Everyone stereotypes families. Some use terms such as “normal”, “weird”, “messed up”, etc. When it comes to the Blanchard family, “odd” is a good fit. There are lots of crazy facts you may have heard on the news, YouTube, or on the new TV series on Hulu. This case started in 2015, and is still active to this day.

The Blanchard family history is complicated. When Rod Blanchard was seventeen and Dee Dee was twenty four, they found out they were pregnant. Dee Dee and Rod then decided to get married and raise the baby together, but, it wasn’t till Rod’s eighteenth birthday that he realized he was making a mistake marrying Dee Dee and called off the marriage. Rod wanted to have a relationship with the baby named Gypsy while she was growing up, but Dee Dee decided that she would make it nearly impossible to do so. When Gypsy was born, Rod started paying $1,200 for child support, as well as any gifts Dee Dee requested.

Dee Dee has had lots of struggles raising Gypsy. There is a documentary, “Mommy Dead and Dearest”, which explains how Dee Dee grew up. Dee Dee was not very liked by her family. She stole from her family as revenge when things didn’t go her way. She committed credit card fraud towards her father and stepmother. She even tried to poison her stepmother by putting weed killer in her food (her stepmother survived but was on bed rest for nine months).Dee Dee’s family also thinks that she murdered her own mother by starving her to death while taking care of her. Dee Dee’s behavior pointed exactly to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, which is a disorder where a person makes up medical symptoms to get sympathy from others.

When Dee Dee’s daughter Gypsy was born, she was a healthy baby girl. By the time Gypsy was three months old, Dee Dee started saying Gypsy has a variety of illnesses: sleep apnea, epilepsy, cancer, and muscular dystrophy, an allergy to sugar, as well as eye and ear problems. Having once worked as a nurse’s aide and she knew all the medical terminology and seemed educated on everything she was saying. For every doctor’s visit, there was a new doctor so no one would catch what was going on, and each new doctor prescribed Gypsy with any medication that Dee Dee had said she needed.

Gypsy was only eight years old when Dee Dee decided she needed a feeding tube and to use a wheelchair. Dee Dee had also made Gypsy go through multiple surgeries she did not need. Gypsy had to use oxygen tank at night, go through procedures on her eyes and have the removal of her salivary glands. Due to all the medications and the removal of her salivary glands, Gypsy’s teeth rotted and she had to get them all removed. Dee Dee would shave Gypsy’s head so people would think Gypsy had leukemia, and would say to Gypsy, “It’s going to fall out anyway, let’s just save it off so everything is nice and clean.”

In 2005, Dee Dee claimed to be a victim of hurricane Katrina, thus receiving assistance to move from Missouri to Louisiana. Dee Dee furthermore used the hurricane as an excuse for Gypsy’s missing medical files. When Gypsy and Dee Dee moved, no one suspected a thing. Everyone believed Gypsy was very sick, needed a wheelchair, needed assistance, and had the mental capacity of a child. Dee Dee would lie about Gypsy’s mental capacity and the year she was born. Gypsy was born in 1991 and Dee Dee would make the years progress as Gypsy would age, saying she was born in 1993 and then 1995.

One day, Gypsy and Dee Dee were in the mall and Gypsy said she needed to go to the bathroom. Instead, Gypsy went to the computer store and bought a laptop with money she had stolen from Dee Dee’s room. When Gypsy got her laptop, she decided to go on a dating website and met Nicholas Godejohn. The two chatted on the site for a few months and then eventually started to video chat every night. Gypsy confided in Nicholas and told him all her family secrets. The video chats went on for two and a half years until they decided to meet behind Dee Dee’s back.

In 2015, the movie “Cinderella” came out in theaters. Gypsy and Dee Dee decided to go watch it. Dee Dee had no idea that Gypsy was planning on meeting Nicholas at the theater and introduce him to her mother. The plan didn’t work out well because Dee Dee thought Nicholas was a creep following them around. Gypsy then used her famous excuse, “I need to go to the bathroom” and went to meet Nicholas.

Due to Dee Dee’s reaction towards Nicholas, he decided he didn’t like her but still he wanted to help Gypsy escape from her however he could.after meeting later that night,  Gypsy accepted Nicholas’s offer to help her kill her mother so they could be together. Coming up with a plan on video chat, they decided  that Nicholas would ride a bus to Gypsy’s house to kill her mother. Nicholas and Gypsy went through with the plan and when Nicholas went inside Gypsy’s home, Gypsy went in the bathroom while Nicholas went in Dee Dee’s room and stabbed her multiple times while she was asleep. Gypsy and Nicholas then ran away and ended up staying in a hotel that night.

After escaping the home, there were multiple posts on Dee Dee and Gypsy’s shared Facebook account. The comments explicitly stated that, Dee Dee was dead and projected the violent act all over social media. The neighbors saw the comments and decided to go to the home to see if the account was accurate, and were faced with the horrors of their inhumane actions. The police were called, Gypsy and Nicholas were arrested for their crime.

My personal opinion is that the crime was once in self-defense and although she thought she was doing the right thing, she could have just turned her mother in when she discovered the lies. No matter the lie, the truth always comes out.Dee Dee’s murder could have been avoided.

While interviewing Mrs.Banks, a school counselor, and Mrs.O’Halloran, the school nurse,they had very similar responses when it comes to actions they would take if a child confessed to not needed treatment their parent was saying they needed. Mrs. O’Halloran stated: “If a child and their parent come into the nurses office, the school needs  a form from the doctor and they will also have to confirm with a doctor that the medicine is okay for them to take at school.” She also stated: ” If a child confessed they never needed the medicine, and were forced to take it by a parent, she would  call a social worker and  report what the child was saying.” Mrs.Banks also said that if a child stated they did not need the treatment their parent was saying they needed, she would make a call.