Episode 2: Gypsy Blanchard (Munchausen Victim)

Young Gypsy Blanchard was very ill. According to her mother Dee Dee, Gypsy suffered from leukemia, asthma, muscular dystrophy,  and had the "mental capacity of a 7-year-old". Gypsy was restricted to a wheelchair with a feeding tube providing her nourishment. Gypsy's prognosis was so grim, she and her mother received life changing help from notable charities. So, how did Gypsy Rose end up walking on her own 2 legs into jail after aiding in the savage killing of her own mother?  Find out today on the Controversial Figures Podcast.

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Episode Sources

• ABC network 20/20 episode "The Story of Gypsy Blanchard"
• Biography article https://www.biography.com/news/gypsy-rose-blanchard-mother-dee-dee-murder
• Movie HBO Mommy Dead and Dearest, 2017
• Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Dee_Dee_Blanchard
• Music: The 6 is Silent by Skyjelly

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Transcript

00:00
Young Gypsy Blanchard was very ill. According to her mother Dee Dee, Gypsy suffered from leukemia, asthma, muscular dystrophy,  and had the "mental capacity of a 7-year-old". Gypsy was restricted to a wheelchair with a feeding tube providing her nourishment. Gypsy's prognosis was so grim, she and her mother received life changing help from notable charities. So, how did Gypsy Rose end up walking on her own 2 legs into jail after aiding in the savage killing of her own mother?  Find out today on the Controversial Figures Podcast.

00:31
Music Interlude

00:58
Welcome to Controversial Figures; a podcast about intriguing figures in the media. My name is Tammy Hawkins. If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a 5 star rating and comment on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts - and don't forget to subscribe to the show. 

01:13
Visit Controversial Figures on Patreon and donate anything you can. I will give you a shout out on a future show, and send along occasional swag to regular donators. If you donate at higher tier levels, you will obtain access to additional content on a regular basis. And with that, let's discuss our Controversial Figure for today.

01:39
At three months old, Dee Dee Blanchard was certain that her infant child, Gypsy, had sleep apnea. Dee Dee took Gypsy to the hospital where repeated overnight stays with a sleep monitor and other tests found no sign of the condition. Regardless, Dee Dee became convinced that Gypsy had a wide range of health issues, which she claimed was due to an unspecified chromosomal disorder. Dee Dee's family believes this is when the ruse began.

02:07
Often attending school is a saving grace for children experiencing abuse as they can escape their abuser's control and the abuse may be discovered. Unfortunately, Dee Dee stated Gypsy needed to be homeschooled due to her severe illnesses, and successfully removed Gypsy from public school early in her life.

02:28
Gypsy recalls, when she was 7 or 8, she was riding on her grandfather's motorcycle when she scraped her knee. Her mother said the small scrape would require several surgeries to treat properly. From that day on, Gypsy, who had already been made to use a walker, was confined to a wheelchair, despite being healthy enough to walk on her own.

02:46
Going through a divorce with Gypsy's father at this time, Dee Dee and Gypsy moved in with Dee Dee's parents. Dee Dee's family would later claim during this time, when Dee Dee prepared food for her stepmother, she poisoned it with weed killer, leading her stepmother to become very ill. Dee Dee's family confronted her about her abusive treatment of Gypsy and raised suspicion about her role in her stepmother's decline of health; so Dee Dee decided to what she does best flee to a new place where no one knew her and Gypsy. The family states Dee Dee's stepmother's health returned to normal shortly after the daughter and mother left.

03:24
After leaving their family, Dee Dee and Gypsy moved into public housing in Slidell, Louisiana and paid their bills with public assistance granted for Gypsy's supposed medical conditions . They spent time visiting various specialists at Tulane Medical Center and the Children's Hospital of New Orleans, seeking treatment for the many illnesses which Dee Dee claimed Gypsy suffered. A muscle biopsy found no sign of the muscular dystrophy. However, manipulative Dee Dee was still successful in securing treatment for her daughter's other purported issues. After Dee Dee told doctors Gypsy had regularly occurring seizures, she was prescribed anti-seizure medication.

04:03
After the Hurricane Katrina disaster occurred in August 2005, Dee Dee and Gypsy left their ruined apartment for a shelter in Covington. Dee Dee conveniently stated that Gypsy's medical records, and her birth certificate, had been destroyed in the hurricane. A doctor at the shelter from the Ozarks suggested they relocate to Missouri, and the next month they did just that to continue the ruse in yet another new location.

04:35
Gypsy's erroneous diagnoses and  torturous medical procedures continued. At one appointment, Dee Dee had some of Gypsy's saliva glands extracted to control her drooling. Gypsy later claimed her mother had induced the drooling by using a topical anesthetic to numb her gums before doctor visits. The lack of salivary glands plus the side-effects of anti-seizure medication she was given caused Gypsy's teeth to decay to the point that the majority of her front teeth were extracted and replaced by a bridge. Gypsy also had tubes implanted in her ears to control her myriad of purported ear infections.

 
05:07
By this point in her life, Gypsy had a nearly toothless mouth, large glasses and a high, childlike voice which reinforced the illness and incapacity perception. Dee Dee regularly shaved Gypsy's, head, allegedly telling Gypsy that since her medication would eventually cause her hair to fall out, it was best to shave it in advance to avoid the mess. When leaving the house, Dee Dee often took an oxygen tank and feeding tube with them; Gypsy was fed the liquid nutrition supplement PediaSure as her primary food source during much of her life with her mother. Gypsy states that during this time, she was often administered a cocktail of drugs by her mother through her feeding tube. 

05:52
Dee Dee also used physical abuse to control her daughter, always holding her daughter's hand in the presence of others. Whenever Gypsy said something incorrect, either suggesting she was not really sick or above her mental capabilities, Gypsy recalls that her mother would give her hand a very tight squeeze. When the two were alone, Dee Dee would strike her with her open hands or a coat hanger, being very careful not to leave marks.

06:15
In 2008 Habitat for Humanity built a small home with a wheelchair ramp and hot tub for Dee Dee and Gypsy. The story of a single mother with a severely disabled daughter forced to flee Katrina's devastation received considerable local media attention, and the community often pitched in to help Dee Dee and Gypsy. They also received free flights to see doctors in Kansas City, free trips to Walt Disney World, and backstage passes to Miranda Lambert concerts via the Make-A-Wish Foundation. 

06:45
In 2009, Gypsy's father Rod recalls he called Dee Dee to wish Gypsy a happy 18th birthday. Rod claims Dee Dee asked him before handing the phone over to Gypsy not to mention her real age, as "she thinks she's 14." Gypsy has said in interviews that for 15 years of her life, she was unsure of her actual age.

07:07
As Gypsy was in actuality entering into her late teens and early 20s, she began to discover the world outside of her bubble using computers and the internet. This would ultimately lead to her brief freedom and her mother's demise.

07:22
Gypsy enjoyed attending Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions. She liked that she could blend into the crowd with her costumes despite being wheelchair bound. At a fantasy event in 2011, Gypsy disappeared. Dee Dee found Gypsy an agonizing 4 hours later in a hotel room with a strange man Gypsy had met online. Dee Dee accused the man of attempted pedophilia and chased him away with threats of calling the police; Dee Dee then accused Gypsy of trying to run away. Gypsy recalls that afterwards, Dee Dee smashed her computer with a hammer and threatened to do the same to her fingers if she ever tried to runaway again; Gypsy says Dee Dee also kept her leashed and handcuffed to her bed for two weeks. Gypsy claims Dee Dee later told Gypsy that she had filed paperwork with the police claiming that Gypsy was mentally incompetent, leading Gypsy to believe that if she attempted to go to the police for help, they would not believe her. After a glimpse of freedom, Gypsy felt like a trapped animal yet again.

08:28
Gypsy was still sneaking onto the internet late at night while her mother was sleeping. There's no stopping puberty. In 2012 she met Nicholas Godejohn, a man from Big Bend, Wisconsin. Godejohn had some issues of his own: a criminal record for indecent exposure and a history of mental illness. Their relationship flourished via online communications. And thus began the next phase of this Shakespearean tragedy.

08:55
In 2014, Gypsy confided to neighbor Aleah Woodmansee that she and Godejohn had discussed eloping and had even chosen names for potential children. What Gypsy didn't share was that she and Godejohn were also forming something they called "plan B"…

09:12
In 2015, Gypsy arranged for Godejohn to meet her mother in Springfield. Her plan was for them to bump into each other while she and Dee Dee were at a movie theater, and then she could introduce him to her mother. Godejohn and Gypsy did meet during this time and have an intimate relationship in a bathroom, but they did not go forward with the plan for him to meet Gypsy's mother. The two continued their Internet interactions and began developing their plan to kill Dee Dee. 

09:40
Gypsy saved money for Godejohn to return to Springfield in June 2015 by Greyhound Bus. Gypsy allowed him into the house and allegedly gave him duct tape, gloves and a knife with the understanding that he would use it to murder Dee Dee. There are text messages that back up this exchange. Gypsy states she hid in the bathroom and covered her ears so she would not hear the murder. After the murder, the Gypsy and Godejohn had sex in Gypsy's room. They then took $4,000 in cash that Dee Dee had in the house and fled to a motel outside of Springfield.

10:19
In the meanwhile, neighbors of Dee Dee and Gypsy were becoming concerned. After reading troubling Facebook posts from Dee Dee's account referencing her murder, and visiting Dee Dee's home with no answer despite seeing her car in the driveway, the neighbors notified the police of their deep concerns about the family's welfare. 

10:37
On the evening of June 14, 2015, police found the bloodied body of 52 year old Dee Dee Blanchard facedown  in her bedroom. She was lying on her bed in a pool of her own blood from stab wounds inflicted in what appeared to be an attack which occurred several days earlier. Police discovered Gypsy's medication, oxygen tank, and wheel chair - but what police did not find in the house was Gypsy, only deepening concerns for her welfare. The police would discover where Gypsy was the following day, along with some other shocking news.

11:13
Aleah Woodmansee, the neighbor girl who was one of Gypsy's only friends in Missouri, told police what she knew about Gypsy and her secret online boyfriend. She provided police with his name and some internet print outs she had held for Gypsy - these printouts were conversations between Gypsy and Godejohn.  Based on that information, police asked Facebook to trace the IP address from which the posts to Dee Dee's account had been made. The IP address was located in Wisconsin.

11:46
On June 15, police found Gypsy in Wisconsin with her boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn. It was upon this discovery that investigators also learned Gypsy was actually an adult of 24 years of age, and was not suffering from ANY of the physical and/or mental health issues which her mother claimed she had. Gypsy was able to walk and eat on her own - and she was swiftly taken by police for interrogation. 

12:16
Further investigations found that one physician suspected that Dee Dee suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental disorder which causes a parent to exaggerate, fabricate, or actually induce illness in a person under their care in order to obtain sympathy or attention. Dee Dee had been making her daughter pass herself  as younger and pretend to be differently abled and chronically ill, forcibly subjecting her to unnecessary surgeries and medications, and controlling her through physical and psychological abuse. 

12:56
After the discovery of how Dee Dee had treated Gypsy for over 2 decades, sympathy shifted to Gypsy as a long-term victim of child abuse. The charge of first-degree murder can carry the death penalty under Missouri law or life without parole, however, county prosecutor Dan Patterson announced he would not seek this for Gypsy, calling the case "extraordinary and unusual".

13:21
Gypsy's attorney obtained her medical records from Louisiana, and he then secured a plea bargain to second-degree murder for Gypsy. In July 2015, Gypsy Rose pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is serving a 10-year sentence; she will be eligible for parole in 2024 at 32 years old.

13:38
In November 2018 Nicholas Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life w/o parole.

13:52
Gypsy was clearly the subject of severe child abuse. The question is how culpable is Gypsy for the murder of her mother? Did the abuse suffered justify a calculated homicide? Gypsy knew something was wrong with her mother's treatment of her; she knew she could move her legs, and she knew her mother and she were telling untruths. And there is undeniable proof she instigated the planning and killing of her mother with Godejohn. However, growing up in the abuse dynamic for over 2 decades is so extremely complex. In such a total parental domination and drug intoxication, Gypsy truly felt like a trapped animal with no other options.

14:37
When asked what the tipping point was, Gypsy stated it was the 2011 incident at the science fiction convention. That moment made her wonder why she was not allowed to have friends like others  her age. And made her begin to plan her escape. There were suspicious doctors and family members, but no one seemed to be able to save Gypsy from her mother and more importantly from herself.

15:03
And you're probably not asking, what became the fate of the deceased mother Dee Dee? It is said that none of her family would pay for a funeral or pick up her ashes; because no one else would pick them up and the mortuary refused their request to throw the ashes in the garbage, Dee Dee's father and stepmother said they picked up the ashes and flushed them down the toilet.

15:27
Rod Blanchard, Gypsy's father said to Buzzfeed, "I think Dee Dee's problem was she started a web of lies, and there was no escaping after". "It was like a tornado got started." He said he was happy the first time that he saw video of Gypsy walking on her own.

15:44
When Gypsy was asked by Buzzfeed about how she felt about her mother, she said . "I think she would have been the perfect mom for someone that was actually sick." Despite being in prison, Gypsy is in positive spirits. Gypsy interviewed by news show 20/20 on January 4, 2018 said, "I feel like I'm free in prison, than with living with my mom. Because now, I'm allowed to just live like a normal woman." 

16:16
Thank you for listening to this episode of Controversial Figures. Just a reminder, please like, subscribe, leave a rating and comment This podcast is an independent podcast created by Tammy Hawkins. This is funded by those that donate, so please join Patreon and give what you can - once I hit 50 Patreon subscribers, I'll send out swag to all donators! And anyone that donates, I'll give you a shout out on the next show. Research references are available in the show notes. Thank you so much. Be well.