Dee Dee Blancharde was an exemplary parent to those looking on from afar. Dee Dee, a single mother, was alone caring for her seriously ill daughter, Gypsy Rose. However, it became clear that the facts were not what they seemed, with a terrible murder committed in June 2015.
And this murder came to the fore once again years later. Here is the incredible event that has been the subject of TV series and documentary films, and the developments that brought this event to the agenda again...
Dee Dee and Gypsy had lived in a little pink cottage on West Volunteer Way in Springfield, Missouri, USA, for 7 years. They were people loved by their neighbors. According to those around them, "It was impossible for anyone who met this mother and daughter to forget them."
Dee Dee, a native of Louisiana, was 48 years old at the time. She was a large, sweet-looking woman. Her brightly colored clothes also contributed to her look. She was holding her curly brunette hair up with ribbons.
Gypsy-Rose Alcida Blanchard-Anderson (born July 27, 1991) is an American woman who was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, and sentenced to ten years in prison. Following her mother's death, Blanchard gained international notoriety, and her story was eventually adapted into a Hulu limited series, The Act (2019).
Those who knew her knew Dee Dee as a generous person. She didn't always have money, but she never hesitated to spend her time with her loved ones. She could easily make friends and make people like her. She wasn't working anywhere. She spent all her time caring for her teenage daughter, Gypsy.
Gypsy was a small girl, 1.5 meters tall. She was living wheelchair-bound. She was wearing huge glasses called "bottle-bottom glasses". She had many health problems, with her pale skin, her body with limited bones, and her broken teeth that were constantly aching. She was fed through a tube connected to her stomach, and from time to time she could breathe with the help of an oxygen tube.
SHE SAID SHE HAD THE INTELLIGENCE OF A 7-YEAR-OLD CHILD
Dee Dee responded to questions about her daughter's illness with a long list: Gypsy Rose struggled with chromosomal disorders, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, severe asthma, sleep apnea, and eye problems. She has been in this situation since she was a baby. She was taken to intensive care as soon as she was born, and she had leukemia when she was 2-3 years old.
These health problems she experienced were also reflected in Gypsy's voice. His voice was very thin and childlike. Dee Dee often reminded people around her that Gypsy had a brain injury and that she was homeschooled because it was impossible for her to keep up with the other children. This friendly, talkative girl, she said, had the intelligence of a 7-year-old child. Dee Dee wanted everyone who interacted with her daughter to consider this fact. Gypsy loved princess costumes and wore huge Cinderella wigs and hats on her tiny head.
Mother and daughter were never separated from each other. Gypsy once said, "We're like a pair of shoes. One of us is useless without the other."
Like the other houses around them, their pink cottage was built by the charity Habitat for Humanity. The house also had a wheelchair ramp to make Gypsy's life easier and a jacuzzi to "relax her muscles," as the girl said in a 2008 television interview.
Sometimes on summer nights, Dee Dee would broadcast movies on the projector she projected onto the wall of the house. Children and families living nearby who could not afford to go to the cinema would come and watch these films with Gypsy. Dee Dee was getting paid for the snacks eaten during this time, but in any case, it was cheaper than the movie theater. The money collected was spent on Gypsy's treatment expenses.
THE GIRL TOLD HORRIBLE THINGS ABOUT HER FATHER
Dee Dee's best friend was Amy Pinegar, a single mother of four children. Over the years, Dee Dee had told her life story to this woman. She had fled Louisiana, she said, to escape the abuses of her own family and to save her daughter as well. The last straw was when Dee Dee's father put out a cigarette on Gypsy's body.
Gypsy's father was also a terrible person who was addicted to drugs. He made fun of his daughter's disabilities and called the Paralympics a "freak show". He didn't help his daughter and mother even a penny. Even when they lost their home in Hurricane Katrina, he didn't move a finger. It was a charitable doctor they met at the shelter who brought the mother and daughter to Missouri.
These were very heavy things for Amy. She was trying to help her friend and her daughter as much as she could. Mother and daughter looked happy despite everything. They were attending charity events at Disney World and meeting celebrities through the Make-a-Wish Foundation. In a report published in BuzzFeed News in 2016, Amy admitted that she was jealous of them from time to time.
It was a heartwarming story. Having survived many tragedies and disasters, the mother and daughter managed to build a life for themselves despite all the obstacles. But the story didn't end there.
In June 2015, a post was made on Dee Dee's Facebook page: "That bitch is dead!"
The calendars showed June 14. It was a hot Sunday afternoon. Many people were tucked into air-conditioned interiors and scrolling through social media. The first few comments on the post were from Dee Dee's close friends. He tries to make sense of the message, "Are you hacked?" they asked. While these discussions were continuing, a comment full of profanity was written in broken English on Dee Dee's account: "I chopped up that fat pig and raped his sweet innocent daughter..."
Kim Blanchard, who lives nearby, was one of the first to react. Despite the similarity of their surnames, they were not relatives. Kim met mother and daughter at a science fiction convention in 2009 and thought they were great people.
Kim called Dee Dee on the phone and got no response. Thereupon, Kim went to the mother-daughter's house with her husband David, and encountered worried neighbors gathered in front of the door. Dee Dee and Gypsy could not be reached from time to time because they went to other cities such as Kansas City for treatment. That's why they wanted to consider good possibilities. The windows of the house where the mother and daughter lived were covered with film, so the inside could not be seen. Those who knocked on the door could not get an answer. It was also worrying that the panel van Dee Dee had bought to easily transport Gypsy from place to place was parked in front of the house.
Kim called 911. The police could not enter the house without a search warrant, but David could do so, she said. When David entered the house, everything seemed normal. The lights were off and the air conditioner was on. Gypsy's wheelchairs were also in place.
While waiting for a search warrant, the police began taking statements from people around them. Meanwhile, Kim was writing about the developments on Facebook and trying to respond to the bombardment of questions. The news was spreading quickly throughout Missouri. Finally, Kim wrote, "I know you guys are worried, but let's realize that the person who wrote this message can read all of this."
It was 22:45 when the search warrant was issued. Police found Dee Dee's lifeless body in her bedroom. She had been stabbed and had been dead for several days. There was no sign of Gypsy.
THE POLICE STARTED TO PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER
The next day, Kim immediately started a campaign to raise money for Dee Dee's (and perhaps Gypsy's) funeral expenses. Everyone feared the worst. What could have happened to that tiny defenseless girl? Who could be bad enough to hurt someone like that?
Meanwhile, the police had begun to put the pieces together. The testimony of a young woman named Aleah Woodmansee filled in many gaps. The most important thing Aleah told the police was that Gypsy had a secret lover.
Aleah, 23, was Amy Pinegar's daughter and worked as an insurance investigator. She saw Gypsy as her little sister. However, the time when the two of them were alone was very rare. Because Dee Dee never left their side.
One of these times, Gypsy told Aleah that she had created a secret Facebook account under the name "Emma Rose" and was hiding this fact from her overprotective mother. She later admitted that she met a man on a dating site and fell in love. She knew her mother would not approve of these. Gypsy wasn't allowed to date. But she wanted to live a life like her peer girls.
This boyfriend's name was Nicholas Godejohn. They had been texting for over two years and Nick didn't care that Gypsy was wheelchair bound. Gypsy was planning to marry this young man. They had even decided on the names of their future children. She wanted to introduce her mother to Nick by chance one day when they went to the movies and then live their relationship openly.
Although Dee Dee claimed that her daughter had the mind of a 7-year-old child, Gypsy's thoughts about love and sexuality suggested otherwise. This situation worried Aleah. Because she thought Gypsy was a pure girl. In a text message sent in October 2014, Gypsy told Aleah, "I'm 18, Nick is 24." This age difference was alarming. Moreover, Gypsy talking about her relationship like a fairy tale was scaring Aleah.
On the other hand, there was also the Dee Dee factor. In 2011, the protective mother scolded Aleah, saying, "You are teaching my daughter bad things. I don't want you to talk to her like that," and confiscated Gypsy's phone and computer for a while. But Gypsy still managed to find a way to send a message to Aleah secretly from her mother. However, the communication between the two decreased over time and ceased completely after the correspondence about Nick in the fall of 2014.
"THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY APPEAR"
Aleah had told the police all this and showed them her relationship with Gypsy. Moreover, the police, who traced the posts made from Dee Dee's account, determined that the IP address belonged to Nicholas Godejohn, who lives in Big Bend, Wisconsin.
On June 15, police from Waukesha County, to which Big Bend is affiliated, raided Nick's home. The young man surrendered in a short time. Gypsy was with him and was doing just fine. Everyone was relieved. However, the following morning, the Springfield Sheriff's statement that "Things are not always as they seem" caused confusion.
Apparently, Gypsy walked out of the house where she lived with her mother a few days ago and had never used her wheelchair since that day. Because she didn't need it. She didn't need her medications or an oxygen tank. His spiky hair was just growing back. It turned out that the girl, who was thought to be bald throughout her life, was constantly shaved by her mother to make her look sick.
Gypsy and Nick... Gypsy's hair was starting to grow when they were caught.
Even though Gypsy was a little shaken, she could explain her problem quite easily. There was no trace left of that child, who was thought to be disabled for years. In her statement to the police, Gypsy said, "It was all a trick. My mother made me do these things."
People like Aleah and Kim, who learned the truth, could not hold back their tears. They realized that they knew nothing about the people they had known for years. Who said, "How could I be so stupid?" "No one asked for a document, no one was suspicious. They were probably making fun of us behind closed doors, calling us 'Suckers,'" Amy told BuzzFeed.
Details emerged over time. Dee Dee's real name was Claudine Blanchard. Known over the years by different spellings and nicknames such as she DeDe, Claudine, and Deno, she started using the name "Clauddinnea Blancharde" when she settled in Missouri.
Some of the stories she told were true. She was truly from Louisiana. She had 5 siblings, most of them alive. Her mother died in 1997, but her father was alive. Likewise, Gypsy's father, Rod Blanchard, also lived in Louisiana. Dee Dee was 24 when she got pregnant, and Rod was just 17. Although they decided that the only logical option was to get married, there was no strong love. Therefore, the marriage was short-lived.
Shortly after the couple separated, Gypsy Rose was born on July 27, 1991. Dee Dee loved the name Gypsy; Rod was a Guns N' Roses fan. This is where the girl's name came from. (They weren't aware of Gypsy, the Broadway musical about a controlling mother who wants to force her daughter into fame.)
Although Gypsy was born a very healthy baby, at the age of 3 months, Dee Dee began to believe that her daughter had sleep apnea and was breathless at night. She was taking the baby from doctor to doctor. The tests showed that the girl was healthy every time. But Dee Dee was sure the boy was sick. Dee Dee said that the reason behind the baby's increasing problems was a "chromosomal disorder."
Mother was constantly coming up with new ideas about Gypsy's illness. This meant new doctors and new drugs. Since she had previously worked as a caregiver, she was fluent in medical terminology. She seemed to know everything about her daughter's health and could easily answer any question asked.
Rod later married a woman named Kristy and had two more children. Gypsy met frequently with her father's family and went on trips together until 2004. In photographs from that period, the girl was smiling with her father and brother. She never spoke negatively about her mother.
HURRICANE KATRINA WAS A TURNING POINT
On the other hand, Dee Dee's already bad relationship with her own family had worsened over time. The reason for this situation was not clear. On the other hand, Dee Dee was also getting into trouble with the law for minor crimes such as writing bad checks. After all this, Dee Dee took Gypsy and moved to Slidell, New Orleans.
During the time they spent here, Dee Dee traveled the roads of Tulane University Hospital. She said her daughter had seizures every two or three months, and she had her take medication for it. Although the biopsies were negative, she claimed that Gypsy had muscular dystrophy, that the girl's eyesight was poor, and that she had frequent ear infections. At the slightest cold or cough, Gypsy was taken to the emergency room.
When Hurricane Katrina hit Slidell in 2005, mother and daughter found themselves in a shelter in Louisiana. Dee Dee claimed that their old house was in ruins and Gypsy's reports remained there.
One of the doctors at this shelter, Janet Jordan, was from Missouri. She loved Gypsy very much and helped the mother and daughter move to this state.
The story of a mother who lost everything and her disabled daughter attracted the attention of local press and charities. Dee Dee and Gypsy were taken to Missouri in September 2005. They first settled in a house in Aurora, then moved into a house built by Habitat for Humanity in March 2008.
GYPSY THOUGHT SHE WAS 4 YEARS YOUNGER
From a very early age, Gypsy had received donations from charities working with disabled children, but this home was the largest donation Dee Dee had managed to arrange. But she wanted more. Free flights, holidays in lodges reserved for cancer patients, and free trips to Disney World were coming one after another.
While Dee Dee was badmouthing Gypsy Rose's father to those around her, she continued to keep Rod informed of the girl's whereabouts and state of health. Rod and Kristy talked to the girl frequently on the phone, but their attempts to visit never materialized. Moreover, Rod continued to send Dee Dee child support and gifts such as a television and a game console. He continued making these payments even after Gypsy turned 18 because Dee Dee said the girl needed constant care.
However, some strange things happened from time to time.
For example, when Rod called his daughter on her 18th birthday, he said, "You're an adult now." At that moment, Dee Dee intervened and said, "Gypsy Rose doesn't know her real age, she thinks she is 14. Don't upset her by saying anything else." Rod accepted without question and did what his ex-wife said.
Dee Dee's problem, Rod told BuzzFeed News, was that her lies had become a spider's web. She was telling a new lie to cover up a lie. She had become unable to escape. However, Rod and his wife were not even aware of the news, interviews, donations collected, and free trips in the local Missouri press.
This all ended with a phone call from Dee Dee's sister. The woman told Rod that Dee Dee was dead and Gypsy was missing.
The first time Rod saw his daughter walking was on the news. Nobody had informed them. The news video had landed in front of Kristy on Facebook. The first reaction of the father, who saw the video of Gypsy, who was taken to court in Wisconsin, was to be happy and say, "My daughter is walking."
Kristy, on the other hand, asked the lawyer who shared Dee Dee's autopsy report questions about the woman's brain: She believed that there must be something strange in her brain for a person to do such things.
Since Dee Dee was no longer alive, there was no way she could explain why she would do such a thing. The only source available was Gypsy's account. She also had incorrect information about many details. For example, when she was detained, she told the police that she was 19 years old, but according to her birth certificate, she was 23.
Her mother told Gypsy that she had cancer and that some of the medications she took were for cancer treatment. However, as she grew older, she began to get confused. On the other hand, it was not clear which drug and how much Dee Dee gave Gypsy. For example, her lawyer would later claim that the young woman was given some kind of sedative by her mother.
All this points to a syndrome called Munchausen by proxy. The boundaries of Munchausen Syndrome were drawn by psychiatrist Richard Asher in 1951. Then in 1977, Roy Meadow, Munchausen identified this proxy. In this disorder, which is also included in the DSM-5 manual, and has been used by psychiatrists since 1980, the person invents physical and psychological diseases with the desire to attract attention and interest. It really creates symptoms by giving unnecessary medications or even low doses of poison. When a person does this about himself/herself, it is called Munchausen, and when he/she does it about the person he/she is responsible for, it is called Munchausen by proxy.
Although most examples are mothers, cases have occasionally been seen in fathers, spouses or nephews. Moreover, doctors do not noticed these cases for years. Therefore, it is not possible to know how common Munchausen is.
However, it is impossible to say for sure whether Dee Dee actually suffers from this syndrome. Since there is no document left behind from him, such as a diary, it is unknown what his intentions were. However, a file was found in the house where the mother and daughter lived, classified according to which information Dee Dee gave to which doctor. Moreover, the fact that she had a medical education, albeit limited, that she changed doctors frequently to avoid leaving a trace, and that the first symptom she saw in her daughter was sleep apnea (this is true in many cases), strengthens the possibility of Munchausen by proxy.
Munchausen by proxy patients manipulate both their immediate surroundings and their victims with great success. At some point, this situation results in the victim collaborating with the perpetrator. For example, children who want to make their parents happy start pretending to be sick. The emotional bond that arises causes the patient to want to continue his illness. The number of cases that last this long and continue into adulthood is very small, but in any case, the patient's perception of reality is distorted.
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Gypsy's hospital records contained some very interesting clues. For example, all muscular dystrophy tests performed in New Orleans were negative. What's more, records of these tests survived Hurricane Katrina. But still, Dee Dee was going from doctor to doctor in Louisiana and Missouri saying that her daughter had this disease. Moreover, most doctors did not see the need to question these claims and instead treated Gypsy for various vision, hearing, sleep, and salivation problems associated with muscular dystrophy.
Some of these interventions were on the scale of surgery. For example, Gypsy's eye muscles were operated on many times and tubes were placed in her ears to prevent infections. She also had a feeding tube in her stomach. She was getting very limited nutrition from her mouth. She was fed baby food until her 20s. Since her mother said she was constantly drooling, her salivary glands were first neutralized with Botox and then completely removed. She had her teeth completely removed because they were rotting. It was not known whether this was due to poor oral hygiene or a side effect of medications.
In short, Gypsy had undergone heavy and long-term treatments for diseases she did not have throughout her life.
Although many doctors missed the gaps in the stories Dee Dee told, there was an exception. Bernardo Flasterstein, a child neurologist working in Springfield, was suspicious of this mother and daughter in 2007 and even wrote in his notes after examining Gypsy, "This mother is not a good historian."
According to Flasterstein, the distribution of Gypsy's physical weaknesses did not match the description of muscular dystrophy. However, the doctor, who had the necessary tests done, asked Gypsy to stand after all the results came back negative, and when he saw that the girl could carry her own weight, he said to Dee Dee, "I can't understand why you can't walk."
Flasterstein also reached out to a New Orleans doctor who had previously treated Gypsy. That doctor told Flasterstein that the girl's muscle biopsy had been negative before and that Gypsy's previous neurologist had told Dee Dee this. However, Dee Dee stopped taking her daughter to these doctors after these results.
Faced with these facts, Flasterstein wrote in the girl's file, "There is a high probability of Munchausen by proxy." After this, Dee Dee stopped taking her daughter to Flasterstein.
"IF I APPLIED TO SOCIAL SERVICES, THEY WOULDN'T BELIEVE ME"
In his statement to BuzzFeed News, Flasterstein said that he gave up on the matter because all the doctors in Springfield believed in Dee Dee and added: "If I had applied to social services, they would not have believed me either." However, Flasterstein also stated that he was sorry for not doing more and said, "I wish I had acted more aggressively."
And this wasn't the only opportunity missed. An anonymous tip received by the Springfield Police Department in the fall of 2009 stated that Gypsy might not suffer from all the illnesses her mother said she had. The police took this report seriously and paid a visit to the house, but were convinced when they heard Dee Dee's story. Dee Dee explained the reason for the inconsistencies in names and birth dates as "hiding from her abusive husband." Police officials did not contact Rod Blanchard, accepted this explanation, and wrote in the report, "The girl appears to have some kind of mental disability," and the case was closed.
Once, Gypsy tried to escape from her mother. They met with a 35-year-old man they had previously met online, at a science fiction fair. The man took the girl, who was 19 years old at the time (but those around her were told she was 15), to his room. Thanks to the protective instincts of the fair participants, Dee Dee became aware of the situation, raided the man's room with various documents in his hand, and the man, learning that Gypsy was underage, allowed her to leave. After this incident, Dee Dee broke the computer at home and cursed the internet. After a while, she bought a new computer but put restrictions on her daughter's internet use.
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Normally, such a major case of child abuse would garner public sympathy. However, the fact that there was fraud involved caused more anger, especially among those who did not know Gypsy and Dee Dee. It was discussed in various Facebook groups whether Gypsy or even Rod and Kristy were involved, and various theories were produced. Details of Dee Dee's past crimes are revealed. The halls were packed at the hearings of Gypsy and Nick.
Speaking of trials... The prosecution did not seek the death penalty, but both Gypsy and Nick were charged with first-degree murder. During the investigation, it was understood that the two had been messaging for a long time and were planning to kill Dee Dee. For example, in one message, Nick said, "Honey, you forget that I am cruel and that my hatred for her will force her to die. My dark side is doing this. He will not fail because he enjoys killing." Prosecutors also found direct evidence that Gypsy asked Nick to kill her mother. This correspondence went back to May 2014.
The reason why Nick used the phrase "my dark side" was to refer to the fantasies the duo had through their various Facebook accounts. The duo, who exhibited sadistic-masochistic tendencies, frequently shared costumes. However, it was never understood why Nick got into this business. Because he had no history of violence, he had only been detained once for obscene behavior. However, both he and Gypsy had told the police that the hand holding the knife that killed Dee Dee belonged to Nick. Gypsy Rose stated that she was in the other room at the time of the murder. The driver of a taxi they took after the murder stated that Gypsy gave the impression of being a gang leader.
With the intense efforts of public defender Michael Stanfield, who was coincidentally assigned to the case, Gypsy's retrospective hospital records were obtained. When all the evidence was gathered, it was ruled that Dee Dee's years of abuse were a mitigating factor for Gypsy. Gypsy pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge. She was given 10 years in prison, which is the minimum sentence for this crime. The decision emphasized that Gypsy could apply for parole after 7.5 years, that is, in late 2023.
SHE QUIT ALL MEDICATIONS AND HER HEALTH RETURNED
The transformation Gypsy, who was sent to a women's prison in Vandalia, Missouri, went through in the first year after being imprisoned was incredible. Gypsy, whose hair grew longer and her skin blemishes disappeared, did not have the slightest health problem even though she stopped all the medications she used. While many people sent to prison lose weight, Gypsy gained 7 kilos in 12 months, her lawyer said.
Gypsy, who made a statement to BuzzFeed News after her sentence was announced, said that she did not recognize herself as "the girl who killed her mother to be with her boyfriend" but as "the girl who tried to escape abuse", that she participated in educational programs in prison and that she wanted to write a book to help those in her situation in the future.
When asked when she realized that something was wrong in her life, Gypsy answered "When I turned 19" and stated that she started to question her mother's approach after the incident at the science fiction fair in 2011.
Stating that a person like her mother would be perfect for someone who is really sick, but she is not sick herself, Gypsy said, "I feel as deceived as everyone else. She used me as a pawn. She hid everything from me. All I knew was that I could walk and eat. She would shave my hair and say, 'Somehow. "He would say, 'It will spill, let's keep it clean and clean.' She was telling me that I had cancer and that the medicines I was taking were cancer medicines," she said.
Gypsy added that although she wanted to question her situation from time to time, she refrained from doing so in order not to upset her mother or get into trouble, and said, "When I think about it now, I wish I had told the truth to someone before Nick." She said that he was responsible for Dee Dee's murder and that Nick put the plan they had made together into action, on the other hand, she stated that the idea of making the posts on Facebook came from him. He also emphasized that he was angry at the doctors who did not see the clues and stated that her mother had all the symptoms of Munchausen.
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Gypsy and her story were the subject of the 20/20 program broadcast on ABC in 2018. Speaking on the program, Gypsy said, "My only problem was that my eyes were a little squinted."
The judge who sentenced Gypsy to 10 years in prison ruled that she could apply for parole in late 2023. A spokesperson from the Missouri State Department of Prisons and Detention Houses announced in a statement on September 29, 2023, that Gypsy's parole was approved.
Gypsy and Nick's relationship ended shortly after the murder. Gypsy, who met a man named Ken thanks to the prison's pen pal program in 2019 and became engaged for a short time, married Ryan Scott Anderson in 2022 and took his surname.