Dirty John

I know the mom is a victim too, but good God, how the hell do you let him talk to your kids that way and tell her to get your kids out of your life? Some of that was even before she realized the guy was off the deep end.

No wonder she had four previous marriages.

 

SPOILER ALERT

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I read the whole thing in one sitting. I went through the normal emotions.

When I got to the climactic part, from the woman who's obsessed with The Walking Dead, I literally LOLed.

 

Because she is an easily manipulated person, despite being a fairly intelligent person, and because he was a scumbag who knew how to manipulate.

 

Just finished.

Fuck that religious forgiveness bullshit. God damn it almost got people killed.

There is something else going on with this family. I know you can't tell anything, and it was a long series, but I agree with whoever brought it up earlier.

I would like to know about her earlier marriages, and which kids came out of which marriages. Maybe the writer explored it and nothing was there, but that was the aspect that was in the back of my mind for most of it.

 

Just read this after it was recommended on the “Worst Roommate” thread. Fantastic piece.

I get why folks are questioning Debra’s past and her defense of John when he did inexcusable things such as indirectly asserting that he would smack Tessa. But I don’t think the story presents her as the most rational person or a hero, just as a victim, which she clearly was. The story lays out that she was divorced four times, that she avoided personal problems through overworking, that her youngest daughter’s life was deeply affected by domestic fighting, that she was desperate to make things work, and that her mother taught her a seemingly impossible standard for forgiveness. I think that fills in the gaps enough.

Reporting out a family dynamic is very often a rabbit hole that doesn’t improve much, especially if the story you already have is running in six editions.




Btw, anyone notice the parking spot number in the photo and the story don’t match?

 

Finished the Bravo 8-part series tonight. I read the story after it was linked here and I live in the area where this happened. I know of and have been to some of the restaurants mentioned. I was interested the TV series because of the newspaper story.

Pretty enlightening that this could happen. All the shit that John Meehan did and they couldn't put him away. The Newport Beach Police Dept. looked like a goon squad when the detective said that Meehan hadn't committed any crimes in Newport Beach so they couldn't do anything. And it seemed they were going to try to charge the daughter in his death because she watched some zombie movies on TV and had thoughts about dealing with them in the apocalypse.

 

OMG, this hit home even more than I thought. The daughter who killed Dirty John was a middle school and high school classmate of my daughter.