Dirty John

Dirty John is Christopher Goffard’s Los Angeles Times serial about Debra Newell and the man she married, a con told from inside a family that kept trying to warn her.

Goffard’s newspaper investigation became audio without losing the reporting. Sisters, dates, and a past that was available to anyone who looked: the dread is procedural.

The series was a pivot point for narrative true crime because a metro paper treated it as a story with characters, not as a case summary. The ending is worse than a twist.

The original episodes are the work. Later bonuses about the television version are optional. Hear Debra’s family first.