GYPSY ROSE, M.B.P., AND LIFE TRAJECTORY

 

GYPSY ROSE, M.B.P., AND LIFE TRAJECTORY

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BACKGROUND ON THE CRIME, GYPSY'S LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES

     

Gypsy-Rose Blanchard

Born Gypsy-Rose Alcida Blanchard

July 27, 1991 (age 33)

Golden Meadow, Louisiana, U.S.

NAME:

Gypsy-Rose Blancharde

Known for Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard

Victim of Munchausen by proxy

Criminal status Paroled

Spouse DIVORCED

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PARENTS:

Rodney Blanchard (father)

Clauddine Blanchard (mother)

Conviction(s) Second-degree murder

Criminal penalty 10 years in prison

Date apprehended June 15, 2015

Gypsy-Rose Alcida Blanchard-Anderson (née Blanchard; born July 27, 1991) is an American Munchausen-by-proxy survivor. She rose to worldwide prominence when she was convicted of second-degree murder in Springfield, Missouri, for the death of her mother Dee Dee Blanchard, who had subjected Gypsy-Rose to lifelong physical, mental, and medical abuse. She was sentenced to ten years in prison.

She was paroled after eight years, at the end of December 2023. Given the sensational aspects of Gypsy's childhood, including her mother forcing her to pretend to be disabled and terminally ill, she gained widespread media attention. Hulu produced a limited series, The Act (2019), released while she was still in prison. She has been featured on interviews on a variety of TV shows, such as Dr. Phil, and other programs have been based on her story. In 2024, her own reality show, Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up, premiered on Lifetime.

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EARLY LIFE

Blanchard was born on July 27, 1991, to 24-year-old Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard  and 18-year-old Rod Blanchard. Her mother first began asserting that Gypsy-Rose had an array of different health issues from infancy. Initially, her mother told her that she had muscular dystrophy and needed a walker. When she was around seven or eight years old, she was involved in a minor motorcycle accident with her grandfather, during which she sustained a minor knee abrasion. After this, Dee Dee told her that she needed a wheelchair.

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THE MOVE TO MISSOURI

After Hurricane Katrina destroyed their Louisiana home, Dee Dee and Gypsy-Rose lived in a rented home in Aurora in southwestern Missouri. During their time there, Gypsy-Rose was honored by the Oley Foundation, which advocates for the rights of feeding-tube recipients, as its 2007 Child of the Year. The whole time Gypsy knew she didn’t need the feeding tube and knew she could walk, but continued with the charade out of fear of her mother. In 2008, Habitat for Humanity built them a small home with a wheelchair ramp and hot tub as part of a larger project on the north side of Springfield, to the east, and the two moved there. The story of a single mother with a severely disabled daughter forced to flee Katrina's devastation received considerable local media attention, and the community often pitched in to help the woman who now went by Clauddinnea Blancharde, and whom they knew as Dee Dee.

Many people who met Gypsy-Rose were charmed by her. Her 4 ft 11 in  height, nearly toothless mouth, large glasses, and high, childlike voice reinforced the perception that she had all the problems her mother claimed she had. Dee Dee regularly shaved Gypsy-Rose's head to mimic the hairless appearance of a chemotherapy patient, allegedly telling her that since her medication would eventually cause her hair to fall out, it was best to shave it in advance; Gypsy-Rose often wore wigs or hats to cover her baldness. When they left the house, Dee Dee often took an oxygen tank and feeding tube with them; Gypsy-Rose was fed the children's liquid nutrition supplement PediaSure well into her 20s.

Dee Dee used physical abuse to control her daughter, always holding her hand in the presence of others. When Gypsy-Rose said something that suggested she was not genuinely sick or seemed beyond her purported mental capacity, she recalls that her mother would squeeze her hand very tightly. When the two were alone, Dee Dee struck her with her open hands or a coat hanger.

GROWING INDEPENDENCE

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Dee Dee seems to have at least once forged a copy of Gypsy-Rose's birth certificate, changing her birthdate to 1995 to bolster claims that she was still a teenager; Gypsy-Rose said in a later interview that for 14 years, she was unsure of her real age. Dee Dee sometimes also claimed that the original birth certificate was destroyed during the post-Katrina flooding. Dee Dee did keep another copy with Gypsy's true birthdate. Gypsy recalls seeing it during one of their hospital visits and becoming confused; Dee Dee told her it was a misprint.

Gypsy-Rose had attended science fiction and fantasy conventions since 2001, sometimes in costume since she could blend into their diverse and inclusive communities in her wheelchair. At a 2011 event, she made what may have been an escape attempt that ended when her mother found her in a hotel room with a man she had met online. Again Dee Dee produced the paperwork giving Gypsy-Rose's false, younger birthdate and threatened to inform the police. Gypsy-Rose claims that afterward, Dee Dee smashed her computer with a hammer and threatened to do the same to her fingers if she ever sneaked out again; Gypsy claims she was chained and handcuffed to her bed for two weeks, however, no handcuffs, leash or chains were found in the home. Dee Dee later told Gypsy-Rose that she had filed paperwork with the police claiming that Gypsy-Rose was mentally incompetent, leading her to believe that if she attempted to go to the police for help, they would not believe her.

Sometime around 2012, Gypsy-Rose, who continued to use the Internet and phone freely, made contact online with Nicholas Godejohn, a man around her age from Big Bend, Wisconsin, whom she said she had met on a Christian singles website.

In 2014, Gypsy-Rose confided to 23-year-old neighbor Aleah Woodmansee (who, unaware that Gypsy-Rose was closer to her own age, considered herself a "big sister"), that she and Godejohn had discussed eloping and had even chosen names for potential children. Gypsy-Rose, who had five separate Facebook accounts, and Godejohn flirted online, their exchanges sometimes using BDSM elements, which she has since claimed was more what he was interested in. Woodmansee tried to talk her out of it, still thinking Gypsy-Rose was too young and possibly being taken advantage of by a sexual predator. She considered Gypsy-Rose's plans just "fantasies and dreams and nothing like this would ever really take place". Despite Dee Dee's efforts to prevent her from using the Internet, which went as far as destroying her daughter's phone and laptop, Gypsy-Rose maintained contact with Woodmansee, who saved printouts of her posts, until 2014.

The next year, Gypsy-Rose arranged and paid for Godejohn to travel to Springfield. She planned to pretend to meet Godejohn for the first time at a movie theater with her mother, then appear to strike up a relationship based on the supposed chance encounter. When they did meet in person, Godejohn says, Gypsy-Rose led him to the bathroom, where the two had sex. The two continued their Internet interactions and began developing a plan to kill Dee Dee.

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ADDITIONAL AREAS OF NOTE

 Growing up, into her twenties, was obsessed with "all things

Disney." Her favorite movie, even to date, is a Disney movie called

"Tangled." The plot line for the movie is that a girl is

kidnapped from her family, kept in a huge castle, in a tower.

Gypsy, being the sheltered child that she was, learned life

lessons through Disney movies/ and it was how she came to

have a better understanding of the world outside that she did 

not know. Gypsy liked the romanticized aspects of certain Disney

movies as well. Her ideas of love, and what it should be or feel

like, were primarily based on "fairy tails;" and "happy endings."

Disney provided an outlet of understanding for Gypsy and she

also enjoyed playing the roles of her favorite characters in

Disney films. The first time that Gypsy had sexual intercourse

was at a movie theater, in the men's bathroom with the above

mentioned Nick. Gypsy was dressed up as Cinderella, wig,

shoes, wand and all, to go with her mother to see this movie.

Gypsy's limited knowledge of the real world lead to her

lack of understanding of the real world, how it works, and

how to properly navigate it.

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ADDITIONAL RESEARCH AND WHAT IT YIELDS

  Long-term-research has come to show that there are many

challenges for former victims of MBP in childhood; as they

enter adulthood. In said research, there were some 

commonalities across the study:

1. MBP victims, in adulthood, are much more likely to 

develop additional psychiatric problems over the years.

2. Anxiety, substance abuse, and depression were commonly

found

3. MBP victims, in the long term, suffer consistently with

low self-esteem.

4. MBP victims are more likely, in adulthood, to develop a

diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder or Anti-Social

Personality Disorder.

5. Many MBP victims suffer their entire lifetime with various

manifestations of Somatization Disorder.