Kriti Mehrotra
It was in August 2016 when the tale of conman John Meehan came to a close as he died at the hands of an unlikely survivor, only for it to then be immortalized in Netflix’s ‘Dirty John.’ However, as explored in this original drama as well as in NBC’s ‘Dateline: The Women & Dirty John,’ his offenses were far more cruel and widespread than anyone could have ever imagined. And one of his earliest victims was actually none other than his first wife, Tonia Sells Bales, with whom he not only shared more than a decade but also two kind, caring, loving daughters.
Tonia Bales Didn’t Know of John Meehan’s Reality While They Were Together
Although 25-year-old professional nurse anesthetist Tonia wasn’t looking for a serious romance when she first came across John one random night in a bar, it’s where things soon led. She was the one to strike up a conversation with him as he stood near the bathrooms, only for him to portray himself as an amiable, charming 26-year-old law student with great ambitions. As per the ‘Dirty John’ podcast, her first impression of him was thus: “intelligent, articulate, decent-looking guy at the University of Dayton Law School who seems to have a life together.”
Hence began their whirlwind romance, with Tonia being utterly unaware of the fact John was actually 31, flunking out of college, and a massive womanizer with a history of drug abuse. Therefore, despite finding it strange he hadn’t invited his family, she happily tied the knot with him in an intimate ceremony at St. Joseph Catholic Church in her hometown of Dayton, Ohio, on November 10, 1990. They then seemingly settled down in perfect harmony, with her even agreeing to support him while he changed his apparent plans to go to nursing school to become an anesthetist like her.
It was after this that Tonia and John welcomed two beautiful daughters into this world — Emily as well as Abigail Meehan — with them clearly recalling the patriarch as an affectionate figure. However, everything turned upside down when he suddenly asked his wife for a divorce, just for her to later learn he had been having an affair with a medical resident in Michigan and even fathered a child with her. She thus began searching for clues she might have missed since she truly believed they were happy together, only to learn he had been stealing from their workplace to hide his drug addiction.
Tonia Endured a Nightmare Following Her Relationship With John
While Tonia was unaware of her husband’s dark side throughout their nine years of marriage, she got to know all about it once she reported him for theft at the hospital where they worked. That’s because he got fired, resulting in him growing so angry he began threatening her as well as her family members with menacing phone calls that insinuated he might even go as far as to kill them one day. This was when the Ohio native broke John’s one rule of never contacting his family — he had told her they were a dysfunctional group, unsupportive, and never a good, stable part of his life.
Tonia actually called John’s mother first, telling her, “he had always forbidden me from talking to anyone in the family. But now that I had nothing to lose, I wanted to know if she would … help me answer some questions I had about him.” What she didn’t expect was the mother-in-law, whom she had never even met, to immediately say, “I always knew you would call me. I always knew that this would happen.” Dolores then told her all about her son’s struggles with drugs, previous arrest in California for selling cocaine, con man tendencies, and even revealed his real age with proof.
As Tonia learned more about her estranged husband, his anger towards her grew, leading her to grow genuinely afraid of him either hurting her or taking their children away. After all, they did share custody as their divorce proceedings continued, driving her to begin recording all his threats so as to report him to the police as quickly as possible. John was ultimately given a suspended sentence upon being found guilty of menacing, shortly following which his ex-wife was even granted a protective order that lasted five years and allowed him to only have supervised visitation with his kids.
Despite the Trauma, Tonia Has Since Moved Forward With Her Life
According to Tonia’s own accounts, John completely lost contact with the family around 2005 after he decided to relocate to California for good, yet she kept tabs on him. “I always knew when John wasn’t bothering me he was on somebody else,” she stated in the podcast. “That always bothered me because I would have wanted nothing more than to warn that other woman, but to do so would have put my life in danger, and he would have been right back at me.” In the end, she learned the conman was still trying to find ways to harm her in the 2010s, as he knew she could be brought in as a potential witness against him whenever he got caught for his crimes.
But alas, John passed away in 2016, and all Tonia did was write him a letter stating, “You hurt no one but yourself,” before sending it to his sister with a request that it be placed with his body. Since then, this 59-year-old has healed with the help of counseling plus self-help books, raised her two daughters, found love again with a fellow nurse anesthetist, and relocated to Braselton, Georgia. It is from there that she released an 8-episode podcast called ‘The First Wife: John Meehan’s Reign of Terror’ in 2021, began serving as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist at Bales and Associates, and became a proud grandmother in late 2023. So today, this family woman only hopes for her story to help inspire others never to give up.
Read More: John Meehan: Who Was He? How Did He Die?
