(NBC News) — Friday on “Dateline,” the crimes and their deadly culmination of the con-man John Meehan, popularized by the podcast “Dirty John.”

Here is a preview of Keith Morrison’s report:

In the beginning was desire. Natural human desire — for connection — for love. And so, she aimed her arrow at that online ocean of intimate strangers. And found — him.

911 OPERATOR: Newport Beach 911. Do you need police fire or paramedics?

CALLER: Hi… I need an ambulance right away. And the police.

It was summer when the awful climax came. A late afternoon. That’s when they heard it.

CALLER: And she says this woman’s just screaming.

911: All right.

There was a man down there, they could see him, he had a knife he was stabbing the screaming woman.  And nobody was helping her.

CALLER: It’s really bad.

911: All right. I understand. We have officers on the way.

Too late. Too late.

CALLER: Oh, the ambulance is here. They’re doing CPR on somebody.

The bloody ending. But the story, the whole terrible tale, is much deeper than that one thing, dreadful though it was.

A story Christopher Goffard of the Los Angeles Times spent months unraveling, strand by disturbing strand.

CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD: It’s a story about — trust, and betrayal, and — it’s a story about family.

About a woman — two protective daughters.  And what those daughters did when the man came into their mother’s life. Before the death in the parking lot.

Watch “Dateline: The Women & Dirty John” Friday at 10 p.m. on NBC4.