Dirty John: The Con Man Who Charmed His Way In

Debra Newell was a successful interior designer, twice divorced, looking for love online. Then she met John Meehan — charming, attentive, a doctor working with Doctors Without Borders. Her family smelled something off from the start. She didn't listen.

The Dirty John podcast, reported by Los Angeles Times journalist Christopher Goffard, kicks off with 'The Real Thing' — an origin story told with the kind of detail that only comes from months of interviews with the family who lived it. Goffard doesn't just narrate; he builds John Meehan from the ground up, piece by piece, showing exactly how a con man gets his hooks into a smart, successful woman who should've seen it coming.

What makes this one stick is how ordinary the setup feels. A dating site. A few good dates. A man who says all the right things. It's the kind of story that makes you want to screenshot every match you've ever had. And as the series unfolds, Meehan's past — the lies, the debts, the other women — starts bleeding through the cracks he worked so hard to paper over.

This isn't a cold case or a decades-old mystery. It's a slow-motion warning, told in real time by the people who almost didn't survive it. Start with episode one tonight and listen on Spotify.