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Crime Story Episode 55: Christopher Goffard

Host: Kathleen Goldhar

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: A number of years ago, one of my best friends fell in love with a man named Mordechai. My friend thought that he was a wealthy artist who split his time between L.A. and Toronto. He was charming and smart, and he seemed to be the person that she was looking for. But in the end, none of that was true. In fact, his real name wasn't even Mordechai. He was a homeless man named Marc. Obviously, this whole ordeal left my friend angry and confused. Although, we did get a pretty good podcast out of it. But when I think about my friend's story, I realize that it could have been so much worse. Because she could have been conned by somebody like John Meehan. While Mordechai emotionally hurt women, John Meehan terrorized them. Dirty John is one of my all time favorite podcasts. Its structure, the storytelling, the journalism. I've listened to it three times now, and every time I'm blown away. So I'm really excited to have its host, the Los Angeles Times' reporter Christopher Goffard join us. I'm Kathleen Goldhar, and this is Crime Story.

[Music: Episode opening theme]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Hi Chris, and welcome to the podcast.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Thanks for having me, Kathleen. Good to be here.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It's a real pleasure. So can we start a little bit nerdy this time? And I want to start with how you start Dirty John.

SOUNDCLIP

SPEAKER: There are a total of 13 stab wounds which have penetrated the body. They are all arbitrarily numbered from 1 to 13.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You open up, there's a dead body. We know it from the description that the death has been violent. But we don't know who that dead body is.

SOUNDCLIP

SPEAKER: There are eight wounds noted in the left side and upper back, in the shoulder and scapular area, where wound number one is on the top of the...

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And you don't give it away until the very end. What made you think that this story had the kind of legs that you could get an audience to keep listening all the way through those episodes before revealing who had actually been killed?

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Well, it's clear from the beginning that something terrible happens. We don't know who's going to wind up dead. The person reading the autopsy report is Matt Murphy, the prosecutor. When he says, "This young woman fough like hell,' it's not really clear who dies, and that seems like an interesting way to get into the story. You know that something bad is going to happen ultimately. But if you, if you pay attention throughout the podcast, you might ask yourself, who is not being interviewed? And that might lead you to the answer.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, we're going to give us the answer now, because this is a show that's all about spoilers. So if you guys haven't listened to Dirty John yet, you know, it's a shame. I'm upset with all of our listeners for not having listened to it. But who's dead?

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: John Meehan is dead, and he was dead before I ever knew his name. The story came to our attention because he died on a rooftop parking garage in Newport Beach. And it happened in broad daylight in front of lots of witnesses. And as I began looking into it, the way people spoke about John Meehan was different from the way I've, I've heard them speak about other people. I mean, one of the cops who had chased him for years and years, Dennis Luken, he said, this is the most devious, deceptive, dangerous personality I have ever dealt with in decades as a law enforcement officer. And he leaves behind him a trail of restraining orders, police reports. And so it becomes clear this is not an ordinary guy. And we had an interesting... an interesting ending to this story. And it was just a matter of building backward toward how he and Debra meet.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Okay, so let's talk about the Newells. Who were the Newells? It's really important that we get to understand who this family was.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Yeah. So Debra Newell, at the time, she's, she's 59, and this starts in... October 2014 is, is when Debra meets John. She's 59 at the time, she's been married and divorced four times. She runs a very successful interior design business in Newport Beach, which is an affluent area on the water in Orange County, California. And her four kids are grown up, and she's looking for a man to share her success with. She goes on an over-50 dating site. And over and over she's been disappointed, but she finds this guy, John Meehan. He's six foot two, very handsome. I describe him as a guy who might have once appeared on a trading card as an all-American quarterback. And he's got that quality when he looks at you that you're the only person in the world, right?

SOUNDCLIP

DEBRA NEWELL: He said, "You are sooo my type." And the last guy just-- I was with said I wasn't his type. I thought, oh, I'm someone's type. Well, okay, good. That's a good thing.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: They go to this restaurant called Houston's. And he's dressed a little bit sloppily. She can't quite figure out why. And he tells her that he's an anesthesiologist. He's just back from Iraq, where he worked with Doctors Without Borders. And while he was gone, his clothes were stolen along with all the rest of his stuff. And he comes on pretty strongly. And she, she rebuffs him. But then he comes back and apologizes and manages to, to charm his way into her life. Although, her kids are suspicious of him.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What is it about him that they find suspicious?

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Well, the one daughter, Jacquelyn, who's living with Debra, thinks that his eyes are roaming around their apartment like a burglar, like he's casing the place. She has expensive bags in the safe, and they've got nice furniture and paintings and art. And he seems to be looking around as if he's looking for something to swipe.

SOUNDCLIP

JACQUELYN NEWELL: His eyes were going from one corner of the room to the other, as if he was scanning, thinking pretty hard about something. He had a lot going on in his mind. But, um, he was pretty calm.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Plus, he's dressed kind of shabbily. She thinks he's a loser. She thinks he's a homeless man.

SOUNDCLIP

JACQUELYN NEWELL: He didn't carry himself very well. His body was kind of moping around.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: So she's immediately suspicious. He sends off very cold vibes to the other daughter who's relevant in the story, who's Terra, who's universally described by the family as the sweet and the meek and the mild one who always gives people the benefit of the doubt. He's very cold to her.

SOUNDCLIP

TERRA NEWELL: My first impression of this guy, we walked in, and he just didn't really want to say hi to us. We tried to say hi to him. He gave us like a quick hi...

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: And the family is basically kept in the dark by Debra when her relationship with John becomes more serious when he moves in with her. And after less than two months, they, they run off to Vegas and get married. She doesn't tell her family because they know they're going to criticize her, and so she, she keeps it from them. But pretty soon, the confrontations with the family begin starting.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I mean, the girls do not hold back with their mom, right? And there's like, how does that go? What does Debra hear? How does she respond to her kids?

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Well, John convinces her that the reason they're raising these issues is that they're jealous, right. That's, that's his explanation. That's what he's telling Debra. And, you know, he says that he's a doctor, but at one point, Terra opens a closet and finds that he has a nursing certificate, and this contradicts his account. And John confronts her and screams at her. Debra sort of takes his side at this point. Terra screams and says, How can you let this guy talk to me like this? He says, Kids like this should be smacked.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And just to make a point of it, I mean, these girls are grown-ups.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Yeah, they're grown-ups. They're grown-ups.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And how does, how does the relationship between Debra and her kids sort of evolve over the next few months? I can't imagine that they do well together.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: No. In fact, she goes to a therapist, and the therapist looks at the family dynamics and tells Debra that she needs to establish firmer boundaries with her children. If your kids want to come over, they have to be invited. They can't yell at you, can't try and ruin your life and sabotage your happiness. You have a right to happiness. The therapist is basically saying exactly what John wants her to say. And so John nods along and says, Yeah, absolutely. So John is very successfully driving a wedge between Debra and her family.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It's throughout the podcast, things kept getting presented to Debra. She does sort of have this seemingly endless well of forgiveness for John. What did John do for Debra initially? Sort of what did he tap into with Debra that made her feel so connected to him, that he was so important to her?

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: I mean, she said, she told me that he treated me better than any man ever had. He ran her errands. He would actually carry her purse when they went out. He was totally doting, totally attentive. Of course, this is all a way to gain more and more control, right. So, one minute he's saying, let me handle this chore for you. The next he might be saying, can I have your bank account number so that I can handle your banking for you? So it's, it's what I learned is something called coercive control, which is control that comes camouflaged as caring. So he's... you know, he's a chameleon, and he's practiced this kind of role for years and years. And he's a better husband than any real husband because it's, it's a role for him. And he's playing it to perfection.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Also, a role for him is the anesthesiologist. I mean, he wore his scrubs every single day.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Yeah. Even to a charity ball. It might be the only clothes he has at one point. But the scrubs, that's one of the reasons that Jacquelyn, the daughter, becomes very suspicious of him because she worked at one point in a cosmetic surgeon's office. And she knows that doctors don't wear their scrubs everywhere. So the doubts are mounting. And not long after she develops these suspicions, she puts a tracker on her mother's car, which John is driving around, and begins monitoring him and trying to figure out where he's going all day.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And where is he going all day?

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: It's not really clear based on the tracker. But probably he's driving around picking up drugs because he's a drug addict. And he's got to feed his habit and this is one of his motivations. Turns out he's a... as Debra soon learns, he's not a doctor. He is a nurse anesthetist. He says he puts people to sleep for a living. Then he got hooked on the drugs he's supposed to be giving people and has been a drug addict and trying to feed his habit for years and years. And the way he does it is by casting a very wide net on these dating sites, finding women that he meets and charms and, and swindles and then terrorizes.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And what do you learn about his past? So he's obviously faking being a doctor. What else do you learn about him? I mean, you learn quite a bit and it's, it's quite scary. Like, you guys really go into his past, including, like, meeting an ex-wife. Tell me about what you learn about who John actually is.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Well, he has an interesting past. He was raised by a man who was sort of... well, at least he claimed was part of the mob. He says he was related to somebody in Murder, Inc. and a notorious gangster. I was never able to prove that, but he liked to say that he was. And it gave him a kind of a dark glamour. I talked to his first wife, whose name was Tonia, and she was a nurse anesthetist herself. And she shared with me a videotape of their wedding.

SOUNDCLIP

[audio from wedding video]

PRIEST: Heavenly Father, hear our prayers for Tonia and John.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: This is long before he met Debra. And in the wedding, his friends call him Dirty John or Filthy John.

SOUNDCLIP

[audio from wedding video]

FRIEND: Let me start by saying this: John Meehan's nickname is Filthy John Meehan.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: And when she watches this video, she comes to know that her husband, the man she's just vowed to spend the rest of her life with, has this peculiar nickname that she did not know about. And she asks him about it and he says, ah, it's nothing. He gets his degree. He has a couple of kids with Tonia. And then she finds in their house that he's been taking home some of the anesthetics that he's supposed to be giving to patients. And at this point, they're, they're separated. And he blames her forever for turning him in, for reporting him to, to the hospitals and the medical board. And she shared with me a tape which you can hear in the podcast of him saying some extremely threatening things, very menacing things.

SOUNDCLIP

JOHN MEEHAN: When it happens, Tonia, and you see it in your eyes, remember it was me, okay?

TONIA BALES: Remember what, John?

JOHN MEEHAN: Keep that in mind. It was me.

TONIA BALES: Keep what in mind, John?

JOHN MEEHAN: Tonia, you enjoy your time left on this earth, okay? Because that's what it's going to come down to.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah, I got to say, like, like you mentioned at the top, you know, you don't hear John being interviewed, but you do hear that call. And I think it's one of the first times you hear his voice and it's really sinister.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Yeah, he played that up. He sounds like a, kind of like a B-movie villain. But people who met him, who saw that side of him, like, like Debra's lawyer, said that there was something about his eyes that was like looking into an abyss. It was like looking into a shark's eyes. They just, they were just so totally cold and absent of feeling that they... they engendered a real terror in him.

[music]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So what, finally... what did it take to finally have Debra realize that her husband was actually a dangerous man?

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Well, at one point, she goes into his office. They are, they're living on Balboa Island, which is a very nice area in Newport Beach. And this is one of the puzzles, actually, of the whole case for me, is he's got all of this paperwork that she discovers that lays out these restraining orders, women that he terrorized, some of his police reports. In one of the police reports, he's accused of taking out a hit on some Laguna Beach police officers. And in one of these reports, he's in possession of cyanide and other scary stuff, like a particular surgical anesthetic, which paralyzes the body but leaves you conscious when it's administered to you. Which Dennis Luken, the detective, thought was particularly sinister. Why would he have this stuff?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Do you have any sense of why he did keep all that stuff?

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Well, I can tell you the explanations that he gives Debra. He says, I have multiple sclerosis, and the pain may become too terrible at one point and I'll need a quick exit so I keep cyanide around. The explanation for the restraining orders is they've got the wrong guy, or it's vengeful exes who are trying to ruin my life. Or my vengeful ex-wife who is trying to get custody of our kids. He's got explanations for everything. So she finds all this material and she begins making plans to separate from him. He's in the hospital at this point, because... Because of his drug addiction, he's always having problems with his intestines. And he's hospitalized for some time and it gives her a chance to try and get away from him. And he becomes very hostile, sends her all kinds of very nasty texts. And it's clear to her and to her family at this point that she needs to separate. But he manages to talk his way back into her life and she forgives him. And this is, this is the part of the story that... it's a little bit hard to explain. Because at this point it's clear that he's not at all who he says he is. But she takes him back, and there are, there are complicated reasons why she does this. A lot of it has to do, I think, with the way she was raised... as a devout Christian for whom forgiveness and trying to see the best even in the worst people is very important. One of the mysteries for me was, if his end game is I'm going to con Debra out of her money, why then does he leave all of this paperwork sitting around and in plain view, basically, where she could get it?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: And that was never totally clear to me. But I did talk to a former FBI agent, and he said the explanation is that John, being a sociopath and being a fraudster, has a need for confrontation. He doesn't run from it, [KATHLEEN: Huh.] he actually relishes it. It's part of the thrill to him. So that's as close to any explanation as I've been able to come. Could also be that he was just very sloppy.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I kind of had that feeling, too. I was like, was he sloppy or just a little bit lazy? And high. I mean, he wasn't-- he was addicted to opiates, right? So, I mean, he wasn't always in the right mind.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Yeah, that's exactly right. It could be a combination of both.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What finally breaks things up, though, with her and him? I mean, does she start to see any of the violence in the scary stuff? Like, how does that start to kind of unfold in her life?

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Well, it's an, it's an accumulation of things. At one point, he says something very menacing about one of her daughters, Jacquelyn, who was probably leading the charge, trying to expose him. And he says something about how he could take her out from a thousand yards like a sniper. But that's just one of many things. It's an avalanche of information that hits Debra. And eventually she realizes, I'm in danger of dying like my sister. Her sister was killed by her husband in the early '80s, and got a very light sentence because her mother forgave the shooter. And this goes to Debra's psychology and the emphasis in that family on forgiveness. And Debra was not able to forgive the shooter and actually thought there was something wrong with herself, that she was not able to be the good Christian that her mother was.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So John was kind of her chance to, like, make up that radical forgiveness idea.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: It's possible.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What does she say about it? You talked to her a lot. What does she say? Why, why she takes him back knowing full well at that point that he's a dangerous person and that her children hate him. And that, you know, that her children, who she has a good relationship with, it's... you know, on the verge of being destroyed over this person who's a bad person.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Yeah, it's, it's hard to explain. One thing that was very important to her is she said, Till death do us part, right? For better and for worse. And she took a vow and she took it seriously. This is what she told me. I mean, one thing to keep in mind about this guy is that he played this role very well. He was a pro. This is how he made his living for years and years. And a lot of people have weighed in to say, you know, how is it possible that she was so blind? But this is a guy who trained himself for years and years to find people's blind spots. And we all have blind spots. We all have areas of vulnerability. And very much like a cult leader, John Meehan managed to zero in on people's very specific vulnerabilities and exploit them. He was very good at it. And I think that's what was going on here.

[music]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So eventually, Debra does get to a place where she does end things. They separate. But then things... like, this is the one place that was the least unexpected of your story, is the abusive man, the dangerous man, starts to ramp up the threats of violence. What happens after the two of them separate?

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: They separate, and he seems to be going into a spiral of drug addiction where he's wasting away. But he's also making extremely menacing statements. He's demanding half of her money. He's threatening her. He's saying, give me half and I go away. Otherwise, she's going to become his project in the way that a lot of other people that he had threatened, other women that he'd threatened, he made his project. He's ramping up the campaign of fear. And she tries to get a restraining order and a judge does not grant it. He actually has not at this point done anything physically to harm her. Although her car, her Jaguar, is set on fire, and the surveillance camera shows a figure that looks very much like John Meehan sneaking up to it and stealing it. And so she reports this to the Irvine Police Department, and she's waiting for them to make a case, she's waiting for them to arrest him. Meanwhile, her daughter, Jacquelyn, thinks that one night she spots him following her. And she tells her mother that, I think John is after us. And Debra doesn't really believe it's him.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: But they're right. He is going after them. But he doesn't go after Jacquelyn, who is the more bombastic, probably tougher sister. He goes after Terra. What happens?

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Well, one thing to keep in mind is that John Meehan liked to brag about this kind of gangster ethos that he was brought up with, where if you want to go after an enemy, if you want to punish someone, you don't hurt them, you hurt their families. So when Debra cuts him off and he is trying to punish her, he decides to go after who he thinks is the most vulnerable member of the family and the one who has actually extended the most charity to him and who's tried hardest to understand him, and that's, that's Terra. Terra is working as a dog groomer. And so she's getting off work. It's about five, she's leaving. She's got her dog Cash in the car. And she's getting out of her car and she sees kind of out of the corner of her eye, a figure standing near his trunk, getting a crowbar out of it. And I think she's got mace. I think she may even have a knife somewhere in her purse, but she's not able to get a hold of any of that by the time this guy, who was John Meehan, attacks her. And he comes at her with a knife. And at this point, he's kind of wasted away from drugs. I mean, in his prime, he was a huge, huge guy, like six foot two, six foot three, 230 pounds. On steroids, lot of muscle. Physically fit. And at this point, he's down to maybe 160, 165. But he's still got a full foot on Terra, and maybe 35 pounds heavier. And he's got the element of surprise, he's got this knife. So it's not going to be a fair fight. And he doesn't intend it to be. He knocks her on her back. She's on her back. She's backpedalling. And he comes down with the knife. He gets her a few times with the knife. It opens her arm. There's a big gash on her arm. But one of her kicks manages to knock the knife out of his hand, and it falls just inches from her right hand. She happens to be right-handed. And she grabs the knife. And she doesn't, she doesn't hesitate, she doesn't think. And she begins flailing with it. And she connects again and again. And these are the, these are the wounds we learn, that we're hearing about at the very beginning of episode one.

SOUNDCLIP

SPEAKER: There are eight wounds noted in the left side and upper back, in the shoulder and scapular area, where wound number one is on the top of the left shoulder.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: They are the wounds that she is inflicting on John Meehan in a desperate effort to save her life. And the final stab goes through his left eye and into his brain.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: One of the interesting elements of it is, this takes place in broad daylight. There are actually a lot of people who were around. But it's the kind of apartment complex where people tend to mind their own business. They're used to kind of seeing and hearing domestic disputes and looking away. But there is a 14-year-old girl who is just back from junior lifeguard training. Her name is Skylar Sepulveda. And she hears the screaming from her apartment, and she goes to the window and she sees Terra struggling. She sees Terra on her back and Meehan, John Meehan's above her with the knife raised. And she just rushes out there. She's barefoot. She rushes out to the parking lot, not knowing what kind of danger she's going to be facing. And she says she sees people on their balconies overlooking this event, going on with their daily lives. And she said she felt total disgust with people because they're not doing anything. And she runs right up to the scene. Of course, it's basically over by the time she gets there. But Terra is wounded, and she's got a towel and she helps her. She helps put pressure on the wound and wrap up the arm that's slashed up pretty badly. So in a story that's pretty depressing and scary in a lot of ways, I wanted to include Skylar Sepulveda because she's a little example of the best of people.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah. And strong women. It's a story of strong women.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Yeah. You know, one of the smartest things I thought was written about this podcast was from the novelist Megan Abbott. She's talking about what is, what is the allure of true crime. And she said while men are much likelier to be homicide victims, those are often drug and gang related. And women are 70% of victims killed by an intimate partner. And she said true crime is the place that women can go to read about the dark, messy stuff of their lives that they're not supposed to talk about. Like domestic abuse, like serial predation, like sexual assault. And she said, Dirty John begins as a tale of female victimhood, but in the end, it becomes a testament to female intuition and survivor instincts.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah, I just thought, you know, as you're talking now, I was just thinking of that idea of just how the women come out in this podcast, and I think that's really true. I mean, I started this whole podcast by talking about this friend of mine who got conned, and obviously it wasn't nearly as violent as what happened with John. But she was super smart. Debra's super smart. I have a theory about what sort of Mordechai was doing to bring these women in. But I'm curious if you have, after all this sort of time away from it, a sense about where that dynamic comes from and what that's about with these men like that and the women that they con.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: I mean, they're books that go into what makes con artists successful. And they prey on people, at least in this case, they prey on people with a sense of optimism and hope. And Debra is a very, Debra's almost the opposite of me in terms of her basic view of human nature. She's very hopeful and opp-- hopeful, optimistic, and sees the best in people. After 30 years as a reporter, where, you know, you're in newsrooms, every newsroom has a sign somewhere in it that says, If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out. Right?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: [chuckles] Yeah.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: This is not build mental habits that, that make you trust people naturally, right? So she has these qualities he manages to exploit, what's, what's nicest about her.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Christopher, thank you. Thank you for talking to me and thank you for this podcast. And I know you've done a ton of work after it as well, so thanks for all the work.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: Thank you, Kathleen.

[Music: Closing theme]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You've been listening to Crime Story from CBC Podcasts. We release a new episode every Monday, so please remember to follow the show in your podcast app. You can get our next episode a week early on CBC Podcasts’ YouTube channel or by subscribing to CBC Podcasts' True Crime channel on Apple Podcasts. In addition to early access, subscribers to our True Crime channel also listen ad-free. Crime Story is hosted by me, Kathleen Goldhar. Our producers are Nikky Manfredi and Mitchell Stuart. Sound design by Julian Uzielli and Mitchell Stuart. Audio courtesy of the Los Angeles Times and Wondery. Our senior producer is Geoff Turner. Our video producer is Evan Aagaard, and our YouTube producer is John Lee. Executive producers are Cesil Fernandes and Chris Oke. Tanya Springer is the Senior Manager of CBC Podcasts and Arif Noorani is the Director of CBC Podcasts.

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Transcript: Crime Story, Episode 55

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