Two years ago, almost to the day, we residents in the city of Springfield, MO waited on the edge of our seats for word on Gypsy Blancharde, a wheelchair-bound teenager with the intellect of a small girl whose mother had just been discovered brutally murdered in her bedroom of their north side home.

Gypsy's wheelchair was found empty. No sign of who might have taken her.

Having just experienced a tragic child abduction and murder in the community just a few years prior, we were all certain of the worst - whoever murdered Dee Dee had kidnapped sweet, defenseless Gypsy Rose.

The city of Springfield, including myself, watched in horror as the whole thing played out on social media. It seemed the person responsible was using Gypsy's phone and the mother/daughter mutual facebook account to taunt their friends and family:

Loved by the Community

Known for being the mother hen of the neighborhood, Dee Dee Blancharde was often hosting Summer movie parties for the underprivileged children in the low-income neighborhood. She and her 14 year old daughter, Gypsy Rose, told our community they were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. They had been re-homed in a neighborhood of houses built by habitat for humanity and were actively involved in the cosplay community who often held fundraisers to help with Gypsy's care.

Dee Dee had told neighbors and friends about Gypsy's long medical history of being in and out of hospitals from a very young age due to leukemia and muscular dystrophy. She had undergone several surgeries, required quite a bit of medication, and at one point needed a feeding tube to receive nutrients.

Dee Dee said that Gypsy lost the use of her legs several years ago and that she had the mind of an adolescent.

Gypsy loved to dress up like Disney princesses and go to comic conventions, and at one point, all of the fundraising accumulated in a trip to see Disneyland for Gypsy and her mom.
It was widely known that they were each other's best friend. "We are a pair of shoes" Gypsy had said during an earlier TV interview in her squeaky, child-like voice, "[One is] never good without the other."

Who could possibly want to hurt these two?

When police finally gained entry to the home, they found 48 year old Dee Dee Blancharde dead of multiple gruesome stab wounds. She was face-down in her bed. She had been dead for days.

We waited anxiously for two days to find out the fate of Gypsy Rose. Then it came:

As the details unfolded, our community began connecting the dots. Dee Dee never allowed Gypsy to stay with friends or even play with them alone. Many people in Springfield started speaking up and recounting details that eventually became holes in their story of tragedy and triumph. Some mentioned Gypsy had tried to run away before.

When the story went viral and the rest of the world caught wind of this strange murder case, former family and friends, including Gypsy's biological father, went on record to speak of Dee Dee's strange behavior and acts of deception before leaving Louisiana. This included suspicion that she slowly starved her own elderly mother to death and attempted to poison her step-mother.

The term "munchausen by proxy" started floating around - In short, it is a term that refers to an obsession with the attention one gets when they are the caregiver of a terminally ill loved one. In Dee Dee and Gypsy's case, Dee Dee had made up years and years of illness, even convincing doctors that Gypsy needed agonizing cancer medications that rotted her teeth, surgeries, painful feeding tubes, and even forced Gypsy to keep her head shaved and confined her to a wheelchair 24/7 because she was addicted to the feeling of support, the fundraisers, the free trips, and the charity they received.

It began to come to light that Gypsy was not 14 years old, but rather somewhere in her early 20's, a fact that she herself was unaware of for a long time.

A wave of shock, anger, embarrassment, and sympathy rolled over our city. Many argued that Gypsy was nothing more than a copy of her mother, able to deceive others easily, and that the murder had been pre-meditated. Others rallied to Gypsy's support, noting that she had known no other way in life and was nothing more than a victim of years of horrid abuse.

A Twisted Attraction: The Escape Plan is Made

Gypsy had already tried to get away from her mother's abuse around 2009 when she walked to neighbor's door in the middle of the night and requested a ride to the hospital to visit a man who had been attacked for having a romantic relationship with her. Thinking she was only a disabled girl, a group of men had assaulted the love interest to make it clear he was to stay away. When Gypsy appeared at the hospital, she presented a birth certificate that indicated she was several years older than many thought. When Dee Dee found her daughter, she convinced everyone that the birth certificate was a mistake and incorrectly issued after they had lost all their belongings in Katrina.
After the same happened again, this time Dee Dee finding Gypsy in a hotel room with a man she had met online, Dee Dee smashed her computer and tied her to the bed to keep her confined to the lie.
She managed to gain computer access again some time later, using it only after Dee Dee had gone to bed for the night. This time, she connected with Nicholas Godejohn on a Christian dating site. Godejohn already had a history of mental illness and public indecency, having been caught masturbating in a McDonald's. The two started a dark correspondence, with Godejohn dominating the sheltered girl who loved to play dress up:

Sometime in min-June, 2014, Godejohn traveled to Springfield, and then to Dee Dee and Gypsy's house, where Gypsy let him in and hid in the bathroom while he murdered Dee Dee in her bedroom. The two then traveled to Godejohn's home in Wisconsin, where they posted the ghastly facebook message.

Considering the situation, both sides of the court requested to take the death penalty off the table right away. Gypsy Rose will likely get parole by 2026, and will still have the second half of her life to find support for her trauma and free herself of the terrible abuse of her mentally ill mother. Her father and step-mother are excitedly awaiting her release so they can be there to help her shape her new life and find some direction.

Godejohn is still awaiting trial, but will likely spend life in prison for his part in Dee Dee's murder.

This photos is shows Gypsy Rose after some time in custody. She has gained weight, grown out her hair, and her smile seems to hold a bit of hope. Despite being in jail - which actually might seem like a vacation compared to what she's been through - she seems to already be finding some happiness.

“This time is good for me,” she said in a Buzzfeed interview “I’ve been raised to do what my mother taught me to do. And those things aren’t very good.”
“She taught me to lie, and I don’t wanna lie. I want to be a good, honest person.”

For further reading, help yourself to these links:

How Dee Dee Blanchard Faked Daughter Gypsy's Medical Issues
Gypsy Blanchard: Everything you need to know about the case
HBO’s Mommy Dead and Dearest is a perfect storm of true crime, pageantry, and Southern gothic tropes
10 Shocking Cases Involving Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy

Thanks for reading!