Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'I'm Free!': Gypsy Rose Blanchard Blows Up Social Media a Week After Release From Prison

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Gypsy Rose Blanchard has become a social media sensation following her release from prison after serving more than eight years for the murder of her mother. Blanchard now has more than six million followers on instagram and TikTok who are watching as she posts videos of herself and her new husband. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at some of the posts and the pitfalls that could lie ahead with GiGi McKelvey, host of the Pretty Lies & Alibis podcast, in this episode of Crime Fix - a daily show that delves into the biggest stories in crime.HOST:Angenette Levy: twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoPodcasting - Brad MaybeGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Hey everyone, this is Gypsy. I'm finally free. Nearly a week after Gypsy Rose Blanchard's release from prison, she's become a social media fascination. Everyone has been really, really nice and supportive, and I really appreciate that. The woman who admitted to planning the murder of her mother free after serving less than 10 years. I'm Anjanette Levy. It's Wednesday, and this is

Crime Fix, Law and Crime's look at the biggest stories in the world of crime. Gypsy Rose Blanchard is a convicted murderer who has served her time. She pleaded guilty to her role in the world of crime. Gypsy Rose Blanchard is a convicted murderer who has served her time. She pleaded guilty to her role in the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, at their home in Green County, Missouri, back in 2015. Gypsy Rose's then-boyfriend, Nick Godejohn, stabbed Dee Dee to death. Then they took off for Wisconsin after having sex, where they were captured. Gypsy Rose flipped on Nick and testified against him. How did Nick know when to do this crime, time-wise, that morning? I told him. Who planned this murder?

I did. Now, this case is unique, of course, because Gypsy Rose was found to be the victim of severe child abuse at the hands of her mother. It's called Munchausen by proxy syndrome. Dee Dee Blanchard was using her daughter to scam people out of money by claiming she was ill. And Dee Dee was apparently so convincing that doctors actually believed her and performed some unnecessary medical procedures on Gypsy Rose. Gypsy Rose simply couldn't take it anymore. And what was going on in your home life that made you reach the point where you did that or made that decision? I was growing and increasingly desperate to get out of my home life. So Gypsy Rose came up with a plan with Nick Godejohn, whom she'd met on a dating website.

Now, I want to start talking about June of 2015. You mentioned that you had decided to kill your mother at some point. Yes, sir. Was that the only plan you ever had in terms of how to get out of your situation? Besides running away, that is the only plan I had. Did you have other alternative plans other than killing your

mother? Yes. How many plans altogether did you have? Three. Did you have names for those plans? Yes. What were the names? Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C. And could you tell us about the other two possibilities other than killing your mother?

Yes. Plan A, we already had tried that, which was to meet up at the movie theater, act like we never met before, and try and start a relationship from there with my mother's permission. What was the other alternative plan? Another one was for me to get pregnant. I believed that since he would be the father, he would have to be in my life. Now Nick came down to Springfield again in June of 2015 is that correct? Yes sir. Who paid for that trip? I did. Why did you pay for that trip? Again I didn't think he had enough money. And how did you get money to him to come down on that trip? I stole money from my mother, and I sent it to him via the mail.

Do you have any idea exactly how much money you sent to Nick? Over $1,000. And in these two trips to Springfield, how much of his own money was used? I do not know. Are you aware that he spent any of his money on either of these two trips? No, sir. Nipkota John, who's on the autism spectrum and has a low IQ, was convicted at trial and sentenced to life in prison without parole. His defense claimed that Gypsy Rose manipulated him with sex. Gypsy Rose testifying about their sex life. He actually first told you about his

alter ego, Victor. You recall that? Yes, sir. And Victor was a vampire that was 500 years old. Yes, sir. And you decided to come up with your alter egos just to kind of please him. Yes, sir. And also as part of this fantasy, you also started to kind of consider yourselves as master and slave, correct? Yes, sir. And the defendant was the master. Yes, sir.

And you were the slave. Yes, sir. And you were the slave. Yes, sir. And at one point, he had sent you basically like a bill of sale kind of ownership papers. Do you remember that? Yes, sir. And those papers would basically mean that the defendant owned you. Yes, sir. And you also were asked a little bit about the videos that you and the defendant sent back and forth.

Do you remember that? Yes, sir. And on a lot of those videos that you would send, the defendant would actually send you a script beforehand, correct? Yes, sir. And that script would instruct you on what to do in the videos. Yes, sir. And that script would instruct you on what to do in the videos. Yes, sir. Now, less than 10 years after Dee Dee Blanchard's murder, Gypsy Rose is a free woman. Hey, everyone. Happy New Year's Eve. I'm about to celebrate with my family.

And unlike most recently released inmates, Gypsy has a huge following. Her Instagram page has blown up with 6 million followers. And on TikTok, she has more than 6.3 million people cheering her on. And she has a new husband. His name is Ryan Anderson. Gypsy Rose also has a lot of irons in the fire, including a docu-series on Lifetime. I've got a lot of great things happening really soon. I've got my documentary series coming out, The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard. I just put out an e-book that I'm super proud of. It's not a rehashing of everything that happened. It's more of my reflection of everything that I've learned and experienced in the last eight and a half years.

Joining me to discuss all of this is somebody who's followed Gypsy Rose Blanchard's case. She is Gigi McKelvey, the host of the Pretty Lies and Alibis podcast. She also works with us here sometimes at Law and Crime. So Gigi, welcome back to Crime Fix. Thanks for coming back on. It's good to be here, Anjanette. Good to see you. Good to see you. What do you make of all of this?

I mean, we have Gypsy Rose Blanchard. This is somebody who obviously was a victim of child abuse. There's no question about that. She was horribly mistreated by her mother, Dee Dee, but also somebody who very thoughtfully planned a murder and admits to planning the murder of her mother and engaging somebody to carry out that murder. Yeah, it's such a weird twisted tale, Anjanette, and I've been watching social media as Gypsy's been released from prison. Overall, I mean, people are welcoming her with open arms on social media. Like you say, she's got over 6 million TikTok followers.

She's using those platforms to answer questions that people have that are very legitimate questions. Like, do you still love Nicholas Godejohn, the man who she solicited to kill her mom? And she said, yes, he saved me. He freed me or something to that effect. She said she would always love him. What's interesting is I have two daughters. One is 18. One is 12. They've watched these documentaries about Gypsy Rose. They are very happy for her. And that seems to be the overall consensus. People are happy to see that she's come out, that the public has welcomed her. They want to make her feel good. At the same time, you do have people who say there was a woman in spite of what she did was brutally murdered

in a very cold and calculated fashion. So where's the justice in that? It's interesting to see kind of the two different sides of the spectrum of how people think about this case. Most certainly. And I think it's important to keep in mind, you know, yes, Gypsy Rose was abused. I mean, what she went through was horrific, but she committed a murder. She, she helped somebody, she planned a murder. She didn't just help somebody do it. She planned it and admitted to doing so on the witness stand when she testified against Nick Godejohn. You know, he's on the autism spectrum, low IQ, the defense basically says he was manipulated, but he still, he still made the choice. He went through with this and, and stabbed Dede Blanchard. You know, the thing that gets me is that she

admitted that she regrets this. I mean, she told People Magazine in an interview a while back that she regretted doing this. You know, she could have told somebody along the way. And she realized that. Maybe you can say hindsight is 20-20, but she still took a life and admitted to doing so. So what are your thoughts on that? Because we cover these things. And granted, this is a strange case.

You know, we don't usually see cases like this. But she is kind of being celebrated when she committed murder. I think people are looking at this in a way of looking at Gypsy and Nicholas both as being very vulnerable individuals. Gypsy, really since birth, just abused with her mom, with the Munchausen by proxy, and with Nicholas being on the autism spectrum, it's almost like it is kind of an excuse. It sort of has validated what she did and why she did. She did regret what she did.

She said that on social media. In fact, there was one post, I believe on Instagram, where she said she didn't realize how much she would need her mom once she got out of prison. And I think that comes along with that regret. She also said that when she has children, it's going to be really hard to tell her kids why her mother isn't around. She said, that's going to be a difficult conversation. At the same time, Gypsy's free for the first time in her life. You know, she got a lot of therapy in prison. She's still going to therapy. I would imagine this poor girl is going to, I would imagine this girl is going to be going to therapy the rest of her life if she knows what's best for her. She's never had a normal life. So I just think that people tend to look at the vulnerability of the both of them and use that as validation as to why Dee Dee was murdered and Gypsy not even 10 years later is free.

Yeah. And I hope she continues to get the therapy. I mean, I'm a big proponent of that. I think, you know, everybody probably could use therapy every now and then just, you know, talk it out and things like that, but especially somebody who's been through what she's been through. And I really hope she continues to get help because I don't think this is something you just kind of, you know, it's a process. I don't think you can, it's not like just you snap your fingers and it's done. It's going to take some time. You know, what gets me too is the fact that she's now married and I'm like, whoa, you know, that's a lot. That's a lot of life changes. You know, you know that people always, you know, you hear about people getting prison pen pals and,

oh, you know, somebody's being courted behind bars by somebody else but this seems like a lot of change really suddenly getting released from prison yes she's getting therapy and i think that's great but now she's got a husband in the mix as well that this is a lot of change really fast plus all of the fame that is coming her way all of the celebrity and i'm assuming she's getting paid and she's got to be getting compensated in some way shape or form for some of this stuff for some of the appearances and the book yeah and i look i mean she's got that new series coming out in a few days actually that is it's like the prison confessions of gypsy rose where she opens up i believe her husband's featured on that i believe

that her dad and stepmom who seem to be incredibly supportive of her. The thing is this, she is coming out into a new world as an adult and really as a free person for the first time in her life. And there are so many huge things that are in her lap from the moment she walked out of those prison doors. A husband. She doesn't, you know, a lot of people say, you don't know who you are yet. How can you be somebody's wife? But I mean, she made that decision and she seems happy. We'll see what happens in the future. But really what Gypsy needs are people that knew her before the murders,

like her dad and her stepmom to look out for her best interest. Because you and I both know the Vultures have already started circling people that don't have her best interest at heart, people that want to take advantage of her and her fame. She's going to have all these new friends that want to come in the picture. I think she's so vulnerable, and I think it's going to be a very fine line for her to walk, to maintain any kind of normalcy when she came out of prison, really really as a mega true crime, almost celebrity being celebrated for being released. It's just a lot for somebody who never had any normalcy at all in their childhood. Yeah, it really is a lot. And I think we're just going to have to wait,

wait and see what happens. We're going to have to watch how it all unfolds because it's a lot of change very, very quickly. And you're right. The vultures are circling and will be circling for some time because there are just going to be some people who view her as a commodity and something that can be used to make money. So that's just the truth of the matter, whether people want to hear it or not. Gigi McKelvey, thanks so much for coming back on. We appreciate it. Good to be here. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. Thanks for joining us on this Wednesday, January 3rd of 2024. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. We will see you back here tomorrow. Until then, have a great night.