There are not many cases that have captured the attention of the public quite like that of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her mother Dee Dee. It’s a story of manipulation, medical abuse and murder…
Dee Dee was born under the name Clauddine Pitre in Louisiana in 1967 (for the article, I will be referring to Clauddine as Dee Dee throughout). One of five children, Dee Dee had a habit of stealing from her family when she didn’t get her way; later, in 1997, there were suspicions that Dee Dee killed her own mother by letting her starve. This has never been proven, but I will let you make your mind up as we continue.
When Dee Dee was 24 years old, she engaged in a brief marriage with 17-year-old Rod Blanchard. Rod split up with his wife while she was pregnant, stating he ‘got married for the wrong reasons’. Dee Dee gave birth to a daughter, and she and Rod named the child Gypsy Rose.
Rod remained in Gypsy’s life as much as possible while she was younger and would continually pay child support monthly.
When Gypsy was just three months old, Dee Dee became convinced that she had sleep apnoea. This began the start of numerous unnecessary hospital visits for young Gypsy. At the age of seven or eight, Gypsy was riding with her grandfather on his motorbike when they were involved in a minor accident, resulting in Gypsy having a scraped knee. This seemed to really kickstart Dee Dee’s obsession with her daughter's health, sure that there were serious problems, including a chromosomal disorder and muscular dystrophy. Gypsy was told the doctors had insisted she use a wheelchair after her slight knee injury.
It’s unsure what age Gypsy stopped attending school, with reports of it being anything between kindergarten and second grade. Dee Dee decided she would homeschool, although minimal teaching went on, and Gypsy taught herself to read using Harry Potter books. This was a way to isolate her daughter and increase her dependency on her mother.
The pair moved in with Dee Dee’s father and stepmother for a while. During this time, Dee Dee was charged with minor offences, including writing bad cheques. While they were living there, Dee Dee's stepmother became chronically ill, and it was later believed she had been poisoned with weed killer. They confronted Dee Dee about this theory and her treatment of Gypsy, leading Dee Dee to move to Slidell, a suburb of New Orleans. Unsurprisingly, the stepmother's health returned to normal once the guests left.
While in Slidell, Dee Dee claimed public assistance due to Gypsy’s alleged medical conditions. Gypsy was taken numerous times to the Tulane Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital of New Orleans. Dee Dee told numerous specialists that Gypsy has muscular dystrophy (which a biopsy showed no signs of) and that she was now developing sight and hearing issues. Gypsy was even given anti-seizure medication after Dee Dee claimed she was having epileptic seizures. As well as these appointments, Gypsy was regularly taken to the emergency room with various ailments. Disturbingly, these visits resulted in many unnecessary surgeries.
In August 2005, New Orleans was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and Dee Dee and Gypsy were evacuated to a shelter in Covington. Dee Dee told officials that the vicious storm had destroyed Gypsy’s medical records, and, believing that Gypsy was chronically ill, officials had them airlifted to a new home in Missouri.
To begin with, the two lived in Aurora. The story of a single mother with a disabled child escaping devastation soon spread and tugged at the heartstrings of locals. Donations soon started flooding in, and in 2007, Gypsy was named Child of the Year by the Oley Foundation. In 2008, they moved to Springfield, and Dee Dee introduced herself as Clauddinea Blanchard. Habitat for Humanity built them a house, a wheelchair ramp and a hot tub. The Make-a-Wish Foundation sent them backstage passes to concerts, and they received free trips to Disney World.
At this point, Rod was paying $1200 a month in child support as well as sending gifts and trying to stay in touch via phone. He rang Gypsy to wish her happy birthday on her 18th, but Dee Dee warned him that she only thought she was 14. Dee Dee would avoid his attempts to visit and actively told her neighbours that Rod was an abusive drug and alcoholic addict who sent no financial aid and hated Gypsy for being disabled.
Gypsy was convinced she was younger than she was, thanks to her mother's lies. Due to her petite stature and childlike voice, others also believed it. At this point, Gypsy's appearance was quite extreme; her teeth were falling out due to medication, and her head was shaved bald (her mother told her it was falling out anyway). She was always placed in a wheelchair, equipped with an oxygen tank and, horrifically, a feeding tube.
Dee Dee's behaviour rapidly became worse. The surgeries continued, with Gypsy having her saliva glands removed, after Dee Dee would rub Gypsy’s gums with numbing gel so she would drool, and tubes implanted in her ears. Dee Dee even told friends and neighbours that Gypsy had leukaemia. No one knew exactly how much medication she was on. At any point that Gypsy tried to talk to someone and object to her treatment, Dee Dee would painfully squeeze her hands and then beat her with coat hangers once they got home. Gypsy later said, ‘She said I couldn’t eat and needed a feeding tube. I've had my salivary glands removed because my mother said that I drooled. I had the feeding tube placed in my tummy. I had multiple eye surgeries on my right and left eyes. Ear surgeries, muscle biopsy to find out why my legs didn’t work, and surgery to make me not throw up anymore. I believed I had all these illnesses; except I knew that I could eat, and I knew that I could walk’.
One paediatric neurologist, Bernardo Flasterstein, finally became suspicious of the situation. Blood tests and MRI scans showed no abnormalities. He contacted Gypsy’s previous doctors to find out more, and he suspected that Dee Dee had Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Dee Dee was outraged when she found out and refused to take Gypsy to him again. Flasterstein never reported his findings to authorities. Marc Feldman, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Alabama later spoke about Flasterstein saying: ’he had a gross misunderstanding of his obligations as a physician, as well as the legal requirements to report suspected abuse or neglect’.
In 2009, police received an anonymous phone call about the family. A welfare check was performed, but they agreed that Gypsy was disabled and, without further checks, closed the file.
For many years, Gypsy had been attending fantasy and Sci-fi conventions. It allowed her to experience some normality, dressing up and wearing wigs. She had also been busy setting up a fake Facebook account under the name Emma Rose and talking to people online. In 2011, Gypsy went to an event and arranged to meet a man in a hotel room. Sadly, her mother found her. Dee Dee threatened the man with the police, showing him a fake birth certificate to say Gypsy was underage. Once home, Dee Dee smashed the computer with a hammer and threatened to do the same to Gypsy’s fingers if she ever tried to escape again. She then handcuffed Gypsy to her bed for two whole weeks.
It is important to remember that Gypsy was genuinely scared and believed many of her mother's lies, including being warned that the police would do nothing to aid her. She felt trapped and helpless.
The following year, Gypsy once again gained access to the Internet, going online once Dee Dee was in bed. During this time, she met a man called Nicholas Godejohn on a Christian dating site. Nicholas had a history of mental illness and a criminal record for indecent exposure after being caught masturbating in a McDonald's car park and carrying a concealed knife. They would exchange sexual messages and indulge in BDSM fantasies. Nicholas even sent Gypsy a ‘bill of sale’, claiming her as his property.
In 2015, they arranged to meet for the first time. Gypsy suggested they ‘accidentally’ meet at a cinema, and he could then meet her mother as well. Gypsy turned up wearing a Cinderella costume and blonde wig, and upon seeing Nicholas, took him into the bathroom and had sex with them. Gypsy later said about the meeting between Nicholas and Dee Dee, ‘Awful, oh my god. She got jealous because I was spending a little too much attention on him, and she had ordered me to stay away from him.’
It was after this meeting that they began to plan Dee Dee's murder.
In June 2015, Gypsy waited until Dee Dee was asleep before letting Nicholas into the house. Allegedly, she handed him gloves, duct tape and a knife. While Gypsy hid in the bathroom, Nicholas went into Dee Dee's bedroom and stabbed her 17 times. Gypsy described it: ‘I heard her scream once and there was more screaming, but not like the kind in a horror film. A startled scream. She called out my name three or four times; at that point, I wanted to go help her so bad, but I was afraid to get up. And then everything just went quiet’.
Dee Dee was dead.
The couple had sex while the corpse lay on the floor before taking $4000 from the house and renting a room in a motel. They mailed the murder weapon to Nicholas’s House in Wisconsin before travelling there themselves a few days later.
During these few days, various updates went on Dee Dee's Facebook, causing concern amongst friends and neighbours. One said, ‘The Bitch is dead’ with a comment underneath saying ‘I fucken SLASHED THAT PIG AND RAPED HER SWEET INNOCENT DAUGHTER...HER SCREAM WAS SO FUCKEN LOUD LOL’. They tried ringing the phone and knocking on the door, to no avail. They couldn’t look through the windows due to a protective film on them, blurring any vision. The police were alerted, and a search warrant was obtained, and once inside, they found the body. A GoFundMe was started to raise money for the funeral while there was increasing panic about the whereabouts of Gypsy. As far as these people knew, Gypsy was a disabled child without any medical equipment or medication.
Aleah Woodmansee was a neighbour of the family who Gypsy looked up to like an older sister. Gypsy confided in her about Nicholas and Aleah told the police about the secret relationship. Using Facebook, they discovered where the Facebook updates were coming from using the IP address. They traced it to Wisconsin, specifically where Nicholas lived, and raided the house. There, they found Gypsy and Nicholas, and they were both taken in on the charge of murder.
The truth soon came out: Gypsy had never been ill or disabled and had been a victim of abuse all along.
Gypsy admitted to writing the Facebook posts, saying: ‘I couldn’t stand the thought of her just there because what happens if it would have taken months to find her, so I wanted her found so she could have a proper burial’.
Under Missouri law, anyone convicted of murder can be given the death penalty. However, the county prosecutor, Dan Patterson, said he wouldn’t push for this because the case was ‘extraordinary and unusual’. A plea bargain was secured for Gypsy, and in July 2015, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for second-degree murder.
Nicholas told the courts he was the one who initiated the plan and murdered Dee Dee, resulting in a more severe sentence. In January 2017, he received a psychiatric exam that showed he had an IQ of 82 and was on the autism spectrum. His lawyers tried to claim diminished capacity, but despite this, he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life.
The family never mourned Dee Dee. They believed she got what she deserved, refused to pay for a funeral, and her father flushed her ashes down the toilet.
Rod said, ‘I think Dee Dee's problem was she started a web of lies, and there was no escaping after. It was like a tornado got started’.
Feldman told the Springfield News-Leader after Gypsy’s sentencing, ‘Gypsy was infantilised and kept away from her peers. She was little more than a tool for Dee Dee to navigate through the world the way she wanted to’.
On the 4th of January 2018, Gypsy stated, ‘The person that I was living with before, with my mom, it's like, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t have friends. I couldn’t go outside, you know, and play with friends or anything. I feel like I’m more free in prison than living with my mom. Because now I’m allowed to just live like a normal woman’.
On 27th June 2022, Gypsy married Ryan Scott Anderson.
Gypsy was granted parole and walked free from prison on 28th December 2023.
There have been suggestions that Gypsy suffers from a type of sociopathy and engineered the murder. Journalist Michelle Dean said, ‘I do think Gypsy is potentially dangerous. Dee Dee was a master manipulator. It’s impossible that Gypsy would not have picked this up and used it.’
There are arguments for both sides of this extraordinary case. Some believe that Gypsy deserved her punishment; she should be held accountable for murdering her mother and manipulating Nicholas into doing her dirty work. Others believe that she was driven to it, a desperate attempt to escape after years of physical and psychological abuse. Whichever side you agree with, there is no denying that Gypsy Rose was consistently let down by the very people who were supposed to protect her.
Thanks for reading, take care of yourselves, and I will see you next time.
Hi! I spend a lot of time writing for the website and I basically exist on caffeine and anxiety - if anybody would like to encourage this habit, please feel free to buy me a coffee!
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