During last night’s episode of Dirty John, viewers heard the story of Cindi Newell’s death. The show’s portrayal of the story is a little different than the real-life version, which caused some confusion for viewers.
On Bravo’s Dirty John, Bobby Sellars is the name of Debra’s brother-in-law, who shot Cindi Newell to death. On the show, viewers see Bobby borrowing a gun from a friend but the shooting isn’t documented.
His real name is Billy Vickers. According to a Los Angeles Times report from 1985, the jurors were deadlocked 7 to 5 in favor of finding him guilty of manslaughter.
At the time of the shooting, Cindi Vickers — as she’s called in this report — had already left Billy. The 1985 report reveals that Cindi was shot as she sat at a table making out checks.
The story of Cindi and Billy appears to have been a happy one at the beginning. They get married, have two kids together, and the families love one another. But then, one day, he starts to show his controlling sides and possessiveness, which was documented on last night’s episode.
Cindi wants a divorce and wants to get away from him. This was documented during the first 10 minutes of last night’s episode called Shrapnel.
It’s around this time that he reportedly shoots and kills her, and then shoots himself, surviving the wound. On the show, the cops tell Debra’s mom that her daughter’s killer tried to shoot himself in the chest area. According to Cosmopolitan, the real-life Billy shot himself in the stomach.
Billy was charged with murder and since it was argued at trial that he wasn’t in the right mind at the time of the shooting and Cindi’s mother testified on his behalf, he was acquitted. Instead, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter, resulting in a five-year sentence. After three years, he was released.
Christopher Goffard reached out to Billy when he was doing the podcast, Dirty John, for the Los Angeles Times, but he didn’t want to participate. This could be why Bravo decided to change his name from Billy Vickers to Bobby Sellars, as he’s still alive and well.
He’s reportedly living in Orange County and he has since remarried. By all accounts, it seems that he doesn’t want to be involved with the podcast or the Bravo show.
Bobby Sellars on Dirty John is played by Joe Tipps. He is best known for his roles in Gray Matters, Rise, The Blacklist, and Our Time. He also filmed a few episodes for Boardwalk Empire back in 2013.
Dirty John airs Sundays at 10/9c on Bravo.