John Meehan is now considered a legendary true crime bad guy.
In 2017, Los Angeles Times reporter Christopher Goffard released a podcast called “Dirty John” about Meehan and his exploits as an abusive con man who tricked interior designer Debra Newell into marrying him. She discovered he was a pathological liar with a fierce temper, a drug addiction and a past filled with tales of manipulating and abusing other women. Newell’s daughter killed him in self-defense 2016 when he tried to abduct her.
Newell’s story was turned into a Bravo scripted series starring Connie Britton and Eric Bana also called “Dirty John” that is now on Netflix. But Meehan also had a first wife, metro Atlanta resident and licensed nurse anesthetist Tonia Bales, who didn’t get nearly as much attention.
So now Bales has decided to tell her own story via an Audible subscriber-only podcast called “The First Wife: John Meehan’s Reign of Terror.” The eight episodes chronicle her relationship with Meehan and how he impacts her to this day.
Meehan and Bales married in Dayton in 1990. She naively didn’t suspect much until she found out Meehan had cheated on her. Later, he grew more distant and she discovered he had gotten another woman pregnant and was stealing drugs like fentanyl from his work, also as a nurse anesthetist. Meehan filed for divorce but got ornery when she got him fired for drug theft. He made threatening calls and voicemails to her and her parents, some implying he might have her killed.
He spent time in prison for sending drugs to his brother but later made Bales’ life miserable for years.
Bales, now 56 and living in Braselton, was devastated that it took so long for her to figure out what was happening.
“Over his life, he’d use you until you figured him out. Then he just pivoted in another direction and start over again with another woman,” Bales said. “He wasn’t just a liar or a con man. He was way more than that.”
The producers of the podcast interviewed Bales, her parents and their two daughters, who are now adults, as well as people who knew Meehan in the past.
Fortunately for Bales, she was able to find a trustworthy man to marry after Meehan named Augustus Bales. They have been married 18 years. “I’m now married to someone who couldn’t tell a lie,” she said. “He’s one of the most honest people I’ve ever met. He is someone I worked with. I already knew him.”
Augustus, who goes by Augie, was the dad Meehan could never be to Bales’ two daughters. He also defended his wife when Meehan would lash out. “Augie watched it all unfold and he would tell me he loved me more because it clearly showed what a strong person I was,” she said.
Bales hopes that women who listen to the podcast can learn something from her experience with her first husband.
“There are men who are coercive and controlling women,” she said. “They may be your neighbors next door. I hope that my podcast is going to bring light to a lot of that, to help women understand what they are experiencing isn’t right. They don’t deserve that. Women are reaching out to me and thanking me for telling my story.”
WHERE TO LISTEN
“The First Wife: John Meehan’s Reign of Terror,” available for Audible subscribers
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