Tonia tracked down John’s mother, Dolores, though he had always forbidden Tonia from contacting her. July-September 2000 Tonia discovers the truth about John.Īfter ten years of marriage, John told Tonia he wanted a divorce. The couple had two daughters, and Tonia helped put John through nursing school. None of John's family attended the wedding he explained that his parents were addicts and he didn’t want them to ruin the wedding. At the time, she was 25 and he was 31, though he told her that he was 26. “It was the reason she refused to have one around, long after people began warning her that she needed one.' November 1990 “It was the reason Debra hated firearms,” Goffard writes.

He was released in 1986 after serving less than three years in prison.Ĭindi’s death, as you’d expect, had a profound impact on her younger sister Debra. The jury acquitted Billy of murder, but deadlocked on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, which Billy ultimately pleaded guilty to in exchange for a five-year sentence. “I don’t know the dynamics of the family. “They threw her under the bus,” Avdeef said, referring to Arlane and other family members who gave testimony. Per The LA Times, prosecutor Thomas Avdeef was stunned by Arlane’s testimony, which he interpreted as painting Cindi in a negative light. Billy shot Cindi in the back of the head at close range, then shot himself in the stomach and called emergency services.Īt trial, Cindi’s mother Arlane Hart testified in Billy’s defense, explaining that she loved him and did not believe he had been in his right mind when he shot and killed her daughter. The couple was in the process of separating, and the murder took place in the kitchen of the home they had just sold in Laguna Niguel, California. Twenty years before the events of Dirty John, Debra Newell's sister Cindi was shot and killed by her husband, Billy Vickers. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play MaCindi Newell is murdered by her husband of 13 years.

Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle