DECEPTION: The Mother Who Invented an Illness: Gypsy Rose Blanchard

Hi, everyone. Before today's episode, we want to tell you about What the Fact. It's a new show from Conor Tomlinson, you know, from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum, and Carter Roy from Murder, True Crime Stories. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Conor's infectious energy will make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on Earth. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod. This is a story of lies, of deceit, about a sick child who wasn't actually sick. A devoted mother who wasn't devoted. A murder that forced the world to ask, who was really the victim? A case that transcended the world. True crime. And made its way to pop culture. It starts with a wheelchair and a princess costume. And it ends with 17 stab wounds. Welcome to Crimes of Deception, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. We're your hosts, Sabrina D'Onoroga and Corinne Vienne. Every Tuesday, we're exploring a different corner of the true crime universe, examining cases that left a permanent impact on society. This season, we're stepping into some of the boldest and most unbelievable crimes ever committed. The kinds of crimes where reality is stranger than any fiction. If you're loving Crimes Of, please follow, rate, and review us wherever you listen. It helps us build this community, and we love hearing from you. To get early access and ad-free listening, subscribe to the Crime House Plus community on Apple Podcasts. And you can also catch us on YouTube, where we include visuals that bring every case to life. Today, we're covering one of the most complex cases in modern true crime, the twisted, chaotic relationship between DeeDee Blanchard and her daughter, Gypsy Rose. A story of how a lifetime of deception can warp reality until violence feels like the only way out. On June 14th, 2015, a Facebook post appeared on the page of a woman named DeeDee Blanchard. It read, That bitch? That bitch is dead. No explanation, no context, just that very ominous sentence sitting amongst an otherwise very wholesome profile. And within minutes, friends begin commenting with concern. One friend, Kim, immediately picks up her phone and calls DeeDee. But there's no answer, which is obviously concerning. DeeDee Blanchard is a well-known member of the Springfield, Missouri community. She's a devoted single mother and also a full-time caretaker to her chronically ill, wheelchair-bound daughter, Gypsy Rose. Worried, Kim and her husband drive over to the Blanchard residence, which is a small pink house that Habitat for Humanity built for them. The first thing that Kim notices is the Blanchard van is sitting idle in the driveway, which would insinuate that they're home. So Kim knocks. There's no answer. Kim knocks harder this time. Still no answer. Not even a shuffle from inside. That is when she calls the police for a welfare check. Officers arrive. They scan the perimeter of their house, and nothing seems suspicious. There's no broken windows, no forced entry. The house appears normal. But even the police agree that that Facebook post is suspicious. So they force entry inside. Officers step into the Blanchard home. It's quiet. They move down the hallway, and within seconds, they see and know something is very wrong. DeeDee Blanchard's bedroom door is slightly ajar. An officer? The officer pushes it open, and there, lying face down in her blood-soaked bed, is 48-year-old Clawdeen DeeDee Blanchard. She has clearly been stabbed multiple times. Blood spatter stains the walls, and blood pools beneath the mattress. The air is heavy. It is immediately clear that this is a homicide. But almost instantly, investigators realize they might have a more urgent problem. Gypsy Rose. Gypsy Rose. Despite being legally 23 years old, Gypsy Rose was a severely disabled young woman who was under constant care of her now-deceased, murdered mother. So police, when they find no sign of her inside the home, but see her wheelchair is still inside, as well as her medications and feeding supplies, they start to panic. They fear the worst. They fear that this is not just a homicide, but also a kidnapping. And they also know that without her medications, without her supplies, Gypsy Rose won't be able to live. Gypsy Rose won't be able to live. Gypsy Rose won't survive long. What kind of deranged monster breaks into a home, brutally murders a mother, and abducts a vulnerable wheelchair-bound young girl? So at the time, after seeing this crime scene, the police did believe that they were dealing with a kidnapping, right? So they were desperate to find and rescue Gypsy Rose Blanchard. But the truth was far more sinister and complex. Immediately, detectives looked at the Facebook posts, and they assumed correctly that whoever had hacked Dee Dee's Facebook was connected to the murder and abduction. So at this point, there had been multiple posts. There was, that bitch is dead. And then another that said, I fucking raped her sweet, innocent daughter. Horrifying. And this obviously accelerated the case. And this was cause for even more concern. So they were able to subpoena Facebook for IP data that traced these posts to an address in Big Bend, Wisconsin. And Big Bend, was some 600 plus miles away from where the Blanchard's home was. On June 15th, 2015, just one day after the crime scene was discovered, but then a few days after the assumed abduction, local authorities in Big Bend were called in and officers approached the home with caution. They feared the worst for Gypsy Rose Blanchard. They knocked, and then door opened. And do you know who opened the door? None other than Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Gypsy Rose Blanchard was the one that opened the door and opened the door for her daughter. She was not in her wheelchair. She was standing on her own two feet, alive and well. I mean, imagine that visual. You first, like, go into this having no idea what you're going to encounter, fearing the worst, terrified that a violent murderer took a disabled girl and was going to do God knows what. But then you find her more than okay. This girl that everyone knew needed a wheelchair to get around and had a long list of medical ailments since the time that she was born. It's just fine. And walking? Talk about confusing. And also, like, the amount of different, like, whiplash moments that these investigators are having within a matter of, like, days. Right. So after picking their jaws up off the ground and doing further investigation, which we'll get into more of those details, officers were faced with the shocking discovery that despite what everyone had been led to believe, Gypsy Rose did not have cancer. She did not have muscular dystrophy. She did not need a wheelchair. And most horrifying, Gypsy Rose Blanchard faced decades of deceit and abuse at the hand of her very own mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, that ultimately led her to plot and plan Dee Dee's murder. And if you think that's strange and a little crazy, you don't even know the half of it. So in order to paint the full picture, we're going to go back to the beginning to the woman who started it all, Claudine Dee Dee Blanchard. Because hearing her background really does paint the picture and help you understand, like, the psychological state that she was in, which by no means makes excuses for any of this that happened, but seeing some of the very direct correlations are kind of mind-boggling. Yeah. So Dee Dee Blanchard was born on May 3rd, 1967 in Golden Meadow, Louisiana. And this is a very small Cajun town deep in the bayou, the type of place where family ties and Cajun pride ran deep. It was a fishing town where Dee Dee's father, Claude, spent most of his days out in the water working, which meant her mother, Emma Petrie, was in charge of six children. Dee Dee was the youngest and by most accounts, the favorite. Family members later described Emma as very protective of Dee Dee, especially after doctors identified a heart murmur when she was a baby. And obviously as a mother, like when you hear that, that would be terrifying. It terrified Emma and she became very, very protective over Dee Dee and almost immediately started treating her differently than her other five children. So while the other kids were expected to do chores, to go work, earn money, and contribute to the family, Dee Dee was not. She was doted on, which psychologically established a correlation between like a medical ailment and attention. And special treatment. And love. Dee Dee pretty much got anything and everything she wanted. She wanted a new dress. She got it. A car. She got it. And even though the Petries weren't, that wealthy of a family, Emma, Dee Dee's mom, always found a way to get and do what Dee Dee wanted. And the special treatment did not stop when Dee Dee turned 18. After she graduated high school in 1986, Dee Dee decided to become a nurse's assistant and had her parents foot the bill. Once Dee Dee got her certification, she started working at a local hospital and she was, by all accounts, a model employee. And this is an important detail to remember as we talk about the rest of this story because her working in healthcare, gave her some knowledge and credibility that when it came to Gypsy Rose's mental challenges and conditions later in life people believed her yeah and this kind of adds to and like it feels like a clear psychological profile now like knowing all this stuff about her and you can see kind of like the specifics of her upbringing and how this directly impacted her career choice and like where she decided to go as an adult and and her actions yeah so Deedee was making a living in the hospital but she also liked to let her hair down right because she's young and she's yeah she's like a lot of 20 something year olds and likes to party and one night she went out with some friends to a bowling alley and this is where she met 17 year old Rod Blanchard keep in mind Deedee is 23 at the time Rod is 17 he's still in high school the age of consent in Louisiana is 17 so the two of them they hit it off they start dating and they start sleeping together and just a few months into their relationship Deedee found out that she was pregnant Rod has since spoken about this moment in life and their relationship and finding out that Deedee was pregnant and he said that he remembered being really surprised by it and he was certainly uninformed because he said that what he knew was if you got a girl pregnant then you marry her and so that is what he did so the teenager Rod Blanchard and the adult Deedee got married on July 27th 1991 Deedee Blanchard gave birth to their baby girl and they named her Gypsy Rose Deedee had always loved the name Gypsy and Rod's favorite band was Guns N' Roses which produced Gypsy Rose by all accounts Gypsy Rose was a very healthy baby there are no confirmed medical reports or records indicating otherwise like nothing so now Rod Deedee and their baby girl would be a happy little family and live happily ever after right wrong shortly after Deedee was born Rod Blanchard and Deedee Gypsy Rose home Rod Blanchard turned 18 and according to Rod he woke up on his 18th birthday with a pit in his stomach and just knew he had made the wrong decision by marrying Deedee so he soon after confessed to her and told her that he didn't love her and he packed up all this stuff and moved out and I will never agree with abandoning a wife and newborn but also Rod was a child yeah and he has since expressed regret stating that he was young overwhelmed and not and not ready for marriage or the responsibilities that came with starting a family so this obviously broke Deedee's heart she tried and tried to fix the relationship but ultimately they got a divorce and Rod paid child support monthly but now Deedee is 24 a single mother dealing with postpartum and heartbreak very overwhelmed anxious all the time as most new mothers are and so she decided to move back in with her parents so they could help her raise Gypsy Rose and for the first few months everything appeared to be going well they were surviving as best they could unfortunately all that changed when Gypsy Rose was just three months old it was around this time that Deedee began telling doctors that Gypsy Rose was having trouble breathing at night and believed that maybe she'd sleep apnea and this goes back to what you were saying earlier Sabrina with her having worked in the medical field and having some background and like an actual education in it so that gave her some credibility so when she came in saying like hey I think my infant is having trouble breathing the doctors didn't question it they totally believed her also this is like a harder thing to verify and validate as a doctor like you're not doing a sleep study on a baby like if a mom comes in is like every night my baby is having a hard time breathing right it's harder to do a test for yeah you like you truly would have to do an overnight yeah sleep study so according to Deedee doctors sent her home with a monitor for baby Gypsy to wear and if it detected a problem with Gypsy's breathing she was able to sleep at night and she was able to sleep at night breathing the alarm would go off it is also important to note that throughout this episode as we will detail the very very long list of diagnoses there are a lot of unknowns so a lot of things including the sleep apnea diagnosis comes from Deedee's own claims not specifically from medical records so while some things do have medical records to back them up and like document specific things there are a lot that Deedee claimed to people we'll try to like specify throughout the this is according to Deedee and whether it was a real diagnosis or not Deedee was constantly stressed and concerned about her daughter her infant Gypsy Rose so then she learned that Rod was dating someone new and things were getting serious so like oh my gosh the amount of things just like piling up on her and the stress and this new woman that Rod is dating is going to be like oh my gosh I'm going to he's named Kathy and Deedee had actually previously worked with Kathy as a nurse's aide and Deedee was not too happy with this but she had bigger things to worry about right at the time Gypsy Rose was diagnosed with strabismus which is a condition where one or both eyes don't align properly and over time it can cause the brain to ignore signals from the weaker eye prevent double vision I feel like this is like semi-common I know multiple children who've had this and had to have either like corrective surgeries or like wear the eye patch like there's a bunch of different things that kids do so there's treatment that's needed but this isn't like a crazy rare diagnosis but still concerning as a parent like you want to help your child yeah also this condition if you leave it untreated or like you don't do proper care it can lead to partial or total blindness but if it is caught early it can be treated with glasses or therapy but in more serious cases like gypsies surgery is required so at 11 months old Gypsy had to undergo surgery to fix this condition and now this is one of those situations where this is a very real and confirmed by doctors diagnosis so at 11 months old she has to go under the knife but it's also the turning point I think in this story because it becomes a very pivotal moment while Gypsy Rose is in surgery under the knife everyone is coming to Dee Dee's aid there's a lot of things and a lot of stressful things happening in Dee Dee's life that she's not going to be able to do anything about it so she's going at this moment getting all this attention must have felt so good and like almost like oh finally someone's taking care of me yeah all the doctors are coming up to her asking if she had eaten the family nurses and community are all gathering around Dee Dee showering her in attention and care obviously we can't confirm we can't go back in time in a time machine to confirm that this is the moment that shifted everything but psychologically speaking it does seem like it's the moment that in her subconscious that while her daughter was under medical distress, people would shower her, Dee Dee, with attention and affection. Right. If she was aware of that or not, just thinking back to her childhood and the way that her mom had interacted with her, this feels like such a zap where suddenly all the warm feelings come back. Yeah, exactly. She doesn't know why she's addicted to something, but she is. But she is. Yes. So thankfully, the surgery did go well and Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose were able to go home. But when they got home, Dee Dee's family noticed that there was a change. Sure, Dee Dee had always been a little bit overbearing. But now Dee Dee was watching over Gypsy Rose like a hawk. She's so ultra concerned about her welfare and that something was going to go wrong. And she began taking Gypsy Rose to the doctor all the time. And sure, it was a lot, but it wasn't too concerning to people. Like, yes, it raised a little bit of like alarm bells. And people were aware of it. But Dee Dee was a nurse. All the family members thought Dee Dee knew better than they would. And second, her daughter did just undergo surgery. So people could empathize with Dee Dee for being concerned. And like a lot of first time moms, like it's normal to be anxious and to be concerned and want to seek a doctor's guidance. Yeah. I'll say from personal experience, my son Noah, when he hit three months was when some medical stuff started happening. And we were like, staying for a week in the hospital and bringing him to a ton of specialists and no one had an answer. And it was like back and forth. And in those moments, I remember like because they would bring in social workers and all that and like ask you questions about your home and everything. And I kept thinking like, am I making this up? Like, is he actually fine? And do I have Munchausen's? Like, it was actually a thought that came into my own mind. But like, I guess in defense of Dee Dee in this moment, my son was seen by so many different doctors and specialists and all of that. And now that he's almost two years old, after we kind of like gave up trying to like figure out like some of the things that were happening, have people suddenly discovered answers? And it's like, how was this missed by that many people? Right. I understand like a mom trying to continue to find the answer because you're like, no, I know something's wrong. Right. But you don't think it is. You don't see them at home. You don't see this happening. Like you're seeing me being the one to distress more than the child, which is why you think it's wrong. And I'm like, no, I know something's wrong. I think they're fine. But I also think someone like Dee Dee's not questioning. Do I have Munchausen? Am I making this up? Yeah. Let me tell you, we had plenty of family coming and supporting us throughout the whole thing. And I was like, I can't wait for everyone to leave because I don't want to go through this. Anyway, Dee Dee continued to take Gypsy Rose to the doctor to get various concerns checked out. And despite not being a constant fixture in her life, Rod, Dee Dee's father, was concerned for his daughter's well-being. Yeah. So when Gypsy was about a year old, he asked Dee Dee what was causing all of these health issues. And Dee Dee reportedly told him that Gypsy had a chromosomal dyslexia. disorder and rod was really alarmed because he'd never heard of this and he didn't really have like a clue as to what this meant didi had the medical background right so according to her it meant that gypsy was not developing normally and this would basically affect everything in her life so as other kids were progressing normally she would have a lot more troubles it would affect her hearing it would affect her digestive system and i think this is a big part of it is so many other people in their lives didn't understand these things and because didi spoke with such confidence about medic the medical stuff they're like oh she must be talking to doctors and she also has this background like she already knows they believed that she was being diagnosed yeah even though didi as far as we know was just coming up with these conditions so rod had no reason to not take didi's word for it he trusted her he trusted that didi was taking care of their daughter and from his perspective she was taking gypsy rose to the doctor often which insinuated that yes didi was taking good care of their child yeah and also this diagnosis at least when gypsy rose was young it didn't seem to hold her back from having a normal childhood so she would still play with her cousins play outside spend a ton of time with her grandpa claude she'd go fishing she'd ride with him on his motorcycle like she was having a pretty normal childhood until she was around five years old according to didi when gypsy was around five years old she was having a pretty normal childhood in 1996 gypsy rose had somehow fallen off of claude's motorcycle and scraped her leg and this is a small scrape like everyone saw it it was not too concerning superficial superficial yeah didi wasn't even concerned she cleaned it up bandaged it but within like days all of a sudden that bandage turned into a knee brace and didi reportedly began telling people family and friends that gypsy was having muscular problems which evolved into didi telling people that gypsy rose was having muscular problems which evolved into didi telling people that gypsy rose was having muscular problems which evolved into didi telling people that gypsy rose had muscular dystrophy which is a disease that causes skeletal muscles to break down and weaken over time often affecting the legs and pelvis first and this is a incurable diagnosis it's also just so wild because it's not like someone falls off of a bike and two days later they get this diagnosis like there's so much testing and well there are i was reading about it and there are people who will like get a scrape that seems superficial and then it like evolves so drastically because it's not because they have muscular dystrophy so she's using real science and medical do they get a diagnosis that quickly though i mean there's testing and stuff yeah but didi's telling everyone she is being tested oh my gosh yeah didi claimed to have taken gypsy to doctors again there's no medical record to back this up and claim that what started as the scraped knee revealed muscular dystrophy and it was progressing really fast so before everyone knew it gypsy was gypsy rose was in a wheelchair five years old and we already made this very clear but despite didi's persistence and reports gypsy rose did not have muscular dystrophy but everyone believed it until didi's murder everyone believed all of this medical information at just five years old gypsy rose's mother didi had told her that she had to use a wheelchair gypsy rose is a five-year-old if she knows that she could walk she would like run around and stuff but then didi would kind of like manipulate her give her the silent treatment if she didn't do what she said so gypsy learned very quickly to do what her mother told her and at first gypsy enjoyed the wheelchair she was like oh this is a fun new toy she learned how to do tricks on it and like wheelies and stuff but again she was five years old five-year-olds love to run around they love to play and in 1996 didi and gypsy rose were at a family birthday party and didi wheeled gypsy outside and something stay here do not leave your chair but as didi had left all of her cousins all of her family kids all start jumping on the trampoline how can you not jump too gypsy longed to join them everyone could see it in her eyes so much so that her aunts and uncles let her join meaning that gypsy rose stood up from her wheelchair on her own two feet and walked over to the trampoline and joined in on the jumping her whole family thought that she couldn't walk like she needed the wheelchair to move around but here she is walking on her own to go jump on the trampoline yeah which like i guess in defense of this like you could argue people with chronic pain and people with disabilities just because they rely on a wheelchair or certain other tools or whatever to be able to get around doesn't mean that they can't walk for a certain or stand for a certain amount of time which is exactly what didi will say yeah but as you can imagine didi gets back from her little errand that she had done and she sees gypsy rose on the trampoline and she is furious she's like i'm gonna jump on the trampoline and she's like i'm gonna scream at everyone yells at everyone which if it were a real diagnosis like yeah i would be pissed off at my family and friends too for like not protecting my child right like you're putting their health at risk yeah didi yanked gypsy off the trampoline put her back in her chair and took her inside the house the whole extended family watches this in confusion because clearly gypsy seemed to be able to walk just fine but didi had an explanation muscular dystrophy progresses quickly and some days are better than others but it was still better for gypsy to walk to remain wheelchair bound because one more scrape another fall it could make everything worse recovery for gypsy was different than a normal kid and again i'll emphasize didi had medical knowledge and had told everyone that this is a doctor given medical diagnosis people don't have any other reason to question it right except one of didi's sisters who was at the party certainly was wondering what was going on she was concerned and she decided to call rod and tell him what happened but when rod called didi to confront her about it she gave the very same very convincing answer and sure sometimes gypsy rose felt good enough to walk but using her legs would often result in her condition just like being worse like she'd have a worse day it wasn't worth it yeah rod did believe her because he had no reason not to right and also even if he didn't he felt kind of weird about it and didn't really feel like it was his place to criticize her because in a way he kind of abused her and she didn't feel like she was abandoned her to be a single mother and care for this child who is having so many medical abnormalities and difficulties and he's hardly around so kind of like that guilt overrode everything that he might have wanted to ask follow-up questions and he just kind of let it go yeah so again no one intervened because they didn't think that anything was wrong about a year after this incident in 1997 didi's life was rocked when her mother emma was diagnosed with an illness that moved her to a hospital in the united states and she was diagnosed with an illness that moved very quickly by june of 1997 emma died she was only 59 years old and this sent didi into a tailspin losing her mother yeah after the funeral she took gypsy and she left no one knew where they went or why until a few weeks later when it became clear because didi was on the run from the law apparently she was wanted for writing bad checks and i don't really know like how this all panned out but she was apparently wanted and looking at prison time and a hefty fine but instead of taking responsibility she took gypsy rose and hightailed it out of town they bounced around from place to place for a while sometimes staying in public housing or shelters and to get by didi had taken her mother's credit cards her deceased mother's credit cards and maxed them out which only added to the financial crimes that she was already wanted for during this time as they're moving around bouncing around rod was trying to do his best to keep track of them so he could see gypsy but didi kept moving them further and further away this is when didi really starts to isolate gypsy rose not only like physically but mentally too when gypsy rose would ask about her dad and why she didn't see him much didi told her that he was an alcoholic she even told her and this makes me so sad didi told gypsy rose that rod actually left them because gypsy rose wasn't the son he'd always wanted i know so psychologically this is establishing two things it put all this blame and guilt onto gypsy onto a child that she wasn't enough that no one wanted her except her mother and this also established that the only person gypsy rose could rely on was in fact her mother didi to make it very clear rod was not an alcoholic nor did he ever claim to leave because of gypsy rose both of those were lies but there was no one around him and he was not an alcoholic and he was not an alcoholic to tell gypsy otherwise so slowly but surely didi continued to isolate gypsy rose from the rest of her family and also understandably gypsy believed these lies and believed that her mother was the only person she could count on which meant that gypsy rose would do almost anything to make her mother happy and in this relationship dynamic it essentially meant doing anything and everything that didi told her to do after moving around for a few years didi told her that she was going to stay with her mother for as long as she could and that gypsy rose was going to stay with her mother for as long as she could and that gypsy rose was going to stay with her mother for as long as she could taking up residency in new orleans gypsy rose was now eight years old she was completely wheelchair bound at least in public anyway and they begin to build community here it was hard not to fall in love with these two right so from the outside didi was this incredible single mother selfless devoted to her daughter gypsy rose was this like cute little petite young girl who despite her medical conditions always had a smile on her face she was a little bit of a kid but she was a little bit of a She was a ray of sunshine. Like, of course you would wanna be friends with them always wearing like princess outfits right all the interviews and like videos that you can watch of that time she really is like this bright happy child yes yeah god i i like remember watching them live i can hear it it was around this time that dd informed family and friends that gypsy rose had been diagnosed with leukemia man another diagnosis yeah she called rod and his now wife christy to share the news they were understandably heartbroken and gypsy had already been through so much they like could not believe that on top of this now she's suffering from cancer too dd's entire extended family was devastated as well but some of them did have some doubts this is the hard thing is that throughout this case the people who have expressed doubts have expressed it after the fact and been like yeah like it was a little weird but it was easy to write off you right or easy to excuse or explain away and i guess from like gypsy rose's perspective when we get to what will eventually happen she is witnessing years and years and years of other adults not intervening or helping her can't trust anyone else well also she believes it yeah to an extent to an extent yes she's a child she literally had no other way of knowing no okay so here's the thing dd and gypsy rose they're not living near family anymore right so they're in new orleans there's a little bit of distance between them and family members so no one could really challenge what's going on here dd reported multiple doctor visits and when they did see gypsy she certainly looked like she had cancer her head was shaved she looked frail she was exhibiting side effects of chemotherapy protocols so yeah she appeared to be a child with leukemia in truth this is like so disturbing dd had actually gained access to various medicines over the years and was basically able to like make a concoction that made gypsy rose nauseous gave her the side effects of cancer treatment she told gypsy rose that she was giving her cancer medications and chemotherapy at home and she convinced gypsy rose who again is still a child she tells gypsy rose we have to shave your head because the medicine is going to make your hair fall out anyways like this is a part of the process we're going to shave your head so you don't have to go through the trauma of like all the clumps of hair falling out gypsy rose is eight years old eight years old yeah her mother is her entire world she had no reason to doubt her she believed she was sick just like her mother said but she had no idea the extent of the abuse no one did and i think everyone looking back is like how in the world was dd able to get away with this especially in the early days when gypsy rose didn't even have any cancer she was just constantly taking gypsy rose to the doctors right you wouldn't think that a doctor would say something and sleep apnea was one thing right where you can kind of take dd's word for it and her describing her infant's medical conditions and issues but cancer is very easy to test for how did they not catch on well that's because dd did not tell doctors that gypsy rose had cancer she was very very careful it makes it very clear she knew what she was doing she would basically take gypsy rose to the hospital and she would take gypsy rose to the hospital and she would take gypsy rose to the hospital and she would take gypsy rose to different doctors for different things and get different medications so she would make medical claims for things that were harder to prove like claiming that gypsy rose suffered from seizures she would tell another doctor that gypsy had asthma or anemia or heart problems and developmental delays that she was having trouble eating so like she would go to different doctors and get like different things from each one of them for conditions that doctors would take a dose of gypsy rose's life dd had coached her and conditioned her and groomed her into how to act and how to behave at doctor's appointments number one rule was that gypsy rose would not speak dd always spoke for her to the point where gypsy rose almost zoned out during these various doctor's appointments which also added because dd would then claim that gypsy rose was developmentally delayed and so it really did appear that way there was that one doctor's appointment that dd even covered gypsy rose's life and she was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so as she told the doctor she thought gypsy was mentally she used the r word but disabled she covered her ears and she claimed she was covering gypsy rose's ears to not like hurt her feelings or make her feel bad for what she was about to say but the truth is that she was trying to prevent gypsy rose from even understanding what was happening at these doctor's appointments it's so messed up this is like one of those things where part of me wants to be like okay well some people with munchausen's by proxy and in cases that are similar to this like they go so deep that they don't even know what they're doing but it feels like a conscious effort every step of the way yeah and we'll talk about it specifically in a minute but like this is the hard thing with something that is such a rare but also extreme psychological disorder right so dd insisted that she was homeschooling gypsy as well but in truth she stopped teaching her entirely there was no homeschooling gypsy and she was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry going on so much child abuse it's so sad yeah so gypsy had only been taught up to a second grade level and she really was mentally delayed because of this because that is how dd wanted it right like so she wasn't given access to advance in the way that a lot of kids can additionally she would infantilize gypsy rose dressing her in princess costumes and wigs and gypsy even sounded a lot younger than she was she still does she yeah she has a very high pitched young voice at the time it was very high pitched very childish now this can happen when there is more of like a developmental arrest due to trauma learned infantilization both are true in this case but to doctors it just reiterated dd's claims of mental disorders so there's so much going on here so much and dd is very deliberate in shaping gypsy rose's identity and the medical narrative around her and what everyone is saying about her and what everyone believed and tragically her success in this meant that she was able to continue with this abuse doctors agreed to put gypsy rose on anti-seizure medication and they gave her a medicine to help her breathe at night she was also given prescriptions for anemia asthma allergies and an alleged heart murmur so now this story and the abuse is already unbelievable and horrific and unfortunately it gets worse like if you think it's bad it actually gets worse but i think it's very clear that gypsy rose is not going to be able to continue with this abuse and so i'm going to clear to us as outsiders who have the privilege to share the story after the fact that dd blanchard was very clearly suffering from some mental illness and it is a very clear case of if not the most famous case of munchausen by proxy which we've kind of referenced multiple times throughout this episode but dd blanchard was never officially given a diagnosis and even though she wasn't it's pretty clear that that's what's happening here but you can't formally diagnose someone posthumously also fun fact that i just learned in prepping this episode munchausen by proxy is now called fictitious disorder imposed upon another fdia according to the dsm it is absolutely a form of abuse and in this case specifically child abuse it is a recognized mental disorder listed in the dsm and is classified as a somatic symptom and related disorder where a caregiver induces or falsifies symptoms in another to seek medical attention for themselves right so the goal here isn't necessarily to harm the motivation is psychological to garner attention sympathy validation and control so her goal is not to kill her daughter even though what she's doing is slowly killing her daughter she needs gypsy rose to be alive in order to use her for this psychological gain right it is interesting and like the move for the dsm to change the way that she's being treated and how she's being treated and how she's being treated from munchausen by proxy to factitious disorder imposed on another is interesting because it almost like takes the side of the person who is suffering from it without the consideration of the victims in it like it takes away some of like the harshness of what's happening which for another project that i'd worked on i had to speak to some victims of munchausen by proxy and some like advocacy support groups and they were choosing to call it munchausen abuse to like emphasize abuse that it is abuse there is a victim yeah i just wanted to say that it did change but like if to the people who are affected by it and have there's plenty of people who've died well that's the point is like you can have a psychological disorder but that does not excuse you from having from doing wrong things to other people right yeah you can't take away from the yeah what what has been done to others also this condition is incredibly difficult to diagnose so compared to factitious disorder previously munchausen's which is falsifying symptoms and illnesses or causing injury to oneself to gain attention and sympathy fdia is where you do these things to someone else and there are some clear signs of this and dd was checking all the boxes here common behaviors of fdia are reporting symptoms that are not observable check shopping around for different or multiple doctors check seeking invasive testing check relishing in attention thriving in crisis preventing the child from speaking independently check check check but these exact signs of fdia are the exact reasons why it's so difficult to diagnose and to catch. And unfortunately, in the case of Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard, no one caught on to the abuse early enough to put an end to it. So it continued for years. So now at this point in the story, by 1999 to 2000, Dee Dee Blanchard had the world, her family, her community, doctors, and Gypsy Rose herself convinced that nine-year-old Gypsy Rose was sick and wheelchair-bound. Shortly after announcing to her friends and the community that Gypsy Rose had leukemia, Dee Dee convinced doctors to give Gypsy Rose a feeding tube. And I think it's really important to point out that this is a very invasive surgery. Oh, yeah. This is not something doctors do. They don't want to do it. It's like a last-case resort. No. Usually, like, the first thing that they, if they have to do it, they try to do just the tube before doing the actual surgical implant to, yeah, provide feeding straight into the stomach. And I think it's important to remember, but at this point, Dee Dee had been giving Gypsy Rose who knows what combination of medications that were physically causing her to lose weight and to be nauseous and not be able to eat. So she had lost so much weight, Gypsy Rose, young Gypsy Rose, nine years old, that she looked malnourished. She was malnourished. Yeah. Which that would prompt doctors to put a feeding tube in. Well, and also, like, think about it. If you're malnourished, you're not going to grow normally. You're not going to go through puberty normally. Like, it affects so much, which can go right back to Dee Dee being like, see, she's not developing the same as everyone else. Something is wrong. Right. So this is one of those conditions where, like, her malnutrition and, like, the need for a feeding tube was prescribed by doctors because of all the symptoms. But it also meant that Gypsy Rose would become even more dependent on the person. A feeding tube needed to be cleaned daily. And now that it was inserted in nine-year-old Gypsy Rose, Dee Dee could put anything she wanted into Gypsy's body. Yep. Anything. That's so disturbing. Shortly after Gypsy Rose got her feeding tube, in 2000, Dee Dee was in a pretty serious car accident. And she and Gypsy Rose were actually both in the car, but Gypsy only suffered minor injuries. Dee Dee, on the other hand, nearly died. She lost her foot in the accident. And for once, Dee Dee was the patient now, right? Like, she was stuck in the hospital to recover. And that meant that Gypsy Rose needed another caregiver. So she went to go live with her grandpa, which was Dee Dee's dad, Claude, the guy with the motorcycle, and his new wife, Laura May. During her stay, Gypsy Rose ate perfectly fine. She would feed herself through her mouth, not using her feeding tube at all. And Claude definitely questioned this. But he didn't want to meddle. And he was like, okay, well, what do I know? Maybe it's like a combo. I don't know. After about two months, Dee Dee was released from the hospital and went to go stay with her dad. I also just think about how those two months must have been amazing for Gypsy Rose. Oh, so freeing. Yeah. Totally. Like, part of me, like, there's like an anxious part of me that was like, wait a second. Like, he just wasn't prepared to do anything. Like, he didn't know how to give her stuff from a feeding tube. Like, what if she actually did need it? Yeah, yeah. That part of me is like a little bit panicked. Yeah. His wife was, his new wife worked in the medical field. Sure. Yeah. So, for a little while, they got to play their little, like, happy family and she was free. Dee Dee was externally so grateful for her dad's help over the last two months that she wanted to show her appreciation by cooking for him and his wife, Laura Mae. How sweet. How kind. Oh, my gosh. We so appreciate it. No problem. Of course. Anytime. I didn't know this part. I didn't either. Prior to prepping for this episode. Yeah. This is shocking. Okay. I can't believe that this has not made its way into so many people. Maybe some of them have it. There's so much content out there about this case. It's kind of never ending. All of a sudden, Laura Mae is getting sick and no one can understand why. Until one afternoon when Gypsy Rose is playing in the living room and Claude is sitting in his favorite chair watching over her when Gypsy Rose points to a box in the corner and tells Claude, like, oh, my gosh, those are the special vitamins that mom puts in Laura Mae's food. Now, Claude is like, what? Because he's looking at the box. He's pretty dang confused because that box is not a box of vitamins. And that box is a box of Roundup weed killer. So Dee Dee had been full on poisoning her stepmother. And Gypsy Rose witnessed it. And Dee Dee was saying to her, oh, these are just special vitamins for Laura Mae. Yeah, I got to put the vitamins. Which also shows that Gypsy Rose was innocent. She really didn't understand. I'm not aware of what her reading comprehension was. And if she could truly understand, like, everything that was going on around her. As it turns out, Dee Dee knew Laura Mae from her time working as a nurse's aide. And regardless of what she felt for Laura Mae back then, she now hated her. And her mother had just passed away. And now Laura Mae was married to her father less than a year later after her mom's passing. And she was just like, my mom's body's barely cold. Now this woman's in my house with my dad. Whatever. The real psychological reasoning. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Dee Dee's never outwardly said it, but it's believed that she hated Laura Mae. And she wanted her gone. And had Gypsy Rose not pointed out this box of roundup weed killer to Claude, Dee Dee likely would have succeeded in poisoning Laura Mae to death. No, this is so shocking to me because you would think, even though they're family, you would think that someone would say something. Like something would happen from this. Like, yeah, you just try to kill someone. But no. Well, and also it's like. What the fuck are you doing to your own daughter now? Like, how does that not extend to everyone else around you? It's infuriating, but literally nothing happened. Nothing. Claude simply asked Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose to leave. That's it. So they packed up their things. They moved back to New Orleans area to a small town called Sladell. And no consequences, no reports, no police, nothing. I'm sure it probably fractured the relationship with Claude, but probably made it even harder to like monitor Gypsy Rose. Yeah. But so a new town. So a new town meant new doctors. Dee Dee took Gypsy Rose to Tulane University Hospital and again told doctors that Gypsy had muscular dystrophy. The team ran some tests, but they found nothing. And here's another aspect of the story that really does prove that Dee Dee wasn't doing this out of concern, but more for attention because for years she had been telling people that Gypsy Rose had muscular dystrophy. And the only reason to take it to doctors again at this point was to continue to get that attention. When tests found nothing, Dee Dee took Gypsy Rose to a different doctor. And that cycle continued. Speaking of cycle, I'm really proud of this transition. Despite all the medical intervention and who knows how many medications, Gypsy Rose started getting her own period, her first cycle, when she was 13. And she was terrified because going back to the education, Gypsy Rose did not have, and already the like sexual education is not great sometimes. But she had never learned about her period. Or what it meant or how to handle it. It's a Carrie moment. It really is. This poor girl was so disconnected from her body. And Dee Dee didn't bother really to like explain it to her. And she basically just was like, wear a diaper. Because the point is like Dee Dee, it didn't serve her to teach Gypsy Rose about this. So she was like, that's not worth talking about. Wear a diaper. And she can't really control her cycle. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, then another tragedy struck the Blanchards in August. Because remember, they were settled in New Orleans. And this was when Hurricane Katrina came and devastated the area. I just like tragedy after tragedy. Hurricane Katrina was a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast and devastated New Orleans. It caused massive flooding and widespread displacement. And even today, New Orleans is still recovering from the damage and devastation. Yeah. Dee Dee and Gypsy evacuated to a shelter for people with special needs. In Covington, Louisiana, which was about 30 minutes north of their home in Slidell. It was a month or so before they could get back home and check on things. And when they did, there really wasn't much left. But there was someone who could help. Dee Dee and Gypsy had met a volunteer doctor while they were at their shelter. And they told him about Gypsy's medical issues and how Dee Dee was struggling. She was a single mother. And the doctor really wanted to help them get back on their feet. Right. So he arranged for Dee Dee and Gypsy to be evacuated. To Aurora, Missouri. So now they are suddenly moving hundreds of miles away from everything that they knew. Which could be scary for so many people. But not for Dee Dee. For Dee Dee, this was a dream come true. Because now there is no one around them that can question what she's doing. And what she's saying when it came to Gypsy. And just when she thought that it couldn't get any better. A local news crew met their helicopter at St. John's Hospital. Where they were being dropped off. And all of a sudden. She was back to being the center of attention in the best way possible. The reporters were amazed by how much adversity she'd overcome. They called her an inspiration. And if this story was real. If all of these mental conditions were real and not made up. And it wasn't child abuse. A person in that situation would be such an inspiration. And what a loving, caring woman. There are plenty of people out there that are deserving of the attention that happened here. For the right reasons. Yes. ♪ ♪ happy halloween crimehouse listeners i'm vanessa richardson join me every sunday this month on crimehouse 24 7 for crimehouse of horrors where i dive into four stories behind some of our favorite scary movies if you can't wait and want all four episodes now ad free join crimehouse plus join on apple podcasts spotify or at crimehouseplus.com okay so she's called an inspiration she's getting all this attention and not only that but they wanted to help her and gypsy however they could which included getting them a brand new house and dd was just like the picture of grace right she was smiling she was hugging her daughter they take in the good news oh my gosh we feel so good we feel so welcomed but when it came time to move in the news crew came to document the big moment and volunteers lined up to bring in boxes of donations and get them all set up and everything was just like working out so perfectly and dd was so caught up in the attention that she completely forgot to inform her family that she and gypsy rose were alive after katrina not just that they had moved but that they yeah were alive that they had survived the hurricane for two full months her family has no idea if they're okay two months that is wild crazy it wasn't even crazier once you realize it wasn't even crazier once you realize it wasn't even crazier once you realize how active she was on facebook when facebook became yeah you're like really you didn't want to report every single moment of your life i'm sure people probably did see some of those things but it was like there was no confirmed word from them like she never called them until october of 2005 when she finally does two months after hurricane katrina dd finally calls rod and christy to tell them they're okay and that they're now in missouri which rod is a little like taken aback by you're gonna stay in missouri like okay but he's mostly just glad they're safe so they settle in in missouri dd takes gypsy to mercy hospital in springfield this is about 30 minutes from aurora and her doctor there robert steel wanted to see gypsy's medical records which is great as a doctor you should always ask for medical records but for the first time dd has a real excuse she says that all of the medical records were lost in hurricane katrina so she told the doctor that no problem i have all of gypsy's health records memorized like all of her problems and i have a background in nursing so the doctor's like oh great like please share this with me so dd rattled off the long list of medical issues asthma seizures muscular dystrophy cancer and at hearing cancer dr steel stops dd and is like okay let's talk about the treatments the specific treatments that gypsy rose had and dd is kind of like um i can't remember but she could remember every single ailment dating back to infancy but not what cancer treatment she had which is so wild because she was stealing medication for cancer treatment like she couldn't she just said like i remember that there were like these two drugs and there was like something else right but again dd had gone through so much so the doctor's like i'll cut you some slack like it it's fine that one detail you can't remember over the course of the appointment he ran a bunch of tests to see if they could piece together information and to his surprise but not ours all of the tests came back normal there was no sign of cancer at all which dr steel takes as a great sign he's like super excited to tell dd this yeah she's in remission great news and then he also examines gypsy for signs of muscular dystrophy and the disorder that dd had insisted that gypsy had but other than the fact that gypsy was in a wheelchair there was no evidence that there was anything wrong with her muscles which i do wonder if he in that moment was wondering if there was something wrong with dd and what she was reporting and if this was abuse i feel like i would also go to like okay these people were living in this one place they're getting diagnosed with all these crazy things was this medical malpractice where some other doctor was like being abusive and like mistreating and misdiagnosing this patient unfortunately neither of those seem to be what and i get this like he was not a pediatric doctor or specific so he is like i must be missing something so he refers gypsy to a pediatric neurologist so he's basically like this is above my qualifications you need to go to someone more specific it's so upsetting how many handoffs there are okay but that's how dd and gypsy ended up at the office of dr bernardo flasterstein and he did what any neurologist would do he ordered complete mris of gypsy's brain and spine neurological exams muscle strength exams and more so the results from the mris come back normal no evidence of muscular dystrophy no neurological degeneration no brain anomalies that would or could explain the severe symptoms that dd was describing and then came a red flag when dr flasterstein examined gypsy's legs the first thing he noticed was that she had remarkably good muscle tone for someone who according to dd had not walked in nine years like that doesn't happen right she's a secret midnight bedroom walker atrophy if you don't walk for nine years oh my gosh there's like and if you're not walking for nine you're still going into physical therapy like you're getting massages you're getting your muscles like stretched and stuff because if you don't that can make everything worse okay so he thought that this was odd he didn't really know what to make of it he's still trying to put it all together from a medical perspective right and then dd's reaction gave him pause when he explained the results to her the gypsy had great muscle tone dd got angry and then stormed out of his office with gypsy in tow and this was not the reaction that dr flasterstein was expecting he was like okay i'm giving dd this great news right her daughter is actually healthy this is so amazing which dd could have said like oh i do a lot of therapy with her or pt and all these things but no she was like that's not the diagnosis i wanted to hear right yeah so this made him extremely suspicious of what was going on dd continued to bring gypsy into his office for over two years and while it's not clear what specifically happened over those two years after one appointment in 2007 dr flasterstein decided to write something down in gypsy rose's file he wrote that he suspected munchausen by proxy that gypsy rose was not the problem dd was it is so sad and knowing that a doctor had suspicion of it but it never escalated to anything else like the only reason we know this file exists is because of the eventual murder and trial that took place after the fact but instead it remained tucked in a file for years nothing ever came of it in his defense suspicion is not the same as proof and it's very very hard to prove munchausen by proxy or fdia as it's called now but it does make you wonder like if he had reported it would it have made a difference i don't know yeah it's hard unfortunately we can't live in hypotheticals um and around the same time that he started to have his suspicion is also the exact same time dd abruptly stopped taking gypsy to see him which doesn't insinuate like there was something that happened but we don't know she then found a doctor in 2007 who was an ear nose and throat doctor and convinced him that there was a problem with gypsy's salivary glands that made gypsy drool excessively and that he had to surgically remove them and he did again surgery that she didn't need and also just for like the most random i know it's like try botox or something first it's horrible as you imagine the recovery wasn't easy gypsy was sent home with painkillers and when the bottle ran out she was still in a lot of discomfort so she decided to take her health care into her own hands and not in a safe way she knew that dd had been taking vicodin ever since the car accident back in what was that 2000 and she knew where she kept them so gypsy would sneak a couple and it made her feel so much better that she started to go back for more dd did confront her about it once but gypsy rose lied promising she hadn't taken anything and this is where we start to see some real friction in their relationship because now gypsy is getting older she's getting wiser and like most teenagers do she was starting to resist against her mother but it started really small that dd didn't really notice and also i feel like dd was just so involved in her own like how things impacted her right she wasn't fully aware of what gypsy was really doing yeah well and also gypsy had followed everything she said for years and years and years so she probably didn't think she needed to question her exactly yeah ever since hurricane katrina the local news coverage on gypsy and dd led to more and more charities giving things to the blanchards in 2008 habitat for humanity gave dd the keys to another brand new custom-built home in springfield it was fully wheelchair accessible with a ramp in the front row this is just so upsetting because like this is take that took a house away from someone who needed it actually needed it yeah it was fully wheelchair accessible with a ramp in the front and extra wide doorways there was even a jacuzzi tub to provide therapy for gypsy's muscles like they were getting all of these advantages because people believed the story yep organizations like make a wish gave them an all-expense paid trip to disneyland and to disney world the video about this i remember this one very clearly i feel like i remember like it's an interview of her either it's right before or right after she had gone and she's like talking about all the characters she met and she's so excited the disney trips were definitely um a perfect opportunity for gypsy to show off all of her princess dresses that she had and they even got to go backstage to a miranda lambert concert and meet miranda lambert so so many different perks so many different things that are happening which other people deserved more yeah fun exciting right like this is all great especially for dd and honestly like i'm glad gypsy rose got to do all these things these are like probably the shining lights of childhood the only moments that like were wonderful yeah but none of this actually made gypsy feel happy although she had her mom gypsy really just wanted friends right like a normal relationship with someone yeah beyond her mom like her mom is still her entire life and her mom is not a normal relationship no definitely not at this point gypsy rose is 14 years old and even with her health issues she still really wanted to bond with kids her age just like any other teenager would want to do right but dd pretty much made that impossible whenever they were out in public dd usually had her armor on gypsy she was holding her hand controlling if gypsy started to say something dd didn't like dd would like give her a really quick squeeze and basically silence her like stop talking now even when they weren't right next to each other dd was always lurking somewhere nearby and gypsy just felt like she never had the moment or ability to speak her mind at all not even about normal teenage stuff like having a boyfriend then in 2009 the leukemia and lymphoma society sent gypsy a laptop for christmas and finally she had a place away from her mom where her mom could not watch her which was the internet yeah every night when dd went to sleep gypsy would tiptoe to the laptop and go online she created a secret facebook account and started messaging other kids in the neighborhood she was so desperate to become friends with some of the like really cool 17 and 18 year olds that she'd seen and night after night she would keep talking to people online many of them strangers so by 2011 gypsy had a whole secret life online okay this is a very important part of the story at this point in 2011 gypsy rose believes she is 16 years old because that is what her mother told her her mother told her she was born in 1995 but the truth was gypsy rose was actually 19 going on 20 and she herself made that shocking discovery when she found a copy of the book gypsy rose was actually 19 going on 20 and she herself made that shocking discovery when she found a copy of the book of her medicaid card and on it it listed her birth year as 1991 not 1995 as her mom had told her i'm actually just so surprised by that because the amount of times that they were in doctor's offices you like every time you're in the room you have to repeat but that's your birthday or like your child's birthday dd had like manipulated gypsy like whether covering her ears or pulling a doctor aside like let's talk about this specific thing outside i don't want to upset her like it was so controlling yeah and strategic but so when gypsy found this she was shocked and it revealed to her that her mother had been lying to her and that shattered her reality like if dd had lied to her the person that she could trust and depend on if she had lied to her about this what else was dd keeping from her i mean it's hard to know the specifics but apparently she didn't question the medical side of things she was more concerned about like the age aspect of it and she was very confused well it's also like this the discovery that your mom is lying to you i feel like that is just so shocking especially with the age thing that it probably takes a while to digest that before your mind will even allow you to start questioning anything else it's not like it just shatters your world and you're like oh my god everything's a lie yeah yeah it's not taking the like blue or red pill right it's more of like a wait this is shocking i don't know how to process the slow fizzle but realization she does keep the discovery to herself like she's not sure what she wants to do with it she is in shock she feels like she can't trust her mom and she keeps it to herself and decides that she wants to run away but the only problem is she didn't have any friends or anyone really who could help her and she couldn't reach out to her dad because she believed he was an alcoholic who left because of gypsy so she thought through her options and then she realized there is one person she could talk to a guy she had been talking to online and she was talking to him online and she was talking to him online and she was talking to his name was dan gypsy had actually met dan in person earlier in 2011 at a convention called vision con in fact dd had also met him too because she obviously accompanied gypsy to this convention to everything yes after the convention gypsy sent dan a facebook friend request and they had been chatting ever since although dan was in his 30s and gypsy was 16 or so she believed they had shared interests and gypsy thought that he was going to be a good friend and he was going to be a good friend and he was really funny and most importantly he always listened to gypsy when she would tell him about how controlling dd was it seemed like he truly cared about her which is why after talking for a few months and after making the discovery of her real age gypsy confided in him and hearing everything dan immediately offered to help her run away from her house to his home in arkansas dd would never find her there right gypsy was so obsessed with disney and princesses and the idea of falling in love and a prince sweeping her off of her feet saving her and that combined with basically her complete lack of education about life and love and her body and all of this just like led gypsy to live in this fantasy world and she thought that if she ran away this would be her happily ever after dan informed gypsy that he was going to be staying with some friends in springfield the same town that gypsy lived in which meant that would be the perfect time for her to be with him and he was going to be staying with some friends gypsy packed a bag with clothes and toiletries stole a thousand dollars from dd's wallet along with a bottle of vicodin then ran out the door without her wheelchair and when she first stepped outside she was terrified because this is like the first time she'd really ever been without her mother but the further she got the more free she felt until reality started to sink in and she realized that she had no way to get to dan's place like yeah she had the address but that was it she had never taken public transportation she had never taken public transportation she had never taken public transportation she really didn't know how to get around like she had been dependent on her mother to get everywhere yeah so she decided to hitchhike and surprisingly how scary i know she did get where she needed to go but dd discovered that gypsy had left and what did dd do she tracked her down and gypsy rose and dan awoke in the morning to dd pounding on the door because it turns out dd had woken up in the middle of the night found gypsy gone searched the house and found gypsy's cell phone which had fallen out of her bag as gypsy was like running out the door and all of the messages were on the phone including the address where gypsy and dan were meeting dd promised gypsy that if she came home with her she could keep seeing dan so finally gypsy rose went home with dd on their way back gypsy confronted dd about her age and dd insisted that gypsy was born in 1995 and even made a pit stop at an office supply store to print out a copy of gypsy's birth certificate for her in quotations yep sure enough the birth date read july 27th 1995 just like dd had always said gypsy thought that there was still something off about it though because the numbers kind of looked a little bit smudged but before she could take a closer look dd snatched the paper back she said that the matter was settled and that was that gypsy did not get to argue and as soon as they stepped inside of the house dd's calm demeanor gypsy had never seen her mom so angry before and so mean she said really awful things she called gypsy a tramp told her that she was evil and then gypsy she didn't even get a chance to defend herself dd just stormed off and then a moment later she came back carrying a hammer and then she took gypsy's laptop and phone and smashed them into pieces before turning on gypsy herself she slapped gypsy hard across the face and then tied her to the bed with a dog leash and handcuffs she kept gypsy there for two weeks as far as we know up until this point like yes there was like blatant abuse going on but it was abuse that gypsy rose was not aware of was abuse yep this is the moment not where it turns and dd realizes because gypsy is pushing against her that she has to be like dd turns physical yep she's like literally restraining her and she's like she's like she's like she's like restraining her yeah she dd keeps her daughter gypsy trapped completely at her mercy for two weeks gypsy couldn't even go to the bathroom without dd's help and when dd finally untied her gypsy did not try to run again instead she acted like she learned her lesson and things slowly returned back to their normal gypsy rose never spoke to or saw dan again and while she obeyed her mother's rules and behaved gypsy rose dreamt of her prince charming desperately wanting to find him and she didn't know what to do and she didn't know what to do and she didn't know Eventually, Dee Dee bought another computer that Gypsy could use only only when she was watching. But Gypsy knew that Dee Dee took a pill to fall asleep at night and that she slept very soundly. And so every night she waited until she heard the familiar sound of Dee Dee snoring and she would go to that computer and then log on online. And it was here online in October of 2012 that Gypsy Rose met Nicholas Godejohn, her prince charming, or so she thought. So shortly after getting a computer and being able to go back online, Gypsy Rose, desperate for that prince charming and wanting this experience of having a boyfriend, she decided to sign up for a Christian dating site. She browsed various profiles before Nicholas Godejohn caught her eye. Nicholas was 23 years old. He lived in Wisconsin and from his picture, Gypsy was like, oh, he's cute. She sent him a message and he replied almost instantly. Throughout their communications, Gypsy learned that Nick, Gypsy, he had also grown up with a single mom and didn't seem to be close to his dad. Nick told Gypsy that he had been diagnosed with autism as a kid, which made it really hard for him to socialize in real life, that no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't seem to make friends, at least not in person. And so this is like, you know, they feel like have a very similar life experiences and that now being online, he found it a lot easier to communicate, which is the same for Gypsy. Like she's finally, making friends online. So after Nick opened up to her, Gypsy decided to do the same and she was worried that he might not like her after telling him about being in a wheelchair, but Nick promised it didn't change his feelings, that if anything, it was another thing that made them perfect for each other. Nick knew what it was like to live with a disability and to feel different from everyone else. And he believed that this was fate, that they found each other. And now that they had each other, they never had to feel alone again, which as a young girl who was desperate for a prince charming, like this sounds amazing. Right. It's magical. Pretty soon, Gypsy and Nick are talking for hours every single night. And within a week of their first conversation, they were officially boyfriend and girlfriend. This was a fairytale love, the fairytale love that 21-year-old Gypsy had been waiting for her whole life. By 2013, they'd been talking in secret, for about a year. And Gypsy felt like it was finally time that she could trust Nick with this huge secret, one that she had never shared or really admitted out loud. Even though she used a wheelchair every day, she could walk on her own. To Gypsy's surprise, Nick took the news pretty well. Actually, he said that he already knew that she could walk. When she asked how, he said, he already knew everything about her. Plus, he added he had psychic powers. Wait, real quick on the, her admitting that she can walk without a wheelchair. This is something that's used later in courts to like indicate that she did have knowledge of the like medical deception. But I think like it also proves her confusion. Like she was led to believe she needed a wheelchair, but when she's home, she's able to walk around and stuff. She's very confused as a girl. Right. Nick decides to share one of his secrets with her, something he had never told anyone. He had multiple personalities. Which today that's known as dissociative identity disorder or DID, but Nick has never been officially diagnosed with it. Yeah. Even without a diagnosis though, it was very real to him and he thought it would be great if each of his personalities had their own girlfriends. So he described each one to Gypsy and she invented characters that matched. It came pretty naturally to Gypsy who already loved to love and play pretend. And it wasn't long before that role playing turned sexual. And together they created an intricate fantasy life that was nothing like Gypsy's reality. A beautifully designed Squarespace website is the difference between thinking about photography school and selling your portraits online. It's the difference between giving away those cookies you just made for free and running your cookie empire. A beautifully designed Squarespace website is the difference between having a movie reviewing hobby and a movie reviewing career. Squarespace, because no matter what you're into, a website makes it real. Use offer code difference for 50% off select plans. Terms and conditions apply. In real life, Gypsy was still seeing a parade of doctors. Although at this point is when she starts to suspect that she wasn't actually sick. But even though Didi still insisted that she had medical conditions. So now Gypsy no longer trusts her mother. And that escalated abuse that we were talking about earlier didn't help. Didi would continue to slap and punch Gypsy Rose if she said something that Didi didn't like. Gypsy Rose was biting her tongue, but this fire and like this like anger was building within her to the point where she was like, I need to get away. One night she's chatting with Nick online and she made a confession. She told Nick that the only thing she wanted was for someone to protect her. So Nick was like, I need to get away. And she was like, so Nick quickly assures her like, I would do anything to keep you safe. Gypsy was thrilled to hear that. But she wanted to know if Nick would protect her from anyone. He said yes. And Gypsy Rose admitted that the most dangerous person in her life was her own mother. And all of this communication is like has been admitted into court. Like we have their conversations. This was the beginning of the end. Gypsy Rose confessed the extent of the abuse to Nick as she understood it, like the control, the strange medical stuff, the abuse. And by the end of that conversation, Nick was furious and determined that he was going to rescue Gypsy at any cost. There was a small problem though. While Gypsy and Nick were planning their future together, they'd never actually met in person. In March of 2015, after two years of dating, 23-year-old Gypsy decided it was time to change that. But Didi never left Gypsy Rose. Out of her sight. So this was going to be a little tricky. So together, Gypsy and Nick hatched a plan to make it look like they would just randomly meet in public. So Gypsy and Didi were planning to go see a new live action remake of Cinderella that month. So she and Nick decided that this would be the perfect time to quote unquote meet. Nick was to take the bus from Waukesha to so happened to be seeing the same movie. He would strike up conversation with Didi. And since she and Gypsy loved all things Disney, Didi would be bound to be in a good mood, right? From there, Gypsy imagined that Nick and Didi would become friends. And then when Gypsy and Nick revealed that they were actually dating, Didi wouldn't just be supportive. She would actually be really happy for them. This is like such a fantasy. It is. It reminds me of in Gilmore Girls, Lane comes up with a plot like this with the character that Adam Brody plays. The drummer in the band. Yeah. Or no, she's the drummer, but yeah, the band. Yeah. It's very childlike. It is. It's childish. Yeah. So this day comes and Gypsy Rose and Didi, they got ready to go to the movie. They even got dressed up in a full Cinderella costume, complete with big curly blonde wigs. And they drove to the theater and Didi bought their tickets. Gypsy Rose looked around anxiously searching for her prince charming. She's probably like so excited. I know. And anxious. Like the pit in your stomach. Yeah. And then she saw him. Nick was wearing a white collared shirt and a blue tie that perfectly matched her dress. They locked eyes despite never meeting in person. Their love for one another was palpable. This was the moment that she had been dreaming of for years, but she had to play it cool. Nick walked over and said hello to Didi and then turned to Gypsy. Gypsy took Nick's outstretched hand, shaking it like he was just some guy that she was meeting for the first time. There's a lot of holes in this plot, but like strangers aren't this nice. No. You don't just walk up to someone and say, hello, we're seeing the same movie. Let's be friends. Right. And like a male in his 30s. By himself. By himself walking up to a mother and daughter who the mother is trying to pretend the daughter is like five years younger than she actually is. Yeah. So they think that their plan is working perfectly right. But Gypsy had barely said hi when Didi yanked her away, pushing her chair down the hall to the auditorium. Nick followed them in and they all found their seats. And when the lights went down, he went and sat right next to Gypsy. It was dark enough that they actually were able to hold hands when the film started. And that's not all they did. This part blows my mind. I know. This is so good. According to Gypsy, at some point in the movie, she said she had to go to the bathroom, which Didi let her go on her own. After she willed herself out, Nick got up to mentioning something about going to go get popcorn. As a mother, would you? I'm up to, I'll go get popcorn too. Actually, I have to go to the bathroom. The fact that he even sat next to them, like alarm bells. I'm not even a mother. But I'd say this is weird. We're leaving or at the very least where I'm sitting next to him and you're sitting on the other side of me. Which also kind of proves that Didi is so self-involved that she probably, because she probably loves Cinderella and Disney so much that she's like not even paying attention to that. Man, he follows Gypsy into the men's room where they had sex in the handicapped stall. This was a huge moment for Gypsy because not only did she just lose her virginity to a man that she was in love with, but also did she just lose her virginity to a man that she was in love with. But also the circumstances were a little bit less than ideal. So the bathroom stall, not the rush back she couldn't just like be with her love she'd rush back into the movie theater so that her mom dd wouldn't get suspicious also i feel like she didn't even really know what sex was like did she even understand what was happening oh it just breaks my heart internet access i'm sure she was still yes but what you're learning on the internet is probably a little bit more deranged that's true it's very different than yeah yes so when the movie ended dd made sure that they left the theater as quickly as possible gypsy did not have a chance to even ask what she thought of nick because dd went on and on about that guy that was next to them and how she did not like him she thought he was really creepy it's not normal for this grown man to be at a kid's movie alone all the things that we agree are weird he was way too interested in them and gypsy's like what and she's trying to defend him but that just started a bigger argument and her heart was shattered because this plan that she thought was like the perfect you failed miserably so later that night gypsy messaged nick while he was taking the bus back to wisconsin and she tells him that unfortunately their plan did not work but that was not end of the game right they were like we just need to be better we need to make a better plan and get creative she briefly considered getting pregnant this which is why i really don't think she had any understanding of like pregnancy and her body and sexuality so the more she thought about it she thought more could go wrong and that like dd would make her get an abortion all of these things nick suggested running away but gypsy reminded him that she had tried that like because of the experience that she had with dan she knew that running away wouldn't solve the issue that dd would always find her no matter what that's like such a horror movie with the way you said it like because it is always find you and that was like the moment it hit her that it seemed like as long as dd was alive gypsy would never be free and she had an epiphany maybe that was the problem that as long as dd was alive gypsy rose would never be free so in a way if dd was no longer alive then gypsy would be free which meant they had to get rid of dd's nick asked if she was serious and gypsy said yes but gypsy couldn't stomach the idea of killing her mother herself she didn't have it in her to kill anyone let alone her mother so she asked nick if he would do it and he said yes after agreeing to murder dd blanchard nick told gypsy rose that it wouldn't be that hard all he had to do was unleash victor victor was one of nick's multiple personalities he was a 500 year old vampire and he was a killing machine victor was always filling nick's head with thoughts of violence fantasizing about doing all sorts of terrible things and he was nick's darkest side he would get the job done with this agreed upon murder plot all they had to do was now plan the details of how dd would be killed it's also just so sad because there's so much undiagnosed unattended mental health issues in this episode reminds me a little bit of the slender man killings as well yeah the details gypsy wanted to add she really just wanted it to be fast just because dd needed to die didn't mean that gypsy wanted her mom to suffer so she suggested that nick should use a gun but nick said no that would be way too loud the neighbors would hear it they wouldn't be able to like get away with it as quickly or like run away from the scene as quickly as they would need to and so then nick suggested a knife because it would be quick it would be quiet and that was that it only took a few months to get everything ready gypsy managed to steal an 11 inch hunting knife from walmart which like i can't picture how she did it with her mom always next to her she's in a wheelchair in public which is probably why it was easier to do it because no one's going to question this like sweet innocent girl yeah in a wheelchair i don't know okay anyway gypsy steals an 11 inch hunting knife from walmart she gradually starts taking small amounts of money from dd's wallet and she's sending them in the mail to nick in wisconsin and she's like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know so that he can have enough money for a bus ticket and spend a few nights in a motel so that he can get there to continue with the plan yeah as soon as he got the money nick bought a bus ticket to springfield and on june 8th 2015 nick boarded the bus to springfield missouri the drive was 17 hours and it went overnight and so he arrived early morning june 9th as soon as he stepped off the bus he texted gypsy that he made it she responded yay exclamation point like this was just like a visit just like a fun hangout yeah and all that was left for nick to do was wait for gypsy's signal so he checked into the motel he bided his time her job was much harder though because gypsy rose had to spend the entire day with dd pretending like everything was normal the hours took by slowly until finally the sun began to set and as they settled in for the night dd and gypsy put on a they painted each other's nails it was pretty late by the time the movie finished and afterwards dd took her sleeping pill and she went to bed gypsy said i love you and pretended to also go to bed she then texted nick that it was time and just as content warning and a heads up the next section does have some really graphic violence descriptions so if you do want to skip all that i would skip like a minute ahead so after receiving that text nick took a cab from the motel to gypsy's house gypsy met him at the door with the knife and some gloves she shut herself into the bathroom as nick went to dd's bedroom she sat in the bathroom with the door shut and her hands over her ears and even with all that gypsy could hear dd screaming her name as nick committed the murder according to gypsy rose's testimony that comes later dd begged for help before everything went silent after about five minutes nick knocked on the bathroom door and when gypsy opened the door nick was covered in blood the majority of the blood was dd's but during the attack he had also cut himself and his finger was bleeding and gypsy didn't know it at the time but nick had stabbed dd 17 times in the back and neck the reality of that moment never truly sunk in and gypsy was caught up in the plan it was like okay that's done next thing there's also probably a lot to be said about her upbringing and how it impacted her ability to understand like psychologically understand her ability to understand the gravity of this moment so instead of the horror she was like okay i know we can't let any of your dna be left behind so they do some cleaning up and they gather her things and for the very last time gypsy rose walked out the door and instead of feeling guilty in that moment gypsy felt free they took a cab back to nick's hotel room and spent the day in bed together like this like honeymoon afterwards they went to the bus station to head back to nick's home and where he lived with his mom and stepdad and throughout the drive back gypsy spent a lot of time looking out the window imagining and like living in the fantasy of her future with nick but it's as she's doing this and also it's a 17-hour ride she starts to have this like fear she didn't care that nick still lived at home but he didn't have a job and she knows that like in order for them to have a future together nick needs to have a job like how is he supposed to provide for them like how are they supposed to get their life started and all of these concerns start to form in her mind but even still she doesn't regret what she had done but then at the same time a part of her did miss her mom the two made it back to nick's house and they hunkered down there living together like a normal couple days passed and there was no news about dd this concerned gypsy rose and it actually broke gypsy's heart to think about her mom just like dead and alone no one going to find her no one going to go look for her so on june 14th 2015 five days after the murder gypsy logged into dd's facebook account and posted the status that bitch is dead the same message that triggered concern and ultimately led to the welfare check right so like the idea of being like she wanted someone to find her mom right yeah and the gruesome discovery of dd blanchard's mutilated body was then discovered like we mentioned in the beginning of the episode investigators thought that gypsy rose was also a victim and that she had been abducted and they figured that he was going to be able to find her mom and they figured that he was going to be able to find her mom and they figured that he was going to be able to find her mom killed dd had also kidnapped gypsy and they had to track the killer down so that's when they did the subpoena for facebook ip and this led to them receiving nick's home address early the next morning on june 15th the walkershaw county police department went to nick's house they weren't sure what they were going to find there and based on the scene at the blanchard residence nick was potentially very dangerous they didn't know if he had gypsy with him what state she might be in and so no one was expecting that when the door was answered it would be answered by gypsy coming out on her own two feet completely unharmed and there of her own free will nick followed her out and both were taken into custody despite being in custody and the entire situation being completely confounding and confusing officials didn't believe that gypsy had anything to do with her mom's murder this belief was reinforced when an officer sat down with gypsy at the station to inform her that her mother had been murdered and gypsy rose broke down crying acting shocked but it was all part of a plan that her and nick had concocted because they did think eventually like they would be asked questions they had agreed to tell the authorities that dd kicked gypsy out of the out of the house which is why she was in wisconsin with nick after that they were supposed to say they didn't know anything that had happened nick tried to stick to the plan and he did so for a full 20 minutes but after those 20 minutes he confessed he confessed to killing dd blanchard but he was very very clear that the only reason he did it was because gypsy asked him to which the evidence did back him up on that and at that time sheriffs had gotten access to gypsy's computer back in springfield and that meant that they found the entire back and forth messages between her and nick where plain as day the murder plot everything was written out that alone would have been enough to have gypsy rose arraigned and then the waukesha police department found the bloody murder weapon in nick's closet right where he had told them it would be so now they had the confession they had plenty of evidence they were able to make an arrest on june 16th gypsy and nick were both formally charged with first degree murder and that news spread very quickly and when the family and friends of gypsy and dd heard they were shocked all they could do was watch the footage of gypsy walking into the wisconsin courtroom walk keep in mind she was nothing like the sick girl they had known on july 24th 2015 24 year old gypsy appeared before a judge for a preliminary hearing of the case and the judge said she was not in a state of emergency at this point it did seem like gypsy understood the extent the full extent of dd's lies so she knew that she didn't have muscular dystrophy she knew she didn't have cancer and in fact she knew she wasn't sick at all the preliminary hearing took place in springfield and rod and christy blanchard were able to attend in person and this was bittersweet and certainly life-altering for them too because rod was now faced with the reality that his daughter was in fact healthy and had always been healthy and she was able to attend in person and she was been healthy which is such a relief but now she's being charged with murder and also the fact that she had been abused right for years and years and years yeah gypsy tried to convince him that she was innocent but the evidence proved otherwise as the prosecution entered the chats between gypsy and nick into evidence gypsy still glances at her family there was no lying her way out of this now it was clear that she was guilty but rod wanted to believe that gypsy rose had a good reason for that he could find a lawyer that could prove this because the family had very little in terms of like financial resources gypsy rose was given a state appointed attorney a public defender named mike stanfield mike took one look at the case and knew that there was a lot more to it i mean case of a lifetime case of a freaking lifetime but untangling the depths of dd's eyes wasn't easy so when mike finally got access to all of gypsy's medical records his office was practically buried under a mountain of paperwork there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of documents to go through but eventually he did find a letter from dr flasterstein from 2007 the letter the letter saying he suspected dd to be the problem and the dd had munchausen by proxy syndrome of course she couldn't officially be diagnosed with it now because dd was dead but gypsy's records showed that there was a lot of evidence to show that dd was guilty of medical child abuse so in early 2016 mike presented their records as mitigation evidence on gypsy's behalf and the prosecution looked it over and quickly agreed to a plea deal gypsy would not be going to trial which is interesting because i feel like had they gone to trial would gypsy have gotten off yeah i wonder if she'd go to prison at all right clearly the prosecution knew that a trial would not go in their favor after all these documents yes but anyway on july 5th 2016 a little over a year after dd was murdered 24 year old gypsy rose pleaded guilty to second degree murder she was sentenced to the minimum 10 years and sent to chillicothe correctional center in ohio and honestly prison turned out to be pretty good for gypsy because she was finally able to eat freely speak freely and make decisions for herself which would have happened i think either way because her mom had died most importantly she was able to get therapy and process the things that had happened which was also part of the reason that gypsy agreed to testify on behalf of nick's defense she was two years into her sentence and wanted to take accountability for her part so on november 15th 2018 gypsy took the stand and told the jury that it was entirely her idea to kill dd and that she had asked nick to do it for her unfortunately for nick though it didn't really work out in his way because the difference came down to choice right and there was a mountain of evidence that showed gypsy truly believed she was out of options and also psychologically impaired in a way to really know the consequences whereas nick was not under that pressure he chose and made the decision to kill and kind of excitedly she was able to do it assigned one of his personalities to do it like he had wanted that so on february 22nd 2019 29 year old nick go to john was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the opportunity for parole and he is currently serving that sentence in potosi correctional center in missouri on december 28th 2023 so recent 32 year old gypsy rose blanchard was released from prison after serving eight years of her 10-year sentence upon her release she immediately got onto social media and gained millions of followers she's done multiple high-profile interviews released multiple memoirs starred in a lifetime docu-series called gypsy rose life after lockup got married separated and then got back with a former fiance i do really want to believe that the therapy she received while in prison helped her but there's also a part of me that just worries about such prolonged abuse and trauma that she endured that's a hard thing are like people trying to manipulate her still yeah it's tough but we're not psychological professionals and we also haven't spoken to gypsy rose herself all we can really talk about or judge upon is what has been shared in the media which we also know that like media can be deceiving but the truth is her story is devastating she was 100 manipulated and abused by the person that was meant to care and love for her and yes she is guilty for the murder of her mother but like she is 100 a victim yeah and that's what makes this case so tricky too and also popular because a lot of people wonder whether justice was really served here because didi's life wasn't the only one that was stolen gypsy's was too yeah since her release gypsy has spoken up about her role in the murder she's acknowledged that she knew she could walk that she did actively lie but she also didn't have a choice her mother taught her that disobeying would be punished she would be physically abused or starved or literally physically mutilated her mother had total control over her and that's just all around sad it does make me wish that someone had stepped in sooner and especially in retrospect and talking about the case like chronologically granted i know we have the privilege to do that but there are so many places looking back at it that i like want to scream and just be like ah like someone do something when you do something yeah but prior to this case fdia or munchausen by proxy was not well known and well talked about and it still isn't something that is easy to diagnose no it's incredibly difficult in fact this case raised a lot more awareness about it like i feel like when you think about munchausen by proxy you think about this case yes so there is hope that perhaps this case has helped other victims escape the abuse there is no good way to end an episode as tragic as this one so i guess we'll just reflect on how this case highlights how blurred the line between good and evil is and i think that's a really good can be and then we'll pass it back to you our listeners the jury what do you think about this case and also go watch the act on hulu if you haven't patricia arquette is such an incredible actress like the whole show is fictionalized dramatized version based on this case just anything she's in oh yeah amazing and also if you happen to question if you might be a victim of munchausen or if you know someone who is munchausen support.com is a great resource there's a lot of groups out there support groups and organizations put together that use their funding to help people find safe housing and look into their cases with legal backings and lawyers involved so we'll put information on those resources in the show notes if you want those but thank you so much for listening we are your hosts sabrina diana roga and corinne vienne join us next tuesday for another peek inside another crimes of deception and if there are any other cases that you want us to cover please let us know in the comments we read them all so share here at crime house we want to thank each and every one of you for your support and if you like what you heard today reach out on all social media at crime house don't forget to rate review and follow crimes of wherever you get your podcasts your feedback truly makes a difference court is dismissed goodbye jury hi i'm connor tomlinson you might know me from love on the spectrum history is my thing and i have been waiting my whole life for a show like this one and i'm carter Roy. 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