Killing Dirty John | Terra Newell's Story

August twentieth, twenty sixteen, Tara Nule was ambushed by her stepfather,

Now you might recognize this.

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 last time. She wants to move away from this one event.

In her life.

She's got a lot of really important projects.

This event will always.

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 for good. So y'all please help me welcome Tara nowdle Hey, sugar.

Hey, 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 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.

Very different for you. The reality is you did.

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.

Well, thank you.

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, 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.

Absolutely, So talk a little bit about your childhood before Mahan got involved with your family.

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.

I grew up with lots of nannies.

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 country is fun. It is fun, but really privileged in the sense of where we were conservative Americans.

We went to church every Sunday.

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 she just didn't have the best picker, and neither did

Them, got you. So they were long term people.

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.

Right, So I mean to me, that's not like somebody every three to six weeks.

I mean you're talking about somebody that's in there and you know them.

They get to know, y'all. They're around long enough to get mail, you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, well, I mean she did marry my dad six months into the relationship, but he he was around for thirteen years.

Right. So your mama when she falls, she falls quick and hard.

Yeah she does.

Okay, nothing wrong with that, y'all.

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?

Yeah, No, I'm in high school.

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. 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

Okay, so how old were you.

I was twenty four years old when I met John.

So still very young venturing out on your own kind of for the first time, but still you're not forty.

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.

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.

First my sister was calling me. She was telling me, I don't like this guy. This guy seeing sketch, he

But I didn't know that at.

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.

He's alone, My mom.

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

All right, So let me ask you about your sister. I have four sisters. One of them Shelley.

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 take it to the bank.

They're no good. So when your sister is telling.

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?

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 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.

Learning okay, So behaviors of John where your mom was just accepting it, and y'all were like, hey, this is not okay.

You wouldn't want this for us in a relationship.

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 a whole, and with women too, we're taught to kind of brush aside those red flags at times.

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 somebody out verbally whenever.

You feel like it.

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 is not okay.

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 her car all the time, especially if claimed to be a nana cusialgist.

So I'm like, where's his stuff? Mom?

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 happened with my car, I got on them and they

Help him. He doesn't have a car.

M that's valid. Yep.

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.

So I kind of was saying.

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 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

But we ended up.

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.

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 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.

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 I'm here, and he'd be like, okay.

He sounds great. All right.

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?

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 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.

I was having the problem.

Yes, of course, this is the Christmas right after the Thanksgiving you weren't invited to So this is going south quick, yes.

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.

So you do have some support, You've got some family going, Yes, she ain't the crazy one.

Yes, but not at first.

At first they were like, oh, Terry is just overreacting, Terry's just being emotional, Terra' is a cancer.

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.

I'm just so sorry for all of it. And I tell you, you know, you sit there and you think, Okay, this is.

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.

You said it's so cute when you said he said it in full form, But you know that kind of thing.

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?

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 storage in Cathedral City, and the storage is a refrigerator with a child's back back in it, and then in

John Woolman, Oh, but.

It's funny because I'm doing your research. Now, there is one hundred other John Yehans out there.

There are even doctors.

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.

But here's the thing. I want to go back at the storage room a second.

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.

Because here's what I'm thinking. He takes the.

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.

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 it because I'm excited because I'm uncovering who this guy was, who I had to take down.

That makes perfect sense, of course, unbelievable. Okay, so now y'all are finding all that out. He gets her back, and what happens.

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.

In back.

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 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.

Okay, so now they're even closer to you all the time.

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, you know, he was in jail, that this is true.

What in the world is that about.

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 where to cut, he knows where to be safe.

So he self harms so that he can get pain medication and.

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 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

That's straight out of the playbook.

So they actually dismissed that because my mom gives them proof that she's in Vegas and has been since the time we said.

He was hits.

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, and then another minute telling her how unattractive she is, how fat she is, how this and that, and just.

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.

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 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

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.

Kind of thing.

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 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.

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.

That was smart, thank you, and that never happened.

I'm sure and tell the day.

That he came and attacked me. But I don't think she was really there for a conversation. Why I know he wasn't.

Yeah, honey, I'm pretty sure he was not there for a conversation too. Yeah.

Yeah, No, he had like eleven knives in his chalunky and.

I'm like what, And didn't he have the knife hidden in a Dorito's bag or something del taco bag.

And adell tacabou?

I guess, okay, so tell us what happened. You're in your parking lot at your apartment.

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 up my schedule about that wasn't his plan.

But I was going home. I pull into the gate. The gate is broken.

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 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

Doesn't come down on me.

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 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

And then I.

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 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

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 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.

I love me some Cash.

Well.

I think it was a nervous system response where he just finally thought with this is town.

Of course, then now.

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.

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.

Yeah.

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

A podcast, or if they have a podcast.

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 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

By understood yep. And you know that's something that is so good. And I'll go back to my sister Shelley.

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.

Of what you dealing with in your job.

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 are helping people with. You are training people, and you're

Thank you.

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

Your money and being like, yeah, I want another client. I want to make sure that.

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 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.

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.

Or anything.

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 to be victim centered in everything I do, so I appreciate you for that.

Well, thank you.

I just I think that what you do is amazing to with helping missing people and their cases, that is so great.

And then I just got to say every year, well.

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.

With your energy.

Well, I appreciate that, y'all.

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 and this is Zone seven.

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