- She started and telling people that I had cancer.
I was forced to use a wheelchair.
- And when we thought we heard it all, we didn't.
- I was being sexually abused.
There was no end in sight.
- I said, I am concerned this child has been kidnapped.
♪ No you can never take my soul ♪
(birds chirping)
- Tomorrow is my parole hearing
and I don't think I will sleep at all
because everything has led up to this moment
and it's finally here.
People have called me a victim.
They've called me a murderer,
but there's so much more under the surface.
The Gypsy Blanchard
that first entered inside this institution,
she was so, just naive and scared.
I didn't go to school.
I didn't have responsibilities,
but today, I am responsible for myself.
I got my education in prison.
I wanna show that I have every capability
of standing on my own two feet, and I'm not broken.
I'm stronger than that.
I'm a survivor.
- Dee Dee and Gypsy were living with Dee Dee's dad and stepmom.
When Dee Dee left from Claude and Laura's house,
she had called me and they told me they got in an argument
and not to tell them where they were.
They were living in Slidell, Louisiana,
which is two hours away from Golden Meadow.
- I'm here on a ship in Rhode Island.
I work 28 days on the ship, 28 days at home.
Bridge, come in, this is Rod.
- [Sailor] Go ahead.
- [Rod] I remember when Gypsy was young, I was gone a lot.
It was just hard to deal with.
I mean, I cared how they survived,
but they seemed to be fine.
- I don't think my mom ever wanted me
to have a relationship with my father.
She told me that he was abusive.
She said that one night he picked me up by the neck
and threw me towards her across the room.
That never happened.
- I didn't know what she was telling Gypsy.
That's kind of scary to think, you know what I mean?
I didn't know that, but that was the problem.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
- Some of these manipulative behaviors
that Dee Dee practiced were probably learned
in her childhood.
- Dee Dee was my mom's favorite.
She enjoyed being the little princess.
When Dee Dee was growing up,
she had like a heart murmur and my mom kept her
from a lot of stuff, you know,
she wouldn't be able to go play outside.
And then I'm thinking,
well maybe that's part of where Dee Dee had got that
'cause she was the sick kid.
- [Gypsy] I thought my mom was taking care of me.
But now looking back on it,
I was not taught certain things from a very young age.
My mother and I used to take baths together.
We slept in the same bed together and then I hit puberty
and I had got my first period.
I was crying.
I was freaking out and she didn't tell me
about pads or tampons.
So she told me to use my diapers while I was on my period.
- [Producer] So how old again were you at this point?
- [Gypsy] I was 13 years old.
When I came to prison,
I still never was taught about a tampon
and finally this woman taught me about tampons.
It was like a whole new world opened up to me.
- I think Dee Dee tried to keep Gypsy
as young as possible, as long as possible,
as a way to control her and keep her dependent.
- [Reporter] Breaking news, Hurricane Katrina intensifies
into a massive category five storm.
- [Gypsy] My mother and I were living in Slidell, Louisiana,
when Hurricane Katrina was about to make landfall.
(wind blowing)
- We didn't hear anything from them.
We didn't hear where they was going.
Kristy just started looking around
and calling around and you know, posting stuff and pictures.
- We don't know if they're alive.
- [Gypsy] My mother and I stayed at the shelter
for at least a month and a half
and when we went back to the apartment complex,
there was just nothing but devastation.
My mother had talked to a woman
that was a worker at the shelter,
so she had set it up to where my mother and I
could be life flighted to Springfield, Missouri.
We landed on the rooftop of St. John's Hospital
and I just remember thinking, okay,
we're at a hospital, this is normal, you know.
- Springfield, Missouri is a really great place,
particularly for healthcare.
The first time that I met Dee Dee and Gypsy,
Dee Dee was verbally loving in front of me to Gypsy.
Physically, there was some hugging and hand holding
and those type of things, nothing unusual.
- [Gypsy] Before the appointment, she's like,
"Now, whenever it comes to the reflex test,
make sure you keep your legs super still."
And she would put her arm around me
and hug my shoulder or she would squeeze my hand.
That was the signal to shut up.
- The way that Gypsy acted,
wearing princess dresses, the way she talked,
the things that she referenced that she liked to do
were like a kindergartner.
- When my mother and I moved to Missouri,
I would've been 14 years old and she was telling me
that I was 12 years old.
- Dee Dee was pretty clear that Gypsy
had a history of cancer, asthma,
some sort of muscular disorder.
- My mother would often tell other people and tell me
that I would only have a life expectancy of seven,
and then it was 15 and then it was 20.
I think to some degree I knew it was a facade.
However, I didn't know the malicious intent
behind the facade.
- Dee Dee didn't have the medical records.
She said they're gone because it was chaos
down in New Orleans right after Katrina.
So Dee Dee became the sole place for information.
Probably the biggest concern I had
was just this history of cancer.
Dee Dee could not give either the diagnosis
nor really the length of treatment that she had been on.
That was unusual and to me that was a red flag.
So the question is,
at what point do you trust the parent
to be accurate with the information?
Can I trust what Dee Dee's telling me?
- [Phone Operator] You may start the conversation now.
- [Gypsy] After Hurricane Katrina,
there was actually no part of me
that felt like it was going to be difficult
adjusting to a new life in Missouri
because I felt like I didn't have close family ties.
My mother had kept me away from my mother's side of the family
and my father's side of the family.
- After Hurricane Katrina,
we didn't know if Dee Dee and Gypsy evacuated anywhere.
- The local news in New Orleans was letting people
post messages and I had made a post.
I called it in, you know,
hi, this is Kristy Blanchard.
I am looking for Dee Dee and Gypsy Blanchard.
This is my phone number.
Please call me, you know, and let me know y'all okay.
- Gypsy calls me Nona
because she's just like a grandchild to me.
We have lots of memories.
We have pictures, we have notes that Gypsy wrote to me.
"I love you very much. Great big hugs."
Signed, "Love, Gypsy Rose."
- Special.
- Yeah, yeah, I do.
I met Dee Dee and Gypsy when our emergency room doctor
brought them from the Katrina hurricane to Springfield.
They stayed at Mercy Hospital
in our hospitality house where I worked.
Gypsy was so friendly, she could talk to anyone.
- [Gypsy] Marsha made me feel like this was a safe place
because she was just so nice and welcoming.
- We were told that her dad was out of the picture
'cause he was a bad man
and obviously that's not a true statement.
- [Gypsy] I didn't know at that time
that my dad and my stepmom were looking for me.
- It was a couple months before we finally made contact.
- My phone rang and it was Dee Dee
and I started crying and I answered.
I'm like, "Are y'all okay?"
And she's like, "Yes, we're fine."
I was like, thank God.
- Dee Dee said Missouri was nice and they were gonna stay there.
I missed Gypsy a lot,
but I felt like Dee Dee was doing a great job
taking care of Gypsy.
- When Dee Dee and Gypsy came up from New Orleans
with no concrete medical records previously,
I have to assess the information that Dee Dee's giving me,
but she didn't remember the cancer diagnosis.
So we tested, and guess what, the test came back normal.
We felt like there was no evidence of cancer.
Well, maybe she's in remission.
Then when Dee Dee said she's got a muscular problem,
at least from the outset, it looks like, well,
maybe she does, she's in a wheelchair.
As I examined her,
there wasn't real obvious things
that suggested muscular disorders,
so I was really frustrated
and so that's when I referred Gypsy to see a neurologist.
- My name is Bernardo Flasterstein.
I'm a pediatric neurologist and I met Gypsy Rose
after they just had moved to Springfield, Missouri.
She came with multiple medical conditions,
but Dee Dee was not willing or able
to give details about each one of the diagnosis.
So I said, let's do new tests.
We did an MRI of the spine and the brain.
When I got the results, they were all normal.
Gypsy rose didn't have cerebral palsy.
Her muscles are good, her strength is good,
and I think that she should be able to walk.
This is great news.
And then I tried to have her move and stand her up
and lo and behold she was able to stand up.
- [Producer] Dr. Flasterstein said that your MRI results
were normal and he said that he asked you to stand up
and lo and behold you stood up.
- [Gypsy] I don't recall that ever happening.
I'm not saying he's lying,
I'm just saying that I know for damn sure
if I would've stood up in any office,
I would've had my ass chewed out and that didn't happen.
- Dee Dee was not happy and got upset,
took Gypsy by wheelchair and she storm out of the room.
I was sitting there, I was amazed.
Already I was suspicious based on the results of the MRI,
the imaging studies, that this is Munchausen by Proxy.
Been asked many times,
why didn't I report it to family services?
You cannot call family service for a suspicion.
You have to have it proven that her mom is making it up.
- [Gypsy] You can't really report suspicions,
but I feel like why would you take a chance of being wrong
when you could be right?
- Maybe I should have reported in any case
and got a negative response.
I'm sorry that this happened to her,
but I'm glad that she can walk,
that she doesn't have any of this neurological conditions
and wish her the best.
(somber music)
- One of the hallmarks of Munchausen's by Proxy
is they go to one doctor and they go to another doctor.
In one instance, Dee Dee did seek the assistance
from an ear, nose, and throat specialist
for excessive drooling which is a common problem
in those with cerebral palsy.
- [Gypsy] My mom put Orajel on my mouth,
it would numb my mouth and make me drool.
- Of course, Gypsy did not have cerebral palsy
and ultimately had her salivary glands removed
and that can have complications like tooth loss.
- [Gypsy] After surgery,
I had more and more of my teeth removed
and now I have 16 teeth left.
Today, my dentures don't fit in properly
and I'm not able to get a new set because I'm in prison
and they don't do that here.
The doctors have prescribed me pain medication
after the surgery.
Well, when the pain medication ran out,
I was still in pain and my mother had a prescription
for Vicodin and so when she wasn't looking,
I would just go and take one or two from her bottle
and I didn't know what addiction really was.
I just knew that it was a craving
that's all I could think about.
I wanted another one.
(rising dramatic music)
(gentle music)
- When I first got to prison,
I was subjected to a lot of peer pressure
and I smoked for about a year.
I started with vaping and it became addictive, obviously,
and then I went to real cigarettes
and it led me down some bad choices that I regret.
But it was a learning experience for me
because I got to see who I wanna be
and who I don't wanna be.
I never told anyone about this before.
I first started taking pain pills
after I had quite extensive surgery done.
I was 16 years old,
but the craving for the pain pills continued.
It was like an escape from my reality.
But as my tolerance started to heighten,
one or two didn't get me high anymore
so I took three and four.
My mother did start to suspect
that I was taking her pain pills behind her back
and she confronted me about it,
but I did, of course, lie to her.
I still have a lot of demons to work through.
(suspenseful orchestral music)
- [Phone Operator] This call is from a correctional facility
and may be monitored and recorded.
- Hi Gypsy, Dr. John Fabian, how you doing?
- [Gypsy] I'm doing well, how are you?
- Good, your lawyer contacted me after your arrest
and requested that I evaluate you
and I wasn't needed because, you know, you had pled guilty.
- [Gypsy] Okay.
(tense music)
- So what is your coping process in prison?
- [Gypsy] In the first couple years of my incarceration,
I coped using drugs.
I think I first started to learn
that drugs were available in prison
when I started seeing other women get high.
I tried Suboxone and it gave me the same high
as taking pain pills.
(tense music)
And instantly I was brought back
to the addiction that I had, the pain pills,
back when I was living with my mother.
And then one day,
one of the women that I owed $50 to for a bunch of pills,
she was pressuring me to get paid.
And so I called Kristy
and I told her that I accidentally broke
this girl's CD player and if she could please send $50.
- We're the type of people,
if you borrowing some from somebody and it breaks,
you gotta pay for it.
I said, okay, I said I'll send it.
- [Gypsy] It had been eating at me for years
that I lied to Kristy.
I hated myself and I hated what I became.
So I decided to tell Kristy.
- When Gypsy told me, I was upset,
but she told me the truth.
And that's, to me, at the end of the day,
that's what mattered.
- [Gypsy] I was really happy,
but I can tell Kristy anything and I'm clean, I'm sober,
and I'm not that person anymore.
Nobody knows that I even had a addiction before prison,
let alone in prison.
- Hopefully she stays on this straight and narrow.
And as far as Gypsy learning the lies and manipulations
from her mom, I've noticed that she's learning
to not repeat that pattern.
- [Gypsy] We were bonded by this lie together,
like we couldn't escape each other.
- When Dee Dee and Gypsy came up from New Orleans,
there were a number of things that Dee Dee did,
manipulating the community.
One was Habitat for Humanity.
(gentle piano music)
- The house was made custom to suit her needs.
Let's include a wheelchair ramp, let's include bigger,
let's make this a home that they could
really, really call their own.
- Even though I knew I could walk,
I was so happy that I cried
because all my life, I never lived in a home that was ours.
- That house was essentially an extension
of the love and care the community gave to this pair
but it was all a scam.
- It's so easy to live here and it's so peaceful.
- I remember my mom had gave me this little glass house
and she said this, one day this will be real
and now it finally is.
Looking back on that interview,
I was coached before we had filmed for that.
And I remember my mother telling me,
this is going to be our happily ever after.
Kinda staying with the fairy tale theme.
It just proves that happy endings
are not just in fairy tales, they're real.
- I would say there was a lot of enthusiasm
from, not just my colleagues, but the community for Gypsy.
I was Gypsy's pediatrician for many years.
Over time, my nurse came to me with three documents,
and on these three separate documents,
she had three separate birthdays.
The day and month were the same, but the year was different.
And my nurse said, "I'm now really concerned."
(dramatic suspenseful music)
I'm getting chills actually thinking about this.
Sorry, gimme a second.
- Because it was,
I'm experiencing the emotions that I had
when it was a, oh my gosh,
there might be something really bad going on.
- Tomorrow's my parole hearing
and I have imagined it millions of times in my head already.
If they ask me the big question that I have heard
so many times over, why didn't you just stand up?
Why didn't you just tell someone what was going on?
And I'm honest with them and I tell them
I was scared of my mother.
(dramatic music)
- Over time, as I begin to look at all these diagnoses
and the documents with the wrong birth dates,
I called the Missouri Department of Family Services
and I said, "I am concerned this child has been kidnapped."
- I remember DFS coming to my house,
they kept my mother in the living room
and they talked to me alone in my bedroom
and they asked me, did I have bruises on me?
Can I show them?
"No, I don't."
And they're like,
"Who is that woman in the other room to you?
Is that your mother?"
And I'm like, "Yes ma'am."
I can hear them talking to my mom.
They told her to shut the F up at one point
and it really shook me up because at this time,
I was very close with my mother.
I really, truly believed that she was doing the best by me.
DFS workers told my mother that she needed to obtain
a real birth certificate for me.
She played it off as if she was just a mother
who was in a difficult situation
and she was trying her best.
Eventually they left, but they didn't follow up.
- I had no clue what DFS was doing
and I asked Dee Dee to bring Gypsy in.
I asked, "Has anyone from the state come and visited you?"
And Dee Dee said, "Yeah, they did."
And I said, "I want you to know that I was the one
who called them."
So at that point, I asked Dee Dee to leave the room
'cause I wanted to talk to Gypsy.
Dee Dee was a little hesitant, but she left.
So at this point I said, "Gypsy, is everything okay?"
I said, "Is there anything that you want to tell me?
This is a safe place."
(suspenseful music)
And she was like, "No, everything's fine.
My mom loves me and I love my mom."
My concerns were not assuaged,
but I felt that I had done everything that I could do.
- [Gypsy] Could I be perfectly honest?
How do we know that these doctors aren't saying all this,
of these accounts of them doing all the right thing by me,
but I don't recall any of it?
Am I lying or is it that they're just trying
to cover their own asses?
- I'd say, "I'm sorry I failed you."
That's what I would say.
I'm really sorry.
I wish I could even say that I entertained
the diagnosis of Munchausens by Proxy and dismissed it,
but it didn't enter into my brain.
- I hold a lot of complicated emotions
for a lot of people that could have
said something but didn't.
There's some things I just don't understand why.
♪ I believed in you
- I don't think everyone intentionally failed Gypsy.
But it's a combination and really spearheaded
by how a good a manipulator Dee Dee is
and how much of a pathological liar she is.
- [Gypsy] After the DFS visit,
my mother became more paranoid
about doctors and social workers.
♪ You tried to take my freedom
My mom had put filters on our windows
to kind of black out anything from being seen
inside the house, but also kept me from seeing
what's going on outside too.
It felt even more like I was a prisoner in my own home.
♪ No, you can never take my soul ♪
(suspenseful music)
With my mother, it was a hot and cold relationship.
It was either very affectionate
because I was very submissive and obedient
or I was either rebellious and I would be punished for it.
After I would do something that my mom wanted me to do,
we would go to Toys R Us or she would buy me a new dress
and then the next best thing was her love and affection.
My mother would apply for different
wish granting organizations like Make-a-Wish Foundation
and take me on these trips to Disney World.
- If I knew there was a Disney trip coming up or something,
you know, I'll give you a couple hundred dollars
so she can get some souvenirs and stuff like that.
(birds chirping)
For her 18th birthday, when I did call her
and I asked Dee Dee
to tell Gypsy happy birthday, she's like,
"Ah, don't tell her that."
I'm like, "Why? It's her 18th birthday."
I mean, she's 18.
It's a big deal.
You know, she doesn't know she's 18.
Didn't make sense at all.
- [Gypsy] I think that my mother told me I was turning 14.
I took it at face value and it almost seeming
like I was aging backwards.
- That was a big red flag for me when that happened.
So, you know, I pushed that we go see them.
There had been years, tried calling them to say,
we're coming and it's just like radio silence.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
I felt bad then, and I still feel bad.
I wish it'd been different.
(somber music)
- [Gypsy] It wasn't like I missed my dad
in any sort of way because I thought that he didn't love me.
- In the six years that we hadn't seen them.
I just thought they were just living their everyday life.
Going to doctor's appointments, going on trips.
You know, it breaks my heart
because your kid isn't supposed to go through that.
- For a very long time, I didn't have my own friends,
but the daughter of one of the neighbors couple doors down
was nice to me and I was nice to her.
So I called her a friend.
I felt this small bit of jealousy
because she was allowed to hang out with her friends
and go shopping and have a boyfriend
and just live her life.
- Gypsy was blossoming into a adolescent female
with certain sexual needs and social needs.
She had a need to just connect with somebody,
have a boyfriend, go out on a date,
and hopefully without her mother attached to her.
- My mother had just started a Facebook profile,
but she never let me get on Facebook.
At this point my mother had got
the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
to gift me a laptop for Christmas.
My mom thought that I was looking at the Barbie website,
Disney website, these very kid oriented websites,
but one of the first things I did
was make a Facebook account behind her back.
I started to finally talk to people and express myself
and find friends of my own.
And I was excited to have this normal life.
Around this time, my mother took me to a sci-fi convention
called Vision Con.
- [Photographer] Hey Gypsy.
- And one night during the convention,
I'm in my wheelchair and my mother's a few feet away
and this guy bumps into me.
He kind of looked a little handsome and he's like,
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you, I'm sorry."
I'm like, "It's no problem, it's fine."
Then we went our separate ways.
A few days later, he found my secret Facebook profile.
I accepted his friend request and his name was Dan.
A lot of it was talking with him about movies, TV,
music, common interests, but then there was that part of it
that was kind of sexually charged.
I thought that it was a possibility
that he could be the one that would take me away
from this existence living with my mother.
I thought, this is my knight in shining armor.
I found out that I wasn't 15,
that I was actually 19 and I was very shocked.
That's when he tells me that he was on parole.
I didn't even know what parole meant.
(pensive music)
- The notions that I had of love before prison
were that of what I'd seen in Disney cartoons.
You know, you never see Prince Charming and Cinderella
fight ever, like everything's all perfect all the time.
And then I started dating
and then I realized it wasn't like that. (laughs)
I first met Dan at a sci-fi convention
called Vision Con.
We would trade messages back and forth for a while,
and slowly after a few months I started to tell him
more and more about my home life.
He was the very first person that I ever told
that I could walk.
(somber music)
It was a relief to me to be able to confide in someone
and he seemed really sweet.
The age that my mother was telling him
was 15 at the time and he was 36.
And then I started dreaming about what it would be like
if I was just a little bit older,
because then I would be legal to date him if I wanted to.
Then one day, I found my Medicaid card
and it said that my birth year was 1991
and she had been claiming that it was 1995.
I found out that I wasn't 15,
that I was actually 19 and I was very shocked.
At that point, I wish that I had stood up for myself more
and realizing that the wheelchair
was also part of a con.
- As long as there were programs for sick children,
Dee Dee would receive SSI benefits for that.
So I think it was very much financial
as well as an emotional thing.
If Gypsy left her, she would lose her life.
- I told Dan my age
and he's like, "You're an independent woman.
You could leave."
And I just kept explaining, I can't, you don't understand,
I can't, my mother will find me and she,
and he would tell me, "No, no, I'll make sure to protect you."
And so we created this plan that I was gonna leave home
and he was going to take me to his farm in Arkansas.
So one night when my mother was asleep,
I stole my mother's cell phone from her purse
and I was texting with Dan and he sent me a text that said,
"Could tonight be the night that we run away together?"
And I was like, okay.
I packed a few costumes
'cause I didn't have real clothes and I had a blonde wig
so no one would recognize me.
I stole my mom's pain pills and I stole cash.
And I left her a runaway note
so she wouldn't worry about me.
And I told her that I knew that I was 19
and I wanted to live my own life as an independent woman.
And I told her that I loved her,
that it was just time for me to spread my wings and fly
and I left through the back door.
It was late at night, it was about 2:00 AM,
and I hitchhike to his friend's house
and I was excited to see him.
That's when he tells me that he was on parole
and couldn't leave the state.
I didn't even know what parole meant.
My first reaction is, oh my God, she's going to find me.
♪ Try to take my freedom
- She chained me to the bed and said
that you will never find love.
♪ But you can never take my soul ♪
About six months ago I met someone and we started dating.
♪ No, you can never take my soul ♪