“Dirty John,” a limited Bravo TV series, is set to debut at 10 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 25.
>> Former ‘Dirty’ Wright State, UD student subject of new 8-part TV series
It is based on the Los Angeles Times’ articles and the newspaper’s hit true crime podcast series “Dirty John” about John Meehan and his wife, Debra Newell.
Connie Britton plays Newell and Eric Bana plays Meehan, “a charismatic con-man,” in the hour-long episodes created by Alexandra Cunningham and directed by Jeffrey Reiner.
>> PHOTOS: Bravo takes on story of former local man who became “Dirty John”
John Meehan, the subject of the "Los Angeles Times" acclaimed series "Dirty John," got his nickname during his short time in University of Dayton's law school in 1988.
From the Times’ story:
“Dirty John, classmates called him. Sometimes it was Filthy John Meehan, or just Filthy. But mostly Dirty John.”
Meehan was killed by a woman he attacked with a knife on the roof of an apartment complex parking lot in Newport Beach on Aug. 24 2016, according to the another Times article.
>> MORE HISTORIC CRIMES: 5 of Dayton's most shocking murders
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The Times series explores Meehan's life and marriage to Debra Newell, as well as his life of crime.
What Meehan did in Dayton plays a critical part in the story. He married Tonia Sells, a nurse, at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Dayton in 1990. The third episode of the podcast, "Filthy," deals with Meehan's law school days, his marriage to Sells and an police officer who investigated him here.
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She helped put him through nursing school at Wright State University, and then the Middle Tennessee School of Anesthesia.
He lost his licence to work as a nurse anesthetist after police searched his Hamilton home and found a loaded 9 mm Ruger in his closet and 45 empty containers for six different medications from a Kentucky hospital in his attic, according to a April 1, 2002 article by Dayton Daily News reporter Larry Budd.
Before his arrest, Meehan not only used the hospital medications himself, developing an addiction, authorities said.
He also gave medications and information about their use to his brother who died in California in September 2000 from an overdose of his own prescription medications, according to records.
>> MORE HISTORICAL CRIMES: Honeymoon mayhem: Dayton's very own Bonnie and Clyde
More from Budd’s article:
Another nurse anesthetist reported to the Ohio nursing board that Meehan once carried a gun into an operating room and exhibited drug-seeking tendencies, according to a case summary prepared by Luken for the Indiana State Board of Nursing. And Meehan was the subject of drug theft investigations in four states, according to police.
>> MORE HISTORICAL CRIMES: This Dayton landlady helped nab infamous bank robber John Dillinger
>> MORE: What you need to know about the Queen of Dayton’s Red Light District
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