Killing Dirty John | Terra Newell's Story

Zone 7 with Sheryl McCollum

iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline

True Crime

4.4 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Terra Newell is a survivor, podcaster, life coach, and victim advocate. Best known for her survival story involving John Meehan, as portrayed in the series Dirty John, Terra has turned her traumatic experience into a mission to help others. She focuses on empowering survivors, ethical storytelling in true crime, and mental health advocacy.

Listeners can learn more about Terra Newell on IG @terranewell

In this episode of Zone 7, Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum, sits down with Terra Newell to recount the day she was forced to defend her life against her stepfather, John Meehan, in a story that shocked the world and inspired a popular television series, Dirty John. Terra recounts the day of the ambush, the years of manipulation leading up to it, and the aftermath of her self-defense actions that ultimately saved her life.

Show Notes:

(0:00) Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum
(0:10) Background of guest, Terra Newell
(2:30) Terra’s childhood in Orange County
(7:00) The moment Terra's sister voiced concerns about John Meehan
(7:45) Early red flags in John
(11:30) Terra's first major confrontation with John
(16:45) Hiring a private investigator to uncover Meehan’s past
(27:00) The terrifying ambush in the parking lot
(29:00) Terra’s detailed recollection of the fight for her life
(35:30) Current projects and advocacy work
(41:30) “The principle of self-defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed has never been condemned. Even by Gandhi.” -MLK
Thanks for listening to another episode! If you love the show and want to help grow the show, please head over to iTunes and leave a rating and review!

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Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award-winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook., Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. Sheryl is also the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a collaboration between universities and colleges that brings researchers, practitioners, students and the criminal justice community together to advance techniques in solving cold cases and assist families and law enforcement with solvability factors for unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnapping cases.

Social Links:

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum

Instagram: @officialzone7podcast

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	August 20th, 2016, Tara Newell was ambushed by her stepfather, John Meehan.
0:17.9	Now, you might recognize this story from the show, Dirty John. Tara was in her Newport Beach
0:23.9	apartment parking lot when she was attacked by Meehan. Tara had to save her own life. She
0:32.0	fatally stabbed Meehan in self-defense. She's going to join us today and tell us her story for the last time.
0:41.5	She wants to move away from this one event in her life. She's got a lot of really important
0:49.4	projects. This event will always be part of her life story, but y'all, it is far from the whole story.
0:59.3	She is a podcaster.
1:01.0	She's a life coach.
1:02.6	She's a victim's advocate.
1:04.5	She does so many things.
1:06.2	And we're going to let her talk about that too because those things are important because
1:10.2	Tara survives something that
1:12.3	most people cannot and she has chosen to use it for good. So y'all please help me welcome
1:20.6	Tara Noodle. Hey Sugar. Hi, thank you so much for having me. Are you kidding? I've been wanting to do this with you for a long time now because I think your story is
1:32.2	extraordinary and the part that continues to impress me is how you have decided that you're
1:40.1	going to do good for other people.
1:42.6	And that one event, you know what, it could have been very different for you.
1:47.6	The reality is you did what had to be done.
1:50.6	And with that trauma that you suffered, that you're just determined that you're going to help other people with their trauma.
1:59.3	Well, thank you.
2:00.1	That has definitely become a mission with mine,
2:02.8	especially since I was really given such a big platform to share my story,
	...

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