The Gypsy Rose Blanchard case is one of the most strangest ever. Was she a cold-blooded murderer or was she just a person who didn’t see any way else out. She only had a second-grade education at the time her then-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn fatally stabbed her mother, Dee Dee. Gypsy-Rose says in the latest 20/20 interview that she was taking so much medication that she was mostly high during the whole murder.
And anyone seeing the crime scene photos can see that it looked liked a pharmacy in their house. But why wait this late to say it? You have to take a little bit of what with a grain of salt. However, you must also ask yourself did the State of Missouri make a mistake when she was convicted. I’ve heard of cases in which people who didn’t have the mental capacity to understand the charges against them couldn’t be tried.
It’s a good bet that if Gypsy-Rose and Godejohn didn’t go all the way to Wisconsin where he was from, it might have been harder for the prosecutors to go after her. The 20/20 episode is basically a retread of stuff that was already discussed in Mommy Dead and Dearest and the Hulu limited series The Act. There’s maybe 20-25 minutes of the interview in the show and I’m sure she didn’t answer some of the pressing questions they asked that didn’t make it on the final cut.
Dee Dee was no angel. She exploited charities and used her daughter to get any type of money from someone, including a $3,500 donation from country-western star Miranda Lambert. She claimed Gypsy-Rose was sick and had multiple diseases included muscular dystrophy, asthma and leukemia. She had also claimed that Gypsy-Rose had suffered brain injury from her birth. I will admit, there is something about her look that could’ve fooled a lot of people.
And if they couldn’t naturally fool them, Dee Dee made sure. At one point, she reportedly pulled out her daughter’s teeth and shave her head. Gypsy-Rose has a high-squeaky voice so people probably just assumed she was a child, even when she was legally an adult. Even Gypsy-Rose didn’t know what her age was. She hid her daughter from her father, Rod for many years. It’s now called factitious disorder imposed on others or Munchausen syndrome by proxy, but it’s obvious Dee Dee had it.
Yet I think she did it more for monetary gain rather than attention. They had lived in the New Orleans area before Hurricane Katrina forced them to relocate to the Springfield, Mo. era at which point Dee Dee was able to get a house made for them by Habitat for Humanity. And they were also able to go on trips to DisneyWorld. In The Act, Dee Dee is played by Oscar-winning Patricia Arquette and it’s implied it was a ruse she was doing to make money. The series paints Gypsy-Rose in a more sympathetic light showing her being tied to the bed as she sleep. Arquette won an Emmy for her role and Joey King, who plays Gypsey-Rose, was nominated for her role.
The series, I’m sure does take some dramatic license, but it does show how Dee Dee was a master manipulator behind closed doors and was able to fool people out in public. I would recommend you watch the series mostly because one of my friends and fellow Georgia Southern alum Ginny Hall Cameron has a recurring role as one of Dee Dee’s neighbors. However, they did her wrong by showing her first scene from behind as she’s watering the grass. But you can see her clearly in the background of a few scenes and one where she waves at someone. Ginny also appeared with her husband and daughter in the movie Strays during the fireworks scene. She’s a fan of Arquette and enjoyed appearing on screen with her.
The HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest gives a more detailed look at the case and isn’t so over sensationalized which is what 20/20 does. It gives more time to Gypsy-Rose’s father Rod and her stepmother, Kristy, who Gypsy-Rose says she now calls “Mom.” And considering how bad Dee Dee was, she definitely doesn’t deserve the moniker. Kristy says she has forgiven Dee Dee but Rod says he probably will never telling BuzzFeed that Dee Dee “started a web of lies, and there was no escaping after.”
Dee Dee’s family reportedly didn’t mourn her and didn’t pay for her funeral. Dee Dee’s body was cremated and her parents flushed the ashes down the toilet. While I don’t condone the violence, the attention might bring some more attention to this disorder. I may not agree with the attention Gypsy-Rose has received but then again Kyle Rittenhouse got a lot of attention and even celebrities, like Ricky Schroeder, helping pay his bail.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 