True Crime Vault: Gypsy Blanchard
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This is Deborah Roberts. Welcome to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Each week, we reach back into our archives and bring you a story we found unforgettable. Only a true psychopath could do this. A pool of blood coming from his head. Somebody had been paid to kill me. Why would you want your husband killed? Take a listen. Coming up, the gripping story that became a national obsession. It's just chaos. It set off a rollercoaster story.

An inspirational young girl who grabbed the hearts of millions. Celebrities like Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, Elijah Wood, rallying around the princess in a wheelchair. Happy endings are not just in fairy tales. You're the reason I was born, to be your mama. Completely dependent on her doting mother. Then... We found Dee Dee Blanchard, deceased of a violent nature. What happened with your mom that night?

The twist no one saw coming. The girl looked 12, sounded 5, and had a 40-year-old attitude. How can this young, sick girl who can't walk be involved in her mother's death? And who is the mystery man who came between mother and daughter? One of the most elaborate con games ever. She wants to get out. Ain't gonna happen.

I'm John Quinones. It was a story so inspiring it almost seemed like fiction. A loving mother and her disabled daughter facing challenges together with grace and devotion.

And then Dee Dee Blanchard was found murdered. Her daughter Gypsy vanished. And soon it became apparent everything people thought they knew about the pair was wrong. As Amy Robach first reported in 2018, theirs was a story of secrets, lies and betrayal, where the lines between abuser and victim are blurred and no one is as they seem. That means a lot.

Home movies capture the vibrant spirit of a young teenage girl. So where are you going today? I'm going to Children's Mercy Hospital to see my dentist. For my teeth. Full of enthusiasm and effervescence, but behind the smiles, life for Gypsy Blanchard and her mother, Dee Dee, is one replete with hardships and challenges.

Gypsy is in a wheelchair. They were local darlings. I mean, they were the shining star in this town of people who can outlast adversity and get through everything. The mother-daughter duo are local celebrities, the subject of countless local news profiles and articles.

Dede's originally from Louisiana, a one-time beauty queen. We are with D.C. Military.

And nurses' aide. She marries Rod Blanchard at age 24. Together, the couple welcomes a beautiful baby girl. Perfectly healthy, pretty little baby. Named her Gypsy Rose. I was excited and very scared. I'm not going to lie, I was scared. I'm 18 years old and I got a baby here, so... But she was beautiful and perfectly healthy. Yeah, she was. Nothing wrong with her. She looked perfect. I see you.

You want to blow me a kiss? Very good. But the relationship was far from perfect and the couple broke up. Not long after, Didi was saying that she was sick, problems sleeping, epilepsy, and it just progressed from there. Leukemia, paralyzed muscular dystrophy, and she would have seizures. Gypsy was probably seven, eight years old. She's in a wheelchair now. She needs a feeding tube. Was Didi a good mother? I told Didi she was the best mother.

There's no way I can do what you're doing. You have a sick child. It's constantly 24-7 taking care of her and everything. I mean, I always praised her and told her, good job. Rod and his new wife, Christy, would have sporadic visits with Gypsy, but they are never alone. You know, all the visits, Deedee had to be there the whole time. Something never felt right about it, just...

Dee Dee was so controlling of her. This is the last photo taken of Rod with his daughter before fate would seemingly deal Gypsy and Dee Dee another cruel blow, leaving the pair displaced and depleted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In some areas, the water is now 20 feet deep. Their home ravaged by the storm and floodwaters, they took refuge at this nearby special-needs shelter. I've learned from Dee Dee was that they were homeless, no place to go.

So Mercy Hospital outed him up on the helicopter and hung him up. They were evacuated here to Springfield, Missouri, birthplace of Route 66, a tight-knit community in the buckle of the Bible Belt. With Dee Dee, a full-time caregiver, they're forced to piece together a life, largely from donations, disability payments, and child support from Gypsy's dad.

A turning point seems to be when the family gets this home, located at the aptly named intersection of Hope Road and Volunteer Way. I remember my mom had gave me this little glass house, and she said, one day this will be real. And it finally is. The Blanchards moved into that house, built by Habitat for Humanity. A wheelchair ramp was built just for her.

She was like one of the happiest people I had ever met and yet she was the most sick that I had ever met at the same time. In between hospital stays, Gypsy frequently jet sets across the country. Ball games, galas, the most magical place on earth, Disney World.

Make a wish for taking her down to Orlando. All expenses paid and everything. Right now, I'm in Cinderella's house eating some royal mashed potatoes. She even got to meet country superstars Miranda Lampert and then-husband Blake Shelton.

Miranda Lambert came to Springfield a few times, and I think she gave Dee Dee and Gypsy money. Yes, she did. Look at this $3,500 check from the singer's personal account. But that wasn't all. What must I do? Check her out posing with her favorite actors, Elijah Wood and Sean Astin from Lord of the Rings. Go! Come on, Frodo! It sounds like a really awesome life, but I mean, it's not worth, like, what...

condition her health was in. But in private, Gypsy just wants to be a regular teen and find love, according to friend and neighbor Aaliyah Woodmansey. She would show interest in different boys and try to ask me advice on how to

How do you approach them? How do you, like, kiss a boy? Aliyah says Mom Dee Dee didn't approve of the girl talk. It was like, my daughter has the mentality of a child, like, you're talking to her about teenage girl things. But Gypsy ignores her mother going behind her back and sets up this online dating profile. She soon connects with this man and pours out her soul. I need to tell you something. I'm no model. I have a medical condition, so I can't walk.

I have a chair I use. Is that an issue?

And with a few strokes of the keyboard, a secret online relationship blooms. But when we come back, Mother and daughter are nowhere to be found. The little pink house becomes a crime scene. Next.

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Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. Two of Springfield, Missouri's most renowned and revered citizens, Gypsy Blanchard and her mother, Dee Dee, taking center stage. At a Relay for Life event to raise money for the American Cancer Society. You're the reason I was born to be your mama.

But the sickly and often secluded Gypsy believes she too has found her guardian angel, not at home in her mother, but online with a man, Nick Godejohn. She was in love with him. She thought that he was going to be the prince that came and finally saved her.

and got her out of her locked tower, and they'd live happily ever after. Look at some of the messages the love-struck teenager sends a friend about her Prince Charming. I met a wonderful guy. He's my first boyfriend. He gives me poems and is so romantic. She was talking about this new guy that she was now in love with and that they had met on a Christian dating site, and

and that they were already planning on naming their children after him. We want a snow wedding in a gazebo with red and white roses. Honestly, what I was thinking whenever I saw these messages is that these were just like fantasies and dreams. But on their shared Facebook page, the harsh reality is what people saw. Dee Dee presented as a very doting mother. This was her child. She knew she was sick, and she was just going to love her unconditionally until she couldn't anymore.

But then comes the day when family friends Kim and David are horrified when something very different popped up on Gypsy and Dee Dee's Facebook page, a very vulgar post. It said, "The bitch is dead." I instantly took it as their Facebook account had gotten hacked. Then we saw the second one, which said, "And I raped her sweet daughter too."

Kim and David race to the little pink house. No one seems to be home, but their new car is in the driveway.

We circled the house, knocked on all the doors and windows. I called the police and let them know that we needed a wellness check done on a disabled mother and daughter. And they said that they would send somebody out. Good breaking news. The body of 48-year-old Claudinia Blanchard has been found. Gypsy is still missing this morning. And a huge police presence. The crime tape was up around the house. And you just can't forget that pink house with the wheelchair ramp. I see...

a stretcher come out of the house and there's a sheet over a body and I just start sobbing. That was Dee Dee. We found Dee Dee Blanchard deceased

and of a violent nature, we were still actively looking for Gypsy. Then we really panicked because, oh my gosh, somebody has kidnapped Gypsy. Tell me about the moment when you heard that something happened to Dee Dee and that Gypsy was missing. You know, I was shocked. I was like, what? Really? I couldn't understand it. Why would somebody do this to this child? You know, no wheelchair, no medication.

They could just leave her for dead. Authorities move quickly and hit pay dirt when they trace the IP address of those profane Facebook posts to a small house 600 miles away in Big Bend, Wisconsin, at the home of Nick Godejohn, Gypsy's boyfriend.

Who is Nick Go-To-John? He functions at about a 15 or 16 year old. He is a kid that sort of is similar to Gypsy from the standpoint of not really having a normal social interaction history that most kids would have had up to that point. They go to the house.

There's some sort of standoff for a period of time. They have to bring the SWAT team there. When authorities enter the home, they take both into custody. We started hearing from various sources that Gypsy wasn't a victim, she wasn't kidnapped, that she was actually involved in this somehow. It was beyond shocking. We have located Gypsy in another state.

She is okay. We do have another person of interest in custody. I'm Detective Hancock. I'm with the Korean County Sheriff's Office. Your mom's dead. She's deceased. Now, what I want to ask you, did you have involvement in this? No. Hang on, listen to me. What happened with your mom that night? What happened with my mom?

While Gypsy keeps Mom in the interrogation room, what does the other one say? What happens next leaves everyone in Springfield stunned.

You go back to the newsroom and it's just chaos. Okay, this story has completely done a 180. I bet my mouth was... And what a transformation you'll hear from Gypsy herself. Next. Imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life. At Capella University, our game-changing FlexPath learning format lets you set your own deadlines so you can learn at a time and pace that works for you.

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This episode is brought to you by Lifetime. Imagine a mother so consumed by love, she's driven to the extreme. In this Lifetime original movie, an overbearing mother's quest to save her daughter's innocence takes a sinister turn from bribery to murder for hire. This is a story of obsession and dark family loyalty. Inspired by true events, watch Nobody Dumps My Daughter, premiering tonight at 8. Part of truly unbelievable movies, only on Lifetime.

Dee Dee Blanchard has been found murdered in her home. Authorities have located her daughter, Gypsy, 600 miles away, and they suspect she may have had something to do with her mother's death. But the question is exactly what and why? Once again, here's Amy Robach.

This is the house where Claudinia Blanchard was found stabbed to death. It set off a rollercoaster story. What would drive Gypsy to want to plan the murder of her own mother? Local teenage hero Gypsy Rose Blanchard could be the most unlikely murder suspect ever. A supposed paraplegic suffering from muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, leukemia, and confined to a wheelchair is now under arrest. Both she and her boyfriend Nick charged with killing her mother.

People were saying, well, maybe she was tricked into doing this. She met somebody online. He wanted to take her away and the mother wouldn't let her. They fought. Somehow the mother was killed. It was still the prevailing thought that she was really innocent.

The princess outfits now replaced with an orange jumpsuit. My vision was still of this fragile little girl, and that was shattered. It was hard to wrap your brain around how can this young, sick girl who can't walk be involved in her mother's death? So it was shocking beyond shocking. Things are not always as they appear.

The people of Springfield might think they are witnessing a miracle when astonishingly... Sid Wisconsin versus Gypsy Blanchard. Check out Gypsy's first appearance in court. Yes, that's her walking. No wheelchair, no signs of distress, not even a limp. Gypsy crying through the proceedings and shocking many of those who knew her because she was walking...

and not using a wheelchair. I still did not want to believe that she could walk when they showed her on the news. In fact, I rewound it and played it multiple times because that's not who we knew. Just when you thought the Dee Dee Blanchard murder case could not get any stranger... We have covered stories where you find out that someone you thought was so sweet and innocent and turns out there's a different side. But it was like a prize fight where it's just one hit after the other.

I was happy she was walking. Big red flags, I felt so stupid. If she can walk, what else have we been lied to about?

Later in this hour, we will show you the astounding extent of those lies. But one thing that is real, her voice. That voice is something you don't forget. 2103 West Volunteer Way, Springfield, Missouri. There were comparisons to cartoon characters saying that she was forcefully talking like a baby. It sounded a little like maybe she had had some helium.

Take a listen as Gypsy calls her father from jail. Daddy, I understand that we haven't had a chance to get close in a long time, probably my whole life. I have a lot of questions, obviously, you know.

At her arraignment, Gypsy enters a plea of not guilty to her mother's murder. We are here in Missouri. We're driving to visit Gypsy Rose in prison. The big question, is she a murderer or is she a victim?

When she walks into the meeting room, I'm immediately struck by her radically changed appearance. She has long curly hair, makeup, and her once frail frame has filled out. Who is Gypsy Rose today? More confident, more understanding of the world, and I think a better person.

Or at least working on it. She tells me about the genesis of that relationship with Nick Godejohn, meeting him online and quickly falling in love, even hatching an ill-fated plan to introduce him to overprotective Dee Dee at a screening of Cinderella. How did it go? 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. And needless to say, that was a very long argument that lasted a couple weeks. An argument that lasted a couple of weeks. What does that look like? Yelling, throwing things, calling me names, bitch, slut, whore. Did you hate your mother at that point? I didn't hate her. You wanted her dead. Yes, but it was not because I hated her. It was because...

I wanted to escape her. Gypsy says while Dee Dee took her to the hospital to have her feeding tube replaced, seen here, the last known image of Dee Dee alive. Nick traveled to Springfield from Wisconsin. That's him checking into a local Days Inn motel where he waited for Gypsy to give word Dee Dee is asleep. It's going to go down tonight. Just the gloves and knife. Duct tape, too, to muffle her. I'll pre-cut it.

How are you feeling? Honestly, terrified. But then I had taken some medication that was not prescribed to me to calm me down. Gypsy says she hands the items to Nick and hides in the bathroom while he goes into the bedroom, matching Nick's story to police. Okay, I'll admit it. I did actually stab her. I will admit it.

I heard her scream once and there was more screaming but not like the kind in a horror film. Just like a startled scream and she called out to my name.

About 3 or 4 times and at that point I wanted to go help her so bad, but I was so afraid to get up. It's like my body wouldn't move. And then everything just went quiet. Just moments later, incredibly, the couple says they have sex on gypsies bed. Dee Dee's body in the room next door.

before taking a cab back to Nick's motel, and there they are, caught on surveillance cameras. It's disconcerting to see how quickly they were able to turn off any kind of impact from the murder. It seemed there was no effect on them. Hi there. Gypsy then shoots video of them in the hotel room. He's naked in bed. He's eating a brand.

And this is just hours after Gypsy heard her mother screaming for her help and Nicholas killed her. It's like they shut a door and that part of the life is over and now we're on to our new life. Were you afraid of getting caught? That never crossed my mind. I honestly didn't think we were going to get caught.

Oh, but they did. Captured time and again on video cameras, every step documented in receipts and eyewitnesses. This is like a crime I call Hansel and Gretel, where you drop the clues along the way as you go. I mean, they couldn't have laid it out better for the police. Look at them at the Greyhound bus counter and here hopping into Janice Buttram's taxi cab. She was in a very dark black hoodie,

but she had a very odd looking wig on. It was an old looking Cher wig, which I found very normal. The girl looked 12.

Sounded five and had a 40-year-old attitude because she was not afraid to tell me off. I just knew there was something wrong. And there's something else. The couple's attempt to hide the murder weapon. He has the murder weapon mailed from Springfield, Missouri.

to his house in Wisconsin. I mean, it's like, could this get any better if you're the detective? All wrapped up with a bow. And then in separate interviews, you've got them basically admitting what they have done. So you have confessions plus all this evidence.

It might seem like an open and shut case, but next we go inside the little pink house. It was filthy. The thing that shocked me the most was the closet inside Gypsy's house. And what is found behind this locked door might unlock more than a decade of Dee Dee's closely held secrets and hold the key to freeing Gypsy. I was like, holy, y'all need to get it over here right now and look at this. Stay with us. Hey, Fidelity.

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Gypsy Blanchard is caught in a web of secrets and lies. Even her age is in dispute. Okay.

She's behind bars and charged with murdering her mother, 48-year-old Dee Dee Blanchard, known to the community as a loving caregiver for a sickly gypsy. How did you go from this to this?

I almost see it as a fall from grace. I thought back then that I was a good person and now I just see it as it was a fraud and I made a horrible mistake.

A horrible mistake because it turns out that little pink house on Hope and Volunteer Way was actually the nerve center from which the so-called doting mother perpetrated an elaborate scam, preying on the sympathies of countless Good Samaritans. We have unearthed the appearance of a long financial fraud scheme along with this tragic event. Celebrities, charities, even cartoon characters all conned. I was disappointed

that I had been duped. That's why I caution anyone not to put money in their accounts until we kind of figure out the extent of their deception. What medical conditions did you believe you suffered from? Leukemia, asthma, both vision and hearing impaired, muscular dystrophy, and seizures. Did you always know you could walk if you wanted to? Yes.

She told you you had to stay in a wheelchair when you could walk. How did she convince you to do that? I was so young, so me looking up to her so much and just believing that she knows best, I didn't question it. Did you believe you were sick? There are certain illnesses that I knew I didn't have. I knew that I didn't need the feeding tube. I knew that I could eat, and I knew that I could walk, but I did believe my mother when she said that I had leukemia.

Why did you think you had cancer? Because I was taking lots of medications that mom said that they were for cancer. And she would shave my hair off and said, it's going to fall out anyway, so let's keep it nice and neat. But it didn't fall out. No. Did that make you raise an eyebrow? She always would shave it before it would grow in. Tell me about Dee Dee. What kind of mom was she? Very protective. Do you think she protected you?

No, not in certain ways yes, in other ways no. I think that she was very sick in her mind. For a long time I believed we were best friends and when I was younger she was my best friend. She was your only friend? Yes, other than my stuffed animals. And so I thought that she was a great mother, no complaints, we got along so perfect.

You know, I saw her as an angel that can do no wrong. But as Gypsy got older and became curious about life outside the little pink house, she says Mom Dee Dee began exerting more control. What happens when she got upset with you? It would go into an argument that would last a couple days, or it could be something where she wouldn't feed me for two days or so. Was she ever physical with you? It started to be physical in 2011. She would...

hit me with a coat hanger sometimes. Did you ever fight back? No, because I was too afraid to. Gypsy says she did try and run away once, but Dee Dee found her a few hours later and there were consequences. She physically chained you to the bed? She physically chained me to the bed and put bells on the doors.

and told anybody that I probably would have trusted that I was going through a phase and to tell her if I was doing anything behind her back. Gypsy's father, Rod, says Dee Dee had other ways to keep Gypsy from running away. After she got 18 or whatever, I mean, she had the papers written up on Gypsy saying that she was incompetent and everything, so anything happened, you know, she could...

claim that she's incompetent and they'd bring her back home. So she was always like looking two steps ahead just in case this, you know, have this in place. Did you ever consider in a public place if you stood up out of your wheelchair and walked, Dee Dee's fraud would be completely exposed? I honestly didn't think about that. It never crossed your mind? No. So instead of planning an elaborate escape, you planned a murder.

Public defender Mike Stanfield has the extremely daunting task of coming up with a legal defense for Gypsy. The evidence against her keeps mounting. In my 10 years of practice, this case by far had the most discovery that I've ever had. Close to 100 CDs worth of papers, photos, and digital information.

But it's a field trip alongside Gypsy's dad and stepmom he says proves to be the most helpful. While the outside of Gypsy's house is pretty and pink, the inside, a chaos of clutter. Frankly, it was a disaster. There was stuff everywhere. I could tell Dee Dee did a lot of just hoarding and stuff piled up. I mean, like chest high to the back of the room.

One of the bedrooms had so many items piled into it that you couldn't even walk into it. But amongst the photos on the wall and the den of disorder, some clues. The thing that shocked me the most was the closet inside Gypsy's house. I was like, holy, y'all need to get it over here right now and look at this. I mean, my mouth dropped. ♪

From the top to the bottom, full of so many medications.

This isn't your ordinary medicine cabinet. It's Dee Dee's personal pharmacy, a large linen closet fully stocked. She had even written on several of the bottles of Gypsy's medication as if she was writing it for a child. For the anti-seizure medication, it would say, shaky baby. The organization of the medications was shocking to me because it's

In every other area of Dee Dee's life, it appeared that she had absolutely no organization or cleanliness, except when it came to these medications. It let me know from the very beginning that something here was seriously wrong.

Wrong, because it turns out not only can Gypsy walk, she says she's never been sick. Not cancer, not epilepsy, not anything. The only thing that I have wrong with me is I have a little bit of a lazy eye. Not all the time, but I have better vision in this eye than I do that eye. That's it? That's it. Nothing else? Nothing else.

When we come back, operations, hospital stays, more than 100 doctors. Did they fail her? How did they not see through her? Next. They like taking pictures, that's for sure.

Rod and Christy Blanchard try to piece together the puzzle of his daughter Gypsy. This is Laura. Hunting for clues in photographs and home videos. You're the reason I was born, to be your mom. Oh God, that makes me sick. To sort out fact from fiction. Do you think that Dee Dee came up with this idea? These movies generated sympathy, which generated news coverage, which generated money and free things. See this one right here?

I don't know if she meant for anybody to see that. I am about to dive off our porch into the pile of snow. You ready? Everybody could clearly see she's moving her legs.

But those old pictures only begin to tell the story. Too many to freaking count. The paper trail is where the really fresh breadcrumbs are in this Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. Hope Kids, Jason's Dreams for Kids, Kids Wish Network. So she would actually look up foundations and stuff that she can hit up and get help with. Fake birth certificate.

This one says she's born in '95. Everything else is correct except the year. You can totally tell that she changed the date. Mm-hmm. But she didn't change it here. So it was '91, she changed it to '93, and then she turned the three to a five. She just wanted to make Gypsy younger and younger. Right.

And that's not all Didi forged, located under her bed. It was the prescription pad that Didi stole from the hospital. But while the paperwork might be fake, the pills and procedures were dreadfully real, including multiple gastrointestinal operations, eye surgeries, even the removal of her salivary glands.

Medical records reviewed by ABC News show Gypsy was treated by at least 150 different doctors. Walk me through what that appointment would typically be like. I would have a doll or a stuffed animal that I would play with, and mom would say, you know, don't talk, just play with your stuffed animal, and we'll do something fun after. The one thing that is absolutely common across every single medical record is that Gypsy never spoke.

Every single medical record says, "Mother reported," "Mother states," "History by mother." Brain scans, muscle scans, blood tests, CAT scans. And you were filthy. So how would she get the doctors to understand when none of it was true? She had a very sweet personality. Very convincing. She would call it "Southern charm."

and she would use her southern charm to get them to be friendly and get on their good side. And then she had no records. Because of Hurricane Katrina, it wiped out all the records, supposedly. The biggest question was, though, how was Dee Dee able to calm the doctors?

Hospitals we contacted declined to comment, but we tracked down one of her former neurologists, Dr. Bernardo Pflasterstein. My initial assessment, I saw a girl, a 14-year-old girl that was sitting in a wheelchair. Who examined her for muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy and immediately saw red flags. The testing didn't seem to show the same type of disabilities that Gypsy should be showing. There was nothing there to support either.

That kind of made me very suspicious. And his suspicion only grew when he told Didi what should have been exciting news. Gypsy's prior diagnoses were wrong. But the mother was not happy with that. And when she left the office in a storm and told my nurses that I don't know what I'm talking about and that she's not coming back.

Dr. Flasterstein ultimately said, I believe that the mother suffers from Munchausen by proxy. That was one of the things that I believe he bolded and underlined in that letter. What is Munchausen by proxy? Munchausen by proxy, that's essentially when a caregiver will fabricate an illness or induce an illness in their child in order to get medical care. Dr. Jamie Kaufman is a board-certified child abuse pediatrician.

It's abuse on the child, but it's to obtain attention or some kind of secondary gain for themselves. Sometimes it's financial. It can be. The most common though is actually emotional gain. I look at it kind of like an addict who needs that fix.

When you have a suspicion and you think that harm has been caused to the child, you could report that to social services and say, I have a suspicion. I, at the time, did not think that I'd had enough information just to call.

Dr. Flasterstein didn't call Child Protective Services, but someone else later did. According to this police report obtained by 20/20, a doctor alerted authorities when he could not find any symptoms that support what Deedee alleges to be wrong with her daughter. Two caseworkers later did visit the Blanchard home, but they found nothing out of the ordinary and closed the case.

How was Dee Dee able to get away with this for so long? Most of the time these mothers are pathologic liars. They're very difficult to detect. They're very manipulative. I think she probably did like most of these parents, these mothers. She moved around from doctor to doctor. They go to different hospitals and different institutions.

That's exactly what she did. After storming out of Dr. Flasterstein's office, she moved Gypsy's care three hours away to Kansas City. Why did your mom do this? I think that she was constantly seeking attention for herself because she didn't feel loved. So let's make this baby girl sick so it forever needs you. And that's what I think it's from.

You know a lot of people see this and just wonder why. Why didn't you say anything? I know. I beat myself up about that all the time. But I have to understand my mind frame back then. I was always so afraid of her.

afraid of the consequences after. Now Gypsy and her boyfriend Nick Gotajohn have to face the consequences in court with the possibility of life behind bars. Their only selfie together shows Gypsy dressed as Cinderella, Nick as her Prince Charming. But their happily ever after may never come true. The once loving couple now at odds.

There's a big difference between someone who asks someone to kill someone and someone that actually does it. Is there? I think so, because I would never kill somebody. I would never physically go through with killing somebody. I can't. My co-defendant was putting my name out there in a bad light. That's Nick himself speaking to me via video conference from jail. It's the first time he's ever spoken publicly.

Describe for me what Gypsy's role was in the murder of Dee Dee. Do you still love Gypsy? How do you feel about Nick now?

If he would have asked me that two years ago, I would have said I'm still in love with him. But now, I don't hate him. I feel sorry for him. Why do you think he did it? He was very much like my mother in certain ways. Both of them were very controlling. And I feel like I was trained my whole life to do as I was told.

We begin with breaking news this morning. Gypsy Blanchard has pleaded guilty to her role in a plot to kill her mother, Claudine D.D. Blanchard. In a courtroom stunner, prosecutors cut Gypsy a deal. How do you plead to the Class A felony of murder in the second degree? Guilty. She's to be sentenced to 10 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Gypsy's mother was holding her a prisoner. Her mother did not allow her to spend any time alone with any other human being. You're actually a prisoner now. How do the two compare? In some ways they're the same, but now I'm so much more freer. The prison that I was living in before with my mom, it's like I couldn't walk, I couldn't eat, I couldn't have friends. Over here,

I feel like I'm freer in prison than with my living with my mom because now I'm allowed to just live like a normal woman Prison isn't normal. No, not for most but for me it is. What do you think she'd want to say to you? I don't think it would be anything nice All I can hope is that from wherever she is that she still loves me in some small way

And I want her to know that I am sorry. I'm so sorry. This is Deborah Roberts with an update. Gypsy Blanchard was released from prison in December of 2023 after serving nearly eight years for the murder of her mother. Nicholas Godejohn was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. As of 2024, his case is under appeal.

Many of the charities and celebrities who donated money and services to Gypsy and Dee Dee say they were duped. 2020 profiled Gypsy Rose in January after her release from prison. You can also find that episode on Hulu. Thanks for listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. We hope you'll join us Friday nights at 9 on ABC for all new broadcast episodes of 2020.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. It's Brad Mielke, host of ABC's daily news podcast, Start Here. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with AutoQuote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.