Crime Weekly - S3 Ep245: Dee Dee Blanchard: Psychologist Who Interviewed Gypsy Speaks (Part 4)

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Check out Dr. Fabian's book Forensic Neuroscience and Violence here: https://a.co/d/ivaU3p2 A small, quiet town in Missouri. A devoted mother caring for her chronically ill daughter. A story of love, sacrifice, and survival. Or so it seemed. But behind closed doors, beneath the layers of sympathy and kindness, there was a dark secret waiting to be uncovered. For nearly two decades Dee Dee Blanchard told the world that her daughter, Gypsy Rose, was dying. Leukemia, muscular dystrophy, seizures, vision and hearing issues, the list of illnesses and medical concerns was endless. Gypsy, a seemingly happy little girl with a huge smile, was bound to a wheelchair, fed through a tube, and showered with the attention and support of everyone around her, but no one really knew the horrifying truth. It seemed that Gypsy was perfectly healthy. She could walk. She didn't need a wheelchair to get around, and it appeared that she was being kept a prisoner in her own body, in her own home, by her own mother. The story goes that years of abuse, manipulation, and lies built up until they all came crashing down in the most unthinkable way: Murder. On the night of June 14, 2015, Dee Dee Blanchard was found stabbed to death in her home, and the prime suspect? Dee-Dee's innocent, smiling, happy, and allegedly disabled daughter, along with the man that Gypsy had been having a very adult relationship with. But nothing about this case is as it appears to be. This is the story of Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee Blanchard. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. Smalls.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to get 50% off your first order and FREE shipping! 2. Prose.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 50% off your first subscription order and a FREE, in-depth hair consultation today! 3. SKIMS.com/CrimeWeekly - Now available in 62 sizes (30A-46H)! Select our podcast after checkout to let them know we sent you! 4. MintMobile.com/CrimeWeekly - Get a 3-Month Premium Plan for just $15 a month! 5. DailyHarvest.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 15%  off your first box of $100 or more!

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. series and the D.D. Blanchard series, but we are going to kind of stop the timeline for a minute and do something a little bit different. Well, not really something a little bit different, because we've already done something like this in the series so far. That's right. Because of the controversial nature of this case, we have different camps, different sides, people who vehemently and passionately believe one thing, and then on the other end of that spectrum, people who vehemently and passionately believe

the exact opposite. And in cases like this, we had brought on Fancy Maselli to discuss Gypsy Rose and the fact that Fancy and a lot of people like her believe that Gypsy was sort of a willing accomplice, more of a child actor than an actual victim, and that Gypsy was sort of a willing accomplice, more of a child actor than an actual victim, and that Gypsy Rose was genuinely and medically ill in a lot of these ways and a lot of these medical procedures that she received, she actually needed. So we brought Fancy on to talk about that. And now we're going to kind of switch to the other side. We have Dr. John Matthew Fabian here who actually reviewed Gypsy Rose's case and as far as her psychiatric history and things like that go. So Derek had sat down and had an interview with Dr. Fabian and we're going to listen to that interview and discuss it,

Derek and I, together as it goes. That's right. So it can be the other side of things. That's right. And yeah, Dr. Fabian's a forensic and clinical neuropsychologist. First off, it's good to see you back. Thank you. You look great. Thank you. It's for everybody who's watching on YouTube. And we appreciate all the well wishes for the time off. It was different for me, I can say, because it's been four years since we've had a break like that, where we haven't recorded anything. So as we said, there's things that are more important than work and Crime Weekly and our families are the number one thing. So we took time away to take care of that, but we're glad to be back. This interview, originally Stephanie was going to be there as

well. This wasn't intentional, but obviously life happens and there's other things that become a priority. So I sat down with Dr. Fabian very early on and recorded this. And then we had Shannon put it together and then Stephanie was sent it. So we're going to have the opportunity to watch it together today. And as she mentioned, we had Fancy on. Some of you agree with her. Some of you don't. Some of you were really yearning for someone who is a professional in this field, not just coming from a place of research, but someone who actually has a degree in the interview, but we're going to go through it. This is kind of, I guess, a side quest from our chronological timeline of the Gypsy Rose series. But this will catch us up to date based on where we ended last episode and where we are going to go from here as far as the murder itself. But to put a button on the psychological effects of Munchausen by proxy versus Malingering by proxy and whatever he thinks we got it, we got to get all that out of the way. And that's what we're doing here

by talking to Dr. Fabian. And I'm looking forward to hearing Stephanie's opinion on this as well as yours in the comments. So take your time, pause it when we pause it way down below, let us know what you think. Anything else I'm missing? No, let's dive in. Let's do it. So here we are, interview with Dr. John Matthew Fabian. All right, guys, as you can probably see on the screen now, we have Dr. John Matthew Fabian. I'm going to give you a little bit of his background, but I'm going to let him tell you as well because he's got a pretty impressive background that I wanted to fill you in. I told him before we hit record, don't be embarrassed. Don't feel like you're bragging. You've accomplished a lot. You should share it. So what I have here is Dr. Fabian

is a board certified forensic and clinical psychologist. He's also a forensic and clinical neuropsychologist. And I was interested in Dr. Fabian for a couple reasons, which we're going to get into throughout this episode, but not only because of his extensive expertise, but also because he has some direct involvement with this case. And I'm going to let him tell that story when we get to that. But even more so, as many of you know, there have been numerous documentaries on Gypsy Rose, and Dr. Fabian was a part of one of those where he had the opportunity to actually interview Gypsy while she was still in prison, which was absolutely fascinating. But I want you to hear from him on that and what his takeaways were. We're going to save that to the end. But last episode, we had talked a lot about

Munchausen by proxy versus Malingering by proxy based on what Fancy Maselli was saying. And as I was doing research and looking up Dr. Fabian, I actually saw that one of his publications was about specifically malingering. And it's malingering and criminal forensic psychology and neuropsychological context. This was a publication he did. So he's definitely the guy to talk to about this.

And I just wanted to have him on here to let him talk about his background, talk about this case from a generic sense, but also a specific sense as far as his involvement, his evaluations, and how we can look at this case from the perspective of forensic psychology and whether or not Gypsy Rose was in fact a victim of Munchausen by proxy. So Dr. Fabian, thank you for being here. I really do appreciate it taking the time to do this. I know you're a busy guy. Why don't you expand upon your background? Because you got a list here, but just as far as what you do, what you've done, what your expertise is all about. Sure. Thanks for having me. So I was trained as a forensic psychologist and evaluating different mental disorders for legal questions and basically applying mental health assessment to the law. And typically I do that in criminal, but also domestic and civil courts. director of a court psychiatric clinic in Ohio and worked at like four of them, evaluating defendants, adults, juveniles, you know, for pretrial and pre-sense purposes. So insanity, competency, violence, risk assessments, you know, death penalty cases. And that's when

I eventually moved to and worked at aum Security State Hospital setting in the state of Minnesota. And that was really working with the state's most dangerous sexually and violent offenders. And so I do that also as a neuropsychologist with defendants who have not only mental illness, but brain injuries or neurological conditions that cause them to, you know, commit different types of offenses. So I work as an expert witness in the court and court system in, you know, around the country, different states, and typically evaluate defendants again for mental illness defenses or sentencing, mitigating circumstances in sentencing proceedings. So when I had worked with Gypsy Rose's attorney in different cases in the state of Missouri,

Mike Stanfield, and he had contacted me right around the time all of this happened and, you know, said, John, I don't believe, you know, what kind of case we have up here. We think it's a Munchausen, you know, by proxy case, never seen anything like it. Want you to come and evaluate who we think is the victim of Munchausen. So I don't know if you asked him this or if it was revealed, but it sounds like Dr. Fabian was hired by Mike Stanfield, Gypsy Rose's defense attorney. That's right. So he was paid for his opinion on her competency or her pre-trial or like her mental, her mental state. So what happened, and this wasn't in this interview, but I had like an hour phone conversation with him as well. He has an existing relationship with Mike.

What happened was originally this phone call happened and he thought that he was going to be bringing Dr. Fabian in to work on it. So Dr. Fabian started to do the research on it, the background, and then Mike called him and said, I don't need you. So he never, they never really hired him officially to do it because basically called them back and said, there was a deal. There was a plea like that quick. And even Dr. Fabian was like, wow, that's, that's fast. So he never actually had to do any work on the case. His involvement directly with Gypsy was part of a documentary, which he'll explain in here, but he never had the chance to evaluate her for trial purposes. It was for this special that took place, this A&E special. So originally thought he was going to be in for that. And then unfortunately, or I guess you could say fortunately for Gypsy, he was never needed to be brought in to serve as a evaluator, I guess, for Gypsy or this case.

I would assume that for the A&E special, he would also have been compensated financially, correct? For sure. Okay. And I think it's interesting. He said that Mike Stanfield, Gypsy Rose's defense attorney, called him and said, I think we have a mind-shows by proxy case here. Never seen anything like it. Yep. So it's even the lawyers and the people who are involved with this are like, this is wild. This doesn't seem to be your typical run of the mill, cut and dry kind of case here. We need more context. Yeah. They thought for sure that Gypsy was, well, you got to think about it

too. Mike's Gypsy's defense attorney. So he obviously wants to build this up as much as possible. He wants to make sure that everyone knows that Gypsy was a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. And to the point that Dr. Fabian was making, he wants to make sure that everyone believes that Gypsy was a victim of Munchausen by proxy. For the defense. Yeah. For the defense. For the defense. Absolutely. That's their job, right? To bring up those potential mitigating circumstances that they're not trying to dispute the fact that she was part of the murder. They're basically saying because of these mitigating circumstances, there should be some leniency, which clearly, I mean, to be fair, the prosecution agreed with, because I was very shocked when, when we were talking about this initially, that the prosecution would give her such a sweet deal. They basically slammed Nicholas Godejohn and they gave her 10 years. And we have both kind of said indirectly already that she was a lot more involved than 10 years worth of being away.

So the fact that the prosecution was willing to take this deal so quickly, it does make you wonder, like, what, what did they know? What did they know that they were agreeing to, to, to this so quickly? You said, you know, he was brought in to evaluate whether mitigating circumstances. And you said, obviously the prosecution agreed, but I don't agree that they agreed there was mitigating circumstances because we both know, and I think a lot of people do that. Prosecutors make deals with defendants all the time for a variety of reasons. Yeah, and I agree with you there, but why would they make it for one person, not the other? I think we'll talk about that. Yeah, we got to get, because that's my concern in this one is you have two people who are involved in this murder, and we could make arguments all day as to why she may be more culpable than

Nicholas go to John, right? I mean, but that's an argument we could make all day. Some may not agree with us, but we can make that argument. And yet here we are, gypsy roses out there making TikToks and Nicholas go to John has life without parole. So big discrepancy there. So why would the prosecution be willing to make the deal for one, but not the other? Because they had her pretty dead to rights. She, she, she confessed to it. So why, why give her such a sweetheart deal? I do wonder, but yeah, I'll, I'll concede that point. Like why were they willing to do it with her and not him? I don't really get that, but we do, on the sense that prosecution does make deals all the time in order to expedite the judicial process. Yeah, there's political reasons.

Yeah, they could believe there's mitigating circumstances. It could be for a variety of reasons. I think that's where it could be because they didn't give it to her. And Nicholas Godejohn had his own issues. He had his own things he was dealing with. Exactly. It's not like Nicholas Godejohn is the picture of mental health. Right.

So here we are, two people both struggling in different ways. One gets a sweetheart deal, one doesn't. And the question is why? Well, I think that they would argue that he's the one that did it. But I think we have argued that Nicholas Godejohn wouldn't even know who Dede Blanchard was if not for Gypsy Rose. Correct. So there would have been not a chance that he would have attacked Dede Blanchard out of the blue, unprovoked, had he not met Gypsy and been primed to do so. No argument there.

All right, let's continue on. You know, her mother, who essentially had the condition, Mike and some of the defense attorneys thought, and it was basically by proxy to Gypsy. So, you know, as you and some of the audience may know, you know, Munchausen syndrome also can be referred to as factitious disorder imposed by another. And essentially, we're often a parent, often a mother will manifest, create different psychiatric, mental, physical, medical conditions imposed often on a child with the goal or objective, or we'll say motive of really gaining attention for themselves, for the mother, potentially for the child, but mostly for the mother, which really, I would say,

gets some satisfaction for their own ego, their own self-esteem. And there are a number of risk factors for this condition. It was basically transitioned to factitious disorder by proxy, which, or sorry, imposed on another, which is different than malingering, which the latter of malingering, feigning or faking mental illness, that is really for a different type of motive. And that's to, for a different goal or objective or gain, typically it's for avoiding some type of prosecution. In criminal cases, we often see individuals malinger, let's say, schizophrenia or hallucinations, delusions, lack of contact in reality. And they may fake or exaggerate these symptoms in order to avoid prosecution. They may perceive they have a chance of being sent to a mental hospital instead of prison.

And they may be released early, let's say, because they were deemed not mentally sane at the time of the offense, usually often a violent offense. So real quick, because that's interesting. And this is one of the many reasons I wanted to have you on. But Fancy Maselli, who doesn't have any type of medical training in this whatsoever, no actual background, she was referring to the two different types munchausen and malingering basically her her take on that was that essentially malingering was a lesser offense of as opposed to munchausen but the offender in those cases would still be the mom if i'm hearing you correctly and please stop me if i'm wrong m Munchausen by proxy, just how it sounds would be with the mother or could be father.

But in most cases, I believe it's the mother being the offender, doing these things to create some type of sympathy, whether it's for financial gain or just attention. And malingering would more so be on the actual person with those symptoms. Am I hearing you correctly? Like, is that or am I misinterpreting that? Well, it gets a little complicated because it's either Munchausen syndrome or by proxy. So when we're looking at Munchausen syndrome, a person could have Munchausen syndrome or factitious disorder for themselves. So

correct. Gypsy could be creating her own symptoms. Yes. Or the mother could have been if she did not get gypsy involved. So basically that person is exaggerating intentionally producing or exaggerating physical psychological symptoms. And the motive of the Munchausen or factitious disorder is to, you know, to really have a sick role, okay? Yep. Now, that's if they are exaggerating for themselves. Now, malingering is faking or exaggerating the physical or medical mental health symptoms with an external goal or objective motive of really some other gain, like you said, financial or avoiding prosecution. So when the individual, when we call it Munchausen by proxy or factitious disorder imposed onto another,

that person is exaggerating those medical and or physical and mental symptoms in order to, onto another person. So mom to child, but in order to really have that sick role, but also to be like a hero. So in some cases they may be, you know, at a hospital, the child, they've already manifested these different symptoms or disorders onto their child. And then they're in a hospital for one of these feigned conditions. And then the nurses leave. And then the mother strangles the child or suffocates them and then calls the nurse on call and says, oh my gosh, he almost suffocated. They want all of this attention. And that would be Munchausen? Yeah. And yes, it would affect it or it would be by proxy.

So that would be proxy. Yes. Is it possible to have malingering by proxy where she's saying to her, hey, you need to faint. You need to do this. You need to do that. Or would that automatically classify as Munchausen? Again, this is coming from a layman. I'm only asking the questions I think a lot of people out there will have because Fancy was very quick to make that distinction that there's a difference and that they both

are applicable. And in her opinion, based on the medical records, it was malingering, but that's not what I'm hearing from you. It wouldn't necessarily be applicable here. Well, yeah. I mean, you want to look at the history and really the documentation and really what we do in forensic psychology. We're studying human behavior as a psychologist, but really human criminal behavior as a forensic psychologist and criminal proceedings. And you always want to look at patterns of behaviors and motives. And if you're talking malingering, essentially malingering by proxy or malingering fictitious disorder or malingering Munchausen disorder, really, you know, our psychiatric diagnostic criteria

separates fictitious disorder from malingering based on the motive. So you can't really have them both. Now, if I may, I do honor that reasoning or analysis. And if I can take it a step further, so Fancy's thoughts may be, hey, mom is manifesting all of these symptoms in her child, they're obtaining a lot of gains. Habitat for Humanity, houses, Disney trips, Make-A-Wish, all of that, and that's for an external gain. But the real motive is sick role for that attention. And the positive, you know the motive. And so, you know, either we have malingering or we have factitious disorder, Munchausen. We really don't have both. You don't have both.

And I see the overlap, but in our field, they're distinguished. All right. So we're going to pause it right there. Talked about the distinction. I thought that was important. I don't know if I completely got it, but I want your opinion on it, Stephanie. But before we get there, let's take our first break. Okay, we're back. Stephanie, what'd you think about all that? Because I'll be honest,

and you could hear it from the interview, I didn't completely get it. It's over my head. I'm trying to understand the difference. I kind of got it, but I wasn't a hundred percent if I'm being honest. So what I got from it is what distinguishes manchazen from male lingering is the motive. So yeah, he did say that. Yes. Yeah. If the, if the mother in this case is looking for attention, is looking to get positive affirmation and attention for herself, it would be manchusen. If the mother is looking to gain

financially, materially for herself and for her child as a unit, just to make their lives better, then it would be malingering. Is that kind of where you're at or what you took from it? The main thing I took away from it was the motive part that he said, right? That's the distinction. But if you look up the word malinger, it means to exaggerate or feigning illness in order to escape duty or work. So to me, I still feel like the malingering element could be part of the Munchausen, for example. Well, he said it can't be. You can't have both. He said it can't be. Exactly. That's why I was a little confused because, and he's obviously right.

I'm obviously wrong. Well, I don't think you're wrong. I think it's so, and he said, yes, there's overlap, right? This is what's difficult because it's hard to wrap your head. So I'm reading from the internet and it says both malingering by proxy and manchas by proxy involve fabricating illness in another person. The key difference lies in the motivation. Malingering by proxy is driven by a clear external gain, like avoiding work or seeking compensation, which I can say Gypsy and DeeDee both benefited from.

While manchausen by proxy is motivated by a psychological need for attention or sympathy, often with no obvious external benefit. And with that there, often with no obvious external benefit, essentially the person with Montas my proxy wants to be seen as a dedicated caregiver to a sick person under their care while a malingerer by proxy is manipulating the situation of personal advantage. If you look at this, did it seem that Dede Blanchard was more concerned with the external benefits that they are getting, or was she more concerned with the attention? In my opinion, it seemed like she was more concerned with the external benefits they were receiving. I agree with that. If she was more concerned with the attention, would she not have remained around family? Would she not have remained

around people who would be like, oh my God, DeeDee, you're such a good person. They moved around constantly. Why did they move around constantly? Why did they want to switch communities? We get into that a lot with Dr. Fabian. So I guess my takeaway, and I kind of, I thought I said it in this interview, maybe I say it later. I actually don't disagree with you on the fact that the motive, and that's from Dr. Fabian's mouth, right? It's the motive is the main distinction between the two. I agree. If you're to apply both templates, malingering seems more accurate. Especially when they say that Munchausen by proxy involves intentionally creating or exaggerating symptoms of another person, often with no clear external benefit beyond the psychological gratification. We can say without a doubt, Gypsy and Didi both received obvious external benefit.

Yeah, I agree. The only thing I would push back on with Fancy is, as she was explaining it to me, and malingering by proxy, that was the first time I'd ever heard that phrase before, was during our interview with her. I was, and maybe this was a false assumption on my part, it sounded like Fancy was framing maling this was a false assumption on my part, it sounded like Fancy was framing malingering as a lesser offense to Munchausen. Like Munchausen was the more severe. Malingering was the lesser of the two. Cause she kept saying things like,

if anything at all, it was malingering. But I would say now after speaking to Dr. Fabian, both malingering and Munchausen can have the same type of actions where they could be making their child sick. So it's not necessarily a lesser form of child abuse. Yeah, both would have a psychological and mental health impact on the victim. They both require the person suffering from the sickness to inflict some type of unnecessary treatment or whatever on their child. So I think that is one important

distinction. But did you talk to Dr. Fabian at all about whether or not he believes that Gypsy underwent unnecessary medical treatment? Because so also he says here, well, it's, you know, up to the psychologist, the mental health provider to determine what the motive is. And that's how you determine whether it's Munchausen or Malingering. How in this case, with the person suffering from Munchausen by proxy or Malingering by proxy, aka Dede Blanchard being deceased, how would you figure out what the motive is when the only person you have to talk to is Gypsy Rose? Fair. I don't think you could, but I would push back. If I'm a defender of Gypsy, and I'm not necessarily a defender, I would push back and say, what does it matter if we both agree that she was abused?

Because that's really what it comes down to for me. There are people out there who believe Gypsy wasn't abused at all and that she needed all of these treatments. Exactly. And that's kind of the crux of the issue is what did she undergo medical treatments that she didn't eat? And we know she did not have cancer. Correct. And her head was shaved. Right. So we definitely know right there.

But that is also something that, you know, just a run of the mill con artist would do. Right. Yeah. So I think as we move forward, we can both agree Munchunchausen, malingering, both forms of child abuse. Yeah. Let's just stop this then. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. She went through things that she didn't have to, but was it just a head shaving or was she like poked and prodded and had to spend time in the hospital and have a feeding tube when she did not need these things? And that is something we talk about the feeding tube. I do apologize. I can't remember if it was

on the phone or in there, but we'll see as we get there. And then, so the main distinction there would be the motive behind it. And yeah, that's important. We may never know the real reason why Dee Dee did it, but whether you believe Munchausen or malingering, if you believe either, then you are confirming that Gypsy was in fact abused at some point. To the degree, we don't know yet. We're going to get there talking to Dr. Fabian. But let me ask you something else, because you've got malingering by proxy, which Dee Dee Blanchard would be suffering from. Yeah. Could Gypsy have just been suffering from simple malingering also, you know, benefiting from

the external stuff. And her mom's like, hey, listen, you don't have cancer, man, but we're just going to shave your head really quick. And Gypsy's like, all right, man, I'm going to go to Disney World. Let's do a shave that, shave that head. You know, could she also have been suffering from that? Could she could be, but I would say based on everything we know, and Dr. Fabian did say this based on the historical data with Did Dee going through something similar as a child as well, this is a textbook example of it being hereditary, right? Being passed down from generation. Gypsy learned this from someone. And Dee Dee learned it from someone. That's my point. Does that mean that Dee Dee is just as much of a victim as Gypsy. It doesn't matter. You could have someone who was a victim of child molestation as a child.

If they go on to molest their own child, you don't give them a pass. That's the point. I would say, and I would argue in this context, it does matter because Gypsy got a pass for murdering her mother. So if Gypsy gets a pass for murdering her mother based on what happened to her, why would Dee Dee not get a pass in the public eye for doing what she did to Gypsy? I think my argument is that she didn't get enough time, but I think in the eyes of the law, she was arrested. She took a deal and served 10 years in prison for the murder. Now, we could talk about whether we think that's enough or not,

but the reality is you can have mitigating circumstances that can be presented as a form of defense regarding sentencing. But to go back to what you said, there are many people out there, and we've talked about it in other cases where you have serial killers and murderers who have a troubled, traumatic childhood and go on to do egregious and heinous things, but they're not given the benefit of the doubt because of what they experienced. If you do the crime, you do the time. Now, if you're arguing that she didn't get enough time, I'm actually with you. You're not going to get an argument from me. But the fact that Gypsy did serve 10 years in prison and Dee Dee was never charged with

any crime, I would say Dee Dee didn't. If she did, in fact, do this, and I do believe there's some form of child abuse, she didn't answer for what she did, but Gypsy did. You know what's very frustrating about this case? And what's incredibly frustrating about this case is the deal that was made. Because the deal that was made this case had gone to trial, his strategy for the defense would have been to focus on the abuse that Dee Dee Blanchard inflicted on Gypsy. And this included forcing her to take medication she didn't need, forcing her to undergo medical procedures that were not necessary. Now, Michael Stanfield, as a defense attorney, would have had to have

proved that in court. And so we would have had more information about whether these procedures and medications were actually needed by Gypsy. But now he's just he can just say this like, oh, I would have I would have proven that these medical things that were done to her weren't necessary. But since it never went and I have opinions on all of it We don't have backgrounds in this and I think hearing from him. He may shed some light on it He may answer some of your questions. He may not we'll keep it going and then we'll we'll break down what he has to say next All right And I I want to make sure everyone knows you didn't extensively study Gypsy's medical background and history. That wasn't what you were brought in to do Essentially mike stanfield her lawyer brought you in to potentially do it. But as you said,

it didn't get to that point. There was basically a plea deal beforehand. That's right. That is fair. Mike called me and like I said, he was, you'll never see this. This is, you know, a zebra without stripes, you know, a unicorn, whatever you want to call it. And I'll be honest with you. I mean, this is all I do. And I've been doing it 25 years. And you don't see Munchausen by proxy or fictitious disorder opposed by another very often. And I've evaluated some mothers who in family or criminal law cases have been suspected to have it. But to have a full-blooded Munchausen case, it is extremely rare. With that said, though, once Mike had contacted me about this situation, I have a pretty busy caseload.

And I said, Mike, I'm going to get to it. And probably two, three, three months later, I called him. I said, hey, we're ready. And he said, oh, my God, we just came up with a plea deal. You won't believe this. It was somewhere around, I think, 10 years. And we had to take it. He told me about it.

Meanwhile, he did send me the records, which I had started to review. And I've also admittedly seen some of these Gy know, seen some of these, um, you know, Gypsy Rose specials and looked at some of the discovery. And I, I was aware of the medical, um, history of her or what was, um, I would, I would say in much part, um, fabricated by the mother and also had watched and looked at some of the medical records and the physicians who had treated Gypsy who had concerns as to a Munchausen case. Yeah. We had talked, so everybody knows out there, we had like a pre-interview on the phone because I wanted to pick Dr. Fabian's brain to kind of structure this interview. And there was something you said, and I was driving when we were talking, so I didn't

get to write it down, but it stuck with me. And we were talking about that specifically with the doctors because some people will say there was potentially something going on with the doctors where they knew more and because they liked Gypsy and they like dd they were covering things up but you had a different angle and and it made a lot of sense where it almost seemed like because there were different doctors and because certain records were going missing and and because some doctors did potentially suggest or infer that there could this could be a case of munchausen, that it was in fact Dee Dee who was causing this to happen, almost by doctor shopping, trying to find different doctors that would go along with it for the time being. And when they started to question things, that's when she would

move on or even leave the state. Elaborate on that a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I would urge the interested, you know, folks, you know, that are in parts maybe obsessed for no other word about this case. And there are some. in the field of forensic psychology and psychiatry, this is a rare case. So even folks that do this type of work, like myself, are captivated and quite interested in it. With that said, I do like to listen to the doctors who evaluated this child and this family. And I did watch this HBO and then the A&E special, which was one I was on, but there were a couple of doctors that treated her. There was a, I believe,

a pediatric neurologist. There was also a family doc. And I know the A&E special that I believe the family doc fell on a sword and said, I missed it. And he took accountability. And he said, you know, there were a lot of records lacking. And, you know, the mother came in and the child, I believe at times, was feeding tube doped up. And Gypsy, where the feeding tube, it's my understanding there were different drugs that mother had fed her through that tube to really sedate this girl. So she couldn't really explain what was going on. And mother would take over in these interviews if the daughter gypsy was in fact conscious enough to answer questions or she would be sedated and really out of it, lethargic, disoriented.

And so mother would take over. Mother would take over the records. So it's my understanding when they were in Louisiana and beyond that in Missouri, when the mother would take her to one of many different doctors and specialists, she would then, as mom, get these records, make sure with releases were signed so she could have the hospitals and doctors send Didi the records in order to see what they were actually documenting about her and her daughter. was concerns by one of the doctors. I believe it was a pediatric neurologist who said, you know, wrote in the documents Munchausen syndrome by proxy. It was concerned about that disorder. And then she scrammed to, you know, Missouri. And then luckily for her fortunately uh the katrina uh hurricane uh led to some uh demise of some of these medical records uh in gypsy's backgrounds which was convenient or it was origin or dd lied

about it that there were no records because of katrina and she could start from scratch with new doctors in a different state with really no paper trail as to this exaggeration of these medical conditions, doctor shopping as you refer to it. And with that said, in the HBO special, one of the doctors even brought this up at a children's hospital. He's concerned about Munchausen. I believe Sadiel has almost run one of the doctors even brought this up at a children's hospital. It's concerned about Munchausen. I believe Sadiel was almost run out of the hospital because everyone, nursing, other physicians, medical practitioners were like dumbfounded. How could you say that? This poor girl, which was a theme of make a wish, habitat for humanity, this poor girl. And by the way, this poor girl, because she, in fact, was being, I think, abused and tortured and certainly was suffering, which certainly we can get into. conniving. She's very sharp and very premeditated and well thought out and planned about how she

wanted to cover tracks with what she was doing. Because there was, with this condition, factitious disorder, Munchausen, I mean, certainly when you're getting on the news and you're getting all these gifts and remuneration and a lot of money and attention, who doesn't like that? Completely agree with you. And I, again, that's the reason for having you here, because although limited, you have researched this for numerous reasons, whether it was for Mike reaching out to you, whether it was for the specials you did looking into this. And so I think I know where you're going, but just to

put it right out there, it is your professional opinion that although rare, this was a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, or as you referred to it, factitious disorder. You had the fancy term for it. Factitious disorder imposed by another, typically onto a child. And again, just medically, psychologically, psychiatrically, you're really looking at motives with the diagnoses. And the behaviors may be similar, right? Exaggerating medical, physical, and or mental symptoms, disorders on self or another, the child. But the motive is different. Is it to gain attention or is it to really avoid or get an external gain separate from make a wish? And I know there's some overlap there that's difficult, but whenever you

have one of these cases, those are the two differentials you look at mostly. Is it Malingering? Is it Munchausen? Which one and why? So I thought it was interesting that he says, well, who wouldn't like that attention and the money and the gifts and things like that? It sounds like he's describing in that situation that the motive would be, would both fall under factitious disorder and malingering because he's saying himself, there's the end of the external gain of financial gain, getting something, but also, yeah, she loved the attention. So it kind of feels like no one really knows which one it was or what it falls under. And he keeps saying, you know, it's confusing. There's gray areas,

there's overlaps. It is. So I'm not sure without the patient, which would be Dede Blanchard, being there to psychologically evaluate how any mental health or medical professional could say with any certainty what she suffered from, especially with these gray areas and him basically saying, yeah, it must be nice, financial gain, attention. You're using both motives and then going on to say, I believe this was factitious disorder. What I interpreted from it was factitious disorder. What I interpreted from it was factitious disorder imposed by another, the symptoms of that would be the same as malingering. The motive behind it would be different. And we can't determine the motive. So if the motive is the distinction that determines malingering or factitious disorder by another, but the symptoms are the same, the more common one would be the factitious disorder imposed by another. And that's why they're classifying it as that. Because as you mentioned, Dee Dee's not here. So you can't

interview her to determine the reasonings behind carrying out those different forms of behavior, the factitious disorder by another. He also said that factitious disorder was very, very, very rare. Yes, he did. He said that very times on the phone interview and in this. That's why I was so surprised by this. But according to all the available research, malingering by proxy is considered to be far more common than Monshausen by proxy. I don't know that.

I went with the doctor. He said, I think, Stephanie, and I know you're giving devil's advocate, which I love. I think we can't get too caught up on factitious disorder or for the sake of this conversation to be consistent, Munchausen by proxy versus malingering, because I think that's where we get lost in the weeds. I think the main takeaway for us is what I wanted to know is if the level of abuse was the same with the two, because that's what matters to me is that was Gypsy abused or not. And when I was hearing it from Fancy, the way I was interpreting it, and it could be my fault, I'm not putting it on Fancy.

I was looking at malingering almost like first degree murder versus second degree murder. You follow what I'm saying? So you feel like she made it seem like, oh, malingering is not as bad. Correct. And what I'm taking away from Dr. Fabian is that they're both the same. Okay. That's what was important to me. If the medical diagnoses and what she was receiving medically was not needed, the level of abuse would be the same. It wouldn't matter whether it was malingering or factitious. That's what I take away from it.

But we have no clear indication of whether or not Gypsy actually needed the majority of these medical treatments. That is the holdup from what he's read, from what Fancy has seen. And I haven't seen the medical record, so I'm not pretending like I have. But according to him, and I don't think you're disputing it, and I don't even think Fancy's disputing it, there were doctors who raised concerns during their evaluations that Munchausen may be present. And even Dr. Fabian said, when that doctor said something, all the other doctors and nurses in the hospital was like, what are you talking about? I went after him, whoever it was. So I think there was just that

one dude, everybody else, all the other doctors continued. And like I said, doctors don't insert feeding tubes into a child just because the mother said she needs one. Yeah. It's, it's tough. I think that comes down to what you want to believe. I think Gypsy saying it, there were doctors who brought it up who didn't know that this was going to become what it became. She was shaving her head when we know she didn't have cancer. We have videos of that. We know that there's videos, we've seen them, where she's letting her daughter walk around with a shaved head, pretending she has cancer for a house. That's a problem for me. Doesn't that maybe suggest that all these doctors who treated Gypsy need to be spoken to? Why is there not an

investigation? Because if they gave- One of them said it. He said, I missed it, or she missed it. One of them. Yeah. Yeah. But the others- Well, she didn't stick with the doctors very long. She would take off and go to the next one. She stuck with that one doctor. She followed him from Louisiana to- Because he was going along with her. To Missouri. He was the guy who wasn't doing his job. But then all the other doctors that he, because he would be the specialist, right? And then he would give her to other doctors that he would, what is it called? When you refer, he would refer them to other doctors with specialties and things like that.

And those doctors also just did the treatments, did the medical procedures. Why would all of these other doctors do all of these medical procedures without any medical evidence that they were needed? It's a good question. Well, I'm interested to hear when we hear the end of this interview where you fall, because obviously at the end of this interview, so we can move on with the story, I do think we both have to answer whether or not we feel Gypsy was abused. That's the whole point of this. So let's take a quick break. Yeah. Yeah. We time that one. Time that one. We'll be right back. You don't think in this case, malingering is what's at play here. It's your professional opinion that this would be a case of Munchausen syndrome

by proxy. Right. And the thing, you know, the issue here is we're looking at labels, right? And it's the same behavior. So if you're saying, hey, they were malingering for an external gain of money and attention, you know, it's just not. At the end of the day, it's child abuse. Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of the day, we have a psychiatric manual and it just says it's factitious disorder.

But, you know, at the end of the day, hey, if it was exaggeration for Deedee and her daughter to benefit, well, then that's what the symptoms are. It's just called something else. I'm with you. So we have that down. We're there on that. And now the next thing. By the way, if I may say something. Please.

Please, by all means. When you're five years old and your mother is an adult and your mother is manifesting these symptoms for a five-year-old daughter, your external gain of attention, that is the factitious disorder imposed by another and the munchausen by proxy. Your daughter ain't malingering when she's five. She's being abused. It's funny you say that because that's where I was going with this next. It's a perfect segue because there's a lot of dissenters out there. There's a lot of people that believe that Gypsy was making this all up or that Gypsy was being treated for actual issues as far as the chromosome disorder and that Dee Dee was taking her for the

symptoms, even though at the time they didn't know what it was, but they were warranted is the argument on that side. But even for the people who are kind of in between, you say, okay, maybe there was malingering by proxy. Maybe it was a lesser extreme, which we've already kind of discredited that. It's not, it doesn't work like that. It's not a lesser offense. But even those people say, okay,

when Gypsy was young, four or five years old, when it started, yeah, it's on DD. But as Gypsy starts to get older, 13, 14, 15 years old, and we have video that we've played where you have news crews showing up to the house and Gypsy's able to explain herself and she's rolling around in the wheelchair and she's talking about these things that she has going on with her and how this is the perfect little life. At that point, does Gypsy know what's going on is wrong? And does the responsibility shift? Does it start to become more of a partnership than a one-sided thing with DeeDee?

How do you feel about that notion? Yeah. So I work with juvenile and adult offenders. And the goals and objectives and the foundations of juvenile court are much different than adult court. So I look at it that way. When we look at moral culpability of offending, it's certainly different with juveniles and adults. And so that's why we have a juvenile versus an adult court. But this case goes beyond that because as I and other people have referenced, I mean, Gypsy was living in this time warped bubble where she didn't even know what her age was. I mean, when I talked to her, she thought she was 20 when she was 24. Okay. Or thought she was 14 when she was 24 okay or um thought she was 14 when she was 19 and you know her mother kept her in such a protective bubble in order to reap the benefits of this factitious disorder

that gypsy was emotionally disabled. Like when we look at, and they go to John, which we'll talk about in a bit, you know, autism, we used to say Asperger's disorder, which is now mild autism, mild in severity.

We had a lot of commenters correct me on that one. So I appreciate you bringing that up. Sure. When someone's intellectually disabled, that means they're cognitively, intellectually, their ability, their cognitive ability, they're disabled. When someone's autistic, they, emotionally and socially disabled, because she was not allowed to live in a normal environment and socialize appropriately, which is going to really stunt her psychological, emotional, interpersonal development. And so when someone is, let's say, 13, as you said, really, she wouldn't have been emotionally, psychologically 13. Yeah.

What age would you put her at? Because we had this discussion, even looking at the police interrogation footage, I had said to Stephanie, how old is she there? 23? Yeah, you know what? That doesn't sound or look like a 23-year-old to me. And it is difficult. So a lot of that is speculation. I mean, there are some different tests

that we can try to get age equivalents, but I would probably at 23 put her at maybe 15, but probably maybe younger than that, right? And so, and without really assessing her deeply, it would be difficult to, to, you know, figure that out more specifically on an age frame, but, you know, certainly 23 chronological age would not have been 23 emotionally, socially growing up the way she did. So she's growing up in a time war bubble where she is emotionally socially behind. Now, go to John, though, had autism. And that's a neurodevelopmental

condition in and of itself, separate maybe from his background. And he could have been abused and neglected, which would further impair and stunt his emotional and psychological growth. But you're seeing that through abuse, trauma, neglect, emotional, social deprivation, and she's behind, he is through at least mild autism. But you know what? It's a good fit. And that's part of that fit. And we're going to talk about that because as we transition to that, that is a dynamic that we talk about the dynamic and the position of authority when it relates to DD and Gypsy and who was in charge. My takeaway from this, from hearing from you is it's DD all the way, even as you get older, because the symptoms

and the damage that is done at that early age is what allows that control over Gypsy as she gets older. And what I was looking at when doing this, because again, that's where people start to say, oh, you know, Gypsy knew right from wrong at that point. And a lot of people said, hey, listen, when you're groomed and manipulated all those years, that has a lasting impact. And I think that's where I want to round this out because although you haven't specifically looked at the medical records and broken this all down, there are probably, I'm assuming, some psychological effects that it has on a young person

that carry over into their adulthood. And not only with the interrogation footage, but even looking at footage now with Gypsy, is it your professional opinion based on how Gypsy conducts herself? Are there signs to you there based on your experience that suggest, yeah, the reason Gypsy talks and acts like this is because of the impact and the symptoms from what happened to her when she was a child. Because as you said, she doesn't talk or act like someone who is 22, 23 years old in that interrogation footage.

And I would even argue that some of the more recent things that I've seen, it still doesn't seem like a person who's talking and acting the age that they currently are. You bring up some really good points here. As far as you mentioned, again, we're looking at moral culpability. We're looking at blameworthiness. We're looking at what does that person deserve as punishment. And you're also looking, when you're looking at right from wrong, you're also looking basically at a mental illness defense of insanity. Now, if I may, it my understanding, the insanity defense for adults in Missouri is whether the result of mental disease or defect. Did the person know or appreciate the nature, quality or wrongfulness of their conduct. So when we're looking at that, if you are a victim of Munchausen by proxy as a very young child and essentially brainwashed to believe you have these conditions and eventually I believe as an adult handcuffed to the table

essentially not free to leave the house for days homeschooled and living in this bubble with your mother who is very sick I mean that's a severe abuse or neglect, even if you're going to Disney World. And with that type of trauma, one can believe, canpping and falling and failing tests, having breakups, knowing friends that were killed, you know, just different life circumstances, but rather you're just encapsulated in this mother's time warp of sickness. Your ability to really navigate the world is compromised. And your ability to really understand the nature of cause and effect relationships, consequences, really appreciate your behaviors and how they affect other people and other relationships, and really being able to appreciate the consequences and severity of these types of behaviors, thoughts, decisions you have, it really lowers that person's, like, culpability, blameworthiness, and could be relevant to even a mental illness defense. So I'm a little bit uncomfortable with this because, once again, Dr. John Fabian spoke to Gypsy, did not speak to Dee Dee Blanchard.

No. So the things he's saying and he's stating them, I'm sure not intentionally. But if you were somebody who was not familiar with this case and you listened to him, you would think he was stating them as fact. Gypsy was handcuffed to the table, not allowed to leave for days at a time. There's no evidence that that happened besides Gypsy's own word. And she was in prison for murdering her mother. So we could say she has some motive, a large motive, to lie and make her scenario and her situation seem worse than it was. There's no evidence that she was ever handcuffed to the table.

We can't ask Dee Dee Blanchard if that was true. She probably wouldn't tell the truth if it was either. Right. But the point of the matter is there's no actual physical evidence. I wouldn't even say there's circumstantial evidence. It's just Gypsy saying that this stuff happened. And Gypsy, as we know, and I mean, he just said, oh, she yeah, she's mentally like, you know, I would say a 15 year old, I'd have to actually diagnose her and, you know, talk to her more to say that for sure. But okay, so she's a 15-year-old, but yet you're taking her word as if that's exactly what happened. And you're using that to give a theoretical diagnosis of factitious disorder by proxy,

right? So I'm not comfortable with that. There's no evidence that Gypsy was handcuffed to the table, not allowed to leave for days at a time, especially at this time when she's stating this happened, because she had neighbors who said she was out strolling around, hanging out with her neighbor, talking on the internet all the time. It didn't seem like she was ever held prisoner, to be honest. There's no actual evidence that that happened.

So to state it almost as if it's a fact, once again, sure, he did not do that intentionally. But if you didn't know this case and you weren't aware, you'd say, oh, this is a mental health professional. He is familiar with these disorders and he spoke to Gypsy. He knows what he's talking about. In this case, I don't believe that he has a leg to stand on saying she was handcuffed to the table and not allowed to leave. And so that's huge abuse. Yes. If that if that happened, that is huge abuse. We do not know that happened. What I was trying to get at, maybe I didn't do a great job in the interview portion, but I was asking him, are there behaviors she displays now that would give credibility to the fact that she was abused as a child? Are there symptoms that you would see in an adult that

would indicate they had been abused as a child? And one of those things was that lower emotional intelligence that she does display now. So that was one thing that he was trying to explain, that the way she acts and speaks now is indicative of someone who was abused as a child, although he doesn't have the factual proof. The only other thing I would say is that you're right. There is no physical proof that she was handcuffed to a table. There was no physical proof that she was abused in a lot of ways. I would only add to that that there's also no proof it didn't happen. And I would also add to that that I've seen Gypsy Rose drop her act and speak and behave normally

many times. It could possibly and potentially be that she talks like a little girl and acts like a little girl because, and this doesn't mean she wasn't abused, because I think we both can agree, this was not a healthy childhood for her. No matter which way you cut this pie, things could have been better. However, she may have learned early on, hey, if I act like an innocent little girl, if I behave like an innocent little girl, if I sound like an innocent little girl, I'm easier. It's easier for me to manipulate people. And you said something earlier. You're like, well, you know, she confessed to it. She confessed to killing her mother eventually, but not that first, you know, several hours of interrogation where she sat there talking in this way and behaving like this little girl that she wasn't.

And she, I believe, did that specifically in order to, you know, kind of, I'm innocent. How could I hurt anybody? I'm completely harmless, sir. There's tons of evidence that she doesn't always speak or act like that. And it may be a mask that she wears, a costume that she wears in order to manipulate and get what she wants. And did she learn that she has to manipulate and get what she wants and people please essentially based on her toxic childhood? Most likely. But that doesn't mean that she doesn't know the difference between right and wrong. And she does not know that what she did to her mother was wrong.

If she didn't know that it was wrong, a.k.a. a mental illness, like you can't tell the difference between what you did being wrong or right, she would not have lied about it to the police. I'm a little confused because on one hand you're saying a lot of the things she's doing now is because of her toxic childhood. Well, what is your definition of toxic childhood? I can say that we don't know the extent of any abuse she suffered. We only have her word to go on it. But based on just in general, the way she behaved then, the way she behaves now, this is not somebody that had a healthy, stable childhood regardless. But so many other people don't and do not kill their mothers, right? Or don't act like she does now. Don't act like she does now. You eventually sort of, you know, learned that that's not the way. But the fact of the matter is he had said,

Dr. Fabian had said earlier, you know, in the state where she was going to be tried, to say that you're not guilty based on a mental deficiency, you would have to not know that what you did was wrong. The fact that she sat at that police station and lied about what she did to her mother for hours and hours and hours lets me know that she knows what she did was wrong. I mean, she's been lying her whole life. I know. So, I mean, it's something, that's all she knows. Like there's pathological liars out there that aren't even murderers where they just lie to lie. Like even when it's something innocent, they came in second place on this huge test, but they got to lie and tell you they came in first because they just, it's like, why are you lying though? You did really

well. What's the point? They don't even, they can't even explain to you why it's just, it's in their nature. But I will defend Dr. Fabian just a little bit. I did say it at the beginning, and I think it's important for our audience to know this. Like he did not, he did not do a lot of research on this specific case. We're speaking in generality. And yes, at that point, he's referring to Gypsy Rose's statements and, and some of the medical reports where doctors had suggested there might be something, but by no way, shape, or form has he spoken to DeeDee extensively at all.

And so there is some— Would you say that he extensively went through Gypsy Rose's medical records? No, he said he started to. Okay. Those are his exact words. Okay. He was never involved in the trial. He interviewed Gypsy.

Well, there was no—there really wasn't, there wasn't a trial. There was a trial for Nicholas Godejohn that Gypsy testified against him in. Right. But he wasn't involved in the trial. He didn't, he wasn't hired. Essentially, he was like, hey, here's the heads up. You might be involved in this case. He got the record sent to him, started looking at them, talked to Michael, Gypsy's lawyer,

and he said, don't need you anymore. They came up with a deal. And then he was involved again for the A&E special. But he's by no means an expert on this case, but he has spoken to Gypsy, which we're going to talk about. And he's interviewed her. And he's also someone who I would consider an expert in this field. Like I said, you can go look at his resume. He's written multiple publications. This is what he does every single day. He is the real deal, but it doesn't matter to, it doesn't matter at the end of the day, if you're an expert in your field, if you do not have all the information to build a complete puzzle with, if you're missing pieces here and there. And in this case, I'd say a

lot of pieces are missing. Well, that's the point of having him though, because I would push back and say, fancy who has a lot of the information wasn't there either. Well, she's the point of having him, though, because I would push back and say Fancy, who has a lot of the information, wasn't there either. Well, she doesn't have the full puzzle either. She doesn't have the full puzzle. And the only difference I would say between her and this guy, Dr. Fabian, is he really doesn't have any skin in the game. He did one interview for A&E. He was compensated for it. He was a talking head. I've done many of those. He doesn't, whether Gypsy was a victim or not, he didn't put his name on the line. Fancy has a lot more skin in the game when it comes to the outcome of this case than Dr. Fabian. I don't agree. I think that Dr. How don't you agree?

I think Dr. Fabian, as the prestigious mental health professional that he is, if he stated something in an interview for, I believe it was HBO, by the way. He keeps saying HBO. He didn't do the HBO series. So he's just referring to the HBO series. He's referring to the doctor who said something. Well, let me, let me correct it. He only did one of the two. I believe he did A&E, whatever the one that Michael didn't do. If he goes on the special and he states his belief that Gypsy was a victim and that her mother suffered from factitious disorder, then yeah, he would have to sort of stay on that hill, you know, if he wants to, as a mental health

professional, as somebody who's... What if he believes it? He could believe it, but I don't know how you could believe it without, could believe it to that extent without having the majority of the information. Stephanie, if he's diagnosed and treated multiple people that are victims of factitious disorder imposed by another, he knows what the symptoms look like. He knows what the same way I look at somebody who's using heroin or some type of other drug, I can see them and see symptoms in them that I recognize because of my professional experience. That's all I'm saying. He may actually believe it. I believe that he does believe it.

I do too. But I don't, I think he believes it, but even he himself would probably say, would I go to trial based with what I have and testify to that effect? No, I wouldn't. I agree. He'd want the full book for sure.

And he'd have access to that. But I gave him a qualification at the beginning saying, hey, we're talking a lot in generality, but he did, he did bring up the handcuffing incident. So I have no problem with you addressing that and saying it because you're right. He doesn't know that happened for sure. So if you want to put an asterisk on that part, I don't actually have an issue with it. I think it's important, but, um, but yeah, I think right now we'll take another break and then we'll continue on with the interview. Good discussion so far. Sounds good.

I don't know if you're intentionally alluding to this, but as we're going to talk about the murder itself, some ofproduct of that are some of the symptoms you just described. And when we start to think about premeditation of a murder, how being a victim of that crime, Munchausen for so long, can have an impact on the ability to understand what you're considering, what you're going to carry out. That is true. And I've had juveniles who have been charged with murder, who I've evaluated, who have told me, I just really wanted to know what it was like to kill someone. And there's an immaturity to that, certainly, but the Munchausen can really have a similar but differing effect on that person and really how they view the world and others in an autistic sense, I think, because they have a hard time reading and navigating the world. They've never been outside, really. So let's just go there then, because I think we've kind of covered the Munchausen by proxy as far as where you fall. Mike, stop me if I'm wrong, if maybe I'm interpreting it wrong, but

your professional opinion is yes, this is a clear case of that, although rare. And a lot of what we're seeing today is a byproduct of what Gypsy experienced as a child. Is that fair to put a pin on that and say that? The pin almost. And the reason is, is because when I first was looking at this case and talking to the attorney and then talking to Gypsy, and A&E kind of said, hey, we're really looking at the future. How would this Munchausen affect her in the future? She's being going to be released on parole. What's the future look like? Relationships.

And I'm always wanting to, I think, and others are like, God, I would just do anything to evaluate Deedee. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So we're looking at her and what i knew about some of the records and just some of documentaries what were the risk factors for her to actually develop munchausen or factitious disorder it started with her so what was her childhood like forget gypsy for a minute and that was we covered that extensively by the way, okay. I learned the trauma that she had.

Oh, yeah. Mother was obsessed with her own, you know, Dee Dee's physical conditions. That's right. Overprotective. And, you know, these risk factors will lead to not only like damaged attachment with your primary caregiver, your mom, who is doing this to you, but it also will really damage your sense of development, sense of self-esteem, your identity, and it can lead to personality disorders, really related to how you view yourself, the world, and how you really are interpersonally.

Makes sense to me. It makes sense. And we covered DD extensively and you do kind of see for a layman way of saying it, this kind of like this transitional from DD's parents to DD to Gypsy, right? It's the apple doesn't fall far from the tree kind of thing where it's almost gotten worse as it's, you know, gone on. Right. And, and putting the pin on it, meaning, hey, what are the risk factors for Didi to have had Munchausen? And you have that. So that gives you more evidence that this is that type of case. So not only do you have the historical evidence of it where Didi would be a candidate for something like this because of her childhood, but then you actually have the circumstances surrounding Gypsy where the symptoms that are being described, the psychological

symptoms that we're seeing from Gypsy herself, all line up with this being a case of Munchausen. Right. And Derek, these cases, you always have to look at the multi-generational effect. Yeah. That's a great way of looking at it. You have past, present, and future. You're combining them all, totality of circumstances. It's not just one independent thing where you're coming to this conclusion. Fascinating. Let's transition. We could talk about this for five hours. We've done it already with this case You mentioned nicholas go to john And everybody who's listening to this or watching this kind of knows but at at this point

for even the people who are not disputing the the The belief that this was a case of munchausen by proxy We get into the situation now where gypsy and Nicholas are starting to, they meet in 2012 on a dating app and they talk for about three years. There's a lot of dynamic there. And I had sent you the DMs. I don't believe you saw those Facebook messages beforehand. So you're not by any means an expert on them, but we talked about them a little bit. You had a chance to review them. We went over them extensively last episode.

And when you read those messages, even after everything that we just talked about, when we talk about culpability and responsibility, yes, you talk about how Gypsy, based on her past, may not understand the significance of what she's suggesting. But I think from most people out there, the question would be,

okay, we understand that. But at the end of the day, if she carries out a murder, you still have to be held responsible for it. If that's what you did, if you were part of that planning. So when we start to look at these messages that go on between Nicholas and Gypsy, we know that eventually Nicholas is charged with first degree murder. He's still in prison. And we know, as you mentioned already, Gypsy ended up getting a pretty good deal. Second degree murder. It was a plea deal and she did about 10 years. She's out walking amongst us. When you look at those messages and depend specifically, you see some things from Nick, you see some things from Gypsy. If you're to believe Gypsy, she basically says it was Nicholas, he was the driving force

behind this. He manipulated her, he corrupted her. We talked in last episode how some of the things that she accused Nicholas of have been verifiably proven wrong, like the idea that he got her involved in BDSM. That's not true. That happened previously with another person who, by the way, was much older than Gypsy. And that was a crime in and of itself. Dan, egregious, gross, just another wrinkle in the story.

Terrible that Gypsy experienced that as well. I'm sure that didn't help her situation. But there's already been things that Gypsy's tried to put on Nicholas that we know are not true so is it possible when looking at this dynamic and we talk about the the percentage the responsibility of who who helped who basically manifested this idea to kill dd based on how they were charged you would think it's mostly nicholas but when you see these these messages and you think about what we have here not only with gypsy which we've discussed at length here, but also Nicholas, as far as his mental symptoms, you mentioned earlier, it used to be referred to as Asperger's.

It's not anymore. Now it's autism. When you see those messages, what do you see as a professional? Well, Derek, can I ask you a question? I'm scared, but yes, go for it. Cop, PI, who had blood on their hands? Who had Dee Dee's blood on their hands? It was Nicholas.

So, I mean, that raises... Physically, he had it, but... That raises his culpability, right, right. But for him stabbing her, she would not be dead. That is true. Okay. I see where you're going. Right. So the elements of the crime or the mental state and the act.

Right. Right. So he did the motion of the stabbing, right? Now, to answer your question, though, when we're looking at really who, how did this plan form? Well, it's my understanding this is the first Munchausen by proxy where the child, where the mother or the parent was murdered. Right. Okay. I don't know if that's true or not, but I'm rolling with you, if that's your understanding. I was told that. If we're wrong, we apologize ahead of time.

Well, I was told that by A&E. Okay. Okay. When they took over my house for 13 hours. And so they told me that. And internationally, it was a big deal, right? So that's how – so Munchausen by proxy is what? One, 10, 15 cases out of a million. Okay. So when you have a murder of a

parent and it's maybe happened once, I mean, we're talking about the probability of this type of event happening. That's why we're here. That's why it's a big deal. That's why everyone's so fascinated by it. Right, right. So I just want to cut in really quickly because once again, I don't like this classification of him saying, oh, well, Nicholas Godejohn is more culpable

because he did the stabbing. Yes, I suppose, subjectively. But you also have somebody like Charles Manson who never touched the victims that he served life in prison for, for their murders. He just simply manipulated his followers, other people, to kill those individuals for him. He served life in prison for that in California, of all places. So once again, I think it doesn't make me feel super comfortable to have a kind of insinuation. If you're very good at manipulating people and getting other

people who maybe are not also the most mentally healthy to do your bidding, you're less culpable. I do not believe that at all. And I just want to say that for the record. I don't think that if you're able to manipulate somebody who is clearly very easily suggested to, to do something for you, to do your dirty work for you, that that makes you less culpable in any way, by the way. I'm kind of saving it for the end because in my opinion, two things can be true. I can feel one way about the child abuse and different about this. I don't think we're ever going to agree with everybody completely. And I kind of pushed back on him a little bit there when he said, but who did the stabbing or who's responsible? And I said, well, physically he did, but figuratively, I would argue the blood's on both their hands. So we'll get to that.

I find it very, very interesting that this is the first case of, i mean once again he's using the factitious disorder in manchowsen by proxy sort of interchangeably throughout the correct terminology i guess is factitious disorder imposed by another now the word manchowsen's i guess not the recognized term anymore and he corrects you when you use yeah he doesn't like it but then he could he does continue to use manchowsen by proxy i think he's doing it for my sake he's doing it for you what that's that's nice of him. He's dumbing down himself to my own. Also easier to say than that entire factitious.

It sounds bad. I like factitious disorder. Yeah, for sure. So I think it's interesting. This is the first case of that where he, at least known, where a child has killed their parents. And I think that's important. And I want us all to put a pin in that and remember it for future episodes.

I don't even know what that's referring to, but okay. You will. Let's continue on. But you also have two vulnerable, I would say, you know, you want to say victims, but they're perpetrators, right? Right. But I kind of throw in Nick as a victim of this Deedee thing because, but for Deedee's craziness and factitious disorder, we wouldn't be here either. So if you look at these two folks, again, there's commonalities.

As I said, you've got Gypsy who is emotionally, socially behind. I mean, she's years behind. Okay. Never, never went to school, never knew anybody. And meeting people through Christian dating sites and then get sexually abused. Right. And then you've got this kid, Nick, who is emotionally, socially behind. A couple of years old. Mild autism. Yeah. And then a colleague who tested him had an 82 IQ.

Wow. 82 IQ. That puts him at the 12th percentile, meaning 88 out of a hundred people that walk through the room, his same age are smarter. Right. So he's low functioning, low average guy, but they're both vulnerable for different reasons, had different paths to get there, but their likes attract. Right. And somehow they needed each other. But if you had gone through this type of life, it's hard to imagine. There's mixed emotions. When I talked to Gypsy, there's like, God, I love my mother, but I think she may have said I hated her because of all of the, you know, you love your mother because it's the only person really she knew. But there were miserable and suffering times.

Right. And it's not until now she's figuring this out and seeing that it was not normal. When you're living it and making a wish, there's so much good to it, right? Everyone loves you. And you'd never get that coming from where they live low socioeconomic status. But nonetheless, you would almost think that even though you're in this warped bubble where your mother's the only person you know, you may have a disdain because you're handcuffed to a desk. You can't go out. You can't have friends.

So for us to think that killing your mother would be a fantastical, horrific thought, I think, again, if you're a victim of this type of severity of abuse neglect through munchausen by proxy so given that um i i think that nick had told her to get a knife hunting knife at home depot lows she did i think she may have bought the gloves, the pre-cut tape. I think he told her to have headphones. And so when he got there, he said, put the headphones on, go in the bathroom, basically so you don't hear me killing your mother and hear her wailing and screaming while I kill her and rape her. So, you know, it took two here. And I think this abuse, neglect, Munchausen by proxy, by DD to daughter during this relationship she's building, she's starving to be with somebody a guy someone to care about her and um to save her perhaps so when they are developing this relationship certainly

she shared all of the uh you know the the the by proxy issues going on. And even Nick with mild autism was like, Hey, this is, this isn't right. And I think it spawned developmentally together where, um, you know, we need to do something. I need to protect you, but also, Hey, there's some maybe pot of gold at the end of this, we can be together. But even watching them in their video post-murder in the hotel they're like two little kids um eating snacks having sex and goofing and giggling didn't really seem like they were their chronological age by any means a true understanding of what they just did yeah or yeah exactly like like it's almost a cartoon or, or anime of like, Oh my God, like the, you know, they're, they're just kind of goofing around like this really happened. And that is the key to this, where these are mitigating circumstances

as to their culpability and, and, and blameworthiness an ultimate punishment or the way their case was dealt out. So when Mike, the lawyer, was saying, hey, my client was a victim of this torturing, suffering, munchausen by proxy, look at this. And they did a research on it and they really investigated the case, nixed the one with the confession and the stabbing and the blood on his hands. So he's going to get more time, but certainly that should be mitigated as well. 82 IQ? Yeah, well, autism as well.

And Deedee's influence, which I think has been, based on my discussions with you, has been a little bit negated or diminished because she was always a victim and he was a bad guy. But why did she have the role? And that mitigation to her really should extrapolate onto him, okay, as well because of his disorders. And what is this all about? It was actually in part to stop this madness, okay? But I do honor there was other gold at the end of the rainbow here. Dr. Fabian said a lot there, some of which I found interesting because on one hand, he's acknowledging the abuse or his belief of the abuse of Gypsy. But I do think it's fascinating from a professional perspective where he's kind of saying right here that a lot of these mitigating circumstances that were applied to Gypsy and resulted in her getting

a lesser sentence should have been extrapolated onto Nicholas go to John as well, where we know that's not what happened. He ended up with life in prison. So I found that very interesting coming from him where he can acknowledge two things being true here, where it should have either been Gypsy getting more time or Nicholas getting less. We'll take, we'll take our last break. We're going to finish up this interview and then we'll talk about everything that transpired in the last portion of our interaction together with me and Dr. Fabian. There's so much to unpack there and we still have more parts to go in this series. And at the end, I'm going to give my overall opinion just from my background. And that's why it's important to have people like you on to kind of shed some light on things and to not give too much away here. I think because, you know, things could change as far as my opinion. I feel like two things can be true. I don't feel like it's binary where it's either yes, all in or not. And so what I mean by that is you can agree

that Gypsy without a doubt is a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, or as you refer to it, factual disorder. I got to try to remember that one. Factitious disorder. That can be true. And that could have contributed to the psychological effects that she's had now and how she views things.

But to what you said there when we look at culpability me personally just my opinion dd although nick was the one holding the knife dd blanchard is not dead unless both of them are involved because the motivation that nicholas derived all of this anger from was based on what Gypsy told him. And then there's physical elements of it, which I don't even know. We're going through the story chronologically, so we haven't even got into the specifics of the murder yet. So I don't know all those details, but based on what we've just discussed here, there were physical elements of this murder, as far as getting the knife, letting him in, that would have made his job a lot harder to kill her,

if not for Gypsy. And I know there's things that go on deals and we're not lawyers, we're not judges, but To me we're and I think a lot of people feel this way They both have mitigating circumstances nicholas has autism low iq He's not able to process things the way most people would Gypsy has her symptoms from

her childhood and maybe some underlying things that we're unaware of. I don't know. So we're able to apply that to Gypsy as far as her charge and her ultimate, you know, what she was convicted, what she was, what she pled to and what she got for a sentence. And yet you have her out after 10 years and Nicholas still in prison and a lot of people I don't necessarily think Nick should be out but what I would say is this either they should both be out or they should both be in because I don't really think this is a situation where it's clearly evident that one person was driving the ship and the other one was just along for the ride I don't see. I think they both have circumstances mentally and emotionally that inhibit their ability to

process what they're doing. And yet one person is probably never getting out and the other person's making a lot of money doing TikToks. That's just where I fall. And by the way, not everyone's going to agree with me there. A lot of people, or I should say some people, say, hey, Gypsy basically you know, this is a Munchausen by proxy case. I think there was there was suffering and abuse and neglect. And I think Didi was was extremely sick. And you've referenced this where Gypsy, you know, had traits of her mother as being manipulative. And why did she choose Nick? Oh, because he was easily vulnerable with autism. For sure.

Right. But I think, again, they're both vulnerable. And that vulnerability leads usually to that moral culpability with blameworthiness and ultimately to punishment, maybe reduced charges, but usually not to like a legal defense of insanity. And we did not have that here, but, but it is a big pill to swallow when she's doing Tik TOK and he's got life without parole. Now he's the one that confessed,

you know, to murdering her, but he was also in this like role of, you know, wanting to protect her. But there was also this good and evil part to him and a sadistic component now he talked about sexual homicide and rape and murder but then said he ultimately did not so it seemed to me there was a more demonic element to him interesting and to his motives you know and i think there's a gender

issue here you know male stronger female you. Plus, again, she was the child. But I think that, you know, that the mitigation leading to, you know, less culpability and maybe a lesser sentence with some, some light at the end of the tunnel, like with the possibility of parole, maybe should have been considered by the trier of fact. I think there is a significant problem with the heinousness of this case. And you're also in, you know, kind of Springfield, Missouri, very conservative, as they say, Bible Belt area of the country, where the heinousness of this case and the judges there in that jurisdiction are very strict and punitive. Yeah. And I think there's also an element of looking at what we have here, is there a possibility of reoffending? And now with Nicholas, obviously you haven't had the chance to evaluate him, but where I'd kind of like to round out this interview is your interview, your conversation

with Gypsy, because when you interviewed her for A&E, she was still in prison and she was looking at parole relatively soon, right? It was as soon as she was coming up for parole or fill us in on that whole encounter, not only how that came to be, but also your interactions with Gypsy and what you took away from it. Sure. So when I was contacted by any, they say, hey, we want to look at this as a future-oriented documentary.

We know that she's going to be released and we want to know really what she may be facing, someone that's been through this type of trauma. And I think that this was spun into some other documentaries or shows of Gypsy in real life. And with that said, though, they said, well, you talk to her. And, um, with that said though, uh, they said, well, you, you talked to her and I said, sure. So, you know, we rang her up on the phone and in prison. And, uh, you know, I said, you know, I was supposed to evaluate you. And she's, she knew that. And she knew Mike, uh, you know, Stanfield, her lawyer, and they had talked about it. And I said, so, well, Hey, this is second place. We'll talk anyway.

And, you know, we talked about, you know, her history and her insights and, you know, some of her growth, what would, where she'd come from and where she is now. And, you know, they kind of, you were asking me, you know, the risk of her having problems in relationships. And, um, I really, Derek did not know how big this was. Okay. Like social media as to my old roommate, he says, my kids are watching this. Don't say anything bad about gypsy, you know? And I, you know, and I was like, what, you know, and then, oh, wow. You know, I, I did it, you know. But I did say that I had concerns as to her dating and relationship fortune. You know, so I was very concerned because, you know, and I guess I was right with that prediction because she was married briefly divorced.

Yep. Now she's got a baby on the way with someone else. And she had a fan club and she was, you know, meeting a lot of, a lot of men were attracted to the case to her. She was getting contacts through jail, jail mail, and, you know, also through internet email websites of contacting folks in the community with prisoners. And she had a fan club, a harem, whatever you want to call it. And she had no loss of chances to meet guys.

Usually the way it goes. It's a weird world. That holds a separate episode, but yeah. It totally is. Yeah. So with that said, though, it places you at, you know, with some other problems. Right. And a lot. It's great to have attention. But hey, that's what this, you know, that's what some of the the other sector was saying earlier. Hey, this is all about attention. She wanted it with her mother and now it's more of the same, right? And she's used to that. So she gets out of prison, she's on TikTok, she's on shows, whatever. Now, but you know what? You can't take the girl out of the munchausen by proxy or the by proxy out of the girl, so to speak. So, I mean, you, you're always going to be damaged from that. Even if mom is dead, I mean, you were born at what, 26, 23, whatever it was. And, and now you have no social skills and you're, you're psychologically like a kid, right? So, um, and it's hard to catch up. It's hard to navigate through life like that.

And she did have good family support. She talked to, and I'd seen them in these episodes and documentaries or mom or stepmother and her father. And, you know, they tried and I think Dee Dee really sheltered them and didn't want her father to have any connection. So with that said though, I mean, she had reunited with her family, was trying to bolster and improve those relationships. And I don't think she really had a good appreciation as to all the issues that she'd be facing and really how difficult it would be to navigate the world living in a bubble with Dee Dee and then going to prison.

Right? Yeah. So do you feel, based on everything you just laid out now, because I'm going to ask the same question for Nicholas, but do you feel, based on what she's been through, that it's something, I don't know if she's still speaking to someone, I'm assuming she is, but maybe not. What was your takeaway from that interview? Do you feel like she's someone that could still have a risk of reoffending?

Or do you think that that chance of reoffending died with her mother, so to speak, because that was the monster in her life, that she slayed that dragon? Most people who murder or are involved with murder rarely do it again. Yeah. I think she's high... It's such a rare event, and a lot of it's the circumstances of it. The situation, the intoxication, the relationship, the situation often doesn't recreate itself. And people age and they become a little bit more civilized. And there's different reasons,

but the rate of reoffending of a homicide for a homicide offender is extremely low. And often they're incarcerated for years and get out and they're a different person that they've aged. But nonetheless, I think she's more of at a high risk to be involved in dysfunctional relationships with men and even being part of victim or perpetrator of domestic violence incidents. I think that would be much more likely risk. How long did you get to talk to her? You know, it wasn't that long. I, you know, 15 minutes we, we chatted, you know, it was just getting a little history summary and, you know, it wasn't maybe longer than that, but it was

probably, I think, well, I would say less than a half an hour. How'd you find her just personally? Did you find believable charismatic i mean any what was it anything about her that you concluded or took away from you know she has a kind of a high-pitched voice and i i on one hand i would think how would i be as a child with my mother murdered I guess with my hands in it and had been suffering like that but again you only know what you know so a child like that or other people I may evaluate with horrific trauma they may not appreciate how bad it was with traumatic effects because they don't know anything else.

So it's hard for a person to know how damaged they are themselves until they kind of get out in the world and then they're struggling. But I think that it would be kind of surprising of how upbeat and excited and not as melancholic and down as I thought maybe she would be, you know, and for as much as she's gone through. But I mean, I think that it isn't unrealistic, but maybe a good sign because it was positive and upbeat, right? Yeah. Final question. If there's a world, because you talk about reoffending and all these things, and again, you'd have to evaluate him personally, but ending this conversation on Nicholas Godejohn, because as you said, life without parole, he's in there forever, but there's a lot of mitigating circumstances in that

situation as well. If for some reason there was a world where there was an appeal put into play involving nicholas go to john do you do you have an issue based on what you do know about him 82 iq autistic uh the the dynamic the power dynamic of gypsy and nich Nicholas's relationship as far as it maybe being more even than some believe, do you think there is a world where he should be given a chance of parole, where he could get out and wouldn't be a danger to society moving forward if he did get out? Yeah, you know, it's a good question, as you said, and I did not evaluate Nicholas, but, you know, right, but we do know a couple of things. So we know that he has, you know, what we call one or more neurodevelopmental disorders,

basically a compromise in brain development, functioning, in this case, autism. But in 82 IQ, you know, there's a lot of autistic folks that are very bright and have average above average IQ. So there's going to be some learning issues there. I don't recall if he had a history of ADHD, but what I'm a little, what I would be concerned about here from the little I know is he's, as we talked about, arrested for some type of exhibitionism, looking at pornography, I think on a phone or a laptop, at McDonald's, public place, masturbating. High-risk behavior, not physical touching or assaulting.

But then you have the BDSM, which I think in part was fueled or reciprocated with Gypsy. But you have violent – There's definitely some rough sex going on there, allegedly, according to her. Right. And you have violent sexual talk fantasies and violent sexual rape threats, although he said he did not do that to her. There was, you know, given the prior sex offense, the exhibitionism, the sexual violent component to this and his young age is concerning. So, you know, that's where I would leave that.

I think a lot of people would like to see some type of appeal to have that opportunity to have someone like yourself go in there, evaluate Nicholas and see what they uncover to see what type, because just because you're given the opportunity of parole, it doesn't mean you're going to get out. But as it stands he did. But as it stands right now, that's not even an option. No, I mean, I think an appeal why? Well, I believe that they did present evidence, but there was a both a prosecutor expert and a defense expert who kind of fought about those issues. And, you know, but there'll certainly be appeal issues as to his mental health evaluations. Yeah. Fascinating conversation, doctor. I appreciate you coming on. I think it's

important to hear all sides of things. This is coming from someone who is in this field, does it for a living. You've heard his thoughts on it now as far as how he feels, not only about the actual incident, how we're all here with DeeDee and Gypsy, but also some of the insight that he shared as far as the murder itself and where we are right now. I think it's fascinating stuff. Some people agree with everything he said, some people won't. And as I said earlier, two things can be true. You can have Gypsy be a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy and also an offender of murder. And conversely, you can have a situation where Dede Blanchard is an offender of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, but still a victim of murder and the people responsible, specifically Gypsy,

should have been held more responsible for what they did. So I think it's not black and white. And I'm looking forward to the discussion in the comments. If anyone would like to hear more from Dr. Fabian, as I said at the top of this interview, Forensic Neuroscience and Violence, it's available on Amazon. I'm going to have the link below. You can order it right now. It's up for pre-order. Dr. Fabian, there's one caveat to this. I want a signed copy. You got it. Okay. So that was my interview with Dr. Fabian. We discussed a lot. I appreciated him coming on and speaking with me. He doesn't have to do it. He didn't get paid to do it. So I do appreciate him doing that. I had some thoughts there that

I was going to say at the end here when we kind of gave our final thoughts, but I said a lot of it in the actual interview, as far as how I feel about compartmentalizing the different incidences and the level of culpability for each person. So I can elaborate on that, but I don't think I really need to. It's pretty straightforward. I feel like Gypsy was a victim of child abuse, but I also feel like she got a pretty good deal with a murder and she probably should have did more time. But if not, Nicholas go to John should have got a similar deal. And so that's kind of where I fall on. I don't feel like because she was a victim of child abuse, which I do believe that that would have mitigated the circumstances

of the murder to the point where she would get 10 years and Nicholas would get life without parole. I don't think it's that big of a discrepancy. That's where my issue is. However, you're going to be breaking down the whole murder for us as we continue on in the series. And maybe I'll feel differently or maybe it'll just confirm what I already believe. But that aside, what's your thoughts on everything you just heard? I could see you writing notes. I could see you, your head wagging and doing all this other stuff. So go for it. The floor is yours. All right. I'll start with the negatives so I can end on a positive note. Okay. I don't really like the way that Dr. Fabian is talking throughout this interview.

Once again, he is an esteemed mental health professional, and yet he continues stating as if it's a fact that Dee Dee Blanchard had this Munchausen by proxy. No, she would be a victim of Munchausen by proxy. Dee Dee. Oh, Dee Dee, you're saying would be, yes, factitious disorder. Yes, he keeps saying, you know, Dee Dee's, and he even said at one point, Dee Dee's, you know's craziness and her factitious disorder. He does not know that. There's no possible way he could diagnose her with that. It's almost, and in my opinion, it's a little unprofessional to keep framing it in this way throughout this interview.

I completely disagree. I want to just make sure that's clear. Completely disagree with you. I will entertain that. But to state it as if it's a fact, when he never even spoke to her, he spoke to Gypsy for less than half an hour. And even in cases where, let's say, Dee Dee Blanchard was still alive and could be evaluated for factitious disorder by proxy or whatever we're calling it right now. Even in that case, it is incredibly difficult to diagnose somebody with this disorder because of the dishonesty that surrounds the people involved. So even when the person who's being analyzed for this is living, it's very, very, very difficult to give a solid diagnosis of this factitious disorder.

So when he keeps framing it in this way, I don't like the way it's framed. He could say, in my opinion, her factitious disorder, in my opinion, but he's not saying that. He's stating it as if it's a fact, and I'm uncomfortable with that because it's not. I also don't like that he started talking about Gypsy Rose and Nicholas Godejian, and he said, oh, there was something more demonic about Nicholas Godejohn. Demonic? In what?

Dark, I think he said. He said demonic. I wrote it down. He said there was a demonic element to Nicholas Godejohn. And then he, in the next breath, he says, you know, and obviously like there's a gender element, which I completely agree with the fact that Nicholas Godejohn was a man and Gypsy was a woman and how society views men and women very differently. And I think we can see that in their sentencing, in the way that they were treated by the legal system. But then he goes on to say, and you know, Gypsy was a child. She was not a child.

Yeah, she was 23. I heard that when he said it originally. I think he misspoke. She was 23 years old. She was not a child. So what did he call her in prison for? What was his explicit motive for doing that? Because he was no longer being asked by Mike Stanfield to do that. A&E had him reach out because they wanted to see going forward if she's someone who would be a danger to society.

Would she be at high risk for reoffending? How would she function in the real world out there now with all of this transpiring? And then he spoke to her. He said 15 minutes. No more than 30. And then definitely under half an hour. I don't think that that's long enough, especially when you're dealing with somebody like Gypsy, who's a walking contradiction, a walking, as you referred to it earlier, compulsive liar.

I don't believe that is anywhere close to enough time to get a solid understanding at all of what she's saying, what she's feeling, what her mental state was like at the time of the murder, what her mental state was like at the time he was talking to her. I feel like especially with somebody like Gypsy Rose, you're going to need multiple lengthy sessions to get through all the bullshit and to be able to see the many times she contradicts herself, the many times she lies, to call her on that, to clear those things up before you even can start to unravel the ball of yarn that is Gypsy Rose. So yes, the only reason I don't like the way he's framing things is because once again, for people who are not familiar with this case, they're going to hear somebody like Dr. Fabian

with his credentials and him saying, you know, Dee Dee Blanchard's factitious disorder. And they're going to take that as an, oh, she was diagnosed with factitious. She was not. And even if she was alive, she was dead. But even if she was alive, it is still incredibly, incredibly, incredibly difficult because of the dishonesty that these people exhibit to diagnose somebody with this disorder. And it's already rare to begin with. OK, so those are the negatives.

Now the positives. He earlier on spoke about how Gypsy's childhood framed her for the way she would go out into the world. And I completely agree. When you're a child, your brain is making connections, forming synapses, you know, is creating the core of who you are. And when he mentioned something about damaged attachment, he's talking about Gypsy's attachment to everybody, right? Because her attachment is going to be formed in childhood with her basic and primary caregiver, which in this case is Dee Dee Blanchard. So she's going to have a very disorganized attachment. This is going to impact her interpersonal relationships forever going forward. Now, does that mean there's no hope for her? Does that mean

with significant and intensive psychological help, continued psychological help, that she cannot become more secure in her attachments to others and find a way to have healthy relationships. It's not going to be easy, but it's possible that she can absolutely get better with that. But I can absolutely see how she'd have a horrible attachment style going forward. And we can see that, as you mentioned with Dr. Fabian, illustrated in the relationships she's had during her time in prison and after. I mean, Gypsy Rose's love life has become an online reality TV show at this point, and she's all about it. Damaged self-esteem and identity, interpersonal issues. Yes, all of those things. This is why she was looking for somebody to save her. When people do not have a solid, concrete identity, they seek it out in others. And this is why she was always trying

to form romantic attachments, because she would base the way she viewed herself through the eyes of whoever is her primary attachment at that point. It was Dee Dee Blanchard for a long time, and then what was his name? Dan. Dan that she became obsessed with. And then Nicholas Godejohn. So I completely agree that this person, Gypsy Rose, did not have the best start at all, but so many others don't. And so many others do not go on to convince a low IQ autistic young man to kill their mother. And even Dr. Fabian mentioned something where Nicholas Godejohn had handed Gyede, I mean Gypsy, headphones and said, oh, you know, put these on so you don't hear me killing and raping your mother. Nicholas Godejohn, he did not rape Dede Blanchard. So I wanted to clear that up as well, because once again, that was not clarified.

When he said that, he did not come back and say, oh, there was actually no rape that happened, et cetera, et cetera. But yes, I believe that Nicholas Godejohn had mentioned something like that to Gypsy, but no, he did not do that. So I wanted to clear that up as well. It's very unfortunate that we're in this situation where we are, because at the end of the day, where do the answers lie? And we kind of have to go back to the beginning of this episode. I believe the answers lie with Gypsy's doctors. Gypsy's doctors would easily be able to clear this up and come out and say, actually, she did need a feeding tube.

Or, you know what? She didn't, but her mother was so insistent, we did it. Or, actually, she didn't need her salivary glands removed. We just did it because her mother told us to. Or they could say, you know, there was an actual need that we determined medically. She needed those removed. We just did it because her mother told us to. Or they could say, you know, there was an actual need that we determined medically she needed those removed. The answers lie with the doctors because if Gypsy needed those medical procedures, then we would have to kind of question whether or not, you know, factitious disorder or malingering or whatever was even at play here if those were truly and genuinely needed. So it kind of feels like there is a lot of missing pieces, but they're big missing

pieces. They're important missing pieces. And so I'm wondering why there hasn't been any investigation into Gypsy Rose's doctors and why nobody has spoken to them. Because if there was a trial, that certainly would have happened. Those doctors would have has spoken to them. Because if there was a trial, that certainly would have happened. Those doctors would have been called to testify. So I'm wondering also, is partially some of the reason that she was given a deal was because the prosecution knew that we would have a lot of people, a lot of important people in the area, affiliated with important medical centers and facilities who would have to answer yes or no. Did she need these medical procedures?

And if the answer was no, then these people would sort of be in the hot seat. And maybe that just seemed far too controversial. Maybe they don't. I mean, they're already having this huge attention. As he said, internationally, this is the only case of a factitious disorder where the victim as a child goes on to kill their parent, even though once again, Gypsy was 23 years old. So technically she was an adult, but the victim of Munchausen by proxy or factitious disorder goes on to kill a parent. This is the only case. So they already have a lot of heat and a lot of attention coming to this area. Do they want now this whole controversy about these doctors from this area who are once again associated with a pretty big medical center

in the area to have to sit in court under oath and answer for what happened medically with Gypsy Rose? And that's kind of what I plan to look into going forward for the next episodes. But what are your thoughts? Final thoughts? I think it would be good if you look into the medical records because, listen, as you said, we had Fancy Maselli on at the request of a lot of our commenters. There were a lot of people who are on board with the idea that Gypsy was not abused, that this was a chromosomal disorder and all of these things that she was treated for, she needed. And this isn't to bash Fancy, but we played clips of that interview, but you can attest to this. There was a lot more pushback I gave her that we didn't play. And that partially was just out of respect and also for

efficiency of the episode. But maybe in hindsight, we should have included more. Maybe we should just have ran the whole thing like we did this. And this isn't to bash Fancy, but the facts are the facts. I didn't know Fancy before the interview, but the reality is Fancy Maselli, that's not even a real name. And, you know, she's had her own issues in the past with fraud and theft. So it's tough to take her at her word. That's just from me. I'm not saying that. I'm not speaking for you, Stephanie.

I'm not taking, I don't take anybody at their word. For me personally, after hearing from Fancy and hearing the arguments she made, I was left wanting more. And then as I started to learn about her background a little bit, it did make me question some things, which is why I was really focused on getting another independent person on the show who had a professional background and who maybe didn't have as much involvement with the original case or as much involvement with gypsy's family originally. So I will say this, he,

he was speaking from a general sense. He probably could have qualified a little bit more. Like you said, saying things like in my personal opinion. Um, so I'm glad you're doing that, but I don't think he's whatever go on record and testify under oath based on his involvement to this degree. I don't think so either he was potentially going to be involved he wasn't if

he had been involved or if he was involved in the future i have no doubt that he would do the research needed to do it now as far as his and his opinion might be different at that point his opinion might be different although listen i won't even go there where i'm coming from outside looking in and i think where he's coming from, and a lot of people are coming from, yes, there's no way to prove that she experienced child abuse. Forget for a second, everybody listening, this is where I'm coming from. Take my word for it.

Follow me on this journey or don't. I'm not focused on the phrasing of factitious disorder or Munchausen by proxy or malingering by proxy. I'm not focused on that. I'm simplifying it in my own brain because I'm not that bright. And in my own brain, I'm asking myself, was this young girl abused or not? To the severity of it, I may never know. Didi's not here. You've pointed that out numerous times. Do I personally believe she was abused? Yes, I do. If she needed those medical procedures, do you still then think she was abused. Yes, I do. If she needed those medical procedures, do you still then think she was abused? Yes. And the reason I think she was abused is because we have physical proof of it. In my opinion, just seeing a video where there's a mother in the

background and a child with a shaved head receiving a home because she has cancer and the mother hasn't come out and correctly fixed that situation and come forward and said, this is not true and done all that. That to me is a form of child abuse that we have right on camera. So the significance of it, where it falls, that's up to you. But I could see and witness a personal video of, from a news station where, in my opinion, that is a physical version of child abuse where it makes me think that if that's what she's willing to do on camera in my opinion she's probably willing to do more behind the scenes but that is a stretch by me that is my opinion

that is not verified but we do have proof of child abuse right on right on film for everyone to see and i do believe that more than likely the prosecutors, which you've pointed out, there may be a part of it where they were concerned about doctors who would be held accountable for their inactivity. But I also think part of it is them doing their own investigation and realizing there might be some validity to what Gypsy's going to say. They felt like if they put Gypsy on the stand and those things came out publicly, Gypsy's going to say, they felt like if they put Gypsy on the stand and those things came out publicly, Gypsy might walk free because of the level of child abuse that would be put on during the trial. And the jury would find her not guilty of anything. They weren't willing to take that

risk. They were like, you know what? If we put this girl on the stand, even though she's 23, she talks and acts like she's 15. They're going to put out all these things that she's gone through. And this jury is going to find her innocent and we don't want to risk that. So we'll take 10 years over anything. All of that being said, all of that being said, what I'm really concerned about at this point, because I, I have come to the conclusion after these four episodes, it's my opinion that she was abused, which I think is really what this is all about up to this point. When we talk about Fancy and we talk about Dr. Fabian is, do you believe she was abused? Do you not? Because there's two camps.

People feel differently about it. You're entitled to your opinion out there. You can talk in the comments below about it. We've presented both sides. You may agree with one or the other. That is your personal choice. We've presented two sides, You may agree with one or the other. That is your personal choice. We've presented two sides, but there's so many sides to this. Well, there's a gradients to it. And the truth is you'll never, you'll never know the quote unquote offenders dead. Yeah. And gypsy is a known liar. That is also a fact. But also it's like, is DD a quote unquote on offender? Is she any more of an offender than Gypsy? Because if what we're hearing from Dr. Fabian and what we know about Dee Dee's background

is true, she too was a victim. And so she would be just as much of a victim. What are you talking about? You lost me there. What is she a victim of? Because he was speaking about how her mother had imposed almost this. Dee Dee was a victim of child abuse as well. And Gypsy was a victim.

But does that make Dee Dee any less culpable for what she did to Gypsy? And does it make Gypsy any less culpable for what she did to Didi? Clearly that's what happened. I think you just laid it out. You have a situation where Didi was never charged with anything. But she was murdered. And you have Gypsy and Gypsy who killed their mother only getting 10 years. Yeah. So they all got mitigating circumstances.

Dee Dee never was charged with a crime. Well, she was murdered. So I would say she paid the ultimate price at the end of the day. And now in her death, after her death, we have people speculating on whether or not she had this mental illness or whether or not she was abusive and whether or not she did this, this, and that. But we have proof she was abusive. We have proof that she did some things. But I mean, you could say that she shaved her daughter's head and said, listen, Gypsy, you don't have cancer, but we're shaving your head because we need this stuff. We're poor. We're broke. I'm a single mother. I'm not getting any child support

from your father. We got to do this. I need to be able to provide for you. And I don't know how to do it any other way. And that is a form of abuse. I agree. It's a form of abuse. But at the end of the day, was it abuse for, oh, I want attention for myself. I want people to think I'm great. Or was it abuse as in, this is unfortunately based on our socioeconomic status, based on our circumstances, the best we can do, you know? And now you have Gypsy who's doing, basically running a grift of her own online right now. Yeah.

Listen, not to make it about personal things and we both had our stuff, but like I didn't have shit growing up and it would have been a lot easier if my mom did some things to make our lives easier. And a lot of people do, dude. So, but that doesn't make it right. No,

but it doesn't make what Gypsy did right. And it doesn't make it. Two things can be true though, Stephanie. Yeah, I know. You keep saying like, oh,

you know, well, it doesn't make it right that she killed her. My point being in all this, and I said it in the interview two things can be true you can have dd who is a offender of child abuse but also a victim of murder that is true and also a victim of uh what is this factitious disorder as well with her kids but that yes with her own parents right i don't know where you're going with that but yes correct i get that yes she her own parents right i don't know where you're going with

that but yes correct i get that yes it's a cycle like the victim becomes the abuser and so then in this case gypsy then okay so we'll go victim offender victim and then and then gypsy you know victimizes nicholas go to john in a way and And now really who ended up getting the raw end of this deal? It's kind of Nicholas Godejohn and Dede Blanchard, which no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't argue that completely. You think Dede Blanchard deserved to be murdered? That's, that's your words, not mine. What I'm saying is she, what happened was a result of child abuse. I, this is a slippery slope because many, many, many people are victimized in child abuse and abused as children, and they do not murder their parents. And at the time that Didi was murdered, which we will get into, she was far

too sick and basically bedridden to be doing any abusing. Gypsy could have walked her ass right out of that house and rode off with Nicholas, go down in the distance, but then she wouldn't have gotten her mom's money and she wouldn't have gotten, and she, yes. So there's a lot of gray areas here. That's a different conversation because if you're going to talk to me about that, then you're going to get a different answer from me. Because as we go through the murder, based on how I view things like this, I viewed it the same way with the Menendez brothers and other cases as well. I don't think that Gypsy served enough time based on the dynamics of the relationship, based on what she experienced, what Nicholas go to John experienced. I don't know if 10 years is

enough, honestly. And if it was enough, then Nicholas go to John should have been given parole at 10 years as well. Or, or just not life in prison, you know, maybe a little bit longer because yes, he did hold the murder weapon, but, but life 10, 10 years compared to life in prison with no chance of parole is ludicrous. That is a different thing. I think up to this point, for sure, where we were really breaking down the child abuse versus non-child abuse, was this needed or was it unnecessary? And I don't think after this episode, everyone's going to say, oh, yep, makes perfect sense now. We've presented, like you said, at least two sides.

There are many others. And, you know, I did give Gypsy the opportunity to come on the show. Didn't expect that to happen. I will say someone reached out to me claiming to be her friend, saying that things could go through her. I don't know if she was her friend or not. And frankly, I wasn't interested in any other parties connected to them personally. I wanted a professional or nobody at all. And if it was her lawyer or something like that, I would have, I would

have entertained that for sure. But you know, friends and family members. Cool. Cause her lawyer is not, is not as biased as her friends and family. Well, that's what I'm saying. But if he, no, but he was be representing her. That's what I'm saying. So I would let him come on and defend her. That would be great. I would love that opportunity. But that didn't happen. I think we've shaken this tree enough

as far as you're going to develop your own opinion. Look up your own research. Now we get to move on in the story and talk about the murder itself. You know, we had started diving into the DMs, the Facebook messages, and the whole quote unquote plan B and talking about the murder itself. You know, we had started diving into the DMs, the Facebook messages, and the whole quote-unquote plan B and talking about how that was.

There wasn't even a pill back then of plan B. So she was definitely talking about an alternate plan to what she originally thought, which as we were kind of, I was going back and watching our episodes over this last month. To me, it seems like the first plan was to get Dee Dee to like Nicholas.

If that didn't work, to get her pregnant or get something to happen where she would have to accept Nick. And then if that didn't work, they would have to kill her. So I do think there were different variants of the plan. And ultimately, Gypsy decided, hey, she's not going to ever accept Nicholas God to John. She's got to be removed from the equation. So you're saying the motive for murder was because Dee Dee wouldn't let her be with Nick go to John, not the fact that she was abused? I can say that she was abused

and still not agree with the fact that she decided to murder her offender. And that's the difference there. I think there was an opportunity for her to leave. Now, there are going to be people that argue with me that she was locked there, she was handcuffed, all that stuff. We can get into that, into the motive.

But it's the same thing with the Menendez brothers. Although I know it's not a carbon copy and people are quick to come for us in the comments and say it's not the same. But if you have the physical capability of leaving, you're 23 years old, leave. I don't think it gives you the right to murder your offender i just don't now if you do i think you need to serve the time for the crime you committed i've said numerous

times on the show and some people have said in the comments oh you and stephanie say that if someone ever hurt your child or molested your child you would you would i don't want to say the word here yeah but you would handle it. That's something that every parent, I believe in their heart, it fears almost. Right. And guess what? I stand by that. The difference being, I wouldn't get up there and make excuses. Yeah.

You'd be like, I did it. Take me away. Yeah. Here's my handcuffs. Here's why I did it. Whatever I get, I can live with. I wouldn't be telling you my life story of how I got to this point. I would tell you I did it because I wanted to, because this happened, and I'm prepared

for whatever consequences I face. That's the difference, okay? So that's where I think there is a different factor between some of the people we discuss and what we sometimes say about our own children. So a lot of things to think about. lot of things, a lot of, a lot of thing. I mean, I did make a lot of notes and I have, I've got stuff to, to ponder. Let's do it. Well, any, anything else before we go, before we, uh, put the, put the, close the curtain

on this one. No. And I'm glad we actually did this in, before we started talking about the murder, I'm actually very glad that, that we had the, I was almost like the curtain on this one. No, and I'm glad we actually did this in before we started talking about the murder. I'm actually very glad that, that we had the, I was almost like, oh,

this is disruptive to the timeline. It's going to be weird for me, but this has given me so much to think about and a frame of reference to go forward now with the next episodes. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're back and we appreciate you guys being with us. As always,

please like, comment, subscribe. It'll get us in the algorithm for YouTube. It moves us up on the ranks for audio and gets more people to see it. And with us being off a month, that's just the way it goes. We're going to be kicked out of the algorithm for a lot of things because we haven't been posting regularly. So we would appreciate your help in that matter. But either way, thank you for being here. Everyone stay safe out there and we will see you next week. Bye.