Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mom forces daughter into wheelchair, feeding tube. Did Daughter and online boyfriend murder mommy dearest?

Episode Date: November 15, 2018

Gypsy Rose Blanchard is expected to testify soon in the trial of her former boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, who is accused of carrying out a plot to kill her allegedly abusive mother. Nancy Grace looks at this remarkable murder case with a panel of experts including forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Bober, North Carolina divorce & family lawyer Kathleen Murphy, and Crime Stories reporter John Lemley. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Do you know another parent or expecting parent? Are you wondering what can I give them as a gift? Don't give them another onesie. Don't give them a plastic toy or God forbid a toy gun that's just going to end up in the garage. Give them something that matters and what matters the most is protecting their child. What do you love most in the world? Your children. What will you do to protect them? Anything. I sat down with the

smartest people I know in the world on matters of child safety, finding missing children, fighting back against predators. And what I learned is so important, powerful, and information so critical. I want you to have it. I want them to have it. Go to crimestopshere.com for a five-part series with action information that you can use to change your life and protect your child. Payment starting $6.99. Give that as a gift, not another onesie. Find out how to protect your child

when you're out at the mall or the store or the grocery, in the parking lot, at home. Find out about protection regarding babysitters and daycare, even online. I'd rather have that any day of the week than a plastic toy or, God forbid, a toy gun. Join Justice Nation. Go to crimestopshere.com. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The more that I got to know Dee Dee and Gypsy, the more I got to know about Gypsy's ailments.

She had muscular dystrophy. She had a f***ing dube. She suffered from severe migraines, and she was on a lot of different medications. She was unable to walk anywhere. I myself have picked her up and transported her between, you know, kids and beds and vehicles. When I met her, she would have been 11 or 12. But Dee Dee told me that she had the mentality of like a four-year-old, somewhere around there. So she wasn't quite as developed as she seemed.

We are talking about a young girl, Gypsy Blanchard, who was suffering from so many ailments. Leukemia, went through multiple surgeries, tons of medications every day in a wheelchair, fed through a feeding tube. So how does this girl end up being charged with murder? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Not just murder, but the murder of her own mother. How did that happen?

It all goes so far back to the time when the world wept with Gypsy Blanchard's mother, Dee Dee, over the pain her daughter suffered with leukemia, multiple surgeries, the feeding. Chief, listen. Well, this bedroom is empty. It was a role change of sorts for these first responders. Rather than rolling up to medical calls, this team spent the afternoon moving boxes and furniture into this Aurora house. And it's all for this family, Dee Dee Blanchard and her 12-year-old daughter, Gypsy Rose. It's been a blessing. People have been so nice to us. It feels like we finally came home.

It is wonderful. It's so beautiful and happy and home. A home that this family was desperately in need of. You are hearing about a brand new home given to Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the little girl suffering so badly. Her mother, her full-time caretaker. This was after Hurricane Katrina devastated their home. And not only that, Habitat for Humanity steps in. With no home and Gypsy Rose battling both muscular dystrophy and leukemia,

the St. Aurora team went to work securing this rent-free home for the family and cleaning it up. It is overwhelming. You can never dream it in your wildest dream that so many people would just so generously come and help us and love us and just welcome us. For Gypsy Rose and her mother, the move brings a sense of security, a new town, and a new home that has welcomed them with open arms. It just proves that happy endings are not just in fairy tales. They're real and true in real life also. They couldn't drag me back to Louisiana kicking and screaming. I'm here to stay. We're home. You're hearing the words of Dee Dee, that's Gypsy Blanchard's mother, before she was murdered. That's right. Gypsy's mother, Dee Dee, murdered, stabbed multiple times in her own bed as she lay sleeping.

So what happened to the fairy tale? I heard her scream once. And there was more screaming, but not like the kind in a horror film just like a startled screen and she asked who was it that was in the bedroom and she called out to my name about three or four times and at that point i wanted to go help her so bad, but I was so afraid to get up. It's like my body wouldn't move, and then everything just went quiet. Were you excited that your new life was about to begin? I was excited, but at the same time, it was overwhelming.

Did you feel a rush of joy? It would come in times of happiness, little spurts of happiness, but I would have breakdowns where I'd start crying, feeling remorse, guilt, also missing her at the same time. You're hearing from our friends at ABC 2020, and you're hearing from Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the little girl that we thought had leukemia and so many other ailments, confined to a wheelchair with the mind of a five-year-old. What happened?

Joining me, in addition to Joseph Scott Morgan, death investigator, Dr. Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist, family lawyer with a personal experience with Munchausen by proxy, Kathleen Murphy, joining us out of North Carolina right now to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter John Limley. So how did this little girl, Gypsy Blanchard, she's bald from her leukemia treatment, she's frail, she's pale, She's sickly. She's confined to a wheelchair. How does she get charged with murder? Nancy, this is one of those stories that when I see there's going to be an hour-long documentary on this, I think that is not nearly enough time. For the first few years of her life, Gypsy Rose Blanchard was this normal toddler, vibrant, full of energy. But by the time she was eight years old, Dee Dee had told Gypsy that she had leukemia.

She was paralyzed. She had muscular dystrophy. And she was also using a wheelchair and had a feeding tube. Over time, these communities in which they would live would just embrace the two of them. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I got to ask Dr. Bober a question. To Dr. Daniel Bober, of course, you have to become a medical doctor before you become a psychiatrist. He is a forensic psychiatrist. Dr. Daniel Bober, explain to me what is a feeding tube and how does that work? Well, a feeding tube, Nancy, can go, you know, obviously down your throat or there can

even be an incision in your abdomen. It's basically for people that cannot take nutrition by mouth and they're losing weight and they're becoming emaciated. So they require a feeding tube to sustain adequate nutrition. So you have a feeding tube put down your mouth? Down your throat. And what was the other one? It could be through a nasogastric tube or it can be an incision in your abdomen that actually... Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. Look, I'm just a JD. You're the MD. What did you just say? Don't talk so fast, Dr. Bober. I'm already impressed. Don't overdo it. What did you say? So, Nancy, a nasogastric tube that goes down your nose and into your stomach or an incision in your stomach where the tube is placed where the nutrition is delivered directly into the stomach. OK, Dr. Bober. So this girl has a feeding tube. Her teeth were falling out. I don't know why her teeth were falling out. I just assumed it was from all the chemotherapy

and the radiation and everything she was going through to try and stop the leukemia. What kind of treatments does a child undergo when they have leukemia? What does the hospital do to them? Well, very often they will receive chemotherapy, which is, you know, toxic to pretty much every organ. It's actually very sad. And that, you know, the teeth falling out could be due to, you know, poor oral hygiene. It could be due to direct toxic effects of chemicals that the mother gave to the child. Because remember, these people that have Munchausen's by proxy, you know, they're trying to make their loved ones sick. And very often themselves, they will have a history of abuse or marital problems. They're often healthcare professionals. There's a lot of telltale signs that we see in the hospital

with people like this. For example, they will never leave the child's side. They tend to become very close. They have very poor boundaries with the medical staff. And although it's a rare disorder, we do see it occasionally, and there are definitely some extreme warning signs. And Nancy, no one knew at the time, but Dee Dee was in order to give Gypsy these symptoms and to make her body just shut down. She was preparing food for her poisoned with Roundup Weed Killer. Okay, wait, wait, wait. Say that one more time. I just, the words Roundup Weed Killer caught my attention.

What did you say? During this time, Dee Dee was actually, in order to make her daughter appear as sick as she was saying she was, when she was preparing meals for her, she would poison it with roundup weed killer. Gypsy's best friend and neighbor, Aaliyah Woodmansey, speaks out. I woke up to a phone call from a detective who said that he wanted to get some answers to some questions. I was surprised by him wanting to come over immediately, but I knew it had to be fairly serious. He asked me, like, how will I know Gypsy? How will I know Dee Dee if they had any conflicts.

But of course, I told him there was nothing crazy between them, and they were very, very close. He ended up getting a call. It was very short, and as soon as he disconnected, I just knew that something bad had happened. I was floored. I didn't understand. I was in that something bad had happened. I was floored. I didn't understand. I was in that house.

How could I have missed something like that? The overall feeling was numbness. I didn't want to believe any of it. I wanted this to be anybody but Dee Dee. You were hearing from family friends Kim and David Blanchard, no relation, and KVTV-TV News on the murder. You know, it rocked the whole community because so many people had been involved in trying to help the little girl,

Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who was suffering from so many ailments, and then bam, they find out the mother, Dee Dee, has been murdered, and the daughter is gone, has been kidnapped, has been taken away. Well, here was the first hint to a lot of friends and relatives that something was wrong. The Sunday that it all started was just a very typical Sunday. But then I see this post. It was from their DGIP Blanchard Facebook account. That was a very jarring moment.

I was like, well, that seems weird. I bet you they got their Facebook account hacked and somebody's playing games with them. And then there's another post. I called their phone and they didn't pick up. At that point, I told him we're just going to go over to the house. I was leaving messages on the machine. Dee Dee, could you please, please call me back or at least pick up the phone. Let me know that everything's okay. You are hearing from our friends at Investigation Discovery, the documentary Gypsy's Revenge.

Wow. Now, if you talk to Gypsy's bio dad, he said that Dee Dee Blanchard deserved what she got because she had been such a horrible, horrible mother. Think about it. For all the years, years, she kept her daughter in a wheelchair, poisoning her, as John Lindley tells us, with Roundup weed killer, so she would affect the symptoms of leukemia and other deadly ailments. There were constant fundraisers. Habitat for Humanity builds them a new home. She was everyone's cause celeb to help

Gypsy Rose, the little girl with so many ailments, food, money, clothing, vehicles, a home. The works were given to this family, to Dee Dee, the mother, until it all ended. John Limley, explain to me what happened. How was Dee Dee murdered? When a friend of the Blanchards called police, police accompanied this person to the house. Police, since they didn't have any sort of paperwork, any sort of search warrant, they couldn't go in. However, they said the neighbor could. So the neighbor climbs through a window, goes through the house, doesn't find anything. Well, meanwhile, paperwork does come through. Police are able to get into the house, and that's when they find Dee Dee's body. She has been stabbed multiple times. They say it is a brutal scene. stabbed, I believe, in her sleep because she was in bed defenseless when she suffered multiple stab wounds. We're talking about Dee Dee Story, the mother of Gypsy Blanchard. Joining me right now, Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University and author of

Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Joe Scott, how do you tell what happened? I mean, how can detectives, specifically medical examiner, but detectives as well, look at this and see these are not self-inflicted stab wounds? Well, the chance that, and the key here is that you use plural form wounds. It's rather rare that people will self-inflict stab wounds but that an individual has unless they're in some kind of frenzied psychotic state if an individual has multiple stab wounds you know that this is at the hand of another more than likely also this kind of frenzied killing that you see like this is many times what we refer to as an overkill. I think what's particularly interesting about this case, Nancy, is that the room apparently is saturated, the bed

in particular is saturated. We get an idea that the event took place here and solely here. And then on top of that, she's been down several days, apparently. She's in a moderate early stages of decomposition at this point as well. I wonder why Gypsy's father says Deedee deserved it. Listen. As she got older, Deedee tells me that she's trying to get her this heart monitor that she'd have to wear while she slept because she'd stop breathing in her sleep or she'd have seizures in the middle of the night. And she was telling me she was bringing her for tests and everything and that she had sleep apnea.

She acted so scared she wouldn't even leave her with me for an hour or anything, so she was with her all the time. Dee Dee was a great mom. I'd tell her all the time, man, I don't know how you do it, you know, day in and day out, taking care of Gypsy, being there for her. I thought she was the best mom in the world. When Gypsy was around four, five, six, Didi started telling me that she's got some problems with her eyes, seizures. She would say that the seizures would affect her eyes, so they would conduct a surgery

where they would straighten her eye out, and then she would have another seizure, and her eye would get crooked again. Dee Dee was telling me that when she'd have these seizures, it would knock her back mentally a couple years. You are hearing from Gypsy's father, Rod Blanchard, describing how Dee Dee, the mother, told him their daughter was having severe seizures and all of her ailments. But how did it end in murder? To Joe Scott Morgan, we've talked about the physicalities of the murder, but it would be very, very difficult, I think, for Gypsy herself to pull it off unless she attacked her mom in the middle of the night in her sleep. I want to talk about the mother for a moment. Dr. Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist

joining us. Dr. Bober, I've dealt with many cases where the mother has Munchausen by proxy. Now, this is what I understand it to be in lay terms before you start speeding at warp speed before me. Munchausen disease is named after Baron von Munchausen. And in our common parlance, it is when you draw attention to yourself by faking ailments. And some people go to great extremes to fake ailments to get attention. All right. That seems a little benign, you know, oh, I'm hurting. But people go to all kinds of crazy extremes like faking cancer, shaving their head, putting themselves in wheelchairs, setting up fake GoFundMe accounts, the works. Munchausen by proxy is when you make somebody else appear sick. So you get attention as the caregiver. And most recently we had salt, S-A-L-T, mom, who would

give huge amounts of salt in her child's feeding tube, which he didn't need by the way, or his intravenous tube. And it would put him in great pain till he died. And she was a mommy blogger talking about all she went through taking care of him and what she was suffering watching him suffer. This child was in so much pain he would rear up off the hospital bed in convulsions of pain as she sat there and watched. That's an example of Munchausen by proxy. Oh, Dr. Bober, I remember another case where a mom would feed the child poison in their soup, in their oatmeal, and they caught them on video, caught the mom doing it on video. Now, that's my interpretation of Munchausen by proxy. You tell me.

Yes, Nancy. Munchausen by proxy is also called factitious disorder or factitious by another. A lot of times the public confuse Munchausen by proxy. Well, there you go. There you go. I do not know. Wait, wait, stop, stop. There you go. I do not know. Wait, wait, stop, stop. There you go. I do not know anything you just said. Slow down, please. Think chess,

not ping pong. What did you just say? So the clinical term for Munchausen by proxy is called factitious disorder by another. And what it means is, is that you're playing the sick role, or in the case of Munchausen by proxy, you're giving someone else an illness purely for attention, purely to play the sick role, which is contrasted with malingering, which we see in people who are antisocial, whether they're malingering for money or malingering to stay out of prison, it's purely for secondary gain. So the illness itself serves the role of getting attention. And that is the whole point. Do you know another parent or expecting parent? Are you wondering what can I give them as a gift? Don't give them another onesie. Don't give them a plastic toy or God

forbid, a toy gun that's just going to end up in the garage. Give them something that matters. And what matters the most is protecting their child. What do you love most in the world? Your children. What will you do to protect them? Anything. I sat down with the smartest people I know in the world on matters of child safety, finding missing children, fighting back against predators. And what I learned is so important, powerful, and information so critical. I want you to have it. I want them to have it. Go to crimestopshere.com for a five-part series with action information that you can use to change your life and protect your child. Payment starting $6.99. Give that as a gift, not another onesie.

Find out how to protect your child when you're out at the mall or the store or the grocery, in the parking lot, at home. Find out about protection regarding babysitters and daycare, even online. I'd rather have that any day of the week than a plastic toy, or God forbid, a toy gun. Join Justice Nation. Go to crimestopshere.com. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You are hearing just then Gypsy Rose Blanchard herself by a Waukesha County, Wisconsin deputy sheriff

talking to her, trying to find out how her mom, Dee Dee, ends up stabbed multiple times in a frenzy, dead in her own bed. But then another figure emerges. It says Nicholas.

Do you go by Nick? Nicholas, something different? I prefer, usually by my family I'll be called Nicholas, but by friends and other people I usually would be called Nick. What would you like for me to call you when I'm talking to you? Nick. Nick, okay. And so is that the first time that your mom ever met your girlfriend?

Yeah, yeah. I guess she's your girlfriend, Gypsy. Yeah, she is. And you love her? Oh, I do love her. So we're going to go down two paths here, okay? And that is just you're going to have to be honest with me. Because if you love her, if you love Gypsy,

then you're not going to let gypsy get in trouble without you being there to help her okay i understand do you want to um do the right thing by gypsy if you love her all the truth is i worship her so i know there's no way there's no way i wouldn't do it i know the I know. I don't think we're... The truth is, okay, I'll admit it. I did actually... Stop. Come on. I will admit it. I know.

Okay. The only reason I did it is because I did it for me and her. That's the real reason I did it. I would have never did it if it was not for me and her. Okay. You are hearing from the investigation discovery documentary, Gypsy's Revenge. That's Gypsy's Revenge. That's Gypsy's boyfriend speaking, being interviewed by a Waukesha County, Wisconsin deputy sheriff investigator.

How in the world, John Limley, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, did this girl who has been in a wheelchair with her head shaved and a feeding tube meet a boyfriend. How did that happen? Nancy, as hard as Dee Dee may have tried to keep Gypsy as a little girl, she had, of course, over time become a woman. And as she got older, Gypsy became curious about life outside the little pink house that she shared with her mom. As time went on, Dee Dee began exerting more and more control over her. But behind her back, Gypsy was able to create an online dating profile. She eventually connected with this young man, Nicholas Gojajan, a man from Big Bend, Wisconsin. The two fell in love and had a secret online

relationship for about two and a half years. Two and a half years. It's amazing to me she could do anything secret at all from her mother. Take a listen to this. I'm not sure all the names of the medication that my mom was making me take, but there was a lot of ones that basically just put me under a sedative state. The medications did affect my teeth. They started to deteriorate and some of them had to be extracted. I had many, many surgeries. I've had my salivary glands removed because my mother said that I drooled. I had a feeding tube placement in my tummy. I had multiple eye surgeries on my right and left eye. Ear surgeries.

A muscle biopsy to find out why my legs didn't work. And a surgery to make me not throw up anymore. John Lindley with me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. I don't know how she could have any secret relationship online if she was under all those medications and undergoing all those surgeries. As a matter of fact, though, isn't it true that at one point, Gypsy, the little girl, managed to run away? She did. In fact, she appeared at a neighbor's door standing on her own, which was a big shock to the neighbor, saying that she needed to get to a bus station because she wanted to go meet the man she loved.

Well, apparently the mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, caught her, brought her home, chained her to a bed, starved her, and told all the friends and relations that Gypsy was lying, so they would not help her. Listen to 2020. What kind of mom was she? Very protective. Do you think she protected you? No, not in certain ways, yes.

In other ways, no. I think that she was very sick in her mind. For a long time, I believed we were best friends. And when I was younger, she was my best friend. She was your only friend. Yes, other than my stuffed animals. And so I thought that she was a great mother. No complaints.

We got along so perfect. You know, I saw her as an angel that can do no wrong. But as Gypsy got older and became curious of life outside the pink house, she says Mom Didi began exerting more control. And there were consequences. What happens when she got upset with you? It would go into an argument that would last a couple days. Or it could be something where she wouldn't feed me for two days or so was she ever physical with you it started to be physical in 2011 she would

hit me with a coat hanger sometimes did you ever fight back no because i was too afraid to gypsy says she did try and run away once, but Dee Dee found her a few hours later. She physically chained you to the bed? She physically chained me to the bed and put bells on the doors and told anybody that I probably would have trusted that I was going through a phase and to tell her if I was doing anything behind her back.

Did you ever consider, in a public place, if you stood up out of your wheelchair and walked, Dee Dee's fraud would be completely exposed? I honestly didn't think about that. It never crossed your mind? No. I was always so afraid of her, afraid of the consequences after.

You're hearing Gypsy herself speaking on ABC's 2020, describing being chained to the bed by her mother the one time she did get away. To Joseph Scott Morgan joining me, forensics expert, death investigator, and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Joe Scott, I find it very difficult to take in that this girl who went through all this torture at the hands of her own mother for so many years actually is doing hard time for her mother's death. Is there a way to prove the child was chained to the bed? Yeah, I think that there would be, particularly if she had, if it was a chronic status that she was in. Let's say, for instance, she was bound around her ankles or her wrist, and there's scarring that might, in fact, be consistent with having had this area abraded over a long period of time. There might be evidences there. In addition to just this litany of other things that have been perpetrated upon this young girl. You can tie that back with all this other history that we have,

and it paints a very, very grim picture. So I'm not understanding, too. John Limley, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. How did Gypsy, the little girl, end up behind bars for many, many years? Gypsy and Nicholas Godejohn decided to finally meet in person for the first time in March of 2015 at a movie theater. She was dressed as Cinderella, he as Prince Charming. And it seems that very soon thereafter, in their communications online, there was a plot going. At that point, Gypsy said she had had enough. She didn't hate her mother,

but she wanted her mother dead. So they began plotting a time that he could come into the house while Dee Dee was taking Gypsy to a routine hospital appointment. And that's where Go To John lay in wait for the time that Gypsy could give him the signal that her mother had gone to sleep. It wasn't until I saw my attorney for the first time, and he tells me that there's been no medical records that says I have cancer. And it shocked me. I don't have cancer. It confused me so much. So what other illnesses don't I have? He tells me, for the most part, he thinks I'm perfectly healthy,

and that a lot of this is made up. I was happy to know that I'm perfectly healthy, but at the same time it hurt because it's like my whole world had been tossed up and I realized that my mother wasn't who I thought she was. You are hearing from the Investigation Discovery Special, Gypsy's Revenge. She had no idea, Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina family lawyer, that she was perfectly healthy. It is a matter of dependency and isolation. I saw it firsthand with a foster child, whereby the only person this little boy had that he could depend on was his mother. And she isolated him and made him dependent and love only her for the attention. And it was such a powerful force in this little boy's life that

he could never believe that his own mother would hold him. And she did. It's just so hard for me to take it in to Dr. Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist and medical doctor. I guess, you know, having been fed Roundup weed killer and going through the grueling regimen of chemotherapy or radiation, all those years being fed through a feeding tube, not really getting real food and being brainwashed by your own mother. I guess she did believe it. Yes, Nancy, not only the physical changes that occur, but the psychological changes, almost the same way that sort of the Stockholm syndrome where hostages sort of come to become emotionally dependent on their captors. It's a very similar phenomenon. I'm not sure how she tricked the hospitals, Dr. Bober. How could you

pull that off? Oh, I do know this. Isn't it true, John Lindley, she wouldn't allow Gypsy to speak to the doctors? She was the one that always talked to the doctors? Absolutely. In fact, she would not leave the room if outside people were with her daughter. She kept her right there. In fact, Gypsy has said that she would always hold Gypsy's hand. And if Gypsy ever hinted that she might not be as sick as her mom said she was, her mom would squeeze her hand tighter and tighter until she just shut up, essentially.

Wow. Wow. We also know that many records were lost in Katrina, according to Dee Dee Blanchard, the mother. So she'll hospital hop. She'll go from hospitals affected by Katrina, relocate with a sick daughter and say all the records had been lost. So Dr. Bober, how do you fake ailments and even trick doctors? Because doctors are not looking for it. They assume, again, that when a mother tells them what's going on, they get, by default, instant credibility. Only when you start to see some of these suspicious things, like the mother never leaving the side and the mother always wanting to be involved in all the conversations with the medical staff and just the numerous

ailments and no explanation do you start to become suspicious. And I've actually been involved in investigations in this sort of thing where they'll actually put cameras in the room under police investigation for the court order to actually observe the parent trying to make the child ill by poisoning them with something. So it happens. It's just very rare. And I don't think a lot of doctors are looking for it. Take a listen to this. Gypsy Rose and boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn questioned. So Gypsy knew you were going to kill her mother because Gypsy asked you to. Why did she ask you to do that?

Did you kill your mom? No, no sir. Did you help? No sir. Nicholas killed your mom? No sir. Did you have knowledge that Nicholas was going to kill your mom before he did it? No sir. Okay, good morning. I want to specify at the beginning of this press conference that this is an ongoing investigation.

The prosecutor has filed charges this morning for first-degree murder on two suspects. We're still investigating the extent of the relationship, but it has been referred to as boyfriend-girlfriend. I wonder, to Joseph Scott Morgan, why the doctors that mistreated them, mistreated Gypsy, aren't being sued. I mean, how could they not know that she was healthy? Yeah, that is a big question. Dr. Bober was mentioning that doctors don't always look. They're not criminal investigators. They're not looking to tie things back from this perspective. They're generally looking at some kind of natural disease process or maybe acute trauma and trying to define it that way. We had mentioned her being chained to a bed earlier. A doctor is not going to look at these scars on the wrist and just automatically assume. Remember, these people are not forensic pathologists and automatically assume that there is chronic habitual abuse in this family going on.

John Limley, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. What do you know about the doctors? There was one doctor, a pediatric neurologist named Dr. Flasterstein, who believed Gypsy was fully capable of walking on her own. And he actually wrote in his notes that he suspected Munchausen by proxy, says it was only the second such possible case he had ever come across. He learned of Dee Dee's murder at the hands of Gypsy and Nicholas Godejohn later, when a former nurse emailed him the news story, and he said, poor Gypsy, she suffered all those years and for absolutely no reason. Is it true, John Limley, that Gypsy Blanchard is now set to be a defense witness

in Godejohn's trial, which is happening? That is absolutely true, and as a part of her plea agreement, that was not specified. But as the time draws nigh for Godejohn's November trial, word has it from Godejohn's attorney that she will actually take the stand. The Wisconsin man now charged in the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard, that's murder one, says that he feels his ex-girlfriend, Gypsy Blanchard, used him to get rid of her mother. The charges would result in life behind bars. Go to John from Big Bend, Wisconsin, is charged with first-degree murder in the death and armed criminal action for allegedly stabbing and killing 48-year-old Dee Dee Blanchard. He claims he loved Gypsy to the point where he would do anything to save her from her mother.

At this time, Gypsy Blanchard doing 10 years in the penitentiary. We wait for justice to unfold. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.