Dirty John has gifted true crime heads the trailer for season 2. Let it be known that the second season has nothing to do with season 1 and is in fact focusing on a new story.
Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story focuses on the breakdown of a popular couple’s marriage, which ends in a double homicide. Amanda Peet (A Lot Like Love) stars as the titular character, Betty Broderick, described by the series as “the perfect Southern California blonde wife and mother”. Mr. Robot‘s Christian Slater stars as her charming college boyfriend turned husband.
The story goes that Betty supported Dan through both medical and law school, making her own personal sacrifices in the process. Years later, Dan eventually makes it big as a medical malpractice lawyer and the couple is thrust into high society in their local San Diego community. But cracks begin to form after Dan hires Linda Kolkena as his office assistant, “a bright, beautiful young woman with whom he can happily forget the struggles of his past.” Betty and Dan inevitably divorced in what Oprah Winfrey called one of “America’s messiest divorces”. Oprah.
Have at it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28obViDs8wo&feature=youtu.be
Ah.
So as you can probably tell from the trailer, things did not end well. In 1989, Betty shot dead Dan and his new wife Linda while they slept in bed. Betty didn’t deny that she killed her ex-husband and Linda, but she explained that she was driven to do it after her husband’s treatment of her during their divorce and custody battle over their children.
Betty even hired a publicist to tell her side of the story in an attempt to gain the sympathy of women across the country, and it actually worked. Her first trial ended with a hung jury, according to the Los Angeles Times in 1991. But she was inevitably found guilty of second-degree murder in a second trial. Betty was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison at the Las Colinas Women’s Detention Facility, where she still remains.
In 1992, CBS released A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story which premiered the same month she was sentenced. The LA Times said the film “became the second highest-rated TV movie of last season.” That is how massive her story was.
Betty was denied parole for the second time in 2017, with Deputy District Attorney Richard Sachs describing the then 69-year-old as an “unrepentant woman”.
“She has no remorse and zero insight into the killings… ” he told The San Diego Union-Tribute. “She just basically said they drove me to do this.”
The USA Network has yet to announce a release date for the the series, but we’ll keep you updated. It will probably make its way onto Netflix. In the meantime, Dirty John season 1 – which tells the story of Debra Newell and John Meehan – is available to stream on Netflix now.
