August 14, 2024 • 42 mins
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!
---
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: coldcase2004@gmail.com
- Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
- Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
Instagram: @officialzone7podcast
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
August twentieth, twenty sixteen, Tara Nule was ambushed by her stepfather,
John mihann.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Now you might recognize this.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Story from the show Dirty John. Tara was in her
Newport Beach apartment parking lot when she was attacked by
me Hann. Tara had to save her own life. She
fatally stabbed me hand in self defense. She's going to
join us today and tell us her story for the
(00:40):
last time. She wants to move away from this one event.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
In her life.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
She's got a lot of really important projects.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
This event will always.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Be part of her life story, but y'all, it is
far from the whole story. She is a podcaster, she's
a life coach, she's a victim's advocate. She does so
many things, and we're gonna let her talk about that too,
because those things are important. Because Tara survives something that
most people cannot, and she has chosen to use it
(01:16):
for good. So y'all please help me welcome Tara nowdle Hey, sugar.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Hey, thank you so much for having me. Are you kidding?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I've been wanting to do this with you for a
long time now, because I think your story is extraordinary
and the part that continues to impress me, is how
you have decided that you're going to do good for
other people and that one event, you know what, it
could have been.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Very different for you. The reality is you did.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
What had to be done, and with that trauma that
you suffered, that you're just determined that you're going to
help other people with their trauma.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
That has definitely become a mission with mine, especially since
I was really given such a big platform to share
race story, but not exactly how I wanted it to
be shared because the trauma was still fresh, I wasn't
able to process it fully. And then this podcast came along,
(02:21):
but that really put my story on blasts and I
really want to help other survivors gain that momentum with
their story if they need to spread that awareness.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Absolutely, So talk a little bit about your childhood before
Mahan got involved with your family.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
I grew up in Orange County, California. A lot of
people say it's a conservative bubble here compared to other
parts of California, per se, and so it was really,
you know, a privileged childhood.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I grew up with lots of nannies.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
I had everything I could really need and wanted As
a child, I did a lot of things where we
would go on vacation all the time. We wouldn't necessarily
go and travel the country like you see those types
of families do. But I'm like, oh, that would be
great to be that type of family because traveling with
(03:22):
country is fun. It is fun, but really privileged in
the sense of where we were conservative Americans.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
We went to church every Sunday.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
My mom she did have a lot of men, not
necessarily like the revolving door in a sense, but she
was traditional, so she was like she would fall in love,
get married to these men, and then these men would
not be who they presented themselves to be necessarily, and
(03:57):
she just didn't have the best picker, and neither did
my father. So I definitely had a lot of step
parents that were in and out, but they weren't you know,
the revolving like you know how you kind of like
think like that revolving war, like always in and out.
Like my mom would like lock them in and marry.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Them, got you. So they were long term people.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Yes, but two years, like three or four years, that
was probably like the smallest time amounts. And then she
did date other men, but those relationships were like a
year six months until like she really introduced them to
her kid.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Right, So I mean to me, that's not like somebody
every three to six weeks.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I mean you're talking about somebody that's in there and
you know them.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
They get to know, y'all. They're around long enough to
get mail, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Yeah, well, I mean she did marry my dad six
months into the relationship, but he he was around for
thirteen years.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Right. So your mama when she falls, she falls quick
and hard.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah she does.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Okay, nothing wrong with that, y'all.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So everything is going great, and you just even with
several step parents, you're just having a great time. You're
in now, what high school?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, No, I'm in high school.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
I kind of well, I graduate high school, I go
I go to cosmetology school, then I go to dog
grooming school because I ended up wanting to go to
Colorado And there was a situation that happened with my
license where I was going to pick the state board.
(05:45):
I passed the Briton but my model at the time
you needed models, she proviot her ID and so I
needed to retake it and I kind of just didn't
ever retake it because I didn't have the money then
to do that. So I went on to dog grooming
and then I ended up working in a pet store
and that's where I met my first boyfriend that I
(06:09):
really lived with. And he was with me when I
met John, and my mom was with John.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Okay, so how old were you.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
I was twenty four years old when I met John.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So still very young venturing out on your own kind
of for the first time, but still you're not forty.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
No, And then I was also living in Vegas when
I was twenty four, and I had a house, like
a three bedroom calls with three dogs and four cats.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Your mom marries John, when do you first start to
kind of notice this guy's not who he says or
there's just something not right.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
First my sister was calling me. She was telling me,
I don't like this guy. This guy seeing sketch, he
seems like he's in this stuff, Tara, And so I
was already hearing that, And that was around one to
two months in that relationship. And then I came out
there from Vegas to help my mom move into the
(07:15):
Balboa place where she was moving in with him.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
But I didn't know that at.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
The time, and I don't know if she even knew
that at the time. And so I came out there
and I met him, and I see him.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
He's alone, My mom.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Is upstairs coming downstairs, and he's trying to get the
mattress on top of the car. And how he kind
of met my boyfriend at the time, like he wasn't
the nicest he was just like, you know, kind of
bug off mentality.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
All right, So let me ask you about your sister.
I have four sisters. One of them Shelley.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
She may just walk up to me and tell me
about this person, and she will strike up and say,
we don't like this person, like she'll include me in
it when I don't know the person. So sometimes maybe
the person's not that great. Maybe it's just Shelley has
a beef with them. My sister Shavern, on the other hand,
if she has closed that door to somebody, you can
(08:18):
take it to the bank.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
They're no good. So when your sister is telling.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
You, hey, this guy's kind of sketchy, there's something not right.
Is she one that would throw that flag out there
or did you take it as gospel when she said it?
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I took it as my sister had a lot of
issues with my mom's other boyfriends. I think that at times,
and I don't know if you feel this way, but
even as a generation, we're even taught to accept certain
things in certain behaviors where my mom, you know, she
(08:55):
was used to that and my mom my sister was
calling it out like, hey, this is something that shouldn't
be okay, and we're.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Learning okay, So behaviors of John where your mom was
just accepting it, and y'all were like, hey, this is
not okay.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You wouldn't want this for us in a relationship.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Yes, and no, in a sense where it was with John,
my sister saw something in him. But you can't just say, okay,
what's an ec you know where Now if someone said
that to me and think, okay, trust your gut, go
with that. In a society, I thought, and even as
(09:37):
a whole, and with women too, we're taught to kind
of brush aside those red flags at times.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
I understand that part. Now, I get what you're saying. Yes,
I'm Southern obviously, and we're y'all be polite, Be polite,
be polite. And I know, growing up, if I ever
saw a movie or a show where there was a
lady from New York, like, you know, like a maud
or a road of Morgenstern. You know, I thought, man,
that must be so liberating. You can just basically straighten
(10:07):
somebody out verbally whenever.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
You feel like it.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
We weren't raised that way, so I get what you're
saying completely. So let me ask you this once you
all start to see, Okay, for sure, this guy's a problem.
What was happening that you did confront your mom about
or you did kind of highlight for her that this
(10:30):
is not okay.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
So the second time that I came out to California
to come visit her, I ended up having a disagreement
with my mom and John where I ended up leaving
the house and didn't stay there. And the next day
was Thanksgiving, So I had some concerns about him using
(10:56):
her car all the time, especially if claimed to be
a nana cusialgist.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
So I'm like, where's his stuff? Mom?
Speaker 4 (11:07):
And then she came up with this big, elaborate story
that he told her that all his stuff got stolen.
He had like a couple of cars, motorcycle, and a
lot of other stuff that got stolen in the desert.
So I'm thinking, hmmm, that's weird. My insurance when stuff
(11:28):
happened with my car, I got on them and they
took care of things right away.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Help him. He doesn't have a car.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
M that's valid. Yep.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Yeah, so it wasn't adding up. I asked the hairdresser,
who is our hairdresser, our friend. She did all of
our hair, and she also did John's hair one time,
and she was talking about how she didn't like him,
how there was just something up with him, basically like
Major Slee's bag vibes.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So I kind of was saying.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
I was in the doorway saying that to my mom,
and then he came up behind my mom. He started
screaming at me. I told him to go at himself
a full form. He set it back to me full form.
He told me that I only wanted my mom for
(12:23):
her money and that I didn't want a relationship with her.
I told him, no, that that's what you want, John,
And then I was packing up my stuck. No one
was telling me to stop packing up a stuck. My
boyfriend at the time was there with me, and my
mom asked him, do you feel that way too? Jimmy
(12:46):
and he said, well, you know, this isn't right. There's
something not right here, this is wrong, and something along
those lines, not those words perbade them, you know.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
But we ended up.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Leaving and I didn't talk to my mom after thought
for a while. I didn't go to Thanksgiving. I wasn't
invited I Thanksgiving. He was invited to Thanksgiving, and me
only be my mom for a little under too much.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
There's one aspect of this that's pretty powerful for me.
Men can generally size up another man pretty quick. So
if you have a dad or an uncle, or a
brother or male cousin that tells you a man is
no good, they know it. They just do, and they
know it so fast. We may not can see it
(13:39):
because you know, he's got a nice smile and we're
in love with him. But man can tell you he's
a con artist, he's not in this for the right reason.
So I think that's really a powerful moment when Jimmy
told her there's something not right here.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Yeah, And Jimmy was so great, he was so easy,
He bought along with everyone, you know, So for him
to even be like something was not right here, it
was valid because he like he could be like a
little bit of a pushover in a sense, and like
soone could totally walk over him and just be like
(14:18):
I'm here, and he'd be like, okay.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
He sounds great. All right.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So things move on and what starts to happen. Do
you notice any violence? Do you notice any attitude that
gives you calls to say, look, I think mom's in
some danger. Did that ever happen for you?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
That was really the last time I had any interaction
with him other than Christmas. We had to have a
mediator with my mom and I to kind of mediate
how Christmas was gonna be. We had the whole Christmas
thing and John King, and he didn't do anything that
(14:59):
the f therapists said are recommended. So I got emotional,
and it was kind of turned around on to me
that I was the you know, crazy emotional one.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
I was having the problem.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yes, of course, this is the Christmas right after the
Thanksgiving you weren't invited to So this is going south quick, yes.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
And then after that, like I think like a month
or two after that, my brother in law, my sister Jacqueline,
and my other sister they hire a private investigator to
look into all of this and look into John.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So you do have some support, You've got some family going, Yes,
she ain't the crazy one.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yes, but not at first.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
At first they were like, oh, Terry is just overreacting,
Terry's just being emotional, Terra' is a cancer.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Isn't that fabulous? And you're sitting there going, I must
be insane because this is I see it so differently
than everybody around me, and that's a horrible position to
be in.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I'm just so sorry for all of it. And I
tell you, you know, you sit there and you think, Okay,
this is.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
My mom, and you know she should be taking my
side no matter what, even if I'm wrong kind of
I mean, this guy is a stranger, and you know
he's sitting there telling me I don't even want to
say it.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
You said it's so cute when you said he said
it in full form, But you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
As a mom, I mean, you would just instinctively almost
lose your mind if somebody cussed at your child like that.
I know there's all this dynamic going on and you're
trying to figure it all out. So now after Christmas,
what is happening?
Speaker 4 (16:45):
After Christmas? My family hires the private investigator. But it's
a few months, you know, it takes a minute for
them to get their bearings and be like, okay, something
it's not right here, and they find out all this
information that he has these different social Security card numbers,
he has different restraining orders for him. He has a
(17:10):
storage in Cathedral City, and the storage is a refrigerator
with a child's back back in it, and then in
the back back it has a child's book. It has
zip ties, and I believe it had stuff we also
like duct tape, and then like color form kind of
stuff in it, but not like chloroform full form, just
(17:31):
kind of some of the ingredients to make it. And
that scared me. That really shook me. And then my
mom left John. She had to kind of plan her
leave too, so she found someone to rent the Balbo
place from her subleisit and then she had to get
(17:52):
out of there. She moved in with my sister in
Ladera Branch. She just like kind of escaped there, and
then John weaseled his way back in because he was
able to bring my mom to different lawyers, and all
these lawyers told her that what we found was different.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
John Woolman, Oh, but.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
It's funny because I'm doing your research. Now, there is
one hundred other John Yehans out there.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
There are even doctors.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Oh there's no question there might be another one. I laughed,
because it is just so asinine right that now he's
going to be able to come to her and go, hey,
you know that's another doctor John me hand.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
But here's the thing. I want to go back at
the storage room a second.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Honey, did you get the same feeling when you heard
about the items in the stoge room that I just got,
which was sickening, like a punch in the gud.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Because here's what I'm thinking. He takes the.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Chloral form, puts it on the stuffed animal, takes it
in the backpack with the duct tape and the other items,
Kidnap somebody knocks them out, kidnaps them, ties them up,
kills them, takes it into the storage room and puts
them in the refrigerator, and then has the refrigerator haul
at all.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Oh yeah, honestly, Okay, So I can't tell you all
this stuff that I'm figuring now, well, I can just
tell you that there's a lot war to this, and
this guy was so evil and I don't know why
I'm seeing it, like, I'm so excited, But I'm seeing
(19:37):
it because I'm excited because I'm uncovering who this guy was,
who I had to take down.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
That makes perfect sense, of course, unbelievable. Okay, so now
y'all are finding all that out. He gets her back,
and what happens.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
It was weird because I had the feelings she would
go back no matter what, because that's what is common.
That's what your brain's telling me to do.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
In back.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Your brain's telling you, hey, you need this person. You're
craving them. Your body's actually telling me that you need
this person in order to reproduce, even if you're at
a certain age. But you don't need them to reproduce
it anymore, especially not him. And so she gets back
(20:25):
together with him. They get a dog together, they get
a place in the urbane spectrum, and then they also
get a house in Vegas.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Okay, so now they're even closer to you all the time.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
I'm now moved out of Vegas because me and my
boyfriend broke up, and I'm in Newport Beach, California. She's
going back and work between California and at this point
she's starting to figure out more and more John what
or who he is as a person, well, who's not
alive anywhere, so always was. And then she's finding out that,
(21:05):
you know, he was in jail, that this is true.
She hires a private investigator herself, and then she comes
back with paperwork, and in this paper work there is
a picture of him where he cut open his stomach
in jail and be stuck pieces in his stomach.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
What in the world is that about.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Well, it's because he's an addict and he needed his
drug fix. He needed to get you know, that fixed
in order to like live and to survive in his mind.
And so he literally can hurt himself, can do that
to himself. And they also falled that a suicide attempt.
But John knows medical like he knows the body, knows
(21:52):
where to cut, he knows where to be safe.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
So he self harms so that he can get pain
medication and.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
So he could go to the hospital, gets stitched up
and then he has to be on medication for that.
And so when my mom saw that, when we saw that,
I knew that if he could do that to himself,
he could harm a person. No problem. At this point
(22:21):
my sister and I are telling my mom like, you know,
we support you, and leaving like we could take care
of ourselves, like if he comes after us, we'll be fine,
we'll be safe. And one day my mom ends up
leaving him. She just grabs a shoe and she just leaves,
and she has like one shoe and a bunch of
(22:43):
random things. She gets a hold of my sister, Jacqueline,
and they drive out to Vegas. They unpack everything with
my mom and everything of my mom's in the house,
and my sister is filming it this whole time, just
so that my sister has documentation of my mom not
(23:07):
taking anything of his. And in Irvine, California, he called
the cops on my mom and said that my mom
hit him.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
That's straight out of the playbook.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
So they actually dismissed that because my mom gives them
proof that she's in Vegas and has been since the
time we said.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
He was hits.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
So they are just like, okay, they pushed that to
the side. But then now my mom's trying to get
restraining orders. My mom's trying to get a lawyer. John
sending threatening messages to her. He's at one minute like
trying to convince her to get back together with him,
(23:51):
and then another minute telling her how unattractive she is,
how fat she is, how this and that, and just.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yep, he definitely definitely has the playbook. So again he's
he's trying to use what he can to demean her
so that she feels unworthy for anybody else so that
she'll go back to it.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Oh yeah, and he's also just trying to make her
feel terror in every way. He just wants her to
like feel guilty she just like and then he's also
threatening her at the same time. She ends up living
with my other sister, Jacqueline. He drove out to Vegas
(24:34):
with her and then he during this time he starts
stalking me, my sister, and my mom. He starts to
look up all our information, our facebooks, if we have
a Facebook. My other sister didn't have a Facebook. He
looked up my work hours, everything on me. He even
(24:57):
came out to California and he would follow me. I
always would turn around like someone was there, but then
I wasn't able to like find them. But then I
had proof that he did stop me when I was
hiking one day because he called my work on August nineteenth,
(25:18):
and he made an appointment for two Rhodesian rich backs
to get groomed. And those were dogs that I've seen
on the trail the day or to prior, and so
he like I had that that he was stalking me
and he was watching me because of those dogs.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Okay, So in some way, was he blaming you and
your sisters for your mom leaving him? Did he see
y'all as like they're supporting her leaving me, They're telling
her how to get restrained and orders any of that.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Maybe for my sister one hundred percent, But to my
mom and to him. After I had the altercation with him,
I told my mom, I said, I would be willing
to talk to John. I'll be willing to work it
out with him. And that's what I kind of kept
doing all along, was telling her I'm willing to work
(26:18):
it out with him, so that she could see that
he was the difficult one and he was the one
not willing to work it out with me.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
And that's after the confrontation at Thanksgiving and then what
he did at Christmas. So you're saying, hey, I will
sit down with him today so that she can clearly
see he's the one that won't come to the table.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
That was smart, thank you, and that never happened.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I'm sure and tell the day.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
That he came and attacked me. But I don't think
she was really there for a conversation. Why I know
he wasn't.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah, honey, I'm pretty sure he was not there for
a conversation too. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Yeah, No, he had like eleven knives in his chalunky and.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I'm like what, And didn't he have the knife hidden
in a Dorito's bag or something del taco bag.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
And adell tacabou?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I guess, okay, so tell us what happened. You're in
your parking lot at your apartment.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yes, So I actually get home a little bit early
because I'm trying to go to the Jason Alten concert
that night. I get off work early and I'm driving back.
And because he also was a no show for that
appointment for the two Robesian ridgebacks, That's why I was
actually able to get off work early. So he messed
(27:34):
up my schedule about that wasn't his plan.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
But I was going home. I pull into the gate.
The gate is broken.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
I noticed that my dog is barking and he's barking
at this person that I thought was an unhoused person,
and I tell I tell Cash to knock it off,
and then Cash just knocks it off. I get out
of my car, I grabbed Cash, and then I walk
(28:04):
around by my license plate and then that's when John
grabbed me by the waist, looks me in the eyes
and says, do you remember me. I immediately tried to run away.
I was unable to disconnect from him. That's when he
started punching me what I thought was punching me. Well,
(28:26):
actually he first tried to cover my mouth because I
was screaming to try to gain attention and yell for help.
And then I bit him as hard as I could,
and that's when I think he got mad, and that's
when he started what I thought was punching me in
the chest, but he was really stabbing me. And the
(28:50):
knife is an adult taco bag, so I could just
feel like pressure and then looking back, I did feel
little bit of a sting in the chest. And then
he also gets me in my forearm because I put
up my purse to try to protect most of my chest,
(29:13):
and that's when he got me directly in the forearm
and that one was like an inch deep and an
inch wide. My dog is biting his ankles. I end
up falling on my back. I scraped my shoulder pretty badly.
And then I'm just on like my back and my
(29:35):
legs are kind of up in the air like I'm
bicycle kicking him, and his forearm is coming down. And
at this point I do see the knife. The knife
is a parent and I'm just trying to kick his
form so that it.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Doesn't come down on me.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
I'm able to kick his forearm at one moment with
my boots. I was wearing boots from working at the
kennel that day of like rain boots, so that did
have a benefit to my attack as well. And my
dog's attacking his ankle still in back of him, And
(30:15):
when I make that one kick, it makes the knife
land exactly to my right hand side in the ice
picked position. I pick it up and I just start
willing on him, and I still to this day like
I have to dig deep and dive. But I felt
like I was stabbing him in the forefront of his chest,
(30:38):
but I was actually overthrowing it into his back shoulders
in a sense, and that's where he had eleven stablings
from me, and he gasped and he started to fall
on top of me, so I held his head. I
also watched a lot of Walking Dead, so I amend it.
(31:01):
I kind of mimicked it like a zombie kill. And
so I'm folding his head. I give the second to
the last one like right above in his forehead, so
that I'm going for his brain. And then the last
one is to the eye, which is the softest point
of entry to the brain. And then that's the one
(31:22):
that made him brain dead, where he couldn't get up
get me. And then I push him off of me,
and I just take the knife. I tossed it away
from the body so that he couldn't get up Freddy
cougar mean. And then I start to assess the situation.
(31:46):
I noticed that I'm bleeding out of my forearm, so
I immediately start to apply pressure to slow down the
bleeding to the forearm.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
And then I.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Don't notice like bleeding anywhere else, but I was actually
I did have a stab one in my chest. I
just didn't notice it, and it was only like a
couple of centimeters. And then I had a superficial slice
to the face where literally graced me like a paper cut.
So I was extremely lucky with that one. That one
(32:19):
actually cleared up within a couple of days. At this time,
my dog was eating the Del Taco. Then soone comes up,
she has her dog, and she asked me what can
I do? I asked her just to grab my dog
because I'm afraid that maybe the Del Taco has some
poison in it because I'm always with my dog, so
(32:39):
that would have been something to kind of sedate my
dog in a way. That's when other people started coming up.
This guy on a bicycle with dreads, he came up.
He gave me his sweater. Then Skyler, the fourteen year
old lifeguard, she came up. She told me, Hi, I'm Skyler.
I'm trained to handle this type of situation. What's her
(33:01):
Vain started asking me questions. We had the same birthday.
And then that's when the guy went over to resuscitate
John and I started freaking out. So I tried to
get away from him, go down the hill because there
was a ramp. I went down the ramp and at
(33:23):
that time, there is some footage out there where you
see me just like folding my stab wound, and she's
walking me down the ramp. Then she goes and she
gets my phone, and then I start making calls. I
call my mom, I tell her I'm so sorry. I
think I killed your husband. I knew that she would
do this. And then I also called my Eggs and
(33:47):
I told him that he walked and stuff, which he didn't.
He was just in a bad cell reception area because
he was filming bar rescue. And then I tried to
call my friend that I was going to a concert with,
but that's when he stopped me and there, like Newmark,
phone falls.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Bless your heart, Tara, this is quite a testimony, Honey,
I gotta tell you. I know you said you were
gonna come and tell it and you were gonna be
just wide open with it. But Honey, I am so
sorry all of this had to happen. It's an unbelievable
(34:30):
situation that you were put in by a straight up
wanna be killer. Would have been a killer had not
been for the actions of you. I gotta tell you now,
Cash Cash is kind of gangster though. Now Cash is
gonna attack that man and then eat his food.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I love me some Cash.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Well.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I think it was a nervous system response where he
just finally thought with this is town.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Of course, then now.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
His body's thinking, oh, why might need a gear up
for the next time, and what kind of dog he
was a mini Australian shepherd.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Shout out to that breed. So let's talk about happier times.
Tell us whatever you want us to know right now
about your projects and what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
So I had a really great project with Call Your
Landry called the Survivor Squad podcast that was for survivor stories.
That's no longer happening. However, it has really inspired me
to do other projects with other survivors. I have a
podcasting course where I honestly I kind of teach other
(35:43):
podcasters and other survivors how to create their own story
if they want to create their story into.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
A podcast, or if they have a podcast.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
That's in the truth by niche to make it more
at the full and victim centric in a sense. So
I have that going on and very passionate about that.
And also one of my survivors, my clients, my friends,
she is coming out with a podcast and I'm she
(36:12):
changed the name of it. It was from Dreamgirl to
From Hell to I have to get the name of
it for her, but she is amazing. Her name is Alan,
but I'm really excited for her because she has literally
transformed her story into something that is just amazing. Oh okay,
(36:37):
So the podcast is called When Heaven Meets Hell, and
so I'm excited for one of my survivors, clients and
friends to get her story out there. And then I'm
also working on my own project right now to put
the story to rest in my own words, and then
that might be like a documentary and hopefully a movie
(37:01):
or a scripted series again, and then a book and
then a podcast and just be done, all done with
it so that I can really move on with my
life and not have that lingering and making me triggered.
Like today, I'm probably well, I'm going to go to
yoga after this. I'm going to depressed. But it really
(37:22):
takes me a while to decompressed after I talk about
the attack. And if I want to have kids, I
don't want my kids to be affected.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
By understood yep. And you know that's something that is
so good. And I'll go back to my sister Shelley.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
She talks about self care all the time, and that
was not a term that I was ever familiar with.
But she does a lot with first responders and nurses
and doctors where you know, sometimes you may not even
realize that you have taken on some trauma because.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Of what you dealing with in your job.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
For you, your trauma is part of your life. And
here's the thing that I think is important. Again, you
are using it for good. It is not like you
wake up every day and you're like, Okay, well I'm
a victim of a stab and you've got projects to
work on. You've got a lot of things that you
(38:23):
are helping people with. You are training people, and you're
making the world better. And I think anything we can
do to support you, all you need to do is
say the word honey, and we will promote and support
and assist in any way we can anything that you
want to say. If there's a last thing, if there's
(38:45):
a wrap up, if there's something you want to promote,
you just tell me what that is right now and
we'll go down that road as a wrap up.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
So I'm really excited to help survivors in every way
possible and also other creators more ethical. But I also
take three fifteen minute calls if anyone who just means advice,
wants resources and they don't have the financial means. Because
I believe that healing should be available to everyone. I
(39:15):
also do one on one client calls, but we also
have to be a great fit for each other because
I want to make sure that I'm going to help
you heal and that is going to be a thing
instead of just kind of like taking.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Your money and being like, yeah, I want another client.
I want to make sure that.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
I'm going to actually be beneficial to you other than
trigger you in any ways. Because I have had clients
where say, their daughter has come to me and I
can't take on that client because of their feelings towards
their mother, and then it goes towards me. So I
(39:55):
had to tell clients, you know, I don't think that
we're necessarily the best fit, that here are other people.
Just check out words, you have other resources available to you.
I always make sure that there's a.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Plan remarkable, and you know, it is so important to
have folks like you out there that are ethical and
that can help train the rest of us. Because I
know Carrie Rawson has before had to message me and go, hey, Mac,
you went a little hard on the suspect you didn't
say allegedly.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Or anything.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
So it's nice to sometimes have somebody check you to say, hey,
he may have done it, but you know, approach it
this way, or don't forget about the victim when you're
saying you know this or that about a case. So
I appreciate it, Tara, all of it, for what you
do for all of us in this business, for both
of my jobs, because again I cannot be reminded enough
(40:53):
to be victim centered in everything I do, so I
appreciate you for that.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
I just I think that what you do is amazing
to with helping missing people and their cases, that is
so great.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
And then I just got to say every year, well.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
If I go back to crying fund, I don't know
if I'll go back, But that's another story for another time.
But you are always the hallwreck rereader and it's just
great to meet and really connect.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
With your energy.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Well, I appreciate that, y'all.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
I am gonna end Zone seven the way that I
always do with a quote. The principle of self defense,
even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even
by Gandhi Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. I'm Cheryl McCollum
(41:52):
and this is Zone seven.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
Can wrote at
August twentieth, twenty sixteen, Tara Nule was ambushed by her stepfather,
John mihann.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Now you might recognize this.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Story from the show Dirty John. Tara was in her
Newport Beach apartment parking lot when she was attacked by
me Hann. Tara had to save her own life. She
fatally stabbed me hand in self defense. She's going to
join us today and tell us her story for the
(00:40):
last time. She wants to move away from this one event.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
In her life.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
She's got a lot of really important projects.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
This event will always.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Be part of her life story, but y'all, it is
far from the whole story. She is a podcaster, she's
a life coach, she's a victim's advocate. She does so
many things, and we're gonna let her talk about that too,
because those things are important. Because Tara survives something that
most people cannot, and she has chosen to use it
(01:16):
for good. So y'all please help me welcome Tara nowdle Hey, sugar.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Hey, thank you so much for having me. Are you kidding?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I've been wanting to do this with you for a
long time now, because I think your story is extraordinary
and the part that continues to impress me, is how
you have decided that you're going to do good for
other people and that one event, you know what, it
could have been.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Very different for you. The reality is you did.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
What had to be done, and with that trauma that
you suffered, that you're just determined that you're going to
help other people with their trauma.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
That has definitely become a mission with mine, especially since
I was really given such a big platform to share
race story, but not exactly how I wanted it to
be shared because the trauma was still fresh, I wasn't
able to process it fully. And then this podcast came along,
(02:21):
but that really put my story on blasts and I
really want to help other survivors gain that momentum with
their story if they need to spread that awareness.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Absolutely, So talk a little bit about your childhood before
Mahan got involved with your family.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
I grew up in Orange County, California. A lot of
people say it's a conservative bubble here compared to other
parts of California, per se, and so it was really,
you know, a privileged childhood.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I grew up with lots of nannies.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
I had everything I could really need and wanted As
a child, I did a lot of things where we
would go on vacation all the time. We wouldn't necessarily
go and travel the country like you see those types
of families do. But I'm like, oh, that would be
great to be that type of family because traveling with
(03:22):
country is fun. It is fun, but really privileged in
the sense of where we were conservative Americans.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
We went to church every Sunday.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
My mom she did have a lot of men, not
necessarily like the revolving door in a sense, but she
was traditional, so she was like she would fall in love,
get married to these men, and then these men would
not be who they presented themselves to be necessarily, and
(03:57):
she just didn't have the best picker, and neither did
my father. So I definitely had a lot of step
parents that were in and out, but they weren't you know,
the revolving like you know how you kind of like
think like that revolving war, like always in and out.
Like my mom would like lock them in and marry.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Them, got you. So they were long term people.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Yes, but two years, like three or four years, that
was probably like the smallest time amounts. And then she
did date other men, but those relationships were like a
year six months until like she really introduced them to
her kid.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Right, So I mean to me, that's not like somebody
every three to six weeks.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I mean you're talking about somebody that's in there and
you know them.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
They get to know, y'all. They're around long enough to
get mail, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Yeah, well, I mean she did marry my dad six
months into the relationship, but he he was around for
thirteen years.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Right. So your mama when she falls, she falls quick
and hard.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah she does.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Okay, nothing wrong with that, y'all.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So everything is going great, and you just even with
several step parents, you're just having a great time. You're
in now, what high school?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, No, I'm in high school.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
I kind of well, I graduate high school, I go
I go to cosmetology school, then I go to dog
grooming school because I ended up wanting to go to
Colorado And there was a situation that happened with my
license where I was going to pick the state board.
(05:45):
I passed the Briton but my model at the time
you needed models, she proviot her ID and so I
needed to retake it and I kind of just didn't
ever retake it because I didn't have the money then
to do that. So I went on to dog grooming
and then I ended up working in a pet store
and that's where I met my first boyfriend that I
(06:09):
really lived with. And he was with me when I
met John, and my mom was with John.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Okay, so how old were you.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
I was twenty four years old when I met John.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So still very young venturing out on your own kind
of for the first time, but still you're not forty.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
No, And then I was also living in Vegas when
I was twenty four, and I had a house, like
a three bedroom calls with three dogs and four cats.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Your mom marries John, when do you first start to
kind of notice this guy's not who he says or
there's just something not right.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
First my sister was calling me. She was telling me,
I don't like this guy. This guy seeing sketch, he
seems like he's in this stuff, Tara, And so I
was already hearing that, And that was around one to
two months in that relationship. And then I came out
there from Vegas to help my mom move into the
(07:15):
Balboa place where she was moving in with him.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
But I didn't know that at.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
The time, and I don't know if she even knew
that at the time. And so I came out there
and I met him, and I see him.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
He's alone, My mom.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Is upstairs coming downstairs, and he's trying to get the
mattress on top of the car. And how he kind
of met my boyfriend at the time, like he wasn't
the nicest he was just like, you know, kind of
bug off mentality.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
All right, So let me ask you about your sister.
I have four sisters. One of them Shelley.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
She may just walk up to me and tell me
about this person, and she will strike up and say,
we don't like this person, like she'll include me in
it when I don't know the person. So sometimes maybe
the person's not that great. Maybe it's just Shelley has
a beef with them. My sister Shavern, on the other hand,
if she has closed that door to somebody, you can
(08:18):
take it to the bank.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
They're no good. So when your sister is telling.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
You, hey, this guy's kind of sketchy, there's something not right.
Is she one that would throw that flag out there
or did you take it as gospel when she said it?
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I took it as my sister had a lot of
issues with my mom's other boyfriends. I think that at times,
and I don't know if you feel this way, but
even as a generation, we're even taught to accept certain
things in certain behaviors where my mom, you know, she
(08:55):
was used to that and my mom my sister was
calling it out like, hey, this is something that shouldn't
be okay, and we're.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Learning okay, So behaviors of John where your mom was
just accepting it, and y'all were like, hey, this is
not okay.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You wouldn't want this for us in a relationship.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Yes, and no, in a sense where it was with John,
my sister saw something in him. But you can't just say, okay,
what's an ec you know where Now if someone said
that to me and think, okay, trust your gut, go
with that. In a society, I thought, and even as
(09:37):
a whole, and with women too, we're taught to kind
of brush aside those red flags at times.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
I understand that part. Now, I get what you're saying. Yes,
I'm Southern obviously, and we're y'all be polite, Be polite,
be polite. And I know, growing up, if I ever
saw a movie or a show where there was a
lady from New York, like, you know, like a maud
or a road of Morgenstern. You know, I thought, man,
that must be so liberating. You can just basically straighten
(10:07):
somebody out verbally whenever.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
You feel like it.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
We weren't raised that way, so I get what you're
saying completely. So let me ask you this once you
all start to see, Okay, for sure, this guy's a problem.
What was happening that you did confront your mom about
or you did kind of highlight for her that this
(10:30):
is not okay.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
So the second time that I came out to California
to come visit her, I ended up having a disagreement
with my mom and John where I ended up leaving
the house and didn't stay there. And the next day
was Thanksgiving, So I had some concerns about him using
(10:56):
her car all the time, especially if claimed to be
a nana cusialgist.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
So I'm like, where's his stuff? Mom?
Speaker 4 (11:07):
And then she came up with this big, elaborate story
that he told her that all his stuff got stolen.
He had like a couple of cars, motorcycle, and a
lot of other stuff that got stolen in the desert.
So I'm thinking, hmmm, that's weird. My insurance when stuff
(11:28):
happened with my car, I got on them and they
took care of things right away.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Help him. He doesn't have a car.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
M that's valid. Yep.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Yeah, so it wasn't adding up. I asked the hairdresser,
who is our hairdresser, our friend. She did all of
our hair, and she also did John's hair one time,
and she was talking about how she didn't like him,
how there was just something up with him, basically like
Major Slee's bag vibes.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So I kind of was saying.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
I was in the doorway saying that to my mom,
and then he came up behind my mom. He started
screaming at me. I told him to go at himself
a full form. He set it back to me full form.
He told me that I only wanted my mom for
(12:23):
her money and that I didn't want a relationship with her.
I told him, no, that that's what you want, John,
And then I was packing up my stuck. No one
was telling me to stop packing up a stuck. My
boyfriend at the time was there with me, and my
mom asked him, do you feel that way too? Jimmy
(12:46):
and he said, well, you know, this isn't right. There's
something not right here, this is wrong, and something along
those lines, not those words perbade them, you know.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
But we ended up.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Leaving and I didn't talk to my mom after thought
for a while. I didn't go to Thanksgiving. I wasn't
invited I Thanksgiving. He was invited to Thanksgiving, and me
only be my mom for a little under too much.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
There's one aspect of this that's pretty powerful for me.
Men can generally size up another man pretty quick. So
if you have a dad or an uncle, or a
brother or male cousin that tells you a man is
no good, they know it. They just do, and they
know it so fast. We may not can see it
(13:39):
because you know, he's got a nice smile and we're
in love with him. But man can tell you he's
a con artist, he's not in this for the right reason.
So I think that's really a powerful moment when Jimmy
told her there's something not right here.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Yeah, And Jimmy was so great, he was so easy,
He bought along with everyone, you know, So for him
to even be like something was not right here, it
was valid because he like he could be like a
little bit of a pushover in a sense, and like
soone could totally walk over him and just be like
(14:18):
I'm here, and he'd be like, okay.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
He sounds great. All right.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So things move on and what starts to happen. Do
you notice any violence? Do you notice any attitude that
gives you calls to say, look, I think mom's in
some danger. Did that ever happen for you?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
That was really the last time I had any interaction
with him other than Christmas. We had to have a
mediator with my mom and I to kind of mediate
how Christmas was gonna be. We had the whole Christmas
thing and John King, and he didn't do anything that
(14:59):
the f therapists said are recommended. So I got emotional,
and it was kind of turned around on to me
that I was the you know, crazy emotional one.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
I was having the problem.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yes, of course, this is the Christmas right after the
Thanksgiving you weren't invited to So this is going south quick, yes.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
And then after that, like I think like a month
or two after that, my brother in law, my sister Jacqueline,
and my other sister they hire a private investigator to
look into all of this and look into John.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So you do have some support, You've got some family going, Yes,
she ain't the crazy one.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yes, but not at first.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
At first they were like, oh, Terry is just overreacting,
Terry's just being emotional, Terra' is a cancer.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Isn't that fabulous? And you're sitting there going, I must
be insane because this is I see it so differently
than everybody around me, and that's a horrible position to
be in.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I'm just so sorry for all of it. And I
tell you, you know, you sit there and you think, Okay,
this is.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
My mom, and you know she should be taking my
side no matter what, even if I'm wrong kind of
I mean, this guy is a stranger, and you know
he's sitting there telling me I don't even want to
say it.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
You said it's so cute when you said he said
it in full form, But you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
As a mom, I mean, you would just instinctively almost
lose your mind if somebody cussed at your child like that.
I know there's all this dynamic going on and you're
trying to figure it all out. So now after Christmas,
what is happening?
Speaker 4 (16:45):
After Christmas? My family hires the private investigator. But it's
a few months, you know, it takes a minute for
them to get their bearings and be like, okay, something
it's not right here, and they find out all this
information that he has these different social Security card numbers,
he has different restraining orders for him. He has a
(17:10):
storage in Cathedral City, and the storage is a refrigerator
with a child's back back in it, and then in
the back back it has a child's book. It has
zip ties, and I believe it had stuff we also
like duct tape, and then like color form kind of
stuff in it, but not like chloroform full form, just
(17:31):
kind of some of the ingredients to make it. And
that scared me. That really shook me. And then my
mom left John. She had to kind of plan her
leave too, so she found someone to rent the Balbo
place from her subleisit and then she had to get
(17:52):
out of there. She moved in with my sister in
Ladera Branch. She just like kind of escaped there, and
then John weaseled his way back in because he was
able to bring my mom to different lawyers, and all
these lawyers told her that what we found was different.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
John Woolman, Oh, but.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
It's funny because I'm doing your research. Now, there is
one hundred other John Yehans out there.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
There are even doctors.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Oh there's no question there might be another one. I laughed,
because it is just so asinine right that now he's
going to be able to come to her and go, hey,
you know that's another doctor John me hand.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
But here's the thing. I want to go back at
the storage room a second.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Honey, did you get the same feeling when you heard
about the items in the stoge room that I just got,
which was sickening, like a punch in the gud.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Because here's what I'm thinking. He takes the.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Chloral form, puts it on the stuffed animal, takes it
in the backpack with the duct tape and the other items,
Kidnap somebody knocks them out, kidnaps them, ties them up,
kills them, takes it into the storage room and puts
them in the refrigerator, and then has the refrigerator haul
at all.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Oh yeah, honestly, Okay, So I can't tell you all
this stuff that I'm figuring now, well, I can just
tell you that there's a lot war to this, and
this guy was so evil and I don't know why
I'm seeing it, like, I'm so excited, But I'm seeing
(19:37):
it because I'm excited because I'm uncovering who this guy was,
who I had to take down.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
That makes perfect sense, of course, unbelievable. Okay, so now
y'all are finding all that out. He gets her back,
and what happens.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
It was weird because I had the feelings she would
go back no matter what, because that's what is common.
That's what your brain's telling me to do.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
In back.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Your brain's telling you, hey, you need this person. You're
craving them. Your body's actually telling me that you need
this person in order to reproduce, even if you're at
a certain age. But you don't need them to reproduce
it anymore, especially not him. And so she gets back
(20:25):
together with him. They get a dog together, they get
a place in the urbane spectrum, and then they also
get a house in Vegas.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Okay, so now they're even closer to you all the time.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
I'm now moved out of Vegas because me and my
boyfriend broke up, and I'm in Newport Beach, California. She's
going back and work between California and at this point
she's starting to figure out more and more John what
or who he is as a person, well, who's not
alive anywhere, so always was. And then she's finding out that,
(21:05):
you know, he was in jail, that this is true.
She hires a private investigator herself, and then she comes
back with paperwork, and in this paper work there is
a picture of him where he cut open his stomach
in jail and be stuck pieces in his stomach.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
What in the world is that about.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Well, it's because he's an addict and he needed his
drug fix. He needed to get you know, that fixed
in order to like live and to survive in his mind.
And so he literally can hurt himself, can do that
to himself. And they also falled that a suicide attempt.
But John knows medical like he knows the body, knows
(21:52):
where to cut, he knows where to be safe.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
So he self harms so that he can get pain
medication and.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
So he could go to the hospital, gets stitched up
and then he has to be on medication for that.
And so when my mom saw that, when we saw that,
I knew that if he could do that to himself,
he could harm a person. No problem. At this point
(22:21):
my sister and I are telling my mom like, you know,
we support you, and leaving like we could take care
of ourselves, like if he comes after us, we'll be fine,
we'll be safe. And one day my mom ends up
leaving him. She just grabs a shoe and she just leaves,
and she has like one shoe and a bunch of
(22:43):
random things. She gets a hold of my sister, Jacqueline,
and they drive out to Vegas. They unpack everything with
my mom and everything of my mom's in the house,
and my sister is filming it this whole time, just
so that my sister has documentation of my mom not
(23:07):
taking anything of his. And in Irvine, California, he called
the cops on my mom and said that my mom
hit him.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
That's straight out of the playbook.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
So they actually dismissed that because my mom gives them
proof that she's in Vegas and has been since the
time we said.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
He was hits.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
So they are just like, okay, they pushed that to
the side. But then now my mom's trying to get
restraining orders. My mom's trying to get a lawyer. John
sending threatening messages to her. He's at one minute like
trying to convince her to get back together with him,
(23:51):
and then another minute telling her how unattractive she is,
how fat she is, how this and that, and just.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yep, he definitely definitely has the playbook. So again he's
he's trying to use what he can to demean her
so that she feels unworthy for anybody else so that
she'll go back to it.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Oh yeah, and he's also just trying to make her
feel terror in every way. He just wants her to
like feel guilty she just like and then he's also
threatening her at the same time. She ends up living
with my other sister, Jacqueline. He drove out to Vegas
(24:34):
with her and then he during this time he starts
stalking me, my sister, and my mom. He starts to
look up all our information, our facebooks, if we have
a Facebook. My other sister didn't have a Facebook. He
looked up my work hours, everything on me. He even
(24:57):
came out to California and he would follow me. I
always would turn around like someone was there, but then
I wasn't able to like find them. But then I
had proof that he did stop me when I was
hiking one day because he called my work on August nineteenth,
(25:18):
and he made an appointment for two Rhodesian rich backs
to get groomed. And those were dogs that I've seen
on the trail the day or to prior, and so
he like I had that that he was stalking me
and he was watching me because of those dogs.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Okay, So in some way, was he blaming you and
your sisters for your mom leaving him? Did he see
y'all as like they're supporting her leaving me, They're telling
her how to get restrained and orders any of that.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Maybe for my sister one hundred percent, But to my
mom and to him. After I had the altercation with him,
I told my mom, I said, I would be willing
to talk to John. I'll be willing to work it
out with him. And that's what I kind of kept
doing all along, was telling her I'm willing to work
(26:18):
it out with him, so that she could see that
he was the difficult one and he was the one
not willing to work it out with me.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
And that's after the confrontation at Thanksgiving and then what
he did at Christmas. So you're saying, hey, I will
sit down with him today so that she can clearly
see he's the one that won't come to the table.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
That was smart, thank you, and that never happened.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I'm sure and tell the day.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
That he came and attacked me. But I don't think
she was really there for a conversation. Why I know
he wasn't.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah, honey, I'm pretty sure he was not there for
a conversation too. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Yeah, No, he had like eleven knives in his chalunky and.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I'm like what, And didn't he have the knife hidden
in a Dorito's bag or something del taco bag.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
And adell tacabou?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I guess, okay, so tell us what happened. You're in
your parking lot at your apartment.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yes, So I actually get home a little bit early
because I'm trying to go to the Jason Alten concert
that night. I get off work early and I'm driving back.
And because he also was a no show for that
appointment for the two Robesian ridgebacks, That's why I was
actually able to get off work early. So he messed
(27:34):
up my schedule about that wasn't his plan.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
But I was going home. I pull into the gate.
The gate is broken.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
I noticed that my dog is barking and he's barking
at this person that I thought was an unhoused person,
and I tell I tell Cash to knock it off,
and then Cash just knocks it off. I get out
of my car, I grabbed Cash, and then I walk
(28:04):
around by my license plate and then that's when John
grabbed me by the waist, looks me in the eyes
and says, do you remember me. I immediately tried to run away.
I was unable to disconnect from him. That's when he
started punching me what I thought was punching me. Well,
(28:26):
actually he first tried to cover my mouth because I
was screaming to try to gain attention and yell for help.
And then I bit him as hard as I could,
and that's when I think he got mad, and that's
when he started what I thought was punching me in
the chest, but he was really stabbing me. And the
(28:50):
knife is an adult taco bag, so I could just
feel like pressure and then looking back, I did feel
little bit of a sting in the chest. And then
he also gets me in my forearm because I put
up my purse to try to protect most of my chest,
(29:13):
and that's when he got me directly in the forearm
and that one was like an inch deep and an
inch wide. My dog is biting his ankles. I end
up falling on my back. I scraped my shoulder pretty badly.
And then I'm just on like my back and my
(29:35):
legs are kind of up in the air like I'm
bicycle kicking him, and his forearm is coming down. And
at this point I do see the knife. The knife
is a parent and I'm just trying to kick his
form so that it.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Doesn't come down on me.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
I'm able to kick his forearm at one moment with
my boots. I was wearing boots from working at the
kennel that day of like rain boots, so that did
have a benefit to my attack as well. And my
dog's attacking his ankle still in back of him, And
(30:15):
when I make that one kick, it makes the knife
land exactly to my right hand side in the ice
picked position. I pick it up and I just start
willing on him, and I still to this day like
I have to dig deep and dive. But I felt
like I was stabbing him in the forefront of his chest,
(30:38):
but I was actually overthrowing it into his back shoulders
in a sense, and that's where he had eleven stablings
from me, and he gasped and he started to fall
on top of me, so I held his head. I
also watched a lot of Walking Dead, so I amend it.
(31:01):
I kind of mimicked it like a zombie kill. And
so I'm folding his head. I give the second to
the last one like right above in his forehead, so
that I'm going for his brain. And then the last
one is to the eye, which is the softest point
of entry to the brain. And then that's the one
(31:22):
that made him brain dead, where he couldn't get up
get me. And then I push him off of me,
and I just take the knife. I tossed it away
from the body so that he couldn't get up Freddy
cougar mean. And then I start to assess the situation.
(31:46):
I noticed that I'm bleeding out of my forearm, so
I immediately start to apply pressure to slow down the
bleeding to the forearm.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
And then I.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Don't notice like bleeding anywhere else, but I was actually
I did have a stab one in my chest. I
just didn't notice it, and it was only like a
couple of centimeters. And then I had a superficial slice
to the face where literally graced me like a paper cut.
So I was extremely lucky with that one. That one
(32:19):
actually cleared up within a couple of days. At this time,
my dog was eating the Del Taco. Then soone comes up,
she has her dog, and she asked me what can
I do? I asked her just to grab my dog
because I'm afraid that maybe the Del Taco has some
poison in it because I'm always with my dog, so
(32:39):
that would have been something to kind of sedate my
dog in a way. That's when other people started coming up.
This guy on a bicycle with dreads, he came up.
He gave me his sweater. Then Skyler, the fourteen year
old lifeguard, she came up. She told me, Hi, I'm Skyler.
I'm trained to handle this type of situation. What's her
(33:01):
Vain started asking me questions. We had the same birthday.
And then that's when the guy went over to resuscitate
John and I started freaking out. So I tried to
get away from him, go down the hill because there
was a ramp. I went down the ramp and at
(33:23):
that time, there is some footage out there where you
see me just like folding my stab wound, and she's
walking me down the ramp. Then she goes and she
gets my phone, and then I start making calls. I
call my mom, I tell her I'm so sorry. I
think I killed your husband. I knew that she would
do this. And then I also called my Eggs and
(33:47):
I told him that he walked and stuff, which he didn't.
He was just in a bad cell reception area because
he was filming bar rescue. And then I tried to
call my friend that I was going to a concert with,
but that's when he stopped me and there, like Newmark,
phone falls.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Bless your heart, Tara, this is quite a testimony, Honey,
I gotta tell you. I know you said you were
gonna come and tell it and you were gonna be
just wide open with it. But Honey, I am so
sorry all of this had to happen. It's an unbelievable
(34:30):
situation that you were put in by a straight up
wanna be killer. Would have been a killer had not
been for the actions of you. I gotta tell you now,
Cash Cash is kind of gangster though. Now Cash is
gonna attack that man and then eat his food.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I love me some Cash.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Well.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I think it was a nervous system response where he
just finally thought with this is town.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Of course, then now.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
His body's thinking, oh, why might need a gear up
for the next time, and what kind of dog he
was a mini Australian shepherd.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Shout out to that breed. So let's talk about happier times.
Tell us whatever you want us to know right now
about your projects and what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
So I had a really great project with Call Your
Landry called the Survivor Squad podcast that was for survivor stories.
That's no longer happening. However, it has really inspired me
to do other projects with other survivors. I have a
podcasting course where I honestly I kind of teach other
(35:43):
podcasters and other survivors how to create their own story
if they want to create their story into.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
A podcast, or if they have a podcast.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
That's in the truth by niche to make it more
at the full and victim centric in a sense. So
I have that going on and very passionate about that.
And also one of my survivors, my clients, my friends,
she is coming out with a podcast and I'm she
(36:12):
changed the name of it. It was from Dreamgirl to
From Hell to I have to get the name of
it for her, but she is amazing. Her name is Alan,
but I'm really excited for her because she has literally
transformed her story into something that is just amazing. Oh okay,
(36:37):
So the podcast is called When Heaven Meets Hell, and
so I'm excited for one of my survivors, clients and
friends to get her story out there. And then I'm
also working on my own project right now to put
the story to rest in my own words, and then
that might be like a documentary and hopefully a movie
(37:01):
or a scripted series again, and then a book and
then a podcast and just be done, all done with
it so that I can really move on with my
life and not have that lingering and making me triggered.
Like today, I'm probably well, I'm going to go to
yoga after this. I'm going to depressed. But it really
(37:22):
takes me a while to decompressed after I talk about
the attack. And if I want to have kids, I
don't want my kids to be affected.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
By understood yep. And you know that's something that is
so good. And I'll go back to my sister Shelley.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
She talks about self care all the time, and that
was not a term that I was ever familiar with.
But she does a lot with first responders and nurses
and doctors where you know, sometimes you may not even
realize that you have taken on some trauma because.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Of what you dealing with in your job.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
For you, your trauma is part of your life. And
here's the thing that I think is important. Again, you
are using it for good. It is not like you
wake up every day and you're like, Okay, well I'm
a victim of a stab and you've got projects to
work on. You've got a lot of things that you
(38:23):
are helping people with. You are training people, and you're
making the world better. And I think anything we can
do to support you, all you need to do is
say the word honey, and we will promote and support
and assist in any way we can anything that you
want to say. If there's a last thing, if there's
(38:45):
a wrap up, if there's something you want to promote,
you just tell me what that is right now and
we'll go down that road as a wrap up.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
So I'm really excited to help survivors in every way
possible and also other creators more ethical. But I also
take three fifteen minute calls if anyone who just means advice,
wants resources and they don't have the financial means. Because
I believe that healing should be available to everyone. I
(39:15):
also do one on one client calls, but we also
have to be a great fit for each other because
I want to make sure that I'm going to help
you heal and that is going to be a thing
instead of just kind of like taking.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Your money and being like, yeah, I want another client.
I want to make sure that.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
I'm going to actually be beneficial to you other than
trigger you in any ways. Because I have had clients
where say, their daughter has come to me and I
can't take on that client because of their feelings towards
their mother, and then it goes towards me. So I
(39:55):
had to tell clients, you know, I don't think that
we're necessarily the best fit, that here are other people.
Just check out words, you have other resources available to you.
I always make sure that there's a.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Plan remarkable, and you know, it is so important to
have folks like you out there that are ethical and
that can help train the rest of us. Because I
know Carrie Rawson has before had to message me and go, hey, Mac,
you went a little hard on the suspect you didn't
say allegedly.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Or anything.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
So it's nice to sometimes have somebody check you to say, hey,
he may have done it, but you know, approach it
this way, or don't forget about the victim when you're
saying you know this or that about a case. So
I appreciate it, Tara, all of it, for what you
do for all of us in this business, for both
of my jobs, because again I cannot be reminded enough
(40:53):
to be victim centered in everything I do, so I
appreciate you for that.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
I just I think that what you do is amazing
to with helping missing people and their cases, that is
so great.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
And then I just got to say every year, well.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
If I go back to crying fund, I don't know
if I'll go back, But that's another story for another time.
But you are always the hallwreck rereader and it's just
great to meet and really connect.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
With your energy.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Well, I appreciate that, y'all.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
I am gonna end Zone seven the way that I
always do with a quote. The principle of self defense,
even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even
by Gandhi Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. I'm Cheryl McCollum
(41:52):
and this is Zone seven.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
Can wrote at
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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