True Crime Database

Gypsy Rose Blanchard

Imagine being lied to your entire life by the one person you trusted the most in the entire world. Imagine living in fear of this person, scared to say or do the wrong thing. Imagine believing there was no way out or to be free. This was the life of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the incredibly sick child of single mother Deedee Blanchard. To the outside world, they gave the impression that they were a brave and strong family unit, who will keep going on despite their various shortcomings. Behind closed doors, however, the truth was much more sinister and resulted in a sequence of events that would change their lives forever.

In 1991, 24 year old Deedee Blanchard was impregnated by the then 17 year old Rod Blanchard. He married Deedee in order to do the right thing, however, before Gypsy's birth, he realised he married for all the wrong reasons and left Deedee, despite her pleading with him to stay. Deedee decided to raise her child as a single parent. Rod clearly wanted to be apart of Gypsy's life and be a father figure towards her, yet Deedee tried to keep contact with him to a minimum. Rod eventually remarried and Deedee took Gypsy to move back in with her family.

Gypsy was born slightly premature, with no signs that anything was actually wrong with her. However, after about 3 months, Deedee became convinced that she was suffering with sleep apnea and went back and forth to doctors and hospitals to have tests done. As time went by, Deedee became even more convinced of various other illnesses that Gypsy had. Muscular dystrophy was one of these, which kept Gypsy confined to a wheelchair. Leukemia was another – her mother shaved her head often and kept her on a lot of medications. Gypsy also took medication for epilepsy, had hearing and sight problems, asthma and had to use a feeding tube and oxygen tank regularly. On top of this, Gypsy had significant developmental delays, being mentally younger than she actually was. Deedee homeschooled Gypsy because of this.

The community felt immense sympathy for Deedee and Gypsy. Due to all her various illnesses, Gypsy received attention from various charities such as Make a Wish Foundation, Habitat for Humanity and Ronald McDonald House. The two were also Hurricane Katrina survivors, with all of Gypsy's medical files and birth certificate being lost due to the storm. This meant that most doctors, out of sympathy, would take Deedee's word for everything she told them about Gypsy's medical history and persue any treatments that were believed to be needed. They moved to Missouri and, as a part of the Habitat for Humanity position, a house was built for them that included a wheelchair ramp and was suitable towards Gypsy's needs. They lived off of social security, food stamp and Medicaid paying for medical expenses, as well as receiving free flights to Kansas City for specialist treatments. The two maintained a shared Facebook account and acted like they were the best of friends.

This changed on the afternoon of June 14th 2015, when Deedee and Gypsy's shared Facebook account was updated with a shocking new status that read, "That bitch is dead!". People initially just assumed the account had been hacked but in the comments, the profile had also written a crude statement about how they had slashed the mother's throat and raped her daughter. Close friends and neighbours grew concerned and called the police to check on the family. There was no answer at their door but the specialist car that Gypsy was required to use was still in the driveway, meaning that she couldn't have gone out. After obtaining a search warrant, police began searching the house and found the body of Deedee Blanchard, who had been stabbed several times. There was no sign of 19 year old Gypsy anywhere in the house – her wheelchairs were all there and she had none of her medication with her – people believed it was highly unlikely she would be able to survive on her own.

Police traced the IP address of where the statuses came from and it was linked back to a man called Nicholas Godejohn. He was not a stranger to the family, he was in fact Gypsy's boyfriend, who she had begun corresponding with on a Christian dating site and maintained an online relationship with him. Nicholas had his fair share of issues also; he had various mental health problems, including multiple personality disorder and autism, and had been arrested for indecent exposure. The two frequently had conversations of a very sexual nature, including discussions about BDSM and maintaining relationships with Nicholas' other personalities also. This was all done without the knowledge of Deedee, who was very protective of Gypsy and forbade her from using the internet when she was not around. Deedee had initially smashed Gypsy's phone and laptop when she was caught doing so. None of this worked. The pair had met once at a cinema, where they both planned to bump into each other in costume and strike up a conversation to avoid the suspicion of her mother, however she claimed she did not find him as attractive in person. In regardless, she still remained infatuated with him and confided in a close friend that she planned on eloping with him and was already thinking about names for their children.

The police traced his address back to his home in Springfield, Wisconsin, and found Gypsy there with him. But, shockingly to authorities, Gypsy could walk. It turned out, in fact, that Gypsy actually had none of the illnesses that her mother claimed she had. Despite this, she was frequently treated for all of these illnesses and took all the required medication. Her mother kept her head shaven to keep up the appearance that she was a chemotherapy patient. It is unknown how doctors allowed Deedee to be able to access all of this medication when clear tests showed that Gypsy was actually perfectly healthy and needed none of it, though few made their suspicions about Deedee clear. It is unknown whether this was done as a form of attention seeking or sheer mental illness but it also turned out that Gypsy even believed that she was sick; she claimed that she only knew she was able to walk and believed everything else. On top of this, Deedee continually lied to everyone about her daughter's age also. Prior to Deedee's murder, everyone believed Gypsy to be 19 years old when she was actually 23 and had falsified another birth certificate claiming her to be younger than she actually was. Rod, whenever he phoned on Gypsy's 18th birthday, was told that he wasn't allowed to say she was 18 because she believed that she was 14.

Psychiatrists believe that Deedee had a condition known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy, which is when someone fabricates or induces an illness of any kind onto someone in their care, with the main motive being to garner sympathy and attention. While it is considered a form of mental illness, it is also considered a form of abuse. Other well known cases of this include Kathleen Bush and Deborah Mathers, the mother of rapper Eminem. One doctor suspected that this abuse was going on but was told by other doctors to treat the two of them with golden gloves, so he did not report Deedee to social services. For many years, Deedee had exhibited symptoms of this disease. Her family believe her to be potentially responsible for the death of her mother by prohibiting food from her and to be poisoning her step mother while she was sick. As soon as Deedee had moved out of the family house, her stepmother's health returned to normal. In order to keep up appearances, Deedee ensured that Gypsy was always close by and never left home without her. Gypsy claimed that her mother was physically and emotionally abusive towards her, becoming very violent if Gypsy ever said the wrong thing in front of others. Gypsy stated many times that she felt like a prisoner many times and had tried to escape a few times, once being driven to a hospital by a neighbour and another time being caught in a hotel room with an older man, however both were foiled by Deedee. This was why Gypsy and Nick conjured the plan that they did.

On the 14th, Nick drove down to Missouri while Gypsy and her mother were at a hospital appointment. When Deedee went to bed, Gypsy messaged Nick to tell him so and let him into the house. Gypsy had supplied him with duct tape, gloves and a knife. Gypsy then hid in the bathroom and covered her ears so as to not hear her mother's screams. Nick then repeatedly stabbed Deedee several times in her bed. Gypsy and Nick had sex in Gypsy's room, stole $4000 worth of cash and travelled to a motel in Springfield. Nick mailed the bloody murder weapon to his own house and got a bus back to Nick's house, while Gypsy wore a blonde wig in order to disguise herself. When they were both arrested and taken to the police station, Gypsy claimed that she had nothing to do with the murder of her mother and acted as though she had no knowledge of it, yet she later confessed. Her reasoning was that killing her mother felt like the only escape route she could have taken.

Following the large amount of media attention the case has gotten, Gypsy actually gained a lot of sympathy from the public, as a girl who was unable to live her life to the fullest potential because of how her mother treated her. The prosecution announced that because of these circumstances, they would not be seeking the death penalty. Her attorney was able to make a plea deal, in which she would serve a second degree sentence, which Gypsy agreed to, and she was sentenced to serve 10 years. No such deal has been put in place for Nick and is still awaiting his trial for charges of first degree murder, as both his and Gypsy's stories paint Nick as the actual murderer. His trial is due to begin in November 2018.

While many believe Gypsy would remain a danger to the public when she is released, others say that she has learnt her lesson, including Gypsy herself. In multiple interviews, she has repeatedly said that she feels huge remorse and guilt over the death of her mother, and wished that she had thought of another way out of the situation. Gypsy has also started growing her hair and gaining a healthy amount of weight. She even maintains a relationship with her dad, who visits her often and has the support of other members of her family, including her maternal grandparents. She is considered a model prisoner and could potentially let out earlier for good behaviour. Even still, she maintains that though she loved her mother, she is happier in prison than she ever was living with her.