This podcast should not be used as a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling and or therapy from a healthcare professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This episode Discusses Abuse, Trauma and sexual assault, which may be triggering to some people. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk Productions. I heart media or their employees. I said I'm ready, so John kept pushing me, kept pushing me. I said get out of my way, I'm gone, I go, I'm done, and he says, why don't you push me back? Because if you push me, he goes, you'll never get up again. We have been hearing the story of Deborah Newell, who was in one of the most infamous toxic relationships with dirty John. Dirty John is a story of not just the machinations of a toxic, narcissistic and likely psychopathic man, it's also about how family narratives and histories past trauma, hope and even just believing or hoping for love, for a fairy tale, can take a person down a dangerous path. Deborah Newell's story has been told by others. Now you get to hear Deborah Story from herself. Deborah endured criticism and many viewers and people weighing in on how could she have missed the signs? Why did she move so fast into a marriage? Why did she ignore her children's protests? As we here Deborah Story, we learn about her why and we learn how the vulnerabilities that so many of us have can draw us into a relationship with a toxic shape shifter like John. Everyone thinks they know the story of dirty John, the modern parable of dating, love and marriage gone wrong, but now we are hearing the story of the survivor. In our first episode with Deborah, we found out that she started learning uncomfortable truths about his past, as well as witnessing increasingly uncomfortable behavior monitoring her movements his stint in prison. He didn't tell her about lying about his military service, and then, while he was in the hospital, she saw that he had been having numerous inappropriate text exchanges with women from his past and his present. Her marriage is unraveling before it even began. So let's work backwards to you getting married, because you met him. How long from the day of that first date to when you got married? How how much time had elapsed? It was way too soon, it was. Unfortunately. I married him in December and Adam beginning of October. Okay, so October, November, October, November, so three months it was. It was a fast marriage, fast movement. Okay. And so now you're married. What were you thinking? Was it similar to what we're saying? I don't want to live in sin, I want to be married to this person. So what happened was I had to go on a business trip to Vegas and I believe I got there and he wanted to go along. He always loved going with me, and so he's there and he's done all the work at getting a marriage license and he had asked me at this point two times, two married. Please marry me. Don't. I don't want to live in San I'm so in love with you that's spend the most of our lives together. I want to die in your arms. I mean it goes on and on and on, and I'd say no, no, no, no, I'm not marrying you. I'm not going to marry you. Okay, so let's take a step back there, Deborah. He kept asking you, right, you kept saying no, you just said another boundary, right, and homie apparently didn't get the message, because he kept asking right, that insistence, that idea that ultimately he'd break your resolve right, because he felt entitled enough to do it. So we did right, but you did set a boundary, I did, but unfortunately I broke that boundary. What was it about what happened going to Vegas that made you what do you think that we culminated in a breaking of a boundary that you had actually said? I didn't want to marry him, and at least not at that point. Definitely, I wanted my kids to like him first. I wanted to know this person through and through. So I wasn't ready whatsoever. Unfortunately, John kept saying you're living in sin, you're living in sin, you're living in sin. How is God gonna what if you were to die today and you're living in sin? He knew what to say, he was the expert, and I thought, Oh, I can't do this. He goes. What if your mom finds out and I'm thinking, well, I am a grown adult, but I hate disappointing people. I was disappointing my kids by being in this number one. I had been raised and instilled where you don't do this. And then we were at dinner. He had made an appointment for us to go down to the courthouse and get married and had some paperwork on him and in the meantime I had had a couple of drinks at dinner and he said, please, please, please, please, make me the happiest man on Earth, and I'm a pleaser and finally I said okay. He said, what do we have to lose? I can live with you the rest of my life, I can be you can make me the happiest man I mean. He said everything, everything that would manipulate me, and I said okay. So there we were at the courthouse, late at night, getting married, and I thought, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? What is wrong with me that I am not strong enough to say no? And I'm blaming myself and I sat there and I thought, but I'm so in love with this man. I've never felt so in love in all my life. What were you in love with? I was in love with who I thought he was and how he treated me. Just I know it's so weird, but it was. It was almost a high. He was he said all the right things, he did all the right things, everything that he was doing. Obviously he had studied what would make me fall in love with him and there was something. I don't even I can't even say it, but even his smell, his presence, his quirkiness, the way he would play with a dog, the way he would pick up a child, there were all these things that would make me just fall for him. I loved a man that just love kids or just would get down on the floor and play with a dog, that would just smile and say cute things made me laugh. So there were so many things that he did that, in my eyes, made me fall never like I had before. So you fell in love. He kept asking, he kept asking, and ultimately that people pleasing part of you was going to do you in there. And then that's actually a real it's an utter damnation for everyone in these narcissistic relationships, because many of them are people pleasers, which means it's just a matter of time. That you did, you did set a boundary, and then so you marry him and it's early in the game. It's three months in. So now let's jump to where you were private investigator, because now things have changed and I think this is the part of the story, Deborah. That's very important to me that we get right here, because everybody else has gotten it wrong. Okay, you marry him in December. Okay, things start already falling apart in January, in February, cameras are up, prison letter. Yes, you talked to shady. He's raising concerns. Then the kids get the private investigator. Yes, now it's march and boom, what did the private investigator find? So the private investigator found out that he had been in prison, not in Iraq, he had not practice, he was not an an enthusiologist. was he a doctor? He said he had his doctorate degree. I don't know. There were too many other things. He may have had a doctorate in something else, but he did not have an M D. Right, okay, so I'm reading all these things. He had nine restraining orders. Wow, so what happened is I go to a lawyer and I want in annulment, I want protection on all my kids. I'm like, I have to get out. I went with two of my daughters and my daughter in law and we went to this lawyer told him the story. Tried to serve John, couldn't Sir John. Why you couldn't find him? They hit him. Who hit him? The hospital? Did the hospital hit him? So he couldn't be served. Yes, what was that about? The hospital has the right to protect their patients. Okay, they make it so, which is interesting because the patients in the hospital usually it's you find the room number, go find him. So they were. They couldn't even find him. Interest. After four or five days they had put him privacy on his room because my lawyer has said that we will be serving you and I guess. And I had gone up to a nurse and I said, you have no idea who this guy is, I just want to look him in the eyes and ask him questions. And they wouldn't let you find your wife. Yes, yes, yeah, he has a privacy. Um, he's I don't know what he's done, but I can't see him, nor its and they serve him. Okay. So then he at some point he's going to get out of the hospital. It's just a bowel obstruction, right. Well, yeah, but he had complications. Okay, yeah, and so he was. He in the hospital for a while. Twenty three days. That's a long time. Okay, so he was actually quite seriously ill. Twenty three days he is in the hospital. You can't see him for twenty three days. A person you've been married to, right, obviously he can't be served. How are you feeling at this time? I'm in shock. Every feeling a betrayal, hurt, frustration, guilt, anger, everything that I went through, every fear had. Fear like you have no idea. I can imagine. I sat there and thought, okay, this guy knows everything about me. I can't just walk away. So the twenty three days is up. At some point. What happens then? Because he has to be released to someone or someplace exactly. So I get this call and he said, Debbie. I'm like, and that call was the first time you've talked to him since he went into the Austin Wow, and I'm moving forward in every area, but I'm also thinking that you can't just walk away. I don't know who this man is and I don't know what's going to happen. So he said, I miss you, I need you. He goes. I can't live without you. And he goes, and you're my wife, and I'm like uh, I go, John, do you realize what you've done? I go, do you realize I just found out everything about you? He goes, it's not all true. I go, what do you mean it's not true? Eight restraining orders? How can not even one of those, you know, be true? He said they're not true, Debbie, I've been the victim, of course, and I said, what do you mean? You've been the victim? I go, you've lied and lied and lied to me. And I said how do you expect me to forgive you after all that? And he said I have no way of being released except to you. He said, you're my wife. He goes, I have no one to call. I don't know how I'm going to get out of the hospital. That part might have been actually it was true, and I'm like, crap, what do I do? I don't know what to do. I don't want to see him. I don't. And part of me, at that point, though, I thought, okay, I'm just gonna go put him in a hotel room. So I went down there, looked at him and he cried and cried and cried and said, you have no idea. I'm so in love with you and I didn't want to tell you because I knew I wouldn't be able to. You wouldn't have anything to do with me if you knew my past. So it's just a complete manipulation, turning himself in the victim after he's the one who's lied to you. And Right, right, there is a narcissistic personality. And I looked at it and I said, but John can't be with someone like this. And I said marriage, love is based on trust. And I said, and you've done nothing but lie to me. And he kept saying, but you don't understand. You wouldn't have even looked at me, you wouldn't have had one thing to do with me, and I said, you're right, I wouldn't have. I said, if I would have known all this, you're right, I wouldn't have. And then I'm thinking to myself, I've blown it so many times in my life. I mean I've got red flags. Look how many times I've been married, you know. And I'm thinking to myself, well, look at me, I'm not like this perfect person. And then I'm thinking, I don't know what to do. You know, he actually looked at me and said just dropped me off somewhere. Just signed the release papers and dropped me off somewhere, and I said okay. So I took him and I put him at this Marriott not too far away, got us prescriptions filled and dropped moth. Deborah does something that many survivors do, which is to attempt to find empathy of some kind for the narcissistic person by reflecting on herself. It sort of goes back to the biblical passage when Jesus famously says he who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her. The problem is is that survivors take that to heart and view some of their past history as being on equal footing with the narcissistic person's current abusive behavior. They won't cast the stone exactly when they should, because there are sins and there are sins. Survivors may justify the narcissistic person's abusive behavior by saying, well, none of us are per fig I'm certainly not perfect. In no reality is Deborah's history of having been married multiple times on equal footing with John Lying about significant parts of his history, monitoring her movements and inappropriately communicating with other women. I was at this point staying with my oldest daughter and he kept crying and crying, calling me and crying and crying, and I said I'm not going back with you, and he said go to a lawyer with me on Monday. I'm going to make an appointment for a lawyer and I want you to talk to the lawyer. I said about what? And he said, I want them to share the truth with you. What? Yeah, and I said, what do you mean? I go, I've just read everything. He Goes, did you notice? It? John Mecham, it's Jonathan Mohan, it's he named all these different names, redhead, six too, all these different papers, you know, and I thought, well, you've got a point there. They have all these different names. They can't all be him, but obviously some have to be. What ended up happening was we went to the lawyer on Monday. I've got ninety five percent of me is out, five percent of me is in. I'm willing to listen, to hear what the lawyer has to say. The lawyer sat there and said John's the victim, right, and he said you don't understand this man got conned by women these are not him. He's been caught. He was the victim and I'm like really, how could all of these so I'm not really believing him. And so what happens is drop John back up at the hotel and I'm thinking, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with them. You know legally where I stand with him financially if he's associatepath. So I started studying what a psyche path is, what the sociopath is. I actually hired a forensic psychologist. Okay, all right. Was it helpful? It was very helpful. And I hired a private detective, one that needs to be secret service to for presidents, and I said and I said I need to know who this man is and I need to know what kind of precautions I need to take because, number one, I have no idea what to do. You know, does he get everything in mine or or what? If he knows every password, where's my safety? If he's on accounts, what do I do? And because we had not been able to get the annulment when he was in the hospital, at this point, I think, let's see, three or four weeks went by and this lawyer, I'm trying to do some investigating and the forensic psychologist says to me he is a sociopath, narcissist, Predator on something. You want to order a restaurant. I can tell you that right now. You and I have spoken and when I looked at the case, upon reading everything after it, it felt more like psychopathy to me. I think it is, you know, because of how calculated, how callous the use of alias is, the ease of lying. That all feels like psychopathy, which is just the next train station, always down the track, from malignant narcissism. But they are different. I think if you stir those things up in a blender, you get psychopaths. I really do think that the net results of that and these terminologies almost don't matter. It's what you were dealing with was, even as a variant of a narcissistic presentation, the most dangerous, the most chilling. It's very this is not your sort of center of attention at a party. kind of like. This is danger us. All the things that would stop a normal person from doing something terrible. None of those breaks were on him. These terms, psychopath, sociopath malignant narcissists, are often used interchangeably but trying to slice this up into separate pieces actually doesn't work. There is a model called the Dark Tetrad that is made up of narcissism, psychopathy, machiavellianism, which is the willingness to exploit other people, and sadism. Instead of trying to distinguish psychopath versus sociopath versus narcissist, the presentation that Deborah was dealing with and John was this dark Tetrad Pattern and personally I'd throw paranoia into the mix of what would characterize his conduct. These different personality styles, narcissism, sociopathy, psychopathy, they're all related and no matter how you lay it out, the dark tetrad style is harmful to anyone who comes into contact with it. So you are now finding out that this history that the private investigator that your kids and your nephew got, it's being substantiated by this really high level private investigator and the and the forensic psychologist is really giving you this sort of like profile. Here's the piece I want to get back to because I think it's so critical to this story. The two of you got married in December. The hospitalization takes place in around March. You're done. So this marriage effectively lasted two months, three he was in the hospital. You couldn't reach him and you found out pretty early in his hospitalization what happened and couldn't serve him. So when I say this marriage lasted that long, even psychologically, by the time early March rolled around and he was in the hospital, you were very clear what happened and you're like, this is not I didn't even marry the person I thought I married. But let's call it two to three months. And the reason I'm bringing this up, Debra, is an every telling of your story I've read, other than your autobiographical rendition of it, is that this picture of this woman who is foolish and stayed in this terrible, toxic marriage. You didn't stay in a toxic marriage, you got out of it in two months. Hang on, you, you're just full of surprises. So in June I've asked my psychologist, I've talked to everyone involved that's an expert and my lawyer. What do I do? And they said get out, and I said, but how do I get out when he's got accounts, he's got passwords, he's got cameras, and they said play his game and I said, how do I play? At the time, they thought he was as sociopath at the time, and I said, okay, how do I play the game? And they said we'll help you. Said okay. So I told John, let's put you in this. I'm going to rent an apartment by my work and you can stay there and I'm going to buy a house in Vegas. So I bought a house in Vegas and I said I need you out there to do all the upgrades. Can you stay out there and get well, because he has also a really bad back. And at this point, little by little, I all of a sudden was taking I was speaking it, and that is the worst feeling in the world because that is not who I am, and I would have to like take a deep breath and think, okay, I can do this. I've got to play the game to my advantage, and so I would literally walk in that door and think, okay, Hi John, how are you? And he knew he could see right through me, and he goes, you've changed. I go no, no, I have a changed and I said and he'd be no, you're not the same person. I go no, I love you, I'm just stressed. Works hard. You know, but I what I was doing was, from that point forward, I was taking every paycheck, opening up a new account, getting cash up. I was starting to plan for my escape. I was planning the person at work to take over the business, working with them, training them little by little. I think I had sixty seven different passwords. I was changing a couple, a few a week. I was trying to figure out how I could leave. I got a dark wig, different clothes and I was mapping out how I was going to go into hiding. Wow. So when did you start going into hiding? When did that process begin? Because if he got out of the hospital at the end of March, you moved him into the Marriott. What happened in April and May and June? As you're leading up to you you're realizing you want to get out? I'm traveling a lot to barely see him my my business. What I did was I chose to do most of the framewalks, presentations, drywall walks, final walks, and so I'm gone a lot. I don't have to be around him. So in June I move him in, end of June and I'm trying to figure out my life anyway. It took all the way till February, but I'm I've got him out in the House in Vegas, out there a lot. I'm not having to see him that much. Thank God. He's questioning everything. I bought him his own car and the Vegas and I also he ended up keeping the Tesla because I could track it. I'm putting cameras. I'm actually being able to look in the cameras and watch him. So now you're playing. I'm playing his game and I've got about thirty thousand that I've saved up, actually more than that, but in cash I had thirty thousand. He finds it. He had come to Irvine at the time for a doctor's appointment and he throws the cash on the bed and I'm about ready to leave. I'm like two or three days away from leaving for good. He throws the cash on the bed and he said what's this? I said cash to the facts. He said, why are you hiding it from me? I didn't have an answer. He said what is this? Pushing me, because what is I said John? I said John, move, I'm leaving you, I'm not staying, I'm done, I'm out of here. I thought this is my chance to get out of there as fast as I could. I called and I says, we're on, we're moving this up three days. I had my installers that we're going to move everything out of mine. They were going to go get the car, the Tesla, out in Vegas, move everything out of the House in Vegas that I had put there, and so I was going to start being in hiding. And I called Jack. I said I'm ready. So John kept pushing me, kept pushing me, and I said get out of my way, I'm gone. I go, I'm done, and he says, why don't you push me back, because if you push me, he goes, you'll never get up again, and I said get out of my way. I ran as fast as I could to the door. I think I grabbed a suitcase with one shoe on. All that's going to do. Well. I got in the car and I called Jack and Li I said we're done. I said I can do it, I can get out here now, and so we ended up driving UN till four o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, got out to Vegas. The installers met me first thing in the morning, took everything out, got my car out and from that point went into hiding and I was in hiding six months. We will be right back with this conversation. What did hiding look like? Hiding, I went from a Seattle to Portland's to Denver, to Phoenix, to Tucson, to Austin, all over North Northern California. You're constantly on the move then, and we're using different identities, obviously, for everything different. Deborah's story is horrifying and stressful, but another thing that jumps out at me was that she was able to buy some time with money, buying him a separate residence, moving around and staying in different places, accumulating cash. Most people in a situation like Deborah's do not have anything near this kind of resource. They may have to flee with nothing, live in unsafe places and fear, and often there's little law enforcement can or will do to protect someone in such a situation. It's a remind finder of how perilous these kinds of toxic relationships can get. Even if you have means, it's exhausting and if you don't, it can feel damn near impossible. So again, but I'm going to go back to my original point. You got married in December. By end of February, you knew something was was up. Marches in the hospital. You then he comes out of the hospital, you put him in a hotel. You've decided you're slowly going to have to distance yourself. So your marriage really was effectively done after two that's what my point, though, is that on paper you may have been married, and that was critiqued as how could she not see all these red flags? You did see. He just don't walk away. What you're dealing with you could not have, and I think that what you were describing. We talked. We call it a go bag or safety bag. That that domestic violence Um survivors are told. You've got to have a way to get out of there. You've got to make scans. You've got. Back in the day, even when I'm back into graduate school, it really was about copies and all that. Now you've got a phone, you can take pictures, but get all those records, get some cash in one place, stow a bag at a friend's house. So you are you can't do that quickly and, like you said, he had access to passwords and all this information about your business and you. So now you are pretty much you're the one who's on the run and you've done nothing wrong. Right. So that entire period, you said you're on the run for what you said. How many, six to seven months? Is he trying to find you at this time? All the time? All the time, he was trying to find your time all the time, and obviously he wasn't, because you you no longer had the same phone. That unfortunately, I didn't have the same phone. I had burner phones. And also what was happening was he would call my office and say, Hey, I'm a builder and such and such, because you had my builder list and I can't find her a new number. Can you give it to me, and hope they would give him the number, even though they weren't supposed to. So there he would be and he'd say, Boo, I found you. Yeah, so terrified. Yeah, and then when I finally find you, I'm going to kill you, I'm going to put two six FT under or I can't decide whether they hug you or choke you. I mean, it goes on and on and on. Did you ever attempt to get a restraining order against him? Yes, were you able to know it wasn't? Because what I would be curious to know what the reason was you weren't able to. So I tried and tried to get a restraining order and I had two lawyers, one in Vegas and one in Orange County. The lawyer in Vegas, when John wanted ton some money from me. He wanted he said he was disabled, and so we had to hire someone to watch him. He was carrying a rug over his shoulders, he was working out at the gym, he was running, you know, doing all these things. But they had couldn't get the restraining order the first time. They had pushed it and the annulment to September and he was losing over and over and over again. With everything going on. I couldn't get the restraining order, though. What happened? At one point? My lawyer in Vegas says, you know what, this is going to cost you a ton of money. Nobody saw him as a killer yet, by the way, because he had never killed anyone, even though he was threatening. They had never seen that, but usually a threat isn't. Now, Oh, I know, oh, trust me, I know, but he made the comment to me, my lawyer did, that you need to meet with him somewhere safe, Uh Huh, and try to talk him into the annulment and just throw him some cash. Problem. The attorneys know nothing about this, because now just you tell people the story up to that point, not even what ends up happening. Right up to that point, anyone of first your graduate student would have this sounds agnosticism or psychopathy. And he's telling you to meet this person. Okay, here's the other issue. So I've got experts trying to feel me in on what's going on, how to do things and so on. The other thing that was told to me was by my forensic psychologist. He said, you know what, I wouldn't worry about your kids. You're the one that we need to worry about. See, and that's not well, thank God. And you know what, I was really willing to die. You get to a point where you're in hiding and you're just can't do it any longer. Anything. Okay, you know what, I can die. I'm okay with it. I'm not in fear of dying. I can do it and I'm thinking to myself, but my kids. You know what's going to happen with my kids? You know, I know they've grown adults, but how are they going to handle all this? But he's told me don't worry about your kids. Then what happens then of June, is John Sets one of my cars on Bi and the forensic psychologist comes to me and he says, you know what, that's when they said he is a psychopath. Yeah, I mean I think the behavior before definitely used, but set fire to your car. Restraining order. Now we're still not in court. You know what happens. Why don't you tell I have sent one of the private investigators that's actually on my case that John has gone silent. The day before he was always making up other email addresses and you name it and find he was finding me all the time, but he wasn't physically finding me. So at this point what had happened was John had the day before, I think he had sent two hundred messages and then he went silent. So I called the private investigator and I said, I think something's ready to happen. You're absolutely right. I said I think he's here and I said please, please, please, do something about this. We can't keep living this way. And I didn't get a response. And this was I don't remember the time, but it was mid morning when I had sent it, and then I my girlfriend. I came into town and I had put jacqueline at this place and I was staying right at the end a couple of times with her, and this was again a guard gate, but five cameras before you get to our place. So I'm thinking we're safe. Plus, if I ever flew in from town or whatever, I had a rental car and or I took Uber and I'd have them take me through the gate and dropped me off to where there's no way he could follow anyone in because there is a guard gate with a guard. So I told my girlfriend, you know, even if he's arrested, I will always be in fear because of what he had done to those private investigators that he had had death threats on, that he had hired somebody to kill why he was in prison. So while he was in prison he issued death threats against private investigators who looked into him. Yes, so I'm thinking, even if he is in prison, I'm still going to be in fear. You know, he knows a lot of bad people, I'm sure. So what happens at this point is I told my girlfriend I just feel like I'm going to be in fear of the rest of my life, no matter what that's about, right, and this is about four, four thirty when I'm telling her, she drops me off at the place where Jacqueline and I were at this point and all of a sudden I get this call and it's Tara and terra says, mom, I'm sorry, and I said sorry for what. She said I killed your husband. I said You did? What? What? What's going on? She said I killed your husband John and I said, oh, honey, that's okay, that's okay. What's going on with you? And then I can't talk. I said where are you and she says I met my parking complex. I don't even remember getting in the car or getting there. I don't remember any of it. Um I show up, their yellow tapes around. I'm probably a half mile away and all I can see is flashy lance and I get up to the yellow tape there's a good hundred people there. There's cop cars everywhere, there's fire engines, there's two ambulances and I'm like running to her and they're saying get back, ma'am, and I'm like it's my daughter, and they said it's a crime scene. Getaway, and I see her sitting on the curb. People around her and I'm like, at least she's sitting and I'm seeing an ambulance take off and I realized that's John. You know, John's off, and I'm thinking of myself. Thank God, thank God, he's the one going off and she's not. So they put her in an ambulance. I get in a cop car, a policeman. He drove me to the hospital and they said I can't go in and see her. I called the family. Everyone's over there, all the kids, and we're just we're in shock, we're a mess. All of us were just crying and I just couldn't believe that this is her life. Anyway, Tara was interrogated until about ten, three at night. This happened at five, and they told me during this time frame, because I kept trying to go back to her, I just wanted to be with her. They said you're not going to get to see her tonight. It's going to be ours, and I'm like, she's my daughter, why can't? They said it's a crime scene and I hear somebody say something about the other person is d o, a dead on arrival, and they said, but he needs to be. He's John Doe Right now. He needs to be identified and I'm like, I'm not going to leave my daughter and they said you have to, you have to go identify him. They took me over, walked in a private detective said he's Brain Dad. Basically, he's had many seizures. He was the last knife for one of the stabs went into his eye, and I'm thinking, thank God, and how God has a way of working things out. At least he's gone, at least that nightmares over. But for Tera, you know, she's got ptsd and she's got to deal with everything now. Did he go over there that night to kill Tara? My honest opinion, I think that he was so enraged with me that I had been getting away, been getting winning in court and everything else, and he was so obsessed that what I think happened was he was going to kidnap her and it was a kidnap gone wrong because he had ties, he had the ZIP ties, he had rope, he had knives. I think it was a kidnap gone wrong. Tara doesn't agree with that, you know, and she she was the one that had happened to but in my eyes I think he wanted to get to her, to get me the period of time after an abusive relationship of any kind ends, domestic abuse or a relationship with someone who is obsessive and narcissistic, or a relationship with someone who's Psychopathic, that period can be the most dangerous and the most abusive. Narcissistic folks and folks with other toxic personalities do not like when they are no longer in control and they don't like it when they perceive that someone else is winning. This is something called post separation abuse and it can manifest as stalking, harassment, smear campaigns, threats and even threats against people or pets or things that matter to the person who is leaving. Obviously, DEBRAH's is a severe and horrific example of host separation abuse, but until people understand this, we run the risk of underplaying the danger of the time after a relationship ends, with law enforcement, judges and other systems just writing it off to people being angry that things didn't work out and just needing some time to cool off. No, this is much more than that and it is often why survivors feel stuck. They're scared, and rightfully so, that the abuse and control and menace within the relationship will get worse or dangerous if they leave. In the months after this happened, in the days after this happened, and then the weeks and months years, how are you feeling? First, you're in shock and of course I hadn't more. You know, it's your child and you're the one that dated this person and brought him into your life, in to everyone's life. So I had so much guilt. I'm sure. Oh, I just thought, but you know what, you don't go out on a date thinking this is going to be the outcome. You don't marry someone thinking that this is what's going to happen. This was the last thing I thought would happen. So I think the first six months was all about getting to help, getting her better, and I sort of ignored myself. It wasn't until I wrote my book that I really started the grieving process and the healing, and during that time frame I had to forgive myself. I had to look back at my life and realize the situations that I had been in really had formed sort of how I reacted to certain things. Being a peacemaker, being the pleaser, having these dreams, you know, the fairy tale, wanting love, wanting that family, you know, wanting the things that I think are very natural in a lot of ways. But at the same time I needed to love myself, I needed to learn boundaries and I needed to actually learn red flags. What a narcissist was, what gaslighting was, what love bombing was. I really needed to educate myself to understand the dynamics of what had happened, what other women go through. Our session will continue after this break. You said I had to learn what boundaries were. What was interesting was two elements of you were coming together, the boundaries and the pleaser, and I think this happens for so many people. Right. You were setting boundaries. When he was being insistent, you'd say no. Replies on your bed, you say leave. He asked you to marry a thousand times. You say no, and then somebody pushes enough. You say yes because the pleaser and you almost was fighting with the boundaries center in you, and so I think it's very easy to say outset boundaries. It's an easy prescription, right, but we got to remember that that comes up against the sort of the rest of you, which is that pleasing part. I remember reading the story initially and I remember it so well. I remember where I lived and by the time I came to the story, all parts of the series were out on the L A times and the L A times. It was they and and they got it so wrong. Yet I read the story not knowing what the wrongness of it was. I'm reading it and as I'm going through it, I thought, how the no one's ever going to give this woman the help she needs, because I was already doing this work. No one's ever going to give her the help she needs. How does this story end before I get to the last episode of the last, you know, installment of the series? And then I read it and he dies. I remember the relief that flooded my body because I said there was no other ending of this story that was going to work. Be Has. Otherwise you or one of your children would have been killed. The reason it sat so hard for me was that in the vast majority of these cases, the John, the perpetrator, doesn't get killed, and the systems that don't give frustrating orders, that's say you don't have enough, that secret people away so they can't be served, and on and on, every system that repeatedly, and I mean repeatedly, fails survivors. I will guarantee you this, Deborah. He would have killed you. You and I would not be having you would have died. There's no way. The system fails us. Everybody began to tell you so. The only reason there was resolution here is because the perpetrator died under the most bizarre circumstances. All things being equal, his size versus terrorist size, all of those things, the way he completely caught her by surprise, the weaponry he had on his in his hands, she should have been the one who died. Do you understand what I'm saying that this story took this turn? I understand. This is why it's gotten everybody's attention. But so this, this story, is so important, but in a strange way. And this is how I felt when I after I finished with the podcast series in the early times, I thought, damn it, by having that be the ending, the systems aren't going to change, because what would what would end up happening, is that they're like, okay, well, this one's done. But yeah, and that's what they told me. Yes, they said, okay, he's dead, walk away, and I said no, because if it happened to me, you could happen to anybody and it's happening to people all over the place, regardless of gender's happens to men, this happens to women, you name it, it it happens there everyone. And those people, some of them will die right many of them will live in a lifelong sense of threatened trauma. It relates to something, a phenomenon called post separation abuse, and yours you had pre separation abuse, relationship abuse and post separation abuse. Can you talk to us very specifically, because I think to me what's troubling is the way the story came to the world, first the L A times and then the Bravo Netflix series. They didn't get it right. Now can you let us know what they didn't get right, because I think sometimes survivors see those stories and either will say my mayor debor is just foolish, or maybe people are gonna blame me telling stories incorrectly. In this space there's a real danger to it. We are, at one level being entertained by the pain of others. And listen, irony not lost on me. I'm here on a podcast talking to you and I'd like to think my goal is different, but everyone knows that I understand what I'm saying here. But if you tell the story it one way, it can feel, I don't know, almost more entertaining, as it were. But tell us what those stories got wrong. So many things. First of all, I don't think I'm this naive. I might be trusting, don't get me wrong, but I think that I'm fairly intelligent. They don't show sort of the steps that you start taking to protect yourself in the series or the podcast. I think the other thing is they portray each character in such a way that, for instance, Jacqueline, which is rony in the series, Jacqueline, she is, she can be extremely sweet and funny and everything else. They show her a sort of a bit entitled. Bit What happened with me was far worse than what they show when they start the series out, or the podcast for that matter. They don't realize that in the beginning, um, everything looks so wonderful, you know, and they don't realize that I'm already in. I'm already in. When when things really heat up in the series, I and into hiding. I think they show it so minimal that I went into hiding. They don't show the research, they don't show the threats, they don't show I guess they show the romance in the beginning, the first chapter, but they really don't dive into that. This man was good at what he did and had done it to many, many other women. I just don't feel they really portray us the right way. I think what's so important about what you're saying is when it was good, it was good, and I think that all of the stories were almost like you know that. Either the if it was the TV program like the doomi music and focusing on the fraid scrubs and all these sort of scary moments, and he didn't have fraid scrubs, by the way. So you see, that was over and over account the image was of the sort of fraid scrubs guy, right. That that sticks in my head and I think that the danger in that is it pushes people then to really view the survivor as foolish. Well, they are all these bad things. So how could you have liked this? You must be a masochist, right, versus very romantic, connected, enjoyable, like I said, Khan Man's con man, and so the that was a real experience to you. And by not portraying it that way and playing it only for the red flags we lose, and this is every survivor of narcissistic abuse, even when things are really going wrong, they'll say we still had a great weekend, we had a really nice holiday, and it confuses the hell out of people, because I agree with that. The whole portrayal of you was like here's a woman of a certain age and she's so desperate because I was going to date her. But that was the portrayal of you, and I remember reading the series and thinking, well, that's uncharitable that they would view her as well. She's got no other options, so she better lockdown on this one, even if there are some red flags, because who else is she going to get? That? It was I mean as from a feminist perspective alone, it was a very disrespectful kind of a stance, but it really portrayed you as somebody like, basically, this guy was like bringing weapon reach your house and you were like, Oh, I just want to be in love, and it wasn't that. Oh No. The other thing that really bothered me about it is there was a lot of victim blaming. Yes, and I'm like, wait a minute, I'm the good person, he's the bad guy, don't they realize what a con artist does? Don't they realize how good they are? And for me, and I still, I think about two months ago, I still was getting calls about, Oh, I dated John, he sucked me in, Oh, I was in love with John, and they said he was good. Many of these women owned businesses, are fairly intelligent too. Had to leave the country. One had to change her name. Now. So he really harmed the damaged. He's damaged. Some of the women said they're still a mess over it and I said he's on. You know, take this time to heal, like o never you'll never forget it, but take this time to heal. In talking to these women who had been victimized by him, did they say that they did it help them that you told your story? Yes, very much so. A lot of women are embarrassed, you know, especially being successful, intelligent women. They said they were so embarrassed they couldn't tell anyone. The embarrassment of the survivor is such a phenomenon. That is a lot of it's how these stories get told over time and time again, the glorification of the psychopath and minorcissists. They must have a whole division at Netflix or something that developed shows like psychopath because it really is this glorification of glorification of psychopaths. Look at what look at how they conn this foolish person. That's it's literally a formulatic story, and these survivors aren't foolish. They believed what they were being told. So, unless we literally wanted to completely break will of trust and abuse them with a cynicism, maybe a little bit of cynicism is good, but not not as much as it would make it so that nobody ever trusts anyone can. And part of the reason they're, though, Deborra, is if you're foolish, then I'm safe because that's happened to you, because you'RE A and if you're an idiot, and I'll be fine because I'll be able to see this comment. That's dangerous because if I'm walking around thinking I'm going to be fine instead of saying I'm as vulnerable to a con man like this as anyone, then I'm going to go and thinking I'm all that and nothing's going to happen to me, and something might happen tonight. That's a real problem, because everyone else is taking your story and told it. I'm really happy to see that you took your story and are telling it yourself. So can you tell us about your new book? Well, it's called surviving dirty John and I worked with a great ghost writer and I basically started from my early beginning all the way through now, about the process of what happened. I wanted people to really know the truth. We also deal with talking about red flags and many other things that you need to look out for. You know, be curious to know that, though, given how successful this was for Bravo, for Netflix, for for the L A times right, that story was so successful, your book is successful too, in the sense that it's when it is winning the right okay, why do you think people are so obsessed with true crime? I'm curious that somebody was a focus on one of these stories, because I think it happens every day. Happens to their friends, it happens to them. I think it's pretty much we're raising awareness right now more than ever. So it's just a way to tell a story people are in some ways it does make the world seem like dangerous. Maybe it actually is. So congratulations on your award and thank you everyone. You want to read this book, Surviving Dirty John. I'm I really enjoyed it. I have to tell you, it was refreshing to hear the humanity in this story rather than a book that felt like it was like basically painting the picture of how could someone be so foolish? I thought, okay, this is her taking her story back. So everybody go read this book. If you actually do like true crime, go read evist book, because it's it's really it's great. It's a it's, I think, a better telling then the other stories were. So I hope lots of people read it because I think that it's it's also a fable of a survivor, which is what I think we need to hear more of. I want to ask you one last question, because I think it's something that listeners are going to want to know. Is Three of your children said they didn't like him. Okay, all the things happened, that happened, and then something so terrible that it was almost unfathomable happened. You said you felt a lot of guilty this idea that your kids said no, no, bad, bad. You went ahead with it anyhow and then a terrible thing happened. How did that play out for you? Psychologically horrible? My kids. In my world. We're all good now good. Yeah, I think they realized who I am as a person and and how I was as a mom, and the relationships that we had prior to John were fabulous. So I'm close to all of them. Tara probably speaks out the most because of obviously she's the one that probably was affected the most. Yeah, I just had everyone over for dinner the other day and I think that life for me. I just appreciate the family so much more than I ever had. I mean that's a good outcome. But this, this was a case where we actually, which we rarely see at the end of narcissism stories, was justice. Unfortunately, it had to be in a completely twisted way, which harmed terra, which harmed you your family. Yet it did land in a place where like, okay, these people can now these go through the world saying safe, and until this happened, nobody John had harmed before could have safely gone through the world. And so it wasn't just you and your family, there were other people harmed by him. We're able to be saying yeah, here are my takeaways from my conversation with Deborah. While I have shared this before on this podcast. I don't think it can be said enough the post separation period in a relationship with a narcissistic or psychopathic person is the most dangerous. The obsessiveness control, need to win and the need for power and domination that is part and parcel of these personality types means that when a person in one of these relationships slowly starts to distance or leave, the abuse will start to escalate. It is this reason that many people don't leave and then feel shame at not leaving or staying in such an unhealthy relationship. Deborah has myriad resources available to her and the post separation phase was still deeply terrifying and untenable. For folks with fewer resources it can be impossible. Working with a therapist, domestic abuse programs or other advocacy programs can be essential to create the safest options for you, and also a reminder that staying because you are afraid of the post separation behavior is not a weakness. In some cases, there may be few other options. It's important that survivors remember to tell their own stories. Deborah story got retold by others who turned the narrative into the usual. Who would fall for that? Why didn't you leave? How could you be so naive? Blaming rhetoric, she sat down and ultimately wrote her own book and took her story back. You can tell your own story as well. I am more and more memoirs, blogs, essays and emails about People's survivorship in their own words. Whether the world here's your story or not, whether you share it in therapy or on paper, write your story from your perspective, informed by the reality of how challenging these relationships are. Don't let someone else tell that story for you and tell your story without blaming yourself. Deborah's story hit me personally and raise that chronic sense of helplessness that comes up in stories about narcissistic and toxic relationship abuse. In some ways her story provided a sort of closure and finality and in a twisted way it felt like there was some kind of justice, because most stories of narcissistic abuse have no kind of justice. Think about it. In all of John's prior relationships, the women he was with were left devastated and scared, while he just blithely went forward to his next target and a new life. Too often the narcissistic person just goes into their new future shares a false narrative about their past and about their past relationships, while the person they harm has to struggle and live with the fallout of narcissistic abuse. Perhaps it's a reminder that the lack of justice can be a real impediment to healing, and obviously the circumstances of John's death created tremendous trauma within Deborah's family. But the fact is, closure and narcissistic relationships can feel pretty rare. A big thank you to our executive producers, Jada Pinkett Smith, Valan Jethrow, Ellen racketty and Dr Rominey de Vassela, and thank you to our producer Matthew Jones, associate producer Mara Dela Rosa and consultant Kelly ebling. And finally, thank you to our editors and sound engineers, Devin Donnaghe and Calvin bailiff.