Outsmarting My Psychopath Ex-Husband, Dirty John Meehan with Tonia Bales
6/1/20261 hr 10 min
When Tonia Bales married John Meehan, she had no idea that the charming man she fell in love with would later become known to millions as "Dirty John." Psychopaths don’t stand out - in fact they do everything to blend in - but there are some tell-tale signs you need to know.
Together, Laura and Tonia decode and share the signs whilst discussing Tonia’s new book, When You See It: How I Outsmarted and Outlasted Dirty John, and the untold story of what it was really like being married to one of America's most notorious coerc...
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 0· Soundbite0:00
So Tonya, you are John's first wife.
Speaker 10:02
That's correct.
Speaker 0· Soundbite0:03
So tell me a little bit about your story.
Speaker 10:06
Well, I'm kind of the first bookend of this story. Debra's the, the final, the final bookend and the final chapter, and, um, I married John when I was very young, at 23, and kind of a, a, um, young, budding, uh, girl who wanted a family, was looking for somebody who was Catholic, who had the same values, same ideas of how to, um, live their life, someone smart. And, um, I met John out dancing with friends after work, and he stopped me on the way to the bathroom, and that's how the story started.
Speaker 0· Soundbite0:40
And how many years were you together?
Speaker 10:42
We were together, like, 12 years, married 10. Yeah.
Speaker 0· Soundbite0:46
And how many years into your marriage did you realize that he wasn't all that he pretended to be?
Speaker 10:52
Not till the end, till he asked me for a divorce, and then I was like, "Something's not right here." And that's what allowed me to kind of get the courage and the bravery to start looking and digging on someone that I, you know, you don't do that to your husband, you know. So I started searching and got some clues from his mom. I called his mom, who I'd never met. I searched his office, and I found drugs and an affair, and that's how my knowledge of who he was started. Mostly his mom.
Speaker 0· Soundbite1:19
Wow. What, what was the most telling thing that his mom told you?
Speaker 11:23
That he wasn't even the age that I thought he was, that he had altered his name, that he had been arrested and had a drug, uh,