Meehan had a secret heroin addiction. In Dirty John, Meehan steals prescription drugs from hospitals to fuel his addiction, but what the show didn't mention is that Meehan also used heroin. "When John and I were together I didn't ever see any signs of any heroin drug use," Newell previously told Forbes. "I only saw prescription drugs and since he'd just had back surgery, I thought they were for that."
Meehan's brother died of a drug overdose. Unlike in the show, Meehan actually had two sisters, Donna Meehan Stewart and Karen Douvillier, and an older brother named Daniel. According to Dennis Luken — who was an investigator with the drug task force of the Warren County Sheriff's Office in Ohio — he found emails that showed Meehan had been sending drugs to Daniel, who died of a drug overdose in Santa Cruz County in September 2000. Even though Luken wasn't able to make a criminal case on that charge, his investigation led to Meehan pleading guilty to felony drug theft in 2002.