his hands up and down her spine, like kinda rubbing her lower back. The Deborah was loving all this attention

and none of the creepiness was stopping her from wanting to bring him back to her penthouse after the date, which was just right up the street. Deborah lived in a very fancy penthouse after the date, which was just right up the street. Debra lived in a very fancy penthouse, like the type that us commoners only see in movies. She was truly living the dream life. And when they got back to the penthouse, John started really turning up the heat. He started kissing her and pushing her for more, and Debra wasn't the type to give it up on the first date, so she wanted to slow it all down. She started to get a creepy feeling like he was just pushing her way too hard and so she decided to ask him to leave. And John was a little bitchy about this but he

did. The next morning Deborah was totally bummed out feeling like she had met this great guy but he just had to be another one of those dudes that just wants to use you for a hook up. She was so disappointed but she just decided to move along with her day, but John kept calling her. When she finally answered, he said that he was incredibly sorry for how the night had gone, that he had drank too much,

but he had such a great time with her and really wanted to have a second date. So they got off the phone and she thought about it. And then soon after this, she sends him a text saying, so you are the real thing. And he replied saying, the best thing that's ever happened to you. Little did she know what a shit storm she was bringing

into her life. So as time went on, and I'm talking a couple weeks, their relationship really started to progress and they were going on many dates together and spending a ton of time together. John would say things like he wanted to spend every waking moment with Debra, and she was just really rude by all this and enjoying it.

By the third date, John was already telling Debra that he was in love with her. And not only that, he also was saying he wanted to marry her, which I cannot imagine someone telling me that. After three dates, it took Josh six years to propose to me, so. So things were going well for the two of them. They were definitely in, I guess you could say, like the honeymoon phase, like the beginning stage of dating where you're just really enjoying it. And she was enjoying it so much that she was kind of

dismissing a few other sketchy details about John and just weird things. Like, first of all, the dude was always wearing scrubs. Now obviously when someone works at a hospital like doctors and nurses, they'll wear their scrubs with grocery store wherever after work. But it's not common for them to wear them all of the time outside of their job. And John did. Like it was the only thing he owned or something. Literally just blue plain medical scrubs that were pretty scuffed up along the bottoms like they had been worn a bunch and they were kind of dirty even and he would literally wear them like 24-7 everywhere they went. A couple

weeks into dating Debra had this really fancy charity event to go to you know in California. Very fancy. So she invited him to this and to her surprise he shows up in his scrubs. John Clan that he was just too busy to change out of them and said, your friends will be impressed that I'm a doctor and Deborah was like, okay, yeah, you're right. And she brought him in anyway. All of Deborah's friends thought it was really weird.

That her dude was wearing dirty scrubs to a very formal charity event. Like most people would have at least time to run into a bathroom and change. Like how busy are you dude? But Debra didn't seem to really care. In fact, she was very proud of him, happy to have him around, happy to show him off. As time went on and they were getting closer,

he started to come around more and more until he eventually started living with her. So Debra had a few kids from previous marriages and one of them was named Jacqueline, who was 24 at the time of all of this. Now Jacqueline is a 24 at the time of all of this. Now Jacqueline is a very outspoken person. Her mom knew this about her that she was very critical of all the boyfriends that she've ever brought home. She was not afraid to speak her mind and could be pretty sassy. So Jacqueline was living in the penthouse with her mom at this time and as Deborah started bringing John over more and more, she started to notice

some things that she did not like about him. The first thing that she noticed of course was how nasty he dressed. She specifically said he looked like a homeless loser and she was really surprised that her mom who was dripping in Gucci and Chanel would be with this scrub ass guy who was wearing scrubs. But not only did she not like his physical appearance She was also just sketched out by the way he was acting She said that he would come to their penthouse and just look at everything She said it almost seemed like he was casing the place like looking at all the fancy art they had and statues and linens and Their whole penthouse was filled with nice ass shit And it looked like John was taking a little too much note about what they had in the penthouse was filled with nice ass shit. And it looked like John was taking a little too much note

about what they had in the penthouse. Now Debra also had a safe in her apartment that she treated like a closet for all her designer stuff, like Jeffrey Starr's vault. All right you guys, now it's time to come in to the crazy vault. In it she had her Cartier bags, her Chanel, her Birkin. It's a lot of money that she's protecting in this safe.

I mean, these bags cost thousands and thousands of dollars each. It's insane. So obviously, he was very interested in this. And Jacqueline thought this is weird. Like, why is this man interested in your safe or closet pretty much full of bags, unless he was interested in them for their value? Eventually, Jacqueline snapped and told her mom

that she wanted nothing to do with this guy and to get him out of the penthouse. She said he was just acting really, really creepy and unfriendly and she got super bad vibes. The Deborah was kind of expecting this because in the past, any guy that she had brought home, Jacqueline did not like and didn't want him around. But this time, she was really serious about it, Deborah could tell. So, John actually convinced Deborah that they needed to live somewhere else. He didn't want to live in the penthouse with Jacqueline, and Jacqueline didn't want to live with him, and they were already talking about living in together, and this is weeks after they started dating,

five weeks to be exact. But Deborah thought this was a good idea, and they decided to get another place together, even though she's already paying for this extremely fancy penthouse but they ended up finding a house for $6,500 a month on the boardwalk of Balboa Island in Newport Beach. Endeavor was actually the one paying for it all and she paid it all in advance. She actually got a reduced amount of rent by paying it all at front at once so she paid $80,000 for them to move in. And of course, John said he wasn't able to put his name on the lease at this moment, because he was dealing with some tax problems. But Debra was so blinded by love and attention

from John that she agreed to pay for everything. And she did all this without her family knowing, or her kids finding out, because she knew they would be pissed, and like, what the hell are you doing if they knew? And in Debra's mind, she just didn't understand why her kids didn't like him or were concerned about him. Because in her life, John was treating her like a queen. Pretty much would worship the ground that she walked on. He would make her fresh coffee in the mornings. He would get her groceries for her, try to make her life as easy as possible. Debra had a Tesla and a Range Rover, and you would take them both in for maintenance

for her just doing all of the stuff that she didn't wanna do. John would even carry her purse in public. So she thought she had hit the jackpot. Debra pretty much convinced herself that, with enough time, her kids would get used to John, and they could all become a happy family. And Debra thought that maybe he would have better luck with her other daughter named Tara,

who was younger than Jacqueline, and a little bit sweeter. She was less judgmental and less dramatic, and she thought that he would have the best chance of winning her over. At this time in her life, Tara was living with her boyfriend in Las Vegas and was training to become a dog rumor.

And when Debra told her over the phone about John and how quick everything was moving, she was a bit skeptical and specifically asked her, you know, if he's this great guy, why is he still single? But eventually Tara and her boyfriend Jimmy decided to drive out to Southern California to meet John for themselves. And they came right as John and Deborah were moving into their new place. Tara came up to the house and introduced herself to John who was bringing things into the house that they were, you know, moving in. And right away she said she noticed that he was very cold towards her. I don't know if he expected her to act like Jacqueline or what, but he was pretty much mean to her right off the bat.

He was very short with her and didn't seem interested in her or was happy to see her in any way. And she said he was just trying to act really macho and lift all these things into the house without any help, including Debra's mattress, which he brought into the house alone. So he was definitely putting on the whole tough guy act. But she thought, okay, you know, I'll give him a little bit more of a chance, but it didn't take long for Terry to start seeing red flags as well. First of all, John didn't have a car. She thought what doctor doesn't have a fucking car.

Not only that, but he had claimed to have these houses in Newport Beach and Palm Springs, but never offered for them to go live there, never show pictures of them. He never offered for anyone to even visit them, so she thought that was extremely weird. And after a little bit of time there, Tara realized that John was spending most of his day at Debra's house playing video games. She noticed that her mom was buying everything, including the big screen that he was sitting there

playing video games on all day when he was supposed to be working. And she thought, what kind of doctor does it contribute to a relationship? Like, she knew how successful her mom was, but she was like, this is weird. I feel swift here for new Flex Superglue. What's truly amazing is that our Flex Superglue is so strong that just one drop virtually welds itself to the surface and can lift over three tons. Forget those old superglues,

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Let it all out. Now, our react co-op, we're here for all the outs. And we want you to spend more time outside our doors and in them. Try it out, check out, think it out. RBI COA, all out. Visit RBI.com. TARA was weirded out that John was spending so much time there, and Deborah actually had not told her that John had moved in officially and he was living there.

So Tara and her boyfriend were staying in the extra guest bedroom, but Deborah at this point was like, how am I going to hide that he's living here when she's here too? But it didn't take long for Tara to figure out that he was living there, and she ended up finding more and more about him as the days went on. They were there right around Thanksgiving and the day before their Thanksgiving celebration, shit really hit the fan. Because Tara started going through John's stuff and she found a nursing certificate with John's name on it. So he wasn't a doctor. But John said nothing to worry about here, the reason I call myself a doctor is because I have a PhD and advanced training in anesthesiology. But when he found out that Tara was snooping through his stuff, he freaked out. It went from zero to six, he really fast, he started screaming at her,

telling her that she was trying to break them up, asking what her problem is, why don't you want your mom to be happy, like just absolutely raised on her, and the crazy thing was Deborah just stood there the whole time while he was yelling at her daughter. And Tara was pissed she was like are you gonna let him talk to me like this? They all got in a big fight and Tara said that she felt like her mom was choosing this guy over her kids. John starred really manipulating the whole situation and started telling Debra that the whole reason her kids were acting this way was because they didn't want her to be happy. They just wanted her to die so that they could inherit money from her.

And she started kind of believing him. So then Thanksgiving rolled around and Debra's mom Arlene came. And so she finally got to meet John. And if you remember, Arlene was the one who really defended Billy, who killed Debra's sister. So she had pretty low expectations for men. Arlene was also really religious. And so John put on a whole religious act

when she was around him, which just made her like even more. Jacqueline was also there at the Thanksgiving dinner, and John, I guess, had tried to pull her aside and talk to her, but the whole thing ended up blowing up in his face because she freaked out and screamed at him in front of everyone saying that he was the devil,

and that anything that he had to say to her could be sent in front of the whole group. And this whole encounter really pissed off John because it gave him more reason to believe that Deborah's children were just spoiled brats who were totally out of control. Their whole Thanksgiving celebration ended up being a huge fiasco, just tons of drama. So after this, Deborah decided that she needed to get a therapist involved to try to help work through some of these problems. And of course, the therapist gave her the classic, you know, you need to establish boundaries between your children and you. And the therapist basically told her that if she loved John, then that's all that matters and screw anyone else in their thoughts.

But if only she knew the truth about John. So John and Deborah continued living their dream life on Dolbo Island. They would spend their time going to restaurants and taking walks together and just looking at the beautiful landscaping around their new house. And John was very playful in their relationship, constantly keeping things fun. Sometimes he would act like a straight-up teenager,

he would take like shirtless selfies and send them to her. He was always playing little pranks on her and just goofing around and he kept it fun and exciting in their relationship. But one of the things that was still bothering Debra was Joan's trash wardrobe. She was spending a lot more time with them so obviously he wasn't wearing the scrubs 24-7 so she got to see some of his other outfit choices and they weren't any better. According to her, he would only wear like baggy, torn up pants and raggedy old t-shirts, which is kind of my wardrobe, honestly.

But she's a very fancy woman and she wants her man to look good, wants him to match her whole life, you know? And according to John, all of his good clothes were stolen in Iraq. So Debra decided to take him out for a shopping spree and bought him an entire new wardrobe, full of designer clothes.

And now she felt comfortable showing him off a bit more, and felt like the relationship was perfect at this point. So as time's going on, and again, I'm just talking weeks. Like, it's not been that long that all of this is happening. Weeks into the relationship, John was already begging Deborah to get married. But in early December, he joined her on this business trip to Las Vegas, and what do people do in Las Vegas? They get drunk and get married and that's exactly what happened with John and Deborah. My guess is

he got her drunk enough, convinced her to go the chapel and it was like a last minute thing. Obviously, no one else was invited and at this point they had known each other for less than two months. And Deborah kept this a secret from her kids, but Christmas was coming up, so she knew she was going to have to tell them soon. Now they were going to be having a traditional family get together for Christmas at her daughter Nicole's house, who was her oldest daughter, and she decided that she was gonna bring John along with her.

Now in Jacqueline found out, she absolutely refused to go, and because Jacqueline wasn't wanting to go, Tara also said that she may not want to go, But Debra really wanted Tara to at least be there. So she decided to bring Tara to therapy and see if they could kind of work through this. And with the therapist, they decided that Tara would go to the occasion, but you just stay away from John. One thing that Tara was really concerned about was John being around all of the kids at the party. So Christmas rolls around, they're all at Nicole's house

and John shows up with a bunch of presents for all the kids that are at the party and this really upset Tara. She thought that he was trying to win everyone over and just kind of mask who he really was and she got so upset that she left the room crying and her grandma saw her or Lane and asked what was wrong and she's just said, I don't like him, something's off about him, I don't want to be here. So after Christmas past,

Tara and Jimmy went back to Vegas and she was so upset after how Christmas and Thanksgiving went that she kind of stopped talking to her mom completely. Meanwhile, her other daughter Jacqueline is still very concerned about John and is kind of put herself into a detective role, determined to break them up. And one thing she starts really thinking about is the fact that John always had dirty hands. He always had dirt and shit under his fingernails. And when you're a doctor, that's a big no-no. Doctors have some of the cleanest hands on the planet and she knew this.

So that really stood out to her and she started to really question whether or not he was even working. She also started getting misspelled texts from her mom that she knew she didn't write. Like they just didn't sound like her. And these text messages were complaining about money missing from her wallet. So Jacqueline decides that she wants to start figuring out what the hell John is doing when he is not with Deborah.

And John at this time was using Deborah's Tesla all the time because he didn't have a car. So she put a tracker that she bought on the Tesla so she could track everywhere he went. And John was telling Deborah that he was working at a bunch of different clinics and hospitals all across the state and was basically just called and when needed.

So when she started getting tracking information back, she started trying to calculate where he was going and figure out if he was actually going to any hospitals and see if there was any patterns in his driving. And she noticed that he did go to a few doctors offices in Irvine and Madison, Viejo and some in San Diego. But he was also going to some random warehouse, the post office, and a few fast food joints. So nothing really, really out of the ordinary. So John and Deborah started going to church together every Sunday and one of these

Sundays they came back to their house and went in the living room and saw a woman that neither of them recognized who had wet hair was acting super super creepy and holding a miniature bible. She had dressed herself in all of Deborah's white clothes and was just creeping around in their living room. At first, Deborah was scared but thought this could have been some homeless woman that just wandered into their house or something like that, but John reacted to this situation immediately. He grabbed the woman, smashed her head into the countertop, and then put her arms behind her back. He then yelled at Deborah to leave

the house and go call the police so she did. The police came and took her away and Deborah didn't want to press charges or anything because she figured like I said, this could be a homeless woman or a drug addict that just wandered into the house. And looking back, this is all really weird. Investigators believe that there's a good chance

John may have set this up to scare Deborah, but John completely denied knowing her. But because this all happened, John then convinces Deborah that they need to amp up the security at their house. He put up a bunch of security cameras that he could control from his phone, and with John it's all about control. I mean, in most abusive relationships, it's all about control. He also had cameras installed in Deborah's office so that he could keep an eye on her.

So moving forward in time a bit, eventually Debra started to have more and more questions about John. I mean, he was barely telling her anything about his life just like how he had done to Tanya before. And she just wanted to know like, what his parents were like or what his childhood was like. She also started to wonder where he went all day

and where specifically he was working. Because when he would work, he would go out and then he would come home with stacks of cash, saying that he just had a quick anesthesiologist job. And he said that the reason he was being paid in cash was because he was working with uninsured patients, which he thought was really odd. One day, she was watching him on security footage and she noticed that John left for work in scrubs, but then quickly returned and just went back to sleep. Almost like he had pretended to leave for the day and then just didn't. Whenever Debra questioned him, he always had a reason or an excuse. That specific time he said he was on his way to work and then his patient canceled on him,

so he just went home and went to sleep. But despite all these weird red flags about John, Debra decided to ignore them because she was totally blinded by love. Debra thought she had found the perfect guy and no one was gonna make her happier. So she was determined to make this work. Now if you remember John said that he worked for Doctors Without Borders in Iraq and that it was a really traumatic experience and he actually had all these scars on his body and he had a story for each one of them of how he got it. He was a pretty good storyteller, very creative mind. But he said because of all of this, he had a really bad back.

And so he would occasionally take oxy for it. And he also would inject himself with something and he told Deborah that this was because he had bad kidneys. So he needed to inject himself with testosterone. Okay, so this is kind of confusing, but Debra had a nephew named Shad, and he was Cindy's son, the one whose mom was murdered. He was really close with Debra, kind of like a son to her, since his mom was gone. And at first, he actually liked John.

He didn't see much of an issue with him, but it didn't take long for him to also start seeing some red flags. He was wondering the same thing as everyone else. You know, why is he playing video games all day? Why does he have no nice clothes? He felt like something just wasn't right. Like, maybe he was using Debra for her money. And then in February of 2015,

him and John were in Debra's kitchen, and they were making Margarita's together when all of a sudden, Jacqueline's name got brought up. And this is when Shad said, John started saying some crazy shit. The first thing that he said about Jacqueline was that he could take her out from a thousand yards. And what's crazy is Deborah was in the room too

and Shad said that Deborah started laughing about this. He said it didn't seem like she was taking it seriously, but this took him really off guard. And Shad said after this point his view of Deborah and John and the whole relationship totally changed. So he brought up the concerns to Deborah's daughters and that's when he found out that they had already hired a private investigator to start looking into John because they were just as concerned as him. So now nobody but Arlene is supporting the relationship. So soon the private Arwayne is supporting the relationship. So soon, the private investigator they hired

brought back some information. And the first round of information revealed a lot. They found out that John had filed for bankruptcy that he had a nursing license only, not a doctor's license. They found out that he had addresses in Arizona, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and multiple across California, including a recent one at a trailer park in the desert of Riverside County. So Debra's nephew Shad ended up calling the trailer park. And this is when a woman answered who said she actually had a relationship going on with John in the trailer, and then one day he just disappeared.

The other address they found out was linked to him was from the Orange County Jail. They decided not to tell Deborah right away because they weren't sure that it was John, so they decided to do a little bit more research into it. But they were really, really concerned so much so that Shad even called Deborah and said that he was really worried about her and he had already lost one mom and he didn't want to lose her too. And that's when he first brought up the idea of him lying to her. He said, what if I can prove to you that instead of going to Iraq, that he actually has been in jail? And her response was, even if it's true,

I wouldn't care because I love him. And then after this phone call, Debra decided it was a good idea to tell John what Shad was saying. And John, who thought he kinda had a good, buddy buddy relationship with Shad, was so pissed. He declared a Shad as an, and John who thought he kind of had a good buddy buddy relationship with Shad was so pissed. He declared a Shad as an enemy of their relationship. He was so pissed off that he texted Shad and said to go away,

and if he ever tried to interfere with their relationship or come to the house, he would call the police. He also said some really messed up stuff about Shad's girlfriend, which really pissed him off, and he actually threatened violence if he continued to meddle in their relationship. So Shad decided to go ahead and keep his distance. So moving forward in time, this is late March-ish. A letter comes to their house and it's addressed to John, but Debra was the one to get it, so she decided to go ahead and open it.

So she started opening the letter and realized it was from a former inmate and she started reading it But before she didn't even get passed high John came out of nowhere and snatched the letter out of her hands almost like he had been watching her on the security cameras He got super defensive started screaming at her asking why she was reading his mail and to cover for this whole situation John told Deborah that this was some type of jail Penpal like He was doing

philanthropic work by talking to this guy. But something about this just didn't sit right with Deborah, especially because Shad had told her that he had been to jail, and this doesn't make him look anymore innocent. So the next day when John ran out to do some errands, Deborah decided to do some more snooping through his stuff. And this is when Deborah started finding out a lot of truth about the man that she was married to. She found out that John was a former nurse anesthesiast who became hooked on pain killers and was arrested. So she found out that not only did he go to jail, but he had lost his whole career. She also found out that he was a con man from 2005 to 2014. She found court records

that stated that John had swindled and seduced and terrorized and stolen from many other women before. And many of these women he had met while posing as a doctor on dating sites. According to the court records, she found out that another woman claimed that John had tried to steal her money. It was a 48-year-old woman in Laguna Beach, and she said that she was actually recovering from brain surgery in San Diego in a hospital when she woke up to John as her anesthesiologist, and he charmed the pants right off her.

Literally, they'd be endating, and eventually he found out that her family had millions of dollars, and he had actually suggested to her that they move all of her money out of her bank account, in his bank account, so that they could protect it from her estranged ex-husband, which she thought was really weird and ended the relationship. Debra also found out the police investigated him for a really long time and that when they searched his storage unit,

they found a cult 38 special handgun. They also found binoculars, GPS units, ammunition, heavy duty cable ties, bunch of syringes, a pocket saw, a bottle of cyanide and eight cyanide capsules. So Deborah was very concerned obviously because now John isn't just looking like a sketchball who's mooching off her. He is looking like a very dangerous person. She also found out that while he was in jail, a waiting trial that John was offering other inmates, $10,000 per murder, to kill the two detectives on his case, plus five witness hits.

So he was totally out of his mind. She found out that in 2014, he did plead guilty to stalking that woman who was in Laguna Beach, the one he dated temporarily, and also to being a felon with the possession of a firearm. She found out that he had multiple restraining orders for multiple women. She realized that he was released from jail on October 8th, and he met Deborah two days later.

By the time they were married in 2014, there were three women who had standing restraining orders against him. Not only that, three others were requesting them. And as she was going through the paperwork, she found out that he also had the nickname of Dirty John, which really scared her. After she found all of this, obviously Deborah was completely blown away and terrified for her life. She started to get worried that maybe John would harm her or harm her kids, and she realized everyone in her family

was right. That's why it's so important to listen to your family. I know sometimes people can be judgmental of relationships, but they're only looking out for you, you know, unless they're just being jerks and like judging your partner, I get that. But like genuine concern from your family should always be taken seriously,

especially if there's good reason behind it. So the first thing that Deborah does is call her therapist and ask for some anti-inxiety medication because she is freaking out. And then she calls her lawyer who advises her to cut John out of her will. That's right, John had already made it into her fucking will. So she decided that it was in her best interest to keep it all quiet from John, like, act like everything was fine for a little while, and then a few days later, John admitted himself to the hospital for back issues, which this is how he would get a refill of his medication.

And Debra realized that this was the perfect time for her to get out of that rental house. So her family helped her move out of the house while he was in the hospital. And while they were moving her out, they ended up finding some more sketchy stuff that belonged to John. First of all, they found some papers

that had some scribbled gun names, codes, phone numbers, and even inmate numbers. He also had a stash of bank routing numbers, very concerning. And what's so weird is John also had printouts of things that other women had written about him online. There is this website called datingpsychos.com and John actually had multiple pages dedicated just to him on there. It said things like he conned me out of money,

he is very persuasive, emotionally needed, slick liar. Someone even said he grabbed me by the throat, do not let this man into your life. Don't be fooled by his good looks and prints charming personality. He's a parasite, a leech, an infection that festers on anyone he comes in contact with. Someone else said, trust your intuition ladies, he's a pathologically rotten

apple. Stay away at all costs, classic psychopath. So now Debra is absolutely sure that this guy is completely insane. So she finally ends up deciding it's time to tell John that she is ending the relationship and moving out. But John was pissed. And immediately he starts talking about how he's gonna end up getting half of her wealth. He didn't even try to kind of smooth things over with her. He starts freaking out immediately because I think he knew that once she found all this stuff that he was done. So he started threatening her life, saying that he had family members in the mob that could take care of her, and he kept texting her all these threatening things So eventually Deborah texted him back and said enough you are evil and John texted her back saying divide up the stuff

And I never see you again your choice So Deborah was really freaked out by the whole situation, especially with him threatening to hurt her She thought maybe he would come after her and try to seek revenge. The private investigator told her to try to switch up her appearance as much as possible, try to wear sunglasses. He wanted her to make herself a difficult target by changing hotels every few days. He told her how to survey a room every time that she came into news surroundings. And he said that it was time for her to start wearing like bland clothing, you know, ditch all the designer stuff you normally wear, just dress like a normal person, and either dye your hair or get a wig

so that he can't recognize you. But John kept texting her, banging her to visit him in the hospital. So eventually, for some reason, Debra gives up and decides to go visit him. She said she felt guilty about abandoning him and that she had agreed for better or for worse. So fast forward a little bit in time to June of 2015.

John has done some major damage control and has pretty much one Deborah back. He had a bunch of explanations for all the weird shit from his past that she had found. He basically said the reason he hid his past from Deborah is because he knew she would never give a con a chance. Oh poor little con man. He said that he had pretended to be a doctor to impress her that he was worried she wouldn't give him a chance. And then he basically blamed everything on his drug addiction and took the path of help me get clean, help me fix my life. I need help. I'm a damaged drug addict. And Deborah decided to give him a second chance. And they moved into a new apartment together in Irvine. So this obviously really upset her family and they basically just kept their distance from them for a while.

So fast forward to March of 2016. They have been married for a full year and three months at this point. Deborah still had a lot of suspicions about John and was becoming increasingly worried about his behavior and she really had control of him at this point. You know, she was helping him recover from his drug addiction. But she was still very uncomfortable about the fact that her whole family hated him, especially Jacqueline. She really hated him.

The tension between John and Jacqueline was just getting worse and worse by the day. Eventually, game to the point where John wouldn't even allow Deborah to see her kids talk about controlling. He specifically said that if she saw Jacqueline, that he would be very, very pissed off. One day he even caught Deborah trying to sneak off to see Jacqueline, see her own damn daughter. And he said that if it happened again, he would throw Jacqueline into the ocean. Obviously the relationship was extremely toxic. He was very, very abusive of her. And it's hard to understand why someone in an abusive relationship wouldn't leave, but there's so many reasons for that, and we can't even possibly understand

what was going on in Debra's head at this point, that it's really hard to judge someone who's in an abusive relationship. That type of control is so toxic, and I think Debra just wanted love so badly, but it's really hard to have sympathy for her in this situation, especially when he was being so brutal to her kids.

Like, I think most people, that would be the final straw, you know? Eventually, John found out that Deborah was paying for Jacqueline's real estate classes, and he waged the fuck out. Not only did he make her stop paying for them, he also called the school and slandered her name to all her teachers. He would also text her all these threatening, lured, weird messages and one time Jack that actually responded to him by googling a pile of shit and sending it to him. But that just pissed him off even more and he started sending her messages that said things like, mommy wants nothing to do with you and I will kill you. One time he told her that jumping off a tall building would make him smile. Head first will work. Things were getting worse and worse and John's behavior just wasn't even improving. It didn't

even seem like he was getting better from his addiction. So finally in March of 2016, Deborah hit her breaking point and filed to annul the marriage in April. She was really scared at this point for her life and how she was going to get out of this relationship safely. So Deborah started withdrawing money out of her bank account trying to build up cash without him knowing to keep it safe and she had a $30,000 stash in one of her bought in drawers. And John actually found this and brought it out to her and dropped it at her feet and was all sketched out about why she had this cash and she said, you know, that's my money. Like, what are you questioning me for? And

he said, everything that's yours is mine. He started acting really threatening to her. I think he started kind of catching on that she was planning to leave. So he started freaking out. And Deborah decided she had to get the hell out of there before he hurt her. So she grabbed some of her makeup and work stuff and left as soon as she could. So after she left, John left as well and ended up moving into one of her other houses that she owned in Nevada. Deborah ended up moving in with Jacqueline at her apartment in the Carlyle apartments in Irvine. They felt safe there because there were a ton of security cameras at this complex and her and Jacqueline were basically just hiding out hoping John wouldn't find them.

But of course, John was sending her threatening messages, threatening to destroy them and steal all her money. She requested a restraining order, but it's actually kind of hard to get one. I went through the process. I was able to get one after some time, but it was hard. They don't just easily give them out, which is a shame because oftentimes people who need restraining orders can't get them. But anyway, the judge in Orange County denied her request, so she was not able to get one. And they said they denied her because there was no imminent threat. John was living in another state and wasn't doing anything. So she decided all she could do was cut ties with John and just try to move on with her life.

He kept calling her but she would just ignore all his calls and messages and was just hiding from him. But then on June 11th 2016, Deborah had a very nice jaguar at this point and on that day she drove it into work. But at some point during the day, the car was stolen from the parking lot of her office. But of course, they had security cameras all around the office and they had footage of John Meahan stealing the car. Now, he didn't just steal the car. The car was actually found about a block and a half away, doused in caracene and lit on fire.

It was clear that John tried to destroy the car, but he actually pretty much failed the whole thing because the car ended up only getting a little bit of fire damage because the fire went out pretty quickly. And even though Deborah had footage of him stealing the car and proof that he would do this type of thing, the Irvine police decided not to charge him. But this really scared Deborah because now she knew that John was in town again, and so she called Jacqueline and warned her. And then Jacqueline called Tara, her other daughter, and also warned her that John was around. And later that day, Jacqueline actually saw John just waiting outside of their apartment complex. So Jacqueline, her friend actually tried to chase him

down in their car, but they weren't able to keep up with him. But on the evening of August 20th, 2016, Hera came home from work like a normal day, parked in the parking lot. And as she started getting out of her car, John Meahan came out of nowhere, came up to her and started attacking her with a knife. He was trying to push her back into the car, probably trying to take her somewhere,

maybe a hostage situation. So she starts screaming really, really loud, trying to get her back into the car, probably trying to take her somewhere, maybe a hostage situation. So she starts screaming really, really loud, trying to get someone's attention. So John put his hand over her mouth, and this is when she bit the fuck out of his hand. John screamed and ripped his hand away from her, and this just pissed him off even more. So at this point, she gets out of the car,

and the two of them start wrestling around on the ground. Tara was wearing these heavy rain boots at the time and she was able to kick John as hard as she could and she actually kicked the knife out of his hand. And without a hesitation, she grabbed that knife and started stabbing the fuck out of him 13 times. And the last stab was right through his eye into his brain. So she went absolutely crazy on him. And luckily a neighbor had saw the whole thing, came running over to her with a towel, so that they could wrap tears wound up and help her call the police. And so Tara called Debra right away and told her what happened, and said,

I think I killed your husband. But it turns out that John didn't actually die. When the paramedics got there, he still had a pulse. This guy was like a damn cockroach. He'd been stabbed 13 times, one through the eye, and was still hanging on. So when police arrived, they looked through his car, and they find duct tape, injectable testosterone, cable ties, kitchen knives, and a passport in John's backpack. Looked like he was headed out of town. And they started realizing that John had actually planned to kidnap Tara and take her out of the country. So John was admitted to the hospital and luckily Karma finally caught up with him

and he died four days after he attacked Tara. At this point, he was 57 years old. He was on life support for a few days, but his sister Karen, who also hated him and never talked to him, ended up taking him off. His body was cremated and no memorial service was held for him. Literally at the end of John's life, no one cared about him and everyone he knew hated him. Deborah and her children were very traumatized by this whole situation. It took Deborah a while to finally feel like she got back into her normal flow of life

after all this, but it actually did inspire her to start helping other victims of domestic violence. As of now, Debra lives in Nevada and runs a new company called Embroja Home that she founded in 2017. Debra still struggles with guilt to this day. She feels terrible that she brought this horrific man, this criminal, into her family's lives, and didn't take them seriously when they warned her about him., this criminal, into her family's lives and didn't take them seriously when they warned her about him. At this point in her life she's once again close with her kids which is great and she's also very cautious now. She carries around a stun gun, a rape whistle, and pepper spray to protect herself at all times. Most recently Deborah and Tara actually appeared at

CrimeCon in 2019. She specifically said that she won't be doing any more online dating. That is going to be it for me today guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. [♪ Music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing simple, straightforward approach to tire and automotive service. We care about those who live and work in our community because you are a big part of what makes this place great. Life can throw you a curveball when it comes to vehicle maintenance.

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