10 Chilling Details Bravo's Dirty John Left Out From the Disturbing True Story

Updated on 1/21/2019 at 10:10 AM

If you're still reeling from the wild Dirty John finale, we're right there with you. The eight-episode Bravo series — which is based on the true story of how interior designer Debra Newell (Connie Britton) fell prey to notorious con artist John Meehan (Eric Bana) — came to an end on Sunday night with the death of Meehan. While it may seem like a lot of the show was embellished for TV, it actually stuck pretty true to the story. Yes, it's true that Meehan and Newell tied the knot after only a couple of months of dating. And yes, it's true that Meehan set Newell's car on fire when they were separated, though it was actually a Tesla, not a Maserati. Still, there were a few important details that the Bravo series left out from the harrowing true story. Maybe they just couldn't fit them all in eight episodes? We get it — it's a lot.

Meehan had a secret heroin addiction. In Dirty John, Meehan steals prescription drugs from hospitals to fuel his addiction, but what the show didn't mention is that Meehan also used heroin. "When John and I were together I didn't ever see any signs of any heroin drug use," Newell previously told Forbes. "I only saw prescription drugs and since he'd just had back surgery, I thought they were for that."
Meehan's brother died of a drug overdose. Unlike in the show, Meehan actually had two sisters, Donna Meehan Stewart and Karen Douvillier, and an older brother named Daniel. According to Dennis Luken — who was an investigator with the drug task force of the Warren County Sheriff's Office in Ohio — he found emails that showed Meehan had been sending drugs to Daniel, who died of a drug overdose in Santa Cruz County in September 2000. Even though Luken wasn't able to make a criminal case on that charge, his investigation led to Meehan pleading guilty to felony drug theft in 2002.

Meehan's family had ties to the mob. While Meehan may have learned how to be a con artist from his father, it's believed that his uncle was a hitman and had ties to Italian-American mobster Albert Anastasia. Anastasia was one of the biggest crime lords of the 20th century and ran the deadly organization known as Murder Inc.
One of Meehan's ex-girlfriends helped police get a search warrant. Meg Maggart met Meehan on a dating website following his divorce from his first wife, Tonia Bales, and before he met Newell. After three months of dating, the two took a trip to Mexico, and that's when things took a turn for the worse. While in Cancun, Maggart claimed Meehan "came back with a vial of drugs, wrapped a belt around his ankle, and he inserted the drugs with a hypodermic needle between his toes." Maggart said she felt she was in danger, so she took him to the hospital, and she left Mexico while he was still there.
Once Maggart was home, Meehan's gym bag happened to fall out of her luggage and several "tiny vials" spilled out of it, as well as Bales's business card. Maggart then called Bales to confirm her suspicions about Meehan's drug use, and Bales referred her to Detective Luken. "He told me there had to be drugs in John's house," Maggart said in the Oxygen documentary. "He was afraid there were weapons in the house."
Maggart ended up looking in the attic and discovered it was "chock-full of empty vials." She agreed to go before a judge and have her name appear on a search warrant, even though she feared for her life. "When John found out my name was on the search warrant, he lost it," Maggart revealed. "John calls me and tells me I'm going to regret ever helping Dennis Luken. He said I was a 'wh*re' and a 'b*tch' and I was going to pay for what I did. He knew where my family was." After Meehan got out of rehab, Maggart broke her leg in a hit-and-run, and she swore Meehan was the person behind the wheel. However, Detective Luken claimed Meehan had an alibi.

Meehan begged Newell to marry him. In the show, Meehan and Newell have a shotgun wedding in Vegas, but in real life, Meehan had actually been begging Newell to tie the knot for quite some time. So when Newell went to Vegas on business in December 2014, she finally gave in. The two wed in a courthouse ceremony and celebrated with lemon-drop martinis after less than two months of knowing each other. "I felt this was an opportunity to love again," Newell admitted in the podcast Dirty John.
The woman who broke into Newell's Balboa Island home was actually there when the couple returned from church. Remember the woman Meehan hired to break into Newell's Newport Beach home? Well, in reality, Newell came home and found her sitting inside drinking Ovaltine and wearing Newell's clothes. The woman had just finished using the shower, so her hair was soaking wet. "She didn't even act surprised," Newell explained in Oxygen's Dirty John, The Dirty Truth documentary. "It was the strangest thing."
While it's never been explained why she was really there, authorities believe Meehan set up the whole thing with the idea of "scaring Debra" into getting security cameras. "I believe now that John put the cameras in so he could watch me when I was home," Newell said. "I believe there were several cameras that I was even unaware of."

Meehan reportedly stole money directly from Newell's wallet. One of the major red flags that made Newell's daughters suspicious of Meehan was that money kept "disappearing" from Newell's wallet. Newell would often call her daughter Jacquelyn to ask if she had borrowed anything from her purse. "I would be like, 'No, I didn't go out of my way to your office or anything like that to take or borrow money from you. How many places did you bring your purse today? Not only could it be that loser that you are dating, but it could be anybody,'" Jacquelyn said in the Dirty John podcast.
Meehan put a hit out on a detective. In the Oxygen documentary, Detective Julia Bowman revealed that Meehan tried to have her killed in exchange for $10,000 after she put him behind bars in 2013. "He put [a] hit out on me," the Orange County detective told People. "Once he knew my name and recognized me as one of his targets, I never felt safe. We lived in a cul de sac, and cars would drive down the street that didn't belong there. It became kind of a scary situation. Just knowing him the way I had, I didn't know what he was capable of or what it might lead to."

Meehan nearly swindled $37 million from a Brazilian multimillionaire. Prior to meeting Newell, Meehan dated author Marileide Andersen and almost convinced her to transfer millions of dollars from her bank account in Brazil to his personal account. Andersen had just undergone brain surgery in the US and told Meehan she was unable to move her money from her Brazilian bank account, so Meehan suggested she use his. Andersen agreed and initiated the transfer, however, she immediately canceled the transaction after realizing it was a mistake.
"The money never came to his account, then he started to be very mad and rude to me," she told Oxygen. Andersen explained that Meehan began harassing her and told her that she owed him money. Authorities eventually arrested Meehan for burglary, extortion, and stalking Andersen. He pleaded guilty to felony possession of a firearm, burglary, and stalking and was sentenced to serve two years in jail. Meehan met Newell two years later when he was released from prison.
Terra still suffers from PTSD after her encounter with Meehan. While Newell and her family hope they can help others by sharing their story, Newell's daughter Terra still suffers from PTSD after her violent incident with Meehan that led to his death. "She did everything right to fight that man!" Newell told Forbes. "We're all healing but everything you go through in life is a learning experience."