In this episode of Murderish, I interview John Meehan’s (AKA Dirty John) first wife, Tonia Bales. You might remember Tonia from the wildly popular Dirty John podcast, where listeners got to hear recorded phone calls between John and Tonia. John’s threats to Tonia during those calls made the hair on my arms stick up. During the interview, Tonia talks about those phone calls and her motivation behind staying on the phone with John even after he threatened her. Tonia and John met at a dance club duri...
In this episode of Murderish, I interview John Meehan’s (AKA Dirty John) first wife, Tonia Bales. You might remember Tonia from the wildly popular Dirty John podcast, where listeners got to hear recorded phone calls between John and Tonia. John’s threats to Tonia during those calls made the hair on my arms stick up. During the interview, Tonia talks about those phone calls and her motivation behind staying on the phone with John even after he threatened her.
Tonia and John met at a dance club during their college years. They eventually got married and had two children together. Tonia didn’t know it at the time, but John was a “hunter” of women and he used his tried-and-true tactics on her the night they met. John and Tonia were married for about 10 years, and interestingly, got along very well and didn’t argue nearly as much as most average married couples do. Tonia believes there is specific a reason why they never argued …John didn’t want to rock the boat and mess up a good thing. Tonia was supporting him and she was completely oblivious to John’s seedy lifestyle.
Tonia was very open and honest during our conversation and provided a lot of insight that cannot be found in the Dirty John podcast or the Dateline episode which featured this story. For example, John has three children …not two. Tonia and I also discuss a Tweet that John sent one of their daughters not long before he died. We also discussed Tonia’s thoughts on the somewhat mysterious death of John’s father, and whether he may have had anything to do with it. If you are a fan of the Dirty John podcast, you won’t want to miss this episode of Murderish.
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Intro/Outro music in this episode: Paul Fitzgerald “jenuflec.” Contact Paul at weydebway@hotmail.co.uk if you’re interested in working with him to create music for your podcast …or any project!
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