Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 311 - The Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard: Did She Have It Coming?

Episode Date: August 29, 2022

In June of 2015, 48-year-old Dee Dee Blanchard was murdered in cold blood. Her murderer snuck into her bedroom at night and stabbed her in her sleep... seventeen times. A brutal crime. But, based on how Dee Dee had treated her daughter Gypsy Rose, was her murder justified? For twenty-three-year-old Gypsy's entire life, her mom had been telling others she was sick. And convincing doctors and other medical professionals she was sick. And she wasn't. Nevertheless, she was paraded around in a wheelchair because she supposedly couldn't walk, and her head was shaven because she was supposed to have cancer, and on and on. Gypsy Rose was a victim of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, a rare mental disorder where a caregiver convinces someone that they are sick when they're not, and convinces others they are sick, often for financial benefit. Always for attention and control. Gypsy Rose was less of a daughter and more of a hostage, someone who'd been medically tortured for over decades. Can we really blame her for talking someone into murdering her oppressor so she could live free? Bad Magic Productions Monthly Patreon Donation:  The Bad Magic Charity for August Camp Easton, where we will be hosting our 2022 Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp. We donated $15,400 to them and added another $2,000 to our growing scholarship fund. To find more or donate yourself, please visit https://www.nwscouts.org/campeastonWatch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1Gu_42QyxqIMerch: https://www.badmagicmerch.comDiscord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard?  Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcastSign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

When a series of disturbing posts began to pop up on 48-year-old Didi Blanchard's Facebook account on June 14, 2015, friends and neighbors were immediately concerned. The messages said that Didi had been killed, and that the unknown poster claimed to have also sexually assaulted Didi's daughter, Gypsy Rose. This would have been concerning to read about anyone, but it was especially concerning given what people knew or thought they knew about Didi and Gypsy Rose Blanchard. To them, Didi was the caring and compassionate mother of a very sick child, a 19-year-old daughter with the mental capabilities of a 7-year-old, as Didi had repeatedly claimed.

Gypsy seemed to be the unfortunate victim of a terrible genetic lottery, ending up with multiple diagnoses of everything from asthma and allergies to chromosomal defects, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, and more. She even had leukemia at one point, or so many were told. The Gypsy they thought they knew was a small girl with a bald head and a high voice who used an oxygen tube to help her breathe, and whom Dee Dee rolled around in a wheelchair because she said Gypsy couldn't walk. It seemed like such a stroke of luck and good fortune when Habitat for Humanity had been able to build a house for Dee Dee and her severely disabled daughter Gypsy in Springfield, Missouri, after Didi and Gypsy

fled Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. But in the days that followed June 14th, people had learned that Didi and Gypsy were not who they presented themselves to be. Gypsy was not sick. She walked just fine. She wasn't mentally impaired. Her mother was the sick one. Her mother had been taking her to see specialists, pressuring them to give Gypsy the diagnosis she wanted, finding other doctors when they wouldn't. She'd been getting Gypsy treatments and medications that she didn't need since she was three months old. Oftentimes, medications that had harmful side effects

did things like make her teeth rot out. And Gypsy wasn't 19 when she disappeared. She was 23. Her mother had lied to others and to her about her age. Her mother had lied to her about damn near everything for her entire life. Her mother lied, told her that the court had granted her some type of conservatorship of her and that she'd never be able to leave and live free, told her that if she talked to the police or anyone else and told him that Dee Dee was forcing her to continue to play along in their sick little game

of making the world think Gypsy was actually sick, no one would believe her. And when the authorities brought her mentally incompetent, sick, unable to care for herself daughter back home to her, she'd be punished severely. She told Gypsy she would never escape, but Gypsy would escape. She'd meet a young man who she was able to talk into freeing her by murdering her mother. After carrying on an online relationship with a troubled autistic young man named Nicholas Godejian for almost three years, Gypsy and Nicholas hatched a plan to run away together after they murdered Dee Dee. They thought that if they could just kill this particular witch, they'd then be free to live out a fairytale life. They planned to get married, even picked out names for their future children. So following their plan, late on a hot June night in 2015, Nicholas snuck

into the Blanchard Springfield, Missouri home, stabbed Dee Dee 17 times in her bed while Gypsy covered her ears in the bathroom. Then the two would make their escape. But once the police discovered the body and heard about their online relationship, they quickly traced Nicholas, Go to John and Gypsy back to Go to John's hometown of Big Bend, Wisconsin, where they were apprehended and charged with murder. And then all of Dee Dee's fakery and abuse would come to light. The years she spent making Gypsy think she was sick, all the medical procedures, a feeding tube in her stomach she didn't need, tubes in her ears for ear infections she never had, how Gypsy's teeth had rotted so much from medications she didn't need combined

with malnutrition she'd been forced to get a bridge instead of fake teeth. The physical and mental abuse had gone on for years, for Gypsy's entire life, but no one, or very few people at least, ever noticed. And of the few who did, no one did anything about it except to call the police once with an anonymous tip, which the police quickly discarded. Young Gypsy Rose was let down by so many people, by so many doctors, relatives, authorities, neighbors. Her case would shock those that had followed the inspiring story of a sick gypsy in the media for years and also those now hearing about it for the first time.

Gypsy's story also brought to light a little-known, strange, horrific condition called Munchausen syndrome by proxy, in which a caretaker purposely makes someone else sick, makes them think they're sick, in order to get attention from doctors and the community. How did Dee Dee Blanchard get away with her crazy abusive lies for so many years? Was Gypsy in the right to finally have her mother killed

to free herself from her oppressor? All this and more on today's true crime medical fakery, once again, unpacking the web of lies created by another manipulative con artist edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald manipulative con artist edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday, meat sacks.

Welcome to the Cult of Curious. Dan Cummins, the master sucker. Sergeant of Arms for the Thurston Howell III Fan Club. Randy's butt sock salesman, and you are listening to Time Suck. It's going to be simply splendid love. It'll be grand. It's going to be, it must be. It's going to be a real Peach Melba kind of show this week.

Hail Nimrod, Hail the Sophina, Praiseful Jangles, and Glory B to Triple M. A couple of announcements and then show Hoping I had a blast at the Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp Over a week ago now This is the last episode I'll have recorded in advance of that event A little nervous right now Hoping we pulled it off And everyone had a great time

We'll see, we'll see you soon Very different kind of announcement Right now to start the show I have a question Do you have a construction project that needs completing? Remodel, repair, completely new home, almost anything residential, and live in Bingham or Bonneville County, Idaho? The county's encompassing and around Idaho Falls. Are you willing to hire someone who's almost as good at construction as

he is at most likely killing over and over and over again and getting away with it. Well, then you should hire my dad. This is not a joke. Actually, OG Dan Cummins, a man almost as good with a nail gun as he is with a variety of high-powered rifles. He's the owner and proprietor of Cummins Construction Management Incorporated. New construction, additions or remodels, 40 years in construction, local, national, international experience, quality work at a fair price in the Idaho Falls, Blackfoot, and Shelley areas. Local, national, international experience. Quality work at a fair price in the Idaho Falls, Blackfoot, and Shelley areas. Hit up that slippery son of a bitch, my dad.

Let his email. Dan Cummins, 54, at yahoo.com. Spelled the same as my name. No spaces. Dan Cummins, 54, yahoo.com. He told me to put his phone number in this ad, too, his cell phone, but I'm not going to do that to him. Nope. Don't need some of you maniacs crank calling my dad, then him complaining to me about it.

You can just email him. Dan Cummins, 54 at yahoo.com. You can check out his website. It's just dancumminsconstruction.management. Killer construction for a killer price provided by, you know, a possible killer. So again, that's dancumminsconstruction.management. Don't be curious. Let me know if you take him up on this.

I used to work for him. He's good. He's a good construction guy. Solid project management. On to this week's merch announcement now. Awesome new mid-century style tee based on Suck 164 the Manhattan Project in the 1940s. U.S. government gathered all the best minds they could find to develop atomic weapons before the Germans or Japanese or possibly Russians could beat them to nuclear World War II punch. Take an abstract look at the making

of the world's first atomic bomb at badmagicmerch.com. Also having a Labor Day sale. How is it almost Labor Day already? And by the way, that atomic tease, the first of a set of designs here on TimeStick that are just a new look from Logan. They're very cool.

Yeah, the year has flown by though, as far as making it to Labor Day. But starting September 2nd, noon Pacific time lasting to September 5th, midnight Pacific time. Use code labor to two at checkout for 22% off everything in the store at bad magic, merch.com. Still cracking up my head about,

uh, my ad for my dad. We'll see how he likes that one. He told me to, you know, cook something up. So that's what he got cooked. Uh,

last thing, a tour reminder hitting the road again, uh, very soon, just over a week, Huntsville, Alabama, Thursday, September 8th. Nashville, Tennessee. You know where Nashville is. September 9th and 10th. Right between Miami and Fort Lauderdale in Florida, September 23rd and 24th. Palm Beach on the 25th. A little South Florida dates. Boston, October 6th, 7th, 8th.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, October 21st, 22nd, 23rd. Then Austin, Texas, Louisville, Kentucky, Portland, Oregon. Finishing the fallout in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the Parkway Theater for a few prep shows before the sold-out special taping the weekend of December 9th and 10th. You can go to dancummins.tv for all those tickets. You can follow me on the talk. I'm talking now.

I'm ticking and talking. Dan Cummins Comedy at Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Talk about the stuff there too. Now back to the world of true crime for a look at the case of Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee Blanchard. This case would be so fascinating to people for two reasons. One, because Dee Dee had managed to fool everyone for so long. And two, because depending on how you look at it, you could truly make the argument that Dee Dee had a fucking coming. She had tortured her daughter Gypsy for years, her whole

life. Led her to believe in a way that murdering her mother was the only way she could ever be free. Before the murder plan, Gypsy tried to run away once with a dude she met at a fantasy, kind of sci-fi convention, but her mom quickly found him, told the man that Gypsy was underage, even though she wasn't, threatened to have him arrested for a crime he actually wasn't committing. Didi frequently told Gypsy that she wouldn't be believed if she ever went to the police. She made other threats of physical violence, like threatening to break Gypsy's fingers with a fucking hammer if she tried to run away again. Why wouldn't Dee Dee just let her daughter live her own life? Well, most think because she was mentally ill.

Mentally ill in a way that I don't feel sympathy for, to be completely honest. In the same way I don't feel sympathy for sociopaths and psychopaths who murder people. They think she had a terrible, fucking evil psychological disorder known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Very, very rare disorder where the caregiver convinces both the patient and the patient's doctors

that the patient is sick when they're not. Arranges for them to receive medical treatments that they do not need. Harmful medical treatments in many cases, keeping them weak, confused, easily manipulated. Surgery in some cases they don't need. Let's properly dive into this strange, strange story now. To cover the story of Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee Blanchard, we'll first talk about Munchausen Syndrome. There's a couple of varieties of it, such an odd Dee Dee Blanchard, we'll first talk about Munchausen Syndrome. There's a couple of varieties of it, such an odd illness.

Well, I guess we'll just talk about the Munchausen Syndrome and then we'll dig into its much more fucked up cousin, Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. Learn about one to help us understand the other. Next, we'll go over a few other notable cases besides Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee of Munchausen Syndrome by proxy before digging into Didi and gypsies lives, which we'll explore mainly in today's big old timeline. Though Didi would never formally be diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome by proxy. All of her actions would lead people, many experts to think that, Oh,

for sure. She had this rare and very destructive psychological disorder. She had all the symptoms before we look into Munchausen syndrome by proxy though. Yeah. Let's, as I said, let's look at the related disorder, which helps us understand it look into Munchausen syndrome by proxy, though, yeah, as I said, let's look at the related disorder,

which helps us understand it, just Munchausen syndrome. Currently clinically known as factitious disorder imposed on self. Munchausen syndrome first identified by a British psychiatrist named Richard Asher in 1951. Munchausen syndrome is a psychological disorder where someone, again, pretends to be ill. Well, I guess not again. This would be the other side of it.

This is where someone doesn't pretend someone else is ill. They pretend that they are ill or they deliberately produce symptoms of illness in themselves. Their main intention is to assume the sick role so that people will care for them and they'll be the center of attention. Some people with Munchausen syndrome spend years traveling from hospital to hospital, faking a wide range of illnesses. spend years traveling from hospital to hospital, faking a wide range of illnesses. When it's discovered that they're lying, you know, they often just suddenly leave the hospital,

leave the area, find a new area, new medical professionals to convince that they're sick. Munchausen syndrome is a complex mental illness and still not totally understood. Many of the few people who've been diagnosed with it refuse psychiatric treatment or psychological profiling. Still pretty unclear why people with the syndrome just behave the way they do. Also, highly unlikely that you would have this syndrome

and not also suffer from additional mental disorders. If you truly have Munchausen syndrome, there's a very good chance you also suffer from some sort of depressive or anxiety disorder or from the very serious mental illness, borderline personality disorder. With borderline personality disorder, you have an intense fear

of abandonment or instability, and you may have difficulty tolerating being alone. Yet, inappropriate anger, impulsiveness, frequent mood swings push others away, even though you want to have loving and lasting relationships. One way to keep those people around, pretend that if they leave you, you probably die because you're so, so sick. Do not leave me. People with borderline personality disorder are often extremely manipulative as are people with Munchausen syndrome. Odds are with Munchausen syndrome, yeah, you're not going to have this syndrome and be otherwise in tip-top mental shape. So what causes it? Use of certain illicit drugs, it seems. Too much MDMA, bad shroom trip, LSD,

even smoking a bit too much DMT can leave you with a wide variety of permanent mental disorders, including Munchausen syndrome, which obviously is a huge fucking bummer to many, including myself, which I knew all this before this week's episode. For most of us, a feeling of being sick,

following going hard the night before on molly or any number of a variety of hallucinogens as a natural result of our body's physical interaction with the drug. Our body's just kicking out the equivalent of a poison, a toxin, or is exhausted after having worked so hard previously to kick out that poison or toxin. And it makes sense that we don't feel so good during the comedown. But in rare cases, after the body is actually completely physically fine, the wiring has gotten messed up in the brain. The sick feeling continues. Now it's all in your head in a really bad way. That's not good. That's why after abusing the

drugs I've mentioned, if you still don't feel normal after a few days, three days tops, you need to seek medical help immediately. Certain psychiatric medication can maybe stop the drugs, drugs, excuse me, after effects from permanently altering your brain chemistry If you take them quickly and you better hope they do because if it doesn't work then you're fucked you're going to be severely mentally ill forever You heard me You specifically you listening right now. I know you're fucking high right now. I'm trying to help you stupid asshole

This isn't the same message. Everyone else listens to this podcast Here's i'm talking specifically to you meat sack You're fucking your brain up and now you're probably going to help you, you stupid asshole. This isn't the same message everyone else listens to this podcast hears. I'm talking specifically to you, Meat Sack. You're fucking your brain up, and now you're probably going to be stuck like this forever. Stop listening right now. Go to the hospital. Tell them you don't want to have Munchausen syndrome and that you're sorry. You're very sorry for doing a lot of naughty drugs. Take your pants off and your undies. Take your fucking undies off, you sick, degenerate druggie. Bend over and demand that someone spank your naughty bare bottom. Okay? What are you waiting for?

Do it or you're going to be stuck like this forever. Get that bare bottom spanked hard. Or be crazy for the rest of your fucking life. Sorry. I just really wanted maybe just one person who's seriously fucked up right now to hear that and just freak out. So, this one person just happened to be tripping balls, or maybe after the comedown, don't feel so good. And I just made them think that they give

themselves Munchausen syndrome. If I can actually get even one person, the head of the hospital, and demand that they have their bare bottoms spanked so they don't end up crazy forever, then anything else I do after this is just icing on the championship cake. I've won. I've won life. I've reached the top of the mountain. Hey, what kind of syndrome makes you desperately want to trick others into asking strangers to spank their bare bottoms? Whatever syndrome that is, well, I'm pretty sure I have it. Back to reality now. Seriously though, what causes, so stupid, what causes Munchausen syndrome? Some theories suggest that a history of abuse or neglect as a child or a history of frequent illnesses that require hospitalization might be factors in the

development of this rare syndrome. A grudge against authority figures or healthcare professionals has also been cited by some researchers. Also, some evidence suggests people who have had extensive medical procedures or received prolonged medical attention during childhood or their teenage years more likely to develop Munchausen syndrome when they're older than others. This may be because they associate their childhood memories with a sense of being cared for. As they get older, they try to obtain those same feelings of reassurance again by pretending to be ill. Obviously, if your best memories of your childhood are being cared for when you're sick, you probably had a pretty shitty childhood. Combine a shitty childhood with underlying mental illness and your best memories during your identity forming years with being taken care of when you're not feeling well and

your odds of having Munchausen syndrome go way up. Most people who suffer from Munchausen syndrome are generally women who are from 20 to 40 years of age, often interestingly with a background working in healthcare, or they're unmarried white men who are from 30 to 50 years of age. unmarried white men who are from 30 to 50 years of age. Fucking white men. Of course. Oh, feel good. My tum-tum hurts, mommy. My head has a little boo-boo on it. Will you be my sweet mommy and take a care of me? I can't take a care of myself because I'm a stupid white whiny fucking bitch baby man. Sorry, I just wanted an excuse to yell for something for a second.

How did this disorder get its name it was named after the world's whiniest fucking baby bitch white man Munchausen von Sisypus no JK no that was kind of fun though no the disorder was named after a fictional German aristocrat Baron Munchausen a literary character who told wild unbelievable tales about his exploits

Baron Munchausen appeared in the 18th century German writer Rudolf Erich Raspi's book Baron Munchausen appeared in the 18th century German writer Rudolf Erich Raspi's book Baron Munchausen, Narrative of His Marvelous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. In this book, a work of fantasy fiction, the Baron visits the moon twice

amongst many other crazy travels. First time he visits the moon, he's in a sailing ship that gets lifted up there by a hurricane. This wild story slaying Baron von Munchausenen based on a real dude, Carl Friedrich Hieronymus, born in 1720. And allegedly in retirement, he developed quite the reputation for being a bit of a bold-faced liar. A bit of a, oh, cool story, bro, kind of character.

He regularly entertained his friends with completely preposterous stories, delivered deadpan with no JK at the end, about his time in the Russian army fighting the Turks, where he was Steven Seagal combined with Rambo and the Terminator and all the Chuck Norris jokes. Over time, newer editions of this book added more adventures, often adapted from other literary works. These stories, Munchausen, the timeless adventurer,

crisscrosses the world in addition to visiting the moon and even falls to the core of the earth to emerge on the other side at one point. He flies on the back of an eagle, gets swallowed by a large fish, carries horses under his arms, fuck yeah, bro, and rides cannibals through the air as one does amongst many other escapades.

Astounding events take place like when he's caught between a crocodile and a lion and falls and the attacking lion flies straight into the crocodile's outstretched jaws, trapping the lion in the croc's mouth and preventing the croc from biting anything or anyone else, thus ridding the Baron of both threats. The Baron's

second lunar adventure came about because he had to retrieve a silver hatchet, his silver hatchet from the moon. Excuse me, underestimating his strength, he threw it way farther than intended. So much farther. He was like Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite, just fucking tossing footballs over mountains. Dude would have went pro if coach just would have put him in in the fourth quarter. On another adventure, Munchausen found gallon-sized fruit

filled with a wine-like substance. That's a good day. That's a great day when you find yourself a liquor tree. Pluck off some giant alcohol apples, find a booze grove, buy that land, open the world's coolest campsite. Because he'd earlier chanced upon a group of very large eagles and used one for transport, he was able to carry away quite a bit of his fine beverage on the eagle's back, but did have to wait for a little while because the birds drank some of it and got pretty fucked up.

Damn drunk-ass birds. The real Baron Munchausen probably didn't tell tales exactly that's all, but after his death in 1797, he became a sort of cultural figure. Again, like an early kind of version of the Chuck Norris jokes, always getting into fantastical scrapes, performing incredible feats to get himself out of them. And then his name would be given to a disorder based on someone telling constant lies just about their health this time.

And then the discovery of Munchausen syndrome would later lead to the discovery of a much darker related syndrome we'll be talking about today called Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Clinically now known as factitious disorder imposed on another. British pediatrician Roy Meadow first identified Munchausen syndrome by proxy in 1977.

And it's been in the DSM, the diagnostic manual used by psychiatrists to identify and help treat mental disorders since 1980. As the name implies, Munchausen syndrome by proxy is like Munchausen syndrome, but instead of making yourself feel sick for attention or, you know, pretend that you're sick,

you make someone else think that they're sick. You pretend that they're not feeling good. This person is usually in your care, a sick relative, child, or spouse whom you have complete control over. Now, incredibly fucked up. Making others think that you're sick is one thing, but making someone else think that they're sick, which almost always involves, in addition to a

parade of lies, giving that person medicine or some other substance to make them feel sick or somehow manipulating medical professionals to actually perform procedures and surgeries on them that they don't need, that's evil, especially when that person is your child. And most people with this syndrome are in fact parents. Most of the parents are mothers, but there are also documented cases of fathers doing this to kids as well. And there've been cases of husbands doing it to wives, nieces doing this to aunts, you know, all over, all over the map. And doctors often don't detect it for months or years, or maybe ever.

You know, it's difficult to say just how prevalent Munchausen syndrome by proxy is in the general population, because who knows how many people are successfully bullshitting their families or medical professionals with false claims at any given moment. Like right now, you know, by its very nature, it hides in plain sight. Before diving into Gypsy Rose Blanchard's weird, sad story,

let's look at a few other cases of this horrible, fucked-up syndrome. Starting with the especially dark case of suspected serial killer Mary Beth Tinning. Between 1967 and 1985, Mary Beth Tinning had nine children, eight of whom are

suspected of having been murdered at the hands of their mother, often shortly after their births. It is thought that only one child, Jennifer, died of natural causes at eight days old. None of the other children would live past the age of four. Tenney would frequently bring her infant children to the emergency room one after the other, where they were treated for symptoms like seizures and cardiac arrest. For years in Tenney's hometown of Schenectady, New York, locals familiar with the family apparently whispered that the family was afflicted with some sort of mysterious death gene, almost like they were cursed. When Tenney's fifth child died, doctors believed it was simply a rampant string of SIDS-related deaths.

Tenney was finally convicted in the death of her youngest child, Tammy Lynn, on December 20th, 1985. She'd clearly been smothered at only four months old, but the other children, their deaths were harder to link with murder. A little Michael had fallen down the stairs, received a concussion, or maybe was fucking thrown down the stairs and then died by the time Mary Beth got into the hospital. Brain swelling.

Other kids stopped breathing in their cribs or Mary Beth's car or their heart stopped beating. Autopsies were done on six of her other kids after discovering that Tammy Lynn had been killed, but the examinations didn't conclusively conclusively reveal signs of foul play, but thought by many, she figured out how to kill the others in ways that wouldn't alert

authorities to what she was doing. And she was charged with second degree murder, sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, was denied parole six times, six straight times before finally being granted parole in July of 2018, then released in August of 2018 at the age of 76. Hopefully, he didn't get out and start helping anyone, you know, fucking babysit. Why'd she do it? No one will ever know.

She certainly never said. The father of her first few children later testified she tried to kill him on at least one occasion. In 1974, Joseph Tenning, who Mary Beth met on a blind date in 1963, was admitted to the hospital with a near-fatal case of barbiturate poisoning. Later, he and Mary Beth acknowledged that when this incident occurred, their marriage was in heavy turmoil. That led to her placing barbiturate pills, which she took from her friend with an epileptic daughter, into Joseph's grape juice. And for some reason, he declined to press charges against his psychotic wife. Now let's talk about another monster of a mom, Kathy Bush. This is a little more in-depth

here. 1996, South Florida, 11-year-old Jennifer Bush was taken from her family, placed in the care of the state when it was believed her mom, Kathy Bush, was intentionally making her sick as a result of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. When Jennifer was born in 1985, Kathy called her a dream come true. Kathy and her husband, Craig, already had two boys. Kathy was elated to finally have a daughter. At first, she seemed perfectly happy and healthy. But then before too long, she began seeing the pediatrician with one illness after another. Respiratory problems, ear infections, diarrhea, et cetera. Her health seemed to be declining, but doctors couldn't find out why.

Couldn't discover any underlying cause. Probably because there wasn't one. Nevertheless, thanks to constant pressuring from Kathy and seeing a variety of doctors until somebody told her what she wanted to hear, you know, the medical professionals determined she must have some rare immune disorder. And that required her to have an IV. And because Jennifer was so small and her veins were so tiny, she had to have the IV pump implanted into her chest. But then that didn't seem to help. Jennifer's health kept declining, at least according to Kathy. Kathy now said she's having seizures, severe abdominal pain,

couldn't keep her food down. At three, she's put on the anti-seizure drug, Tegretol, which in high doses can itself cause seizures. So no surprises here. Now Jennifer starts to actually have seizures. By the age of five, she has to have a feeding tube

implanted into her stomach. At seven, she's diagnosed with a rare infection, polymicrobial sepsis. Meanwhile, her mom, Kathy, quits her job, not to stay home with her increasingly ill daughter, quits her job, causes her, quitting her job, causes her to lose her medical insurance. At the same time, they're racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars

in medical bills. Instead of making sure she still had insurance, Kathy took a job as an office manager at Jennifer's pediatrician's office, where she would have complete access to Jennifer's medical files. Right? she would have complete access to Jennifer's medical files, right? Fucking A. She was committed to making it look like, you know, her daughter was truly sick. So much so she's going to rack up a hundred thousand dollars in medical debt just so

she can falsify Jennifer's medical records to be what she says they are. Then later help her get, you know, her medical bills paid. She reaches out to various charities near their Coral Springs, Florida home. The charities and individual people give generously. get, you know, her medical bills paid, she reaches out to various charities near their Coral Springs, Florida home. The charities and individual people give generously. Jennifer, a beautiful, smiley little girl, becomes something of a local celebrity, featured on local TV and newspapers. You know, she's seen in parades, gets to meet the Florida Marlins baseball team. Kathy becomes a celebrated mother.

She's getting what she wants, all that attention, an aspirational example of exceptional motherhood and nurturing. She becomes a devoted activist for healthcare reform. She and Jennifer even go to Washington, D.C. to meet then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. And incredibly, Hillary didn't put her in a cage, torture her and then sacrifice her to Satan and drink her adrenochrome.

She was lucky to have survived that encounter. Illuminati! JK. Sad that I have to say JK because some people believe that crazy shit. Anyway, Kathy frequently told others she had to choose between groceries and medical bills. Another lie.

Those charities that were helping her, they were really helping, like fucking too much. While Kathy was supposedly having to choose between groceries and medical bills, she and her family seemed she had other family members fooled as well. They're taking resort vacations, buying a new motorcycle, new sports car and shit. But then in 1991, staff at the Coral Springs Medical Center, where Jennifer was a frequent patient, finally began to see some red flags.

Some big ones like punctured or tampered IV lines, confusing, contradictory and or blatantly false statements about Jennifer's symptoms and diagnoses. A constant, never ending push for more tests, more procedures from Kathy. They take their concerns to Dr. Eli Neuberger. After reviewing the staff's concerns and Jennifer's medical records, Neuberger concludes that Kathy probably has Munchausen syndrome by proxy. He believes that this is the motivation behind acts of medical abuse committed by Kathy on Jennifer. As a mandated reporter, he informs Child Protective Services, also recommends that the Coral Springs Medical Center conduct their own investigation. However, the Bushes then sue CSMC and the hospital backs down, dropping their investigation. But then in April 1995, an

anonymous nurse at another hospital where Jennifer was a frequent patient contacts a child abuse hotline. Tells them she'd observed firsthand some very troubling things about Jennifer and Kathy. She said she'd seen Kathy tampering with Jennifer's feeding tubes and IV lines, which would then later malfunction. She documented how Jennifer would often have levels of drugs in her system that did not correspond with prescribed dosages, along with drugs she wasn't prescribed. There have been times when urine samples had clearly been switched with someone else's. The anonymous nurse also said she'd come to recognize a pattern with Jennifer. Right before she was scheduled to be discharged, when she was happy and seemed to be recovering,

she would suddenly have a seizure, but only when nurses weren't in the room and when her mother was always near. She'd go from being fine to pale, lethargic, vomiting. Also said Kathy treated her daughter as no more than a prop for the media. When she would be told that the media were there to see Jennifer, she'd make sure the girl was laying in bed, even if she'd been up and playing moments before, made sure she had a maximum amount of tubes and wires sticking out of her.

So she looked as sick as possible, made sure that she was right there by her side. Most disturbingly, the nurse said that Kathy seemed to be almost euphoric when her daughter would have a medical crisis. Nurse said she called the hotline because she feared for Jennifer's life. This time, the tip is forwarded to Florida State prosecutors.

Now both CPS and prosecutors open an investigation that will last a year. Through the investigation, they find several medical professionals who either witnessed Kathy's tampering with her daughter's treatments or saw things in the little girl's charts that raised suspicions. One incident in particular stood out to investigators. After Jennifer had been prescribed, again, Tegretol, that came up earlier for seizures, the level of drug in her bloodstream began to spike into near-lethal territory. So the doctor who prescribed it put a hold on it, meaning it would not be given out

from the pharmacy. Yet for three weeks afterwards, Jennifer's Tegretol levels remained dangerously high, occasionally spiking to near-lethal levels again. Kathy was somehow getting more of the drug against Jennifer's doctor's wishes. So on April 15th, 1995, police arrest Kathy Bush, charge her with aggravated child abuse and Medicaid fraud. Jennifer's taken from school that same day, placed in foster care. By this time, she'd been hospitalized around 200 times.

Fucking 200 times and had undergone almost 40 surgeries, including having her gallbladder, appendix, and part of gallbladder, appendix, and part of her intestines removed, as well as having undergone 1,819 non-surgical treatments. What the fuck? And then soon after being taken

out of her mother's custody, Jennifer's feeding tube is safely removed and her many illnesses and symptoms, wouldn't you know it, completely disappear. Kathy Bush's trial began

july 20th 1999 uh but then uh before the trial started the judge dealt the prosecution a blow he would not allow any testimony or evidence having to do with munchausen syndrome by proxy proxy to be uh you know entered into the trial the diagnosis was still somewhat controversial actually still is the prosecution would now have to to prove that Kathy committed medical abuse on Jennifer no more, no less. Any possible mental disorder pushing her to do that, you know, chronically, continually, would now be inadmissible.

Kathy's defense was that she was simply a concerned mom doing everything in her power to care for her sick child. The accusations of medical abuse, she said, were just the doctors and nurses working together to exact revenge for her activism. Uh-huh. Prosecutors called dozens of doctors and medical professionals from hospitals all over the region who had treated Jennifer.

They testified to patterns of mysterious symptoms that only Kathy witnessed, falsified medical histories and diagnoses, frequent tampering with medical equipment, drugs in Jennifer's system that weren't supposed to be there, recurring infections consistent with contaminated feeding tubes or catheters,

some that could only be explained by the introduction of fecal matter. Holy shit. Kathy was introducing actual shit, hopefully not her own, that sick bitch, into her daughter's system to intentionally make her ill. Peanut butter, hot dollar per day, keeps the doctors in play, showbiz. Numerous medical professionals also testified to multiple incidents where Jennifer would seem to recover,

only to then get worse when her mom visited her. The doctor caring for her at the time of the trial also testified. Since being out of her mom's care, she had been perfectly healthy. Only illness she'd gotten was from a run-of-the-mill viral infection, which she recovered from normally. When the trial wrapped up on October 7th, 1999, after seven hours of deliberations, jury returned a verdict of guilty. Kathy was sentenced to five years in prison

followed by five years of probation. And fuck that. Five years? That's all? For torturing her child for over a decade? Five years? For manipulating medical professionals into operating on her daughter, including having her gallbladder appendix, part of her intestines removed. Come on.

Should have put that piece of shit behind bars for life. At her final sentencing hearing, a CPS caseworker read a letter from Jennifer. In it, she says that when she thinks of her mom, she's very angry. She has a lot of grief. Kathy's taken to a Gadsden correctional facility in Quincy, Florida. Since the state of Florida was pursuing a case to terminate Kathy's parental rights to Jennifer Kathy decided to voluntarily terminate those rights Rather than drag her family through another ordeal What a saint

She served only three years before being granted parole In 2005 Gross And unfortunately that's not where the story ends Though Kathy was legally prohibited from seeing Jennifer In 2004 she began writing to her from prison. The two began corresponding by mail with supervision by a therapist.

I wonder if that therapist thought it was a good idea to allow this mom and daughter to communicate again. I hope not. If so, that therapist is a fucking idiot. Jennifer was being bounced around the foster care system and experience she went on to describe as traumatic. She said that having a stable connection to a loving mom helped her get through it. Was her mom actually loving? No, not at all.

Probably thinks she is, but what she considers love is poison, toxic. When she turned 18, Jennifer requested that the prohibition against contact with her mom be lifted. It was granted. And then how sad is this? In 2015, when Jennifer was now 30, she publicly stated that she doesn't believe that her mom ever abused her. She told People Magazine that the two were now very close. Said her mom was also a victim of hysteria.

Mm-hmm. Her sick fuck of a mom, so manipulative, sunk her claws right back into baby girl. And Jennifer doesn't see it. And Jennifer now works as a social worker, or at least did as of 2015, so that's scary. Didn't give out any information on her current health condition,

but she appears to be very healthy and happy. Hopefully she never gets truly sick again unless Mommy Dearest take care of her. If that happens, she might not ever get better. One more brief example of terrible mom before returning to Gypsy's story. This one has at least a somewhat funny bit of justice at the end.

Doesn't make up for what happened but at least there's something uh and sorry these are these are all moms those stories are the most common easiest to find and uh they directly relate obviously to the dd and gypsy rose dynamic just remember that men have uh you know had this too and done equally fucked up things and also remember that most of the time uh way more than dads you know moms are gross and terrible people dads are the good ones. As a dad, I almost wish that were true.

But not so much. Damn it. It's kind of nice though in a sick way to go over a bunch of examples of fucked up ladies instead of fucked up dudes like we do in almost all of our true crime sucks.

All right, let's move on to this next fuckhead. 2015 Lacey Spears, a popular blogger, was convicted in the death of her five-year-old son, Garrett,

after poisoning him with salt at the Nyack New York hospital where he was being treated for seizures. She got 20 years to life. Unbeknownst to Lacey's faithful supporters, she had been secretly poisoning her child with life-threatening doses of salt through a feeding tube for months, if not years.

Spears had claimed that, you know, Garrett Paul suffered from health problems that made him unable to keep food down and gain weight after her arrest she had the neighbor to enter her home and dispose of Garrett's feeding bag which was filled with the equivalent of 69 packets of salt what the fuck?

who makes their kid constantly drink liquid salt? how dry was that poor kid's mouth? how thirsty was he all the time? thankfully that dirtbag is now getting a little bit of poetic justice in prison. I do like this part of the story. When the now 28-year-old terrible mother spoke to an author in 2016, so 28 as of 2016, John Glatt working on a book about her titled My Sweet Angel, The True Story of Lacey Spears, the seemingly perfect mother who murdered her son in cold blood. She said, it's been brutal here.

Crimes involving children are considered the worst here. Yeah, bitch, they're considered the worst everywhere. They should be. She said, I hear them talking behind my back, calling me baby killer, child killer, and mother of the year, but I know it's not who I am. No, it is. It is.

And then her sister, this is the part I liked. Her sister told the author that on a regular basis, other inmates have been taking her food tray and pouring a stupid amount of salt on it before handing it back to her. Ah, hail Nimrod, I love that so much. I hope they're still doing it. I hope her blood pressure is off the charts,

like a record amount of salt in her system. I hope she has a salt-related heart attack before she's released. In the meantime, I hope she never enjoys another meal and is forever thirsty from constantly ingesting just a preposterous amount of salt. Now back to Gypsy. In all these cases, but particularly with Gypsies who drew local and national media attention when she was supposedly a very sick child, I think one big question remains. How did so many doctors and other medical professionals not notice that this girl was clearly not as sick as her mom claimed?

Or maybe not sick at all? And the answer, when you really think about it, is pretty obvious. Doctors and most other medical professionals, if you haven't met any, they are very fucking stupid. I'm friends with a doctor. His first name is Jeff. I won't say his last name because his wife Liz listens to the show. But his name should be like,

I don't know, Pifterstains or something else that rhymes with shit for brains. I have to cut his food for him when we have lunch together so he doesn't choke on bites that are too big.

Med school is a joke in this country. Any stupid, worthless asshole can get in. And if you're capable of just wiping your butt or at least almost being able to wipe your butt,

you are smart enough to become a doctor without even studying. Just memorize a couple of diseases, symptoms, know how to put on some scrubs, be able to pretend to listen to patients' problems, knowing that no matter what they say, you're just going to give them the drugs that some pharmacy rep told you to give patients so you can get a free vacation or something as a reward. And bingo, bango, you're a doctor. If Jeff can do it, you can do it. I had to help him get his pants off to use the bathroom once because he still doesn't know how to work a zipper.

And to be a nurse, you can be even dumber. All you have to be able to do is wipe other people's butts. You don't have to be able to read. Most nurses cannot read. That's a fucking fact. Look it up. A hospital in Dallas, Texas recently replaced literally all of their nurses with monkeys.

The patient survival rate increased immediately by 300%. JK. I just can't wait for Liz to hear that and send me a text about making fun of Jeff who's actually a very smart guy but for real how did doctors and other medical professionals not notice that Gypsy and these other kids were clearly not as sick as their moms claimed or maybe not even sick at all most doctors asked to explain Gypsy's case

in particular say that the doctor patient bond of trust goes both ways there's just this intuitive belief that a patient wants to become better and that in the interest of getting better, they're generally going to be as honest as possible when it comes to describe how they're feeling or how their child is feeling because that's in their best interest

or the child's best interest. And since doctors and nurses want to help patients get better, it's generally in their best interest also and in the best interest of their patients to believe their patients. As healthcare providers, says Carolyn Burton, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Florida in Jacksonville, who's treated cases of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, where the proxy is an adult,

we rely on what a patient tells us. Even if a doctor suspects his or her patient is lying, generally isn't much incentive to refuse treatment based on doubt. Since probably over 99% of patients are telling the truth about how they feel or how someone in their care feels. Since doctors and nurses see so many patients day after day, month after month, year after year, many of them just get used to not even entertaining the thought that the patient is making it all up.

There's also financial pressure to take the patient at their word for the symptoms. What if the doctor thinks that a patient is lying, but then is wrong about that? And then the patient suffers. Well, now that doctor has opened themselves up to malpractice lawsuits and other career-threatening pushback. In Gypsy's case,

not even a doctor named Robert Beckerman, who saw Gypsy both in New Orleans and in Kansas City, noticed that the girl wasn't really ill. In cases like this, if the mom is lying about symptoms and is getting the child to first act sick in a way consistent with the affliction she states she believes the child's suffering from, and then also act well after a course of treatment, even a good doctor can be tricked. Dr. Beckerman featured his treatment of Gypsy in the hospital newsletter and mentioned

repeatedly in the medical files that she and Dee Dee were his favorite mother-daughter patients. Interestingly, with Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose, we don't for sure know, again, that Didi had Munchausen's syndrome by proxy. Since it wasn't suspected until after she was dead, it's impossible to diagnose her. She also didn't leave behind a diary or some other documentation riddled with entries or nefarious intentions, but she did certainly fit the parameters that doctors cite as red flags for Munchausen syndrome by proxy. For example, she had some medical training. The number of doctors

she took Gypsy to see over the years and her tendency for changing locations so there couldn't be a clear medical trail, also common. Common for someone with Munchausen's to start with claims about having sleep apnea as Dee Dee would claim about Gypsy when Gypsy was just three months old.

Another hurdle in diagnosing it and saving the victims from their bad situations is that quite often, like we'll see with Gypsy, like we mentioned with Jennifer Bush, victims don't know they're being abused, so they don't speak out for themselves. They're told to trust their caregivers. They're very sick.

They won't survive without their caregiver's help. They're lucky to be receiving care at all. The longer the fake illness goes on, the higher the chances are that the actual patient might begin to collude with the perpetrator to present the symptoms and again perhaps even continue to believe that they are sick somehow

this particularly happens in cases where the victim is a child where a child's natural desire to please a parent is something the person with Munchausen syndrome by proxy can play on and manipulate but even in adult cases there can be some kind of emotional attachment, keeping the patient in on the lie with the abuser. We'll certainly see this with Gypsy's story.

This poor girl suffered so much because of her abusive mother, suffering from Dee Dee being an abusive piece of shit, also suffering due to the surgery she was forced to undergo. Gypsy's eye muscles were repeatedly operated on for alleged weaknesses. Tubes, you know, put in her ears for alleged ear infections. Feeding tube, you know, put in her body, you know, for years. She ate very little by mouth, even though she could. Her salivary glands were first injected with Botox and removed because her mom complained that she drooled too much. So she fucking, you know, like mutilated her.

Her teeth rotted out, had to be extracted thanks to a combo of poor dental hygiene and a mixture of medication side effects and severe malnutrition. And throughout all of this, Gypsy never spoke up to medical professionals because she was impossibly young when the manipulation and improper treatment and abuse began. And she could hardly have been expected to challenge authority figures, her mother or her doctors, about how she was feeling due to just like knowing nothing but manipulation. And all of this makes it a little easier to understand, at least for me, and for most people, I think, why Gypsy, when she figured out what was going on and couldn't get away, had Dee Dee murdered.

I do not blame her. I really don't. She'd be sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime instead of the life sentence or death penalty she could have gotten under Missouri law because prosecutors understood how complicated and tragic the case was and understood how she was a victim.

And I think that even 10 years, still about 10 years too much. Some people think she should have been sentenced for longer, though. What will you think when this story is over? When Gypsy had her mom killed, was she acting out as a victim or as a perpetrator or both? Her mom was almost her only role model in her life and rarely let Gypsy out of her sight. Almost all she learned from her mom revolved around lying, manipulating, and physical abuse. And her mom did make it clear to her that she would never, you know, let her go live free.

And that she was always going to have to pretend to be ill because that's how they made their money. Gypsy Rose was her mom's meal ticket. Or at least that's what Gypsy has claimed. Still, did she have to kill her mom in order to escape? Or could she have broke free in some non-violent way? Was Dee Dee's killing justified? Let's find out in this week's Time Suck Timeline.

Right after today's mid-show sponsor break. Thanks for not going anywhere and for sure listening to those ads very closely. Now let's hop into a Gypsy Rose timeline beginning with her mother, Dee Dee's birth. Trap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-sucked timeline. Dee Dee Blanchard was born as Claudine Petrie in Shack Bay, Louisiana, near the Gulf Coast

on May 3rd, 1967, and then grew up with her family nearby Golden Meadow, Louisiana. She wouldn't go by Didi until after she moved away from her family, but we'll call her Didi for simplicity's sake. And I have to stop thinking about my dog, Ginger Bell, one of our doodles, Penny Pooper and Ginger Bell. We've taken to calling her Didi. Went from Ginger to Gigi to Didi. So I keep thinking about my cute little dog instead of this monster.

Her parents were Claude Petrie and Emma Petrie. A French name, P-I-T-R-E. Not surprising in Cajun country. And you know what that word means in English? Clown. Yeah, Petrie does literally translate to clown. She was born to Mr. and Mrs. Clown. Fucking love it,

because she was such a clown of a human being. Going to be a lot of victim blaming going down for this particular victim today, because I was such a clown of a human being. Gonna be a lot of victim blaming going down for this particular victim today, because I think that Dee Dee was a gigantic piece of shit who ended up fucking begging to be killed due to what she and no one else did to her daughter, due to the circumstances she and no one else put her daughter in. Dee Dee may have

inherited some of her worst personality traits from her own mom. Dee Dee's mom was not well liked by many. Emma Petrie got in a lot of local trouble for shoplifting, according to her former husband, Claude, another theft. He said she was a shoplifter and all kinds of stuff. And I don't know how many times she had to go to court for shoplifting. She stole, I think, $3,000 or $4,000 from my dad. Didi would later be primarily raised by Emma when Emma and Claude divorced at some point in her childhood. She would go back and forth. How old

she was when they got divorced, never made clear in interviews. Also never made clear is what made Emma sick towards the premature end of her life when Dee Dee was then put in charge of taking care of her, became her primary caregiver before she left Louisiana. Many family members now think that Dee Dee made her mom sick, poisoned her, starved her at the end of her life. They think she killed her christy blanchard gypsy stepmom claimed didi was starving her didi wasn't giving her anything to eat and didi stepmom laura also insisted that for didi to leave her mother dirty and not feed her that's evil before she probably killed her own mom how poetic she'll later be killed by her own daughter or at least

someone killing her on behalf of her daughter didi grew up again in golden meadow louisiana or at least someone killing her on behalf of her daughter. Dee Dee grew up again in Golden Meadow, Louisiana. Golden Meadow is a small Cajun country town on Highway 1, which is the main route through Lafourche Parish and its numerous fishing communities. When Dee Dee was born, Golden Meadow had only been incorporated as a town for 17 years. Not sure if her Cajun accent was as thick growing up as her dad

and stepmoms would be when the two were later interviewed in the 2017 HBO documentary about all this, Mommy Dead and Dearest, which I watched and it was fantastic. But if it was, this next clip illustrates what she and her kin sounded like. I would play actual clips of gypsies relative speaking, but I can only find good examples on HBO

and they can get real strict on usage rights. Don't want to get this whole episode taken down because of an accent example I'm trying to show. So this is a news clip from 2008 of a Cajun man describing a shooting in rural Acadiana, Louisiana. On two shootings in Acadiana, neighbors are shocked after gunshots ring out in their neighborhood. The first shooting happened on Abegno Road near Scott. KATC's Megan Shearing talked to the neighbors who heard all the gunfire. She was running towards the rent trailer and she just fell after the second shot.

But that wasn't all. Linus Guillot says his neighbor, 71-year-old Tourney Duyant, wasn't finished with his wife. Duyant wasn't finished with his wife. And then he went with the gun over her, and I guess she was begging with him not to shoot her again. Guillette says fortunately, Turney didn't shoot again. He ran away. I went and got my pistol and put it in my pocket,

in case he come and bust my door. But that didn't happen. He was arrested without incident. They told him to lay down and he laid down by her with his hand, stretch out, but he didn't have no gun by then. He went and hid. Guillard and other neighbors say they've never seen the couple have problems before. They say it's shocking that something like this happened on their street. Oh, I was nervous. I couldn't even call the cops. The identity... I love that guy. I mean, it's sad what he's talking about, obviously, but I just

forgot how thick and unique that accent is. I've been quite some time since I watched the Adam Sandler movie, The Waterboy, and yeah, that was truly my introduction to the Cajun accent. When Gypsy's dad, Rod, first started talking in the documentary, i truly had no fucking idea where he was from i was convinced he was not from america i thought he's probably some

immigrant from eastern europe i could barely understand uh what her dad uh claude what didi's dad claude said half the time anyway the population of golden meadow where uh all these folks lived and where some still live was just over 2100 people at the 2010 census count, slightly bigger around the time Didi was born, a little over 3,000 people. Located at the southern end of a long string of towns along Bayou Lafourche in Lafourche Parish. Surrounded by swamps, slow-moving brackish water, fish instill the area's main industry, a lot of gators, a lot of crawfish, a lot of big, what the fuck is that, kind of bugs. A real backwoods, Louisiana Cajun country. A lot of rural poverty. Growing up is that? Kind of bugs. A real backwoods, Louisiana Cajun country.

A lot of real poverty. Growing up there, Dee Dee quickly gained a reputation for being a troubled child. Troubled person like a mama. Relatives later remember that she had a habit of stealing from her family, which they speculated was a form of retaliation when things didn't go her way. Also stole from local stores, wrote bad checks, et cetera, et cetera. Just like a mama, by the time she would leave the area, she was not well liked. At some point early in her adult life, Dee Dee worked as a nursing aide.

That's scary. Sources aren't entirely clear when, probably in her late teens, early 20s. Hopefully she didn't kill anybody while she's doing that. 1990, Dee Dee, 23 years old, gets pregnant. Working back from when Gypsy would be born in July of 1991, Dee Dee probably got pregnant in October of 1990. Rod Blanchard, the man who'd gotten her pregnant, wasn't even a man yet. At least not legally. He was 17 years old. And now it seemed to him like the only reasonable thing to do was to get married. That's what he would say later. He said that's just how he was raised. But the marriage

wouldn't last long. When Rod woke up on his 18th birthday, before baby girl's born, he realizes he does not want to be married to Dee Dee. He later said he realized she was dark. Said she was getting into some kind of occult type stuff that was weirding him out. Got a little too witchy. Had a tarantula for a pet. Maybe thought she could cast some spells and shit. He didn't seem

to know how to express it perfectly. Only that she was, you know, fucking strange. Stranger than he expected. Also, they broke up because their marriage and subsequent pregnancy wasn't really born from any real relationship or love. He was 17, this hot 23-year-old local lady. Indeed, he was very attractive early in life, which I got to say is shocking based on how she looks later.

She was a hot 23-year-old lady in an area with a lot of single women, or sorry, an area without, not many, single women to choose from who wanted to sleep with him. So he slept with her Lucifina showed me the way A pretty common story Then shortly after Gypsy's birth He knew he wasn't in love with her

And split up, also a pretty common story He was probably like, wait, wait, wait Oh shit, wait, there are other women in the world Who will have sex with me? A lot of them If I just look around a little bit Oh, no, no, no. What have I done? Damn you teen hormones. Damn you. Short-sightedness of youth. Uh, despite leaving the marriage,

he continued to be involved with the raising of their daughter, at least before DD ran off with her. Then he'd be less involved, but would always pay child support would actually, we'll find out pay child support after she became 18, which is unusual. Uh, he seems to have been, uh, it seems to be, excuse me, a pretty good dude, uh, based on, uh, unusual. He seems to be a pretty good dude based on interviews. Seems like he wasn't quite ready to deal with the DD Express when he was 17. She steamrolled him, like she steamrolled a lot of doctors where Gypsy was concerned later. Gypsy Rose Blanchard, born July 27th, 1991.

Rod and Dee Dee named their daughter Gypsy Rose because Dee Dee likes to name Gypsy Rose and Rod was a fan of Guns N' Roses. So fuck yeah, bro! That's how you pick a name. Too bad he wasn't a Striper fan. Gypsy Striper, huh? To help me, the devil!

Are there any kids named after Striper? I don't know. Weirdly enough, neither of them knew about the historical figure Gypsy Rose Lee, the 1920s vaudeville child star turned stripper whose early life was the basis for the broadway musical gypsy that gypsy had a controlling stage mother one who lied about her daughter's age to make her seem younger one who kept forcing her daughter to perform even though she didn't want to so just

kind of a weird coincidence interesting part of the story uh the allegation the gypsy was sick would start almost immediately following her birth. According to Rod, who was still heavily involved with his daughter at this point, as far as, you know, living with, uh, uh, near Dee Dee and, and, uh, involved in the child rearing. By the time Gypsy was three months old, her mom was convinced that the infant suffered from sleep apnea, began taking her to the hospital.

Uh, she convinced doctors that she had sleep apnea, convinced him. Dee Dee insisted that the hospital, uh, have Gypsy stay overnight, run expensive tests, even when doctors had zero proof. The Gypsy was actually suffering from anything, but she just kept pushing. After that, Dee Dee started saying

that Gypsy had even more health problems, which she didn't, which now came from a chromosomal, chromosomal, yeah, disorder that she never specified. Apparently Dee Dee was a doctor of sorts now. Impressive, because WebM MD didn't even exist yet. Didi always had a new idea about what was wrong with gypsy.

She was always taking her to a new doctor, talking them into giving her a new drug. She had a real knack for remembering medical terminology. She'd hear from one doctor, then spit it back out to the next doctor. She may have read up at the library as well. Maybe watched a lot of medically based TV shows. However,

however she learned it, she quickly accumulated a plethora of medical terms to toss around at people. The information overload she would dump on medical professionals, help persuade them that she knew what she was talking about. She was never troubled by their questions when they second guessed her assertions. She always had an answer for them. Some point early on, Dee Dee starts claiming the gypsy has muscular dystrophy, starts making her use a walker. Not sure how the fuck she got her doctor to sign off on that one uh nowadays not sure what was true in the 90s but i i would think it'd be similar to get a muscular dystrophy diagnosis you you're likely very likely almost certainly going to be given a physical examination and this will happen later and cause some problems another common first step is to be given enzyme tests to look for high levels of creatine

kinase or muscle muscleopsy, heart monitoring tests, lung monitoring tests, have an electrode needle inserted into one of your muscles to be tested. Electroactivity is measured as you relax, as you gently tighten the muscle, abnormal changes in the pattern of electroactivity can confirm a muscle disease. I guess Didi could have just smooth talked some not so great local doctor into giving her that initial diagnosis though. Didi could have just smooth talked some not so great local doctor into giving her that initial diagnosis though.

I'm guessing you might be able to get away with maybe not being the very best doctor when you're working way out in the fucking bayou. I'm guessing. Then when Gypsy was seven or eight, she was riding on her grandpa's motorcycle when they were involved in a very minor accident. All Gypsy ended up with was a scuffed up knee. Something she could have gotten, you know, riding a bike or just falling down like all kids do but Dee Dee used this as an opportunity to take things further with false medical claims she acts like Gypsy is hurt much worse

than she is, she now has spinal cord damage and she can't walk she becomes basically paralyzed according to Dee Dee, and she has to use a wheelchair Dee Dee says that doctors had already given her a wheelchair for Gypsy to use. She manipulates Gypsy into thinking that she can't walk. She's too broken up now.

Didi now also starts promoting Gypsy's fake illnesses by taking her to, like, special Olympics events. So fucking gross. So disgusting what she's doing. In 2001, when Didi claims Gypsy is eight, she's actually ten. She starts shifting her age now. She was named the honorary queen of the crew of Mid-City Child Oriented Parade held during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Sickness would

quickly become the only kind of life Gypsy knew. Sometime between kindergarten and second grade, her mom pulls her out of school. She's too sick to go to school now. I can't believe she was allowed to go to school that long. I mean, between her muscular dystrophy and spinal problems and chromosomal disorder and God knows what else sources missed, she was the human equivalent of a piece of your grandma's old china, ready to shatter into a million pieces as soon as the fragile thing hits the floor or gets bumped. Gypsy would teach herself

to read by reading Harry Potter books. Didn't seem like there was any real homeschooling going on. Didi didn't care if she got fucking, you know, educated or not. Preferred that she didn't. Meanwhile, they were living with Didi's dad and stepmom at this time. Dee Dee's stepmom, Laura, later claims that while Dee Dee was staying with her, she tried to kill her

by putting the weed killer Roundup in her food. She wouldn't figure this out until after Dee Dee left. Laura said she was bedridden for nine months while Dee Dee stayed with them. Nine months. She was just out of it. She'd always been healthy before. Dee Dee also stole her dad's checkbook, wrote a bunch of bad checks, thousands of dollars worth,

which led to several arrests. She stole from her siblings, stole from anyone she could steal from, shoplifts from local stores. Family, not surprisingly, got real fucking sick of her. They confronted her about her treatment of gypsy,

all this theft, all the other shit she was pulling, and Dee Dee bounces. She, you know, she takes a gypsy and moves to Slidell, Louisiana. Slidell is about a two-hour drive to the Northeast.

Shortly after that, Laura, mysteriously, her stepmom, gets much better and becomes perfectly healthy and stays healthy. So go figure. In Slidell, about 30,000 people living across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. She and Gypsy live in public housing, pay their bills with Rod's child support payments and public assistance. Dee Dee's been granted due to her daughter's medical conditions. Dee Dee, not about to go get a job to support her daughter. Her daughter is her job. Not when

she can pay her bills through somehow fucking manipulating people into giving her money. Dee Dee and Gypsy, they spend a lot of time visiting various specialists, mostly at Tulane Medical Center and the Children's Hospital of New Orleans, seeking treatment of illnesses Dee Dee is claiming Gypsy's suffering from. Now she's saying Gypsy has

hearing and vision problems, in addition to being unable to walk from that spinal injury. She's paralyzed now from that one time she scuffed up her knee. Muscle biopsy around this time finds that Gypsy has no signs of muscular dystrophy, though. Gosh dang! Oh, whoops! Must have went away

even though there's no cure for it dd keeps saying gypsy has it uh after you know being told she doesn't also now uh told doctors that gypsy uh is having seizures every few months is able to convince him to prescribe anti-seizure medication for her which as we went over before can give you seizures also convinces doctors to give gypsy unnecessary uh surgeries frequently takes her to the emergency room whenever she has a minor problem. In August of 2005, when Gypsy is 14, but she's not told she's 14 now, she's told she's 10. Hurricane Katrina devastates the Gulf Coast. The Category 4 storm makes landfall.

Excuse me. In Plaquemines Parish on the morning of August 29th. And would claim more than 1,800 lives. Be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, doing an estimated $150 billion worth of economic

impact damage. Deedee, opportunistic fucking scumbag, uses this to her advantage. She and Gypsy leave their ruined apartment for a tiny shelter

30 miles northwest in Covington, set up for individuals with special needs. You know, Deedee doesn't have special needs, whatever.

Deedee said that Gypsy's medical records, including her birth certificate, gosh dang, have been destroyed in the flooding. They hadn't. What a wonderful opportunity, though, to manufacture new records. A doctor from the Ozarks, a woman named Janet Jordan, helping with hurricane relief, suggests they relocate to Missouri. In the next month, they're actually airlifted there. At first, Claudine and Gypsy live in a rented home in Aurora, Missouri, a town of about 7,500 in the southwestern area of the state, just about 30 miles from Springfield. During their time there, Gypsy is honored by the Oley Foundation, which advocates for the rights of feeding tube recipients, a feeding tube she doesn't need. Is their 2007 child of the year? Yeah. Did I mention already that she's had that feeding tube implanted in

her stomach, a painful feeding tube. She didn't eat because she could eat just fine. But she wasn't eating just fine because her mom was starving her. I mean, strictly controlling her calories to keep her, you know, looking, you know, sick. I mean, healthy. In March of 2008, Dee Dee and Gypsy move into a house built for them by Habitat for Humanity. Why did Habitat for Humanity build them a house? Because they had been through so fucking much.

They did sacrifice so much to do right by her daughter. By the time they moved into the house, Gypsy, in addition to being wheelchair-bound and using a feeding tube, now sometimes uses an oxygen tank to help her perfectly healthy lungs pump enough air into her system. The house has a wheelchair ramp, a hot tub to help with Gypsy's muscular dystrophy problems, or so her mom can sit in the fucking hot tub. Hot tub. Oh my gosh. The story of a single mom with a severely disabled daughter,

you know, forced to flee Katrina's devastation received considerable local media attention. And of course that brings in money and other perks. In Missouri, the two received free flights to see doctors at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, free trips to Walt Disney World, backstage passes to Miranda Lambert concerts

from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Miranda Lambert even gives Dee Dee a personal check for $3,500. Neighbors, members of the community pitching in to help Dee Dee and Gypsy whenever they could. She's getting money sent to her, checks coming in the mail, things are going great for Dee Dee. Gypsy is still being essentially tortured with unnecessary medical treatments and procedures. Dee Dee is becoming a beloved neighborhood star. Sometimes on summer nights, Dee Dee now sets up a projector to play a movie on the side of the house. Children in the neighborhood whose parents usually couldn't afford

to send them to a movie theater would come over for watching the movie and for a treat. Dee Dee would charge them for concessions and they would pay because, you know, the money was going towards Gypsy's treatments. But probably not. Neighbors and friends are thinking Dee Dee's a saint. People who knew her remember her as a generous woman,

you know, generous with her time, generous with money when she had it. She made friends quickly, inspired deep devotion amongst some friends. Also quick to rattle off a laundry list of her daughter's so-called medical conditions

for sympathy. And the list is getting fucking long now. It includes chromosomal defects, right, defects, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, severe asthma, sleep apnea, eye problems, hearing problems, GI tract problems, partial paralysis, heart murmur, some kind of lung disease, and leukemia. Because she has cancer now too. Doctors don't verify that one. That's just what she tells people. And what she tells Gypsy.

That's fun. For your mom to try and make you think you have cancer when you don't. That's when you know you have a super fucking cool mom. The coolest. Dee Dee had been telling Gypsy that since her medication would eventually cause her hair to fall out from the cancer treatment, best to shave her head in advance. So now she's bald from the, you know, the cancer that she doesn't have. Dee Dee also convinces her that the cancer is going to give her anal leakage and teaches her to prevent this from occurring you know and embarrass her in public by stuffing socks up her butt

so that's fun for years the only time Gypsy Rose won't have a sock in her butt is when she takes it out to go to the bathroom and these butt socks she uses because they didn't splurge and buy Randy's butt socks highest quality butt socks in the butt sock market treated with antimicrobial peppermint oil and anti-odor microfiber so they never stink and are less likely to harbor harmful bacteria, well, now Gypsy Rose is getting butt infections.

Which is a good reminder. If you care about your butt, always, always buy Randy's butt socks. Order Randy's butt socks right now when you call 1-800-SAD-TUSH. You get 50% off the softest thing you'll ever shove up your ass, guaranteed, or your money back. hundred sad tush. You get 50% off the softest thing you'll ever shove up your ass, guaranteed. Or your money back. Sorry, that was, uh, that was from last week. And, uh, don't worry about it. Uh, Dee Dee didn't encourage her

daughter to shove socks up her ass, but the rest of the stuff I said was true. Uh, Mother of the Year Dee Dee would also remind people their daughter has, uh, brain damage. Uh, saying she has the mental level of a seven-year-old. And tries to convince, you know, to convince Gypsy Rose of this also. She'll never be smarter than that. She's coaching Gypsy to speak simply now, to stay in her wheelchair, to back up everything she tells people about all the shit that she has going on

but not really going on. A lot of the people meeting Gypsy around this time are charmed by her. She's endearing. She's five feet tall. She soon will have almost no teeth thanks to the side effects largely of some medicine she's been taking that she doesn't need. She's wearing large glasses for eye problems she doesn't have. She speaks in a high childlike voice, encouraged to do so by a mommy psychopath.

Because of all her terrible fake conditions, Gypsy never gets to do anything normal kids do. No pizza, no hamburgers, no soda. Said she's given a diet of mostly pedi-assured drinks and protein shakes well into her 20s. Some people who knew her at this time will later recall thinking it odd that they never saw

Gypsy alone. Dee Dee always hovering around her. And she almost always was holding Dee Dee's hand in the presence of others. Whenever Gypsy said something that indicated that she wasn't that sick or was smarter than someone who's supposed to have the mental equivalency of a seven-year-old. They think that Dee Dee would squeeze her hand tightly

to remind her to calm the fuck down, right? Follow the program. Her constant hand-holding, when looked back on, wasn't love, affection, protection. It was abuse and control. Gypsy will later back up that observation. Gypsy will also claim that when the two were alone, when neighbors couldn't see

what kind of person Dee Dee actually was,, Dee would strike Gypsy with open hands, a coat hanger if she didn't like how she behaved in public, always got punished if she didn't act in accordance with the symptoms of her fake afflictions. And Gypsy starts figuring out that they're fake. She's walking around now when mom isn't watching. Sneaking snacks she's perfectly capable of chewing. She's very fucking confused as to why her mom is always trying to convince her that she's suffering from affliction she doesn't have like paralysis what an insane way to grow up she isn't gypsy isn't dd's child she's her hostage she's the hostage of a lesser a little bit lighter but still evil version of dr mengela having the equivalent of medical experiments being performed on her but at this time you know no one

else knows what she's going through. Neighbors think that the Blanchards are, you know, it's a combo of a good, strong mom and, you know, poor sick little girl who'd been to the ringer. Dee Dee became particularly close with some people across the way, single mom named Amy Pinegar and her four children. Over years of tea and coffee, Dee Dee will tell Pinegar her life story. Well, a fake life story, her version of her life story,

which of course is a lot of lies. Some truth. She said she was originally from a small town in Louisiana, but she had to flee from her horribly abusive family to save herself and Gypsy. Her own father, Gypsy's grandfather,

that was the last straw for her when he started burning Gypsy with cigarettes. None of this happens. She lit out from her hometown for good. She told Pinegar that Gypsy's dad, Rod, was a fucking deadbeat, alcoholic drug abuser who mocked his daughter's disabilities, said the Special Olympics were a freak show.

As Pinecar understood it, Rod had never sent them a dime, not even when Dee Dee and Gypsy lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. Oh, poor Dee Dee. Thinking that these two people had been through some of the worst experiences imaginable, Amy tried to help the Blanchards whenever she could, right? Give them money, drive Dee Dee and Gypsy to the airport,

for medical trips to Kansas City, other places, bring them stuff from Sam's Club. I mean, she manipulated all kinds of... Everybody she had an encounter with, she manipulated. In reality, the story about Rod specifically couldn't be further from the truth. Rod Blanchard had actually been faithfully making monthly child support payments of $1,200

as well as sending Gypsy gifts and occasionally talking to her on the phone, only occasionally because DeeDee always trying to keep Gypsy from talking to her dad. When she did talk to him, she also closely monitored their phone conversations. Rod's also sending things DeeDee asked for, like television sets, Nintendo Wii,

weed, Nintendo Wii. DeeDee tells her daughter though, that this stuff, you know, she wouldn't always be honest about where it came from and would tell her that her dad didn't care about her, didn't want her, didn Dee tells her daughter though, that this, uh, that this stuff, you know, she wouldn't always be honest about where it came from and, uh, would tell her that her dad didn't care about her. Didn't want her. Didn't love her.

Rod knew something weird was going on between Dee Dee and Gypsy. Like when Gypsy, uh, you know, she, he called her on her 18th birthday and then Dee Dee, uh, before allowing him to speak to Gypsy, told him not to mention Gypsy's real age, saying that Gypsy thought she was 14 and that it was for the best. Don't confuse her, Rod. She's brain damaged. She won't understand.

It'll only upset her. Rod and his second wife regularly tried to get to Springfield and visit Gypsy on numerous occasions, but for a variety of reasons, Dee Dee would always change plans at the last minute, tell them an emergency hospital visit came up or something, they were now out of town, that sort of shit.

Meanwhile, Dee Dee is talking more doctors into operating on Gypsy Rose. Talks some quack into treating Gypsy's saliva glands with Botox, then extracting her salivary glands to control her subsequent drooling. The lack of salivary glands, coupled with some of the side effects of the anti-seizure medication she's

being given, causes Gypsy's teeth to decay to the point that the majority of her front teeth have to be taken out. You know, replaced by a bridge. So she's permanently maiming her fucking daughter, doing irreversible damage. Mom also now convinces doctors to implant tubes in Gypsy's ears to control ear infections that she doesn't have. Finally, some people start to become suspicious.

Dr. Bernardo Flasterstein, a pediatric neurologist who saw Gypsy in Springfield, first becomes suspicious of that earlier muscular dystrophy diagnosis. DeeDee's still pushing that bullshit, despite that earlier biopsy revealing that she doesn't have it. He orders MRIs and blood tests, which find, of course, no abnormalities. He tells DeeDee on a follow-up visit after seeing Gypsy

stand and support her own weight, I don't see any reason why she doesn't walk. If she'd been wheelchair-bound, she's not paralyzed, like she told some people. If she'd been wheelchair, she's not paralyzed. Like she told some people, if she'd been wheelchair bound for years, as Didi claimed, why weren't her muscles atrophied? None of this makes sense. He thinks Didi is lying.

Decides to do a little digging. After contacting Gypsy's doctors in New Orleans, he learns that Gypsy's original muscle biopsy had come back negative, meaning as we just went over, she did not have muscular dystrophy, never did. And finding those results also meant

that Didi lied about all of Gypsy's records being destroyed in Katrina. Big red flag, something shady as fuck is going on here. He now suspects the possibility of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. But then Didi, this crafty, dirty bitch, she somehow gets access to Flasterstein's medical notes, subsequently stops taking Gypsy to see him. Then sadly, Dr. Flasterstein does not follow up

by reporting Dee Dee to social services as he'd been told by other doctors to treat Dee Dee and Gypsy with golden gloves. Why was he told that? Not sure. Maybe because they were local celebrities of a sort. Maybe because a lot of other doctors in the area bought their bullshit.

He'll later claim that he doubted the authorities would believe him if he did report his suspicions since Munchausen syndrome by proxy was still a controversial diagnosis In 2009 An anonymous caller tells police that Dee Dee's been using different names and birth dates for herself and her daughter Maybe it's his doctor They suggest Gypsy is in better health than claimed Officers now perform a wellness check

And end up accepting Dee Dee's explanation that she uses misinformation intentionally to make it harder for her psychopath, abusive, drug addict ex-husband to find her in Gypsy. Fuck. Just like Christian Gershardt's writer, right? AKA Clark Rockefeller last week. This son of a bitch, this con artist,

she's good at her cons. The police now fuck up a bit. Don't bother talking to Rod to hear his side of the story. And the file is closed. And the abuse continues. February 2011, Gypsy, 19 years old now, but thinking she's 15, makes her first and seemingly only non-violent

escape attempt. Since 2001, a decade earlier, Gypsy and her mom had attended numerous sci-fi and fantasy conventions, sometimes in costume. Since she could blend in, even in a wheelchair, and her mom enjoyed these things, now she tries to escape with the man she met there. Gypsy had know, she could blend in, even in a wheelchair, and her mom enjoyed these things. Now she tries to escape with the man she met there. Gypsy had begun communicating with this man online.

She's 19, he's 35. Gypsy sneaks back to this guy's hotel room, but very quickly, Mommy Dearest finds him. And she presents falsified paperwork stating that Gypsy is a minor. She threatens to go to the police, have this man arrested. In the HBO documentary, Mommy Dead and Dearest,

Gypsy recalls Dee Dee saying, once the two of them were then alone back in their hotel room. If you ever try to do that again, I'm going to smash your fingers with a hammer. Love you too, Mom. World's best, Mom. World's best, Mom. Once they return home from the convention, Dee Dee does smash Gypsy's computer with a hammer. World's best, Mom. World's best, Mom. Gypsy also claimed that her mom kept her leashed and handcuffed to her bed for two weeks because

of this incident. And this is when Dee Dee supposedly filed the paperwork with the court, claiming that Gypsy was mentally incompetent and now Gypsy became, at least Gypsy thought, for all intents and purposes, owned by Dee Dee. Think Britney Spears' former probate conservatorship,

but one where Britney has substantially less freedom. That's bullshit, of course. This didn't happen. Dee Dee didn't do that. Couldn't do that the way she described it, but convinced Gypsy that it happened. Now for her to believe Gypsy, and I do believe her about this.

She thinks that if she ever goes to the police for help, they will not believe her. They'll take her back to her mom's house where her mother, a much bigger human, by the way, will abuse her. And Gypsy's house where her mother a much bigger human by the way will abuse her And gypsy's tiny gypsy's around five feet tall I don't know maybe a hundred pounds at this point probably less her mom kept her looking real frail Her mom not sure of her height, but she seemed to be around a half foot taller based on videos and pictures

And to me looks like she weighed anywhere from 220 to 250 pounds Well over twice the size of her daughter. And I imagine privately pretty damn physically intimidating. If I'm Gypsy, I'm fucking scared of Didi. Gypsy will later say she really started questioning her life and her mom after this incident in a new way. Why wasn't she allowed to have friends over, you know, or be by herself, you know, with friends like other teens? Why did her mom keep telling everyone she had problems that she knew she didn't have? Why was her mom blatantly using her as a meal ticket

if her mom actually loved her? Gypsy was forbidden by D.D. to go on the internet after the convention incident, but she wouldn't stop using it, wouldn't stop talking to men. She would use her mom's laptop now to secretly talk to guys after her mom would go to bed. And in 2012, while using a Christian dating site,

some fake profile she set up, she met a man named Nicholas Godejian from Big Ben, Wisconsin. Nicholas, born May 10th, 1989, is 23 at this time. Didi is being told she's 17, but she's actually 21. Nicholas, while never having to deal with a problem like Didi Blanchard in his life,

he does have his own problems. His parents split up when he was a toddler, around three or four. Not long afterwards, he was diagnosed with autism, Asperger's specifically, in grade school. From kindergarten until 12th grade, he was in special education classes. Psychologist Kent Franks would testify in a 2016 hearing that Nicholas had and has the mind of a child.

Watching interviews with this guy, he certainly seems to be right about this. You can tell right away that he is dealing with more stuff mentally than most of us are. Frank said that after two mental evaluations on Godijan, he determined he was on the autism spectrum and had an IQ of 82. So on the edge of being cognitively impaired, definitely below average and the functionality equivalent mentally of a 10 year old go to john's childhood was lonely he had trouble making friends as a young person he was interested in computers wanted to become a computer repairman but that didn't pan out for him you know he just uh lacks the social abilities

and sadly just doesn't have enough overall intelligence to pull something like that off he found comfort in connections online feeling he could only be himself when he was on the computer or at least be who he wanted others to see. Before he ever goes on his mission to save Gypsy Rose from Dee Dee, while he and Gypsy are still in their online relationship, something pretty fucking weird happens. In 2013,

I love when details like this come up in episodes. In 2013, he'll be arrested at McDonald's after he is allegedly caught masturbating there like like not in the bathroom like out out in the lobby and i found this in multiple sources the pull from the police reports i'm not making this up he's got mass he had been masturbating just openly in the mcdonald's uh i mean not like you know pants on but still, for nine fucking hours. He was there nine hours

and openly watching porn. So you heard that right. Nine hours. Customers spotted him. Over and over. Numerous customers. His hands down his pants, you know, shuffling around, jerking that gherkin, watching some porn at McDonald's. So something's clearly not right with him. That's not the kind of crime committed by someone

who's not a little bit off, you know, as far as mentally... Like, that's someone who's not a little bit off, you know, as far as mental, like that's, that's someone who's not smart enough to try to not get caught, who doesn't understand social norms. That someone doesn't understand that if you masturbate while openly watching porn in the middle of a fucking fast food joint for nine hours, you're almost certainly going to get in trouble. Go jerk off in your bedroom or in the bathroom or in the bushes while you watch your porn like a normal creep, But not a Mickey D's. Not unless McDonald's really changes their customer policy ups or customer policies up. That would be an interesting

new, I don't know, social allowance to build a new McDonald's campaign around. I'd love to see a commercial for that. Good time, great taste. That's why this is our place. The good time, great taste of McDonald's. Come on into McDonald's and watch the fastest show in town. Now at all McDonald's locations, openly watching pornography is allowed. Get that Big Mac fries and a Coke and throw in some pork. At the fastest show in town, you can still slow down and get down with yourself. Add a chocolate shake for just 99 cents while you shake your dick around.

We love to see you smile. And if you're playing with yourself, you're smiling. The fastest show in town. Continuous performances daily at your nearest McDonald's. Continuous performances is right. Nine hours. McDonald's. Continuous performances is right.

Nine hours. Anyways, Nicholas claimed during his McDonald's big trial courtroom appearance that he suffered from disassociative identity disorder, multiple personalities, and you know, one of those personalities liked to come on some warm chicken nuggets. McNuggets, excuse me, a few feet

away from the play play slide, alright? Nicholas's mom, Stephanie Goldhammer, would tell detectives that Nicholas was only diagnosed with autism and Asperger's, not with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Nicholas told police that while he looked like he was engaging in self-love in a public space, he was just scratching himself. Is it a crime to have a really itchy chicken skin duffel bag and custard launcher, officer? I have a really itchy chicken skin duffel bag and custard launcher, officer. Sorry, I thought I still lived in America, where you were still allowed to itch your own goddamn ding-dong and grundle charms. Police didn't buy it, of course, and he was charged with carrying a concealed weapon.

I wish that was for the dick. That'd be great. No, he had a large folding knife in his pocket and disorderly conduct for the masturbating under his pants. He's found guilty but given no jail time. Just misdemeanors. Slap on the wrist for slapping his boss hog in the condiment bar. Gypsy and Nicholas's online relationship would last well past this little incident. God, it's so fucking funny.

In total, they would date but only really actually see each other twice for two and a half years. Excuse me, Gypsy used five different Facebook accounts to keep talking to him. Gypsy wrote in one message, I need to tell you something. I'm no model. I have a medical condition,

so I can't walk. I have a chair I use. Is that an issue? Nick responded, why would that be a problem? You are an angel in my eyes. It will never make any difference in how I see you from the inside out.

And that's actually really sweet. McDonald's, jerking off in the lobby porn guy. He's romantic at heart, maybe. Sometimes their exchanges will get explicit. I get it. Sometimes my exchanges with my wife, Lindsay, are explicit. In the best ways. Hail, Lucifina.

Nicholas introduced Gypsy to BDSM, according to Gypsy, in screenshots of Gypsy's secret Facebook account. Show illustrations of a nearly naked Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Clutch and the Beast. Some other BDSM, according to Gypsy, and screenshots of Gypsy's secret Facebook account show illustrations of a nearly naked Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Clutch and the Beast, some other BDSM illustrations, as well as status updates that included the statement, I live and breathe to serve my master. Gypsy would later claim that she was uncomfortable with BDSM, but that Nicholas pressured her into it. Her message exchanges, I will say, though, do not line up with that assertion.

She seemed really into it. Gypsy also made up multiple online personalities of her own to match his so-called disassociative or identity disorder personality. She dressed up in different wigs, outfits to go with these personalities, which included Candy, the quote, slut side, Ruby, the quote, evil side.

In 2014, Gypsy first confided in her neighbor, Aaliyah Woodmansey, 23-year-old girl who saw Gypsy's little sister, about this online relationship with Nicholas. Aaliyah Woodmancy liked Gypsy, almost everyone did, but rarely got to spend any time with her alone because Dee Dee was always hovering around her meal ticket.

Gypsy started messaging Aaliyah through a secret Facebook account under the name Emma Rose. She wrote in October of 2014, this is my personal account. My mom is still overprotective, so she don't know about this account. Then she confessed she'd met a man

on a Christian single site. She wrote that she was in love with him. She told Aaliyah. Gypsy hadn't told her mom yet. She wrote that she knew Didi wouldn't approve, that she wasn't allowed to date, though she longed to grow up and have a boyfriend like other girls her age.

Gypsy told Aaliyah that she and Nicholas were planning a future together, had discussed eloping, had even picked out names for future children. She also told Aaliyah a little bit about the charged sexual messages and the BDSM element of the relationship. Aaliyah, thinking that Gypsy was a minor, tried to talk her out of this relationship.

Also didn't take it very seriously. She thought the plans might have just been a total fantasy. Wasn't convinced this other person was even real. Aaliyah was worried about Dee Dee, though. She didn't want Dee Dee to find out she was talking secretly to Gypsy. Dee Dee had confronted her in 2011 about her chats with Gypsy previously telling her she was corrupting a child she told Aaliyah I'm not going to tell your mom

about the things you said but I don't want you talking to Gypsy like that in March of 2015 Gypsy and Nicholas now come up with a plan to stage a meeting in real life in Dee Dee's presence hoping that Dee Dee might allow them to actually date if she thought they met for the first time in person Nicholas travels to Springfield, Missouri to meet Gypsy and Dee Dee's presence, hoping that Dee Dee might allow them to actually date if she thought they met for the first time in person. Nicholas travels to Springfield, Missouri

to meet Gypsy and Dee Dee at a McDonald's, not surprising, where he plans to win Dee Dee over by showing how much he can come onto some chicken nuggets, McNuggets, excuse me, and how quickly, within seconds of ordering them

before they leave the counter. Or that doesn't happen. Can't stop thinking about McDonald's. And they just meet at a movie theater where they're going to see a Disney Cinderella. Gypsy secretly sends him money. She never explains where it came from to pay for his bus ticket at the theater.

Gypsy goes up to use the bathroom during the movie when she knows he's there, meets Nicholas in the lobby, drags him into the bathroom where they quickly have sex in a stall. And that's her first sexual experience. At almost 24 now. But she thinks she's 19. And that her mom controls her entire life. Her first

sexual experience is rushed and secretive because of her insane mommy dearest. While she was excited to have sex, otherwise the encounter doesn't go the way Gypsy wanted it to. Dee Dee does not take a shine to Nicholas, who after the encounter, you know, in the bathroom sits next to her in the movie theater. And Dee Dee says later she found him creepy and weird.

And that's actually fair in this instance. I mean, he shows up alone as a guy in his early 20s to watch Cinderella, then starts hitting on a girl who supposedly, you know, he doesn't know, who also looks like she's about 13 at this point. This is not a great plan. Dee Dee punishes Gypsy after the movie theater incident, orders Gypsy to stay away from Nicholas, yells at Gypsy for weeks, calls her a bitch,

slut, whore, things like that. Classic Dee Dee. Just Dee Dee being Dee Dee. Gypsy now is thinking that to try to get her away from her mom, it's going to take more than just convincing her mom. Dee Dee is never going to be convinced to let her little girl go. Online, now Gypsy and Nicholas start to plan Didi's death and do not blame gypsy

wanting her mother dead at this point. One fucking bit. Go to John also wants her dead messaging gypsy at one point, honey, you forgot. I'm ruthless. My hatred of her will force her to die. It's my evil side doing it.

The different personalities again, he won't mess up because he enjoys killing. Yeah. And again, yeah. Evil side. One of different personalities again he won't mess up because he enjoys killing yeah and again yeah evil side one of the personalities uh not the one that likes to uh jerk off while enjoying a spicy crispy chicken sandwich combo meal though and watching a horny stepsister video that's a different personality uh whose idea was it to kill dd probably gypsies prosecutors supposedly found social media evidence of gypsy directly asking go to john to kill her mother mother though that evidence was never made public. It would make the most sense to me for her to initiate it. She had the most reason to hate her mother.

Documents from pre-trial discovery showed Godejohn telling a friend about Gypsy's desire to murder her mother as early as May 2014. Mid-June of 2015, the exact day is never relayed in any sources or through any Google searches, these two set their

murder plan into motion once again after gypsy buying him a ticket nicholas travels to missouri checks into a motel awaits a message from gypsy while she and her mom are at a doctor's appointment of course they're at a doctor's appointment for fuck's sake how perfect gypsy messages nick uh saying the bitch the bitch gonna go down tonight, just the gloves and knife? Nick responds, duct tape too, to muffle her. Gypsy writes that she'll pre-cut the tape after the women get home and Dee Dee has fallen asleep. Go to Jean, heads to the Blanchard house.

Dee Dee lets him in, gives him duct tape, gloves, and the knife. She doesn't stab her mom, but, you know, she does make it all happen. Gypsy now would go to Jean's request, go to the bathroom, puts her hands over her ears while Nicholas heads into Dee Dee's bedroom. Nicholas then stabs Dee Dee 17 times in the back while she's asleep, or well, at least asleep for the first step.

Positive she was wide awake for the rest until she died. Even though she said she had her hands over her ears, Gypsy heard her mom scream, call out Gypsy's name, call out for her to help her, and then there was quiet. A detective would later question Nicholas about what he did to Dee Dee's body after he killed her. Did your penis touch

anywhere on Dee Dee's body? Did your mouth touch anywhere on Dee Dee's body? I was going to make up something about McDonald's. He admitted that at one point he had thought about having sex with the corpse, but Gypsy said she didn't want him to. So clearly, there have been some talks about that. Uh, he admitted that at one point he had thought about having sex with the corpse, but gypsy, uh, said she didn't want him to. So clearly there've been some talks about that and said they reached up

some kind of, they reached some kind of fucked up compromise and the two had sex in gypsy's room where she may have pretended to be dead or pretended to be raped to some sort of role play. They were doing their stories have changed a bit from interview to interview of gypsy will say in one interview that go to John did rape her, but her messages before and after that don't seem to match that. Not that it couldn't have happened, but video evidence of the two in bed shortly after the murder, like within hours, showed Gypsy acting positively giddy and

overjoyed at being with Godejohn in bed. And numerous people are going to say that while seemingly a good person in many ways,psy does lie a lot uh she often spins a story to tell you what you know she thinks you want you want to hear or to gain sympathy from you she's accused of being you know pretty manipulative and how could she not be after how she was raised i mean all she had ever known was manipulation uh the two take four thousand dollars in cash aditi had been keeping the house mostly from her ex-husband's child support checks fled to a motel outside springfield where they stayed for a few days while planning their next move. Later, detectives find footage of them

on security cameras at several local stores. During those days, Gypsy and Nicholas celebrate that they've gotten away with it all. They mailed the murder weapon back to Nicholas' home in Wisconsin to avoid being caught with it, just by regular USPS, and then took a bus there. A driver who transported the couple

later told ABC News that she picked up Gypsy wearing an old looking share wig. And then she had a pretty big attitude. The girl looked 12, sounded five and had a 40 year old attitude. The driver said she was not afraid to tell me off. I just knew that there was something wrong. I mean, Gypsy, she just has, she has no idea how to behave in public apart from her mom. No instinct for normal interactions. No concept of normal behavior. I bet she was weird as fuck out in public. A little drunk with freedom.

Several witnesses saw the pair on their way to the Greyhound station. Noted the gypsy wore a blonde wig, walked unassisted. On the afternoon of June 14th, some disturbing Facebook posts now appear on Dee Dee's page. The bitch is dead, read the first message. Leading friends and neighbors to wonder whether the account had been hacked. And the second message made it clear something was very wrong, prompted neighbors to alert

police, said, I fucking slashed that fat pig and raped her sweet, innocent daughter. Her scream was so fucking loud, LOL. Who was behind these posts? Well, Nicholas and Gypsy, of course. It's part of their plan. Gypsy said she urged Nicholas to post these updates in order to, of course. It's part of their plan. Gypsy said she urged Nicholas to post these updates in order to make sure that Dee Dee's body would be found.

Gypsy would later say that she thought it might take months to find her mother's corpse, and she wanted to give her a proper burial. No boy. She has no idea how life works. Dee Dee knew people, had neighbors, had a car parked outside her house, had doctor's appointments on the books. It was not going to take five months to figure out that she was dead. These two were bound to get caught quickly. Neither one of them have any idea of how life works. Gypsy Rose had never had a whiff of independence and had been manipulated by a psychopath her whole life. And Nicholas Godejohn, you know, borderline cognitively impaired,

has the basic understanding of how life works in many ways as a 10-year-old. And, you know, he's the kind of guy who watches full-on porn and jerks off to Mickey D's for longer than a full work shifts. So these two are the opposite of criminal masterminds. Kim Blanchard who lived nearby was among the first to react to the Facebook posts, though Kim had the same last name as the Blanchards, not a relative. She met Dee Dee and Gypsy in 2009 at a science fiction fantasy convention held in the Ozarks. Kim called Dee Dee's number. No answer. Kim's husband, David, suggested they drive on over, just make sure everything's alright. When they get there, a crowd

of worried neighbors has already gathered. While they know that the two women have often left on medical trips unannounced, they saw that Dee Dee's Nissan Cube, which was modified to hold Gypsy's wheelchair, was still in the driveway. So, you know, two probably hadn't left on a trip. They couldn't see inside the house because the windows had protective film on them

and there wasn't any light. Weird that the windows had film. Why was that? I'm guessing it was because, or so no one would see the supposedly paralyzed girl, you know, walking around the house. No one answered the door. So Kim called 911.

Meanwhile, David climbed to the window. Inside, he saw nothing to miss. All the lights had been turned off. The air conditioning was on high. No signs of a robbery or any struggle. All the gypsies' wheelchair is still in the house. When the police arrived, they have to wait for a search warrant to be issued before they can enter.

Before that, so before they arrived, while they wait for a search warrant, police began taking statements. Kim relayed some information back to Facebook. Yes, they'd been to the house. Yes, the police have been called. DeeDee's online friends and acquaintances now began bombarding Kim with questions. Concern keeps spreading to those familiar with DeeDee and Gypsy with their bullshit story of loving mother and genetically cursed daughter.

Here's the thing, guys. I know everyone is very concerned. Kim posts on Facebook. We need to realize that whoever posted this referring to the, you know, bitch is dead and the subsequent post can read all of this. When the warrant gets issued at 1045 that night, then enter the house uh soon find dd's dead body news that she'd been murdered almost immediately makes his way to facebook then to various local news outlets who start covering the story a gofundme account is quickly set up to pay for

funeral expenses uh you know the funeral expenses of dd and possibly gypsies as well everyone who knew or thought they knew the blanchards feared the worst. Even if Gypsy had not been harmed, they believed she would be helpless without her wheelchair, medications, life support equipment like oxygen tanks, feeding tube, etc. They were thinking it was highly unlikely she'd be found alive. Neighbor Aaliyah Woodmansey, Gypsy's friend,

one of the people gathered on the Blanchard's lawn that day as police moved to the house, she wonders if something that Gypsy had told her is related to what has happened. And she tells police to gypsy and, uh, had a relationship with a guy named Nicholas. And then the police are then able to quickly obtain Nicholas's IP address from

Facebook. And they track him and gypsy down to his home in Wisconsin. The next day, June 15th police agencies. And, uh, oh man, I forgot to do,

uh, uh, phonetics guide on this word. It came up a long time ago in Slenderman. Waukesha maybe? Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Raided Nicholas's family's home in Big Bend. After a short standout for the SWAT team, the couple is taken into custody on charges of murder and felony armed criminal

action. They've been hiding out for less than a week. The pair are extradited back to Missouri held on a million dollar bond. The news that Gypsy was safe is greeted with relief back in Springfield. But in announcing the news, Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott warns things are not always what they appear.

The media in Springfield soon report the truth of the Blanchard's lives. The Gypsy had never been sick, was always able to walk, but her mom had made her pretend otherwise and used physical abuse to control her. This shocks everyone. Shocks everyone who'd been buying Didi's for years. I just cried, Aaliyah said, her sheer disbelief about everything that had been happening, overwhelming her. Now, Kim Blanchard cried too, saying at that point, it really became, I don't want to know anything about this person. What have I been believing? How could I have been

so stupid? No one asked for any more documentation. No one raised an eyebrow. Amy Pinegar said to a journalist later, were they behind closed doors laughing at us? She paused for a second and then just said, suckers. Sheriff Arnott urged people not to donate any money to the family until investigators learned the extent of the fraud. Gypsy seemed to think that she could still pretend that she was innocent,

had nothing to do with her mom's murder. In footage from her first police interrogation gypsy feigned shock and despair over her mom's death wait go back no no i i don't know what happened with my mom she told the police officer who didn't seem to be uh buying this act and who said uh why don't you just tell me and then gypsy replies no sir i i didn't do anything i don't know what happened with my mom gypsy then called her father from jail you You know, I love mama. And you know that I would never hurt her. Just know that I'm innocent.

I'm still your little girl. For the next year, Gypsy would be held at the county jail. The first time Rod saw his daughter walk is in a news report on Gypsy's arraignment hearing in Wisconsin. No one had prepared them. Christy was spotted on the video or Christy had spotted the video on Facebook. And Rod was so confused when he saw it that he said his first reaction was, I was really happy that she was walking. You know, Rod also troubled.

He starts to wonder exactly what Dee Dee had told Gypsy about him all those years. He wondered how Dee Dee had managed to be so friendly on the phone all those years if she hated him so much. He asked Gypsy about it. She said, keep your enemies close. Gypsy told him.

So that's what her mom told her about her dad. Keep your enemies close. What a poisonous bitch Dee Dee was. After the disclosure of how Dee Dee had treated Gypsy all him so that's what her mom told her about her dad Keep your enemies close what a poisonous bitch Diddy was After the disclosure of how Diddy had treated Gypsy all those years Sympathy for her as the victim of a violent murder Rapidly shifted to sympathy For her daughter as a long term Victim of child abuse

While the charge of first degree murder Can carry the death penalty under Missouri law Or life in prison without the possibility of parole County prosecutor Dan Patterson soon announced He would not seek... Sorry, I cannot talk. There's been so much piling around here. I've been fighting a crazy amount of allergies.

I can't take any more allergy medicine. Just gotta wait for the fucking plants to calm down. And my sinus is going crazy. But I'll back up. While the charge of first-degree murder can carry the death penalty under Missouri law or life in prison without the possibility of parole, County Prosecutor Dan Patterson soon announces he will not seek either for Gypsy.

Gypsy's attorney, Michael Stanfield, after obtaining her medical records from Louisiana, which were so damning, he secured a plea bargain to second-degree murder for Gypsy. On July 5, 2016, Gypsy pled guilty to murdering Deedee and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for second-degree murder. She'd be eligible for parole in eight and a half. Actually, seven and a half, thanks to time already served. Gypsy was so undernourished from years of abuse that during the first year she was in county jail, she gained 14 pounds.

Most people lose weight in prison. She also had no health problems since being out of her mom's control. A lot of people see their health decline once they've been in prison a little bit. Gypsy got better. That says a lot about what her mom did to her A lot of people see their health decline once they've been in prison a little bit. Gypsy got better. That says a lot about what her mom did to her. She'll also later say that she has experienced much more freedom in prison

and is a lot happier than when she was under Mommy Dearest control. So how fucking sad. May 15th, 2017, the HBO produced documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest premieres. One of the first docs I watched to get my head around this story.

It's well done. As nearly all HBO produced docs are, in my opinion. No footage of anyone jerking off into Mickey D's though. So, you know, it wasn't like amazing. November of 2018, Nicholas Godijan is found guilty of first degree murder after a four day trial during which Gypsy testified

that the plan to kill Dee Dee originated with her. She also spoke about the master and slave role that she and Nicholas assumed within their relationship. On February 22nd, 2019, Nicholas Godejian is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder. Nicholas asked Judge David Jones for leniency on the armed criminal action charge,

which carries a minimum sentence of only three years, saying that he had fallen blindly in love with Gypsy, but received a sentence of 25 years on that charge to run current with his life sentence they throw the book at him unless he wins some sort of appeal he will die in prison i mean should he i mean i do get him serving a longer sentence i mean he never witnessed any of dd's abuse he just took the word of someone he really only knew from online exchanges outside of fucking in a movie theater bathroom one time. What if she had been lying to him? I mean, she wasn't, as it turns out, but what if she had been, you can't just go around stabbing people in bed because their kids say that they're abusive. And I say, this is someone who frankly is glad

that Didi got stabbed to death. Fuck that evil bitch. If hell's real, I hope she burns there. That being said, not a good precedent to take it real easy on him. But life? With no possibility of parole? So many other first-time murderers get so much less, and they haven't killed insanely abusive monsters. I hope he does get an appeal, and I hope he's granted a greatly reduced sentence.

Just a few days before completing this research, August 12th of this year, Nicholas, now 32, asked a Missouri judge, Circuit Court Judge David Jones, same judge who presided over his initial trial, to set aside his conviction and order a new trial on the grounds that he had ineffective counsel. Godejohn's attorney's argument of ineffective assistance of counsel seemed to boil down to three points. that his original lawyers failed to move for a change of venue, even after the case gained significant traction in local and national media, making it harder to, uh, see impartial jury.

I mean, the HBO doc had come out, uh, to go to John's lawyers failed to investigate or present the jury with enough witnesses or evidence that would have bolstered their claim that go to John had diminished capacity due to his autism. And three, his original lawyers failed to investigate or present the jury with

evidence that gypsy Blanchard was the one who planned most of the murder and Godejohn simply acted out on her wishes. Godejohn's lawyers showed multiple videos in court, some of them very damning, clips that were not shown at trial or to the jury, including one sent to Godejohn less than a month before the murder, where Gypsy Blanchard walks into her mom's room. Her mom is sleeping over to her side of the bed, points at her pillow and then makes a stabbing motion. I'm sorry. Her mom wasn't sleeping. It was when her mom was not in the room. Yes.

Just goes to the bed, walks to the side of the, her mom's bed, you know, goes to the pillow, makes a stabbing motion, almost identical to what is believed to have happened on the night. Dee Dee Blanchard was killed. So why the fuck was that video not shown to the jury?

That to me really changes things when you're trying to figure out who was pushing who, who was planning the murder of Dee Dee. Other videos presented aimed to show that near the end of the relationship the dynamic had switched and Godejohn was submissive while Gypsy Blanchard was dominant. Those videos included role-playing videos of Gypsy that were sent to Godejohn, where she

calls Godejohn her slave, says she will take away his time with Gypsy if he disobeys her. Another video shows Gypsy talking about wanting to kill with go to john and how she felt that they were both evil and could be evil together the judge did not make a decision on the motion for post-conviction relief at the hearing both go to john's lawyers and prosecutors now have to submit suggestions as to what the outcome should be and why. Doug Jones will presumably make a decision on this appeal later this fall. March 20th, 2019, the Hulu limited series about Gypsy's life

and the murder of Dee Dee called The Act, starring Patricia Arquette and Joey King, aired his first episode. While she didn't watch the series, Gypsy has heard about it from others. I was going to watch it this week. Logan has watched it, said it was good. I just ran out of time.

And I'm not sure if it has any Mickey D sex solo, you know, solo sex scenes. There we go. In it or not. So we'll see if I watch it. April of 2019, news outlets report some surprising news. Gypsy is engaged. The magazine InTouch initially broke the news of Gypsy's engagement

with family friend Fancy Maselli telling the outlet, she keeps him very private. We're not going to release his name or anything like that, but she does have a fiance. That's something she wouldn't have ever been able to do with her mom. Be engaged. Maselli said Gypsy met her new man through a pen pal program. We started writing her and then she wrote back and then visited her.

That engagement would break off in August of 2019, but then she will get engaged again to a 36 year old man named Ryan Scott Anderson from Lake Charles, Louisiana. And they just got married a few months ago. There's June 27th. Gypsy is currently 31. She will be eligible for parole in December of next year.

Today. Gypsy is still serving her sentence in Missouri's. Oh boy. Didn't do a pronunciation guy for this either. Chili Koth. Chili, Chili Koth correctional center. is still serving her sentence in Missouri's oh boy, didn't do a pronunciation gap for this one either. Chilicothe? Chilicothe? Correctional Center? These fucking words.

She's apparently doing well in prison. The girl whose mom didn't even allow her to get a grade school education, completed her GED, is focusing on her interest in cosmetology. She told BuzzFeed reporter Michelle Dean that she'd been able to research Munchausen syndrome by proxy on prison computers and her mom had every symptom. Dr. Flasterstein, the pediatric neurologist who believed Gypsy was fully capable of walking on her own and wrote in his notes that he suspected Munchausen syndrome by proxy, says it was only the second such possible case that he had ever come across. He learned of Dee Dee's murder at the hands of Gypsy and her boyfriend later in 2015 when a former nurse emailed him the news story.

Poor Gypsy, he said. She suffered all those years and for no reason. While a formal diagnosis of Munchausen sent her by proxy for Didi, as I said earlier, technically impossible since she's dead, Mark Feldman, an international expert on factitious disorders, told the Springfield News leader after

Gypsy's guilty plea that he could confidently say Didi had it, based on what he knew about the case. He said, gypsy was in infantilized infantilized and kept away from her peers. She was little more than a tool for Didi to navigate through the, through the world, the way she wanted to. Her dad,

Rod said, I too was led to believe gypsy was sick her whole life. I always provided financial and moral support to them even after Gypsy turned 18. I continued to pay $1,200 a month in child support payments because I was convinced Gypsy was disabled. And Dee Dee spent all of her time caring for Gypsy. Dee Dee was always coached, filtered, was always coaching, filtering, monitoring Gypsy and I's communications. Rod shared that he and Gypsy Rose now have a pretty good father-daughter relationship. It's 100 times better, honestly, he said. We email each other. She

can call me anytime and she does. I'm keeping tabs on all of her accomplishments in school. It's wonderful. I can't wait for her to get out so we can build on that foundation we started here. He's hoping that when Gypsy gets out, she'll come and stay with him and his wife and, you know, they can help get her on a good path. As for Nicholas, he and Gypsy no longer communicating. While Gypsy doesn't love Nicholas anymore She said, no, I don't, now I don't hate him I feel sorry for him He was very much like my mother in certain ways

Both of them were very controlling And I feel like I was trained my whole life to do as I was told Ah, yes about the mom But I feel terrible For Nicholas I feel terrible for Gypsy But I also feel bad for Nicholas I do think Gypsy did him dirty in the end.

I think she used him to break free of her mom. And now after, you know, helping her an extremely violent in an extremely violent way. I know he's probably never going to get out of prison. Well, she gets to start living her life. Very possibly at the age of 32.

So much of this story is just, uh, so unfair. If your life, uh, you know, is, uh,

not a complete fucking nightmare. You're not spending the rest of your life in prison or being insanely abused and controlled by someone who's supposed to protect you. Maybe you count yourself as, uh, being pretty lucky right now. Let's hop out of this time suck timeline. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. Barely. A fucked up story on so many levels, huh? Under the comments of various YouTube videos about the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard, there's a lot of versions of one comment that pop up over and over.

And that is, murder is never okay. There is that camp with this case, that murder is never okay. And, you know, Gypsy is lucky to be getting out in 10 years do you believe that to be true i i don't murder is never okay what about during war what about the killings committed by soldiers aren't those often considered justified i consider you know uh most of them justified like when you're killing someone else to keep them from harming you killing them to help your side win the war. Now, I do understand how when a soldier, you know, killing an enemy combatant, both have implicitly agreed to risk their lives to kill the other. And I get that that's different than stabbing an unarmed person in their sleep. But why, when war is at its most noble, are lives

being taken to save other lives from being taken or to save other lives from being subjugated? Many times, wars have been fought to keep population from living under a tyrant's thumb. Wasn't Didi a tyrant? Didn't she force her smaller, weaker, manipulated, grown daughter to live under her thumb? Wasn't she like a dictator to a population of one in many ways? I think so. I think she left Gypsy thinking she had no other choice if she wanted to free herself than to kill her.

So should murder be justified in certain cases of freeing oneself from long-term abuse? Like when someone chooses to abuse a child for years, for two decades, and then after all that abuse in order to free themselves, not have to worry about retribution

from their longtime abuser if that person murders in cold blood, if they kill their abuser, is that okay? It is with me. A definite exception to the murder is never okay rule. Should the murderer be punished at all in a situation like this? I don't know. I don't want people feeling comfortable to murder a parent for say, grounding them for longer than they felt

they deserved or for giving them a spanking they felt was too forceful when they were six or something. You know, sometimes abuse can be pretty subjective, but when a parent abused a child, the way Dee Dee Blanchard abused her daughter, Gypsy, should Gypsy be heavily punished for finally having her mother killed? For me, nope. Like maybe nominally punished, you know,

maybe five years of parole or something. Give her some type of deferred criminal charge. Make sure she doesn't just wantonly murder now. Let her know if she kills again. And this next murder is not justified. She's going to be tried for the second murder and the first murder. Something like that. Don't want to send a society a message that murder isn't that big of a deal.

I get that. But also, don't want to send society a message that abusing a child for two fucking decades in such unbelievable ways still leads to you being the victim if they finally rise up and kill you or have you killed. You know, fuck Didi Blanchard. Glad that dirty bitch is dead uh what about nicholas i feel like maybe he should have gotten the tenure sense and the gypsy should have just gotten mandatory counseling for a few years or something perhaps a few years in a psychiatric institution to try and prepare her to be able to live on her own uh this is just such a very rare situation and therefore i think a very rare

type of punishment should be uhled out. In this case, an unusually light kind. Dee Dee, in my opinion, holy shit, was that bitch begging to be killed. When asked if Dee Dee got what she deserved, her own father and stepmother did not hesitate to say yes. Enthusiastically, in her stepmom's case, her nephew, when he or Gypsy killed Dee Dee, not in the least bit surprised, he said, referring to Gypsy, she couldn't take it anymore, so she killed that bitch. That's his quote. And he smiled. Dee Dee's dad, Claude, said that all her brothers and sisters don't care about her no more. And check this out. This speaks to how truly hated Dee Dee was by the people who knew her best. Not sure we've come across a more hated murder victim in any previous episode. When Claude,

you know, his wife, his When Claude, you know, his wife, his kids are asked, you know, what the family should do with Dee Dee's ashes after she's been cremated. Everyone said, I don't want her. Stepmom added, flush them. Her own sister added, flush that in the toilet, referring to her ashes. And then Claude, her dad repeated, flush in the toilet. We ain't paying for that. Her remains. They refused to take her ashes from the state, literally told the authorities, just flush what was left of her fucking evil ass down the toilet. This is her family. I can't find a single person anywhere in any interview or article who, after all the truth came out,

seems to think Dee Dee was anything less than a fucking monster. No one seems to be upset that she was stabbed to death. That knew her. That I've come across. A lot of people seem to have an attitude of like, good for you, Gypsy Rose. She had it coming. Sometimes life throws monsters at you and to keep living your life, you gotta kill

them. I hope Gypsy can make something of her life now, have a real life when she gets out soon. I hope Nicholas gets his appeal, gets another chance at freedom as well. I hope he gets to make something of her life now and have a real life when she gets out soon. I hope Nicholas gets his appeal, gets another chance at freedom as well. I hope he gets to enjoy more trips to McDonald's. Maybe he learns to at least beat off in the stall if you can't help yourself. Scratch those itches in private, buddy.

Let's now recap this story and learn something new with today's Top 5 Takeaways. Time Shock Top 5 Takeaways Number one, Gypsy Rose Blanchard Five takeaways. Time Shock, top five takeaways. Number one, Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Nicholas Godejohn, her internet boyfriend, murdered Gypsy's mom, Dee Dee Blanchard, in mid-June 2015.

Godejohn stabbed Dee Dee 17 times. Then the pair had sex, stole some cash, fled the state, thinking they'd gotten away with everything. Neighbors only realized something was wrong when alarming Facebook statuses began appearing on Dee Dee's page, posted by GoToJohn, apparently Gypsy's idea,

since she wanted to make sure her mom's body was found. Number two, Dee Dee Blanchard almost certainly had a disorder known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy, in which a person makes someone in their care sick, gets them continued medical attention so they can feel special and maybe get people to throw money at them

for being such a wonderful caregiver. In Gypsy's case, this disorder would lead to dozens of unnecessary surgeries and even to her teeth rotting out due to medication and poor nutrition, medication side effects. Friends and neighbors had no idea that the little family that got free flights

and special trips from the Make-A-Wish Foundation was not actually dealing with any sort of real illness. Number three, Nicholas Godejohn apparently masturbated in a McDonald's for a marathon session of nine hours. That's fucked up, but also pretty impressive endurance-wise. I mean, I've never beat off for nine hours straight, not even at home. If he does remain in prison for many, many years, at least he'll have a pleasurable way to pass a lot of that time. If he didn't mind scratching that itch in front of Mickey D's customers,

he probably wouldn't mind doing it in front of a cellmate or the occasional guard. Number four, Dede Blanchard may have killed her own mother, probably poisoned her stepmom, Laura, with Roundup. That adds even more ethical complexity to the story. If Gypsy had somehow ran away without killing her mom and Dede didn't go to prison like she should have for what she did, would Dee Dee have found someone else to abuse? Fostered a kid, taken an elderly person into her care. Was killing her truly the

only way to keep her from ruining the lives of others? Number five, new info. Even pets, sadly, are not safe from being victims of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Munchausen syndrome by proxy expert, Dr. Mark Feldman, who we talked about earlier, has also talked about medical abuse, the medical abuse of pets known as Munchausen by animal proxy. Yep, that is another weird, real thing. That's when a pet parent

intentionally harms the pet in order to get attention for themselves. In one case, he talked about a 45-year-old childless woman referred to as Ms. M obtained a Doberman Pinscher, soon began repeatedly taking her new pet to the veterinarian. She claimed the dog was suffering from a severe stomach disorder. When lab tests came back negative, the veterinarian recommended a series of changes

in the animal's diet and feeding schedule. Then over the next couple of months, dog's health doesn't improve. This dog ended up losing nearly 50% of its body weight. So fucked up. Ms. M dog ended up losing nearly 50% of its body weight. So fucked up. Ms. M calling the veterinarian nearly every day. The real source animals problem came to light when Ms. M goes on a vacation, boards her pet with the dog breeder. In the new digs, the dog immediately begins to eat ravenously. Quickly regains lost weight, shows no signs of any stomach disorders. The breeder realizes something's amok,

refuses to return the dog to Ms. M when she gets back from vacation. Good for that breeder. And informed Ms. M's veterinarian what had happened. When the veterinarian confronted Ms. M, she broke down into tears, begged for forgiveness. What the fuck? Admitted she had purposely starved her dog, made up symptoms in order to solicit the attention and concern of others, including the veterinarian. Then it was discovered that Ms. M previously had two other dogs who died under suspicious circumstances. This fucking evil piece of shit probably starved to death. Two dogs. Fortunately,

things turned out well for the Doverman remained with a breeder. And as Dr. Feldman reported, thrived under the breeder's care. Not sure what became of Ms. M. Maybe she tripped and fell into a meat grinder or a wood chipper. Shortly after that breeder took her dog. One can hope. M. Maybe she tripped and fell into a meat grinder or a wood chipper shortly after that breeder took her dog.

One can hope. Time suck. Top five takeaways. Oh, the strange case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard has been sucked. Thank you to Queen of Bad Magic Lindsay Cummins. She's been a busy bee the week of this recording.

For us, this is the week of the Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp, as I mentioned. Start a busy B the week of this recording, uh, for us, this is the week of the wet, hot, bad magic summer camp. As I mentioned, start prep work on that immediately after this recording, who I gotta, I gotta hustle.

She'd been working hard with event planner, Sarah day. Thanks Logan Keith, uh, for doing a lot for the event as well. He's been doing so much design work, uh, him and our new Mr.

Mystery producer running, running around, doing all kinds of stuff for it along with, uh, Sophie Evans and others. Uh, thanks Logan Keith for directing and producing today and thanks to Biddleixer for upkeep

on the TimeSuck app, the Art Warlock Logan Keith creating the merch at badmagicmerch.com man those tarot cards over released from scared to death, they've been flying off the virtual shelves flying out of the store and helping us run our socials as well, Sophie Evans again with the initial research this week.

Thanks to the All Seen Eyes, moderating the Cult of Curious private Facebook page, the Mod Squad for making sure Discord keeps running smooth, and everyone over on the Time Sucks subreddit and the Bad Magic Productions subreddit as well. Next week, the spaces are chosen topic of the Catholic Church's many sex scandals. What are we going to be talking about? Honestly, I don't know yet. It's a big topic. And as I record this preliminary research still being wrapped up, the plan is to look into the history of allegations. How far back do they go?

How widespread has the abuse been? Uh, what have been some of the biggest claims to come to light in recent years? What has the church done to make things right or to hide the abuse? We'll look into, I'm sure how abusers, uh, you know, have been shuffled around in horrible ways. Also are more priest pedophiles and members of the non-priest population? Are we going to be able to figure that out? Has the church ever considered having deviant sexual impulses, like wanting to fuck kids, be a call to celibacy, and thus a call to the priesthood,

and then placed people like that with kids? We're going to see what we can find. It's going to be a massive suck, darling. It's going to be Peach Melbourne's Sculpluff. It simply must be. Now let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker Updates. Updates? Get your Time Sucker Updates.

Kicking shit off with super sucker Christian Martinez, who writes, Great guy of the suck praiseable jangles and glory be to triple M winged bush cobra wrangler forgot about that long time sucker newly minted spaces are fledgling here just giving some love to you and the whole team

saw you at comedy saw you at comedy works Boston 2017 during my senior year in college oh yeah laugh laugh boss I think it's called now haven't been an avid sucker ever since. Weirdly enough, can't stop buying bananas for those velvety soft rinds. The suck has truly been my escape to normality for me

as I figure out this whole life thing. I battled pretty heavily with depression and anxiety through my life, and as a result, have had addiction thrown on my plate as well. Better nightmares, stronger pills, pop a dependency. Yeah, damn. Without the suck, put in life and struggle

truly into perspective and let me see how everyone is inherently fucked up in one way or another. I truly don't know where I'd be. That's, uh, that's okay.

I'm glad you found this. The good news is that I have had you all and deliciously and delicious chunky peanut butter to get me through the darkest days

and fuck me sideways. They can get dark sometimes. Anyway, you all the time. So truly are part of my family. Hope to see you live as soon as I can. P.S. I'm going to be proposing to my girl from the next month. Would love any ideas. P.P.S. Does the erection, discoloration,

and crazy metal guitar riffs coming from my nether regions ever subside after drinking Whipple? Christian. Well, Christian, good on you for being able to publicly air your struggles. First off, man, it's good, man. The more people do that, it more normalizes it. You know, it's like for me, I love my job, love my wife, love my kids. Still wake up some days feeling like, who gives a shit about anything?

What the fuck is a point of life? Stupid, fuck it all. I wish I didn't have those feelings, but I do and I've always had them. Like you, I think I acknowledge them, I work on them, keep pushing on. Personally, I try to remember that I've had those days my whole life, like when I have them and that I've never stayed in that rut forever, the storm always eventually passes. Uh, and then things would feel good again. So I'm going to, when I'm in the middle of like a little mental storm, I try to remind

myself, I got to wait it out, uh, getting therapy helps sometimes getting good sleep, getting sex, getting the fuck outside helps oftentimes. Uh, and the sun comes up again tomorrow. And I also remember, remind myself, that the sun won't always come back up, no matter how bad I want it to. So work, put in work to enjoy that motherfucker when you have it. When we're still here walking the earth. Excuse me, to answer your questions, no. The erection, discoloration, and crazy metal guitar riffs coming from your nether region, they will never subside.

After drinking Whipple. And for a proposal idea, how about you get down on one knee, right? Get down there, then really throw her for a loop by pulling the ring out of your ass. Where you've hit it, inside a sock. She'll never forget that. And if she says yes

after that shit, well, you've got someone who's never going to leave you. For real, though, go old school. Get down on one knee. Have someone hidden nearby who's going to be taking pics of the whole thing. You're going to love having those pics later. So will she. And propose somewhere that's meaningful.

Propose somewhere that means something to you both. Like where you went out on your first date. Where you first said, I love you to each other. Really try and surprise her. Get sentimental with this shit. Then go to somewhere afterwards. To a dinner. Get some drinks. Celebrate each other. Really try and surprise her. Get sentimental with this shit. Then go to somewhere afterwards to a dinner, get some drinks, celebrate the moment.

It's, it's a big one. Next up level-headed meat sack. Michael Horning, uh, is related to a maniac. This is a doozy of message. Let's hear about it.

He writes dear Dan, you magnificent bastard. My jaw hurts from all the sucking. Uh, I've been doing this summer. My internship this summer has not been the most exciting, but I'm thankful for that because it has allowed me to do so much needed catching up

on the back catalog of time suck. I share your affinity for learning, and I hate to think of the day I can no longer list two or three time sucks a day. Anyway, this email was not inspired by any particular suck, but it was inspired by the fact that you love hearing about weird motherfuckers. And oh boy, do I have one for you, my uncle.

Years and years ago, he moved from East Peoria, Illinois to California, which meant we hardly ever got to see him. But on the rare occasion he'd come around, all he would talk about would be horoscopes and conspiracy theories and shit. Basically, the man believes just about every conspiracy out there. So for your viewing pleasure,

here's a message he sent me and my family on St. Patrick's Day this year. Keep in mind, I haven't spoken to this guy in years at this point. And instead of reaching out to say something normal, like happy St. Patrick's Day, how. Keep in mind, I haven't spoken to this guy in years at this point. And instead of reaching out to say something normal like, happy St. Patrick's Day, how have you been

the past few years? He sends this, quote, Putin is now direct, you know it's good when it starts with Putin. Putin is now directly accusing the US of funding a network

of dozens of biolabs in Ukraine. He hates these labs. They were conducting experiments on lethal pathogens to include coronavirus, anthrax, cholera, African pig plague, others.

Is Putin a conspiracy theorist, QAnon influencer too? Putin then states, Putin, oh yeah, that's Christian. Is Putin a conspiracy theorist, QAnon influencer? Putin then states the U.S. are trying to mop up the evidence of this program, that the U.S. are creating components of biological weapons. Putin and his military view the U.S. Department of Defense

funded biological activity as a direct threat to the safety of Russia. Putin has tried to handle this diplomatically since 2018, bringing these concerns to Ukraine and the U.S., and his concerns were ignored. Russia and China brought their complaints to the U.N. five months ago, and they were ignored. Now every single media outlet is going to scream, this is Russian disinformation.

You're welcome to believe whatever you want, but the fact that Putin is accusing the U.S. of these actions is not disinformation and is not a conspiracy theory. The fact that Russia just conducted a series of airstrikes in Ukraine to neutralize the threat of a U.S.-generated bioweapon is not a conspiracy theory. The fact that the U.S. media refuses to acknowledge this is not a conspiracy theory. The fact that the U.S. media complex attempted to cover up the existence of these labs altogether is not a conspiracy theory. And before anyone says that there is no proof that the U.S. media complex attempted to cover up the existence of these labs altogether is not a conspiracy theory. And before anyone says that there is no proof that the U.S. are creating biological weapons, I'd like to remind you of a thing called COVID-19.

You know, the one with the unnatural furin cleavage site that just so happened to have the Moderna patented gene sequence and admittedly came from a lab. The one where all the top virologists, immunologists, goddammit, immunologists in the world, confirmed the possibility of C-19 occurring nationally were one in, what, like three trillion. The one where Collins and Fauci wittingly described to cover up that

it was man-made to protect the faith in science. Do you see where all this is headed? Russia knows the U.S. created COVID-19, released it intentionally, called them out on it. They have intelligence to suggest that the U.S. created COVID-19, released it intentionally, called them out on it. They have intelligence to suggest that the U.S. and Department of Defense-funded labs in Ukraine were intending on releasing another COVID strain or new virus. Putin didn't take over all of Ukraine like the media said he would. Yeah, because he was getting his fucking ass handed to him. They said he was going to take over all of Eastern Europe.

What actually happened? Russia moved to the locations of the labs, then stopped. They secured and destroyed the locations, neutralized any militaristic capabilities, began peace talks. Doesn't sound very Hitler-like to me. A huge turning point is Putin is openly talking about these biolabs now and no longer calling it a special

military operation. This confirms that the mission is complete, and Putin has what he was after, proof of bioweapon production. He wouldn't talk about the operation until they concluded as not to compromise said military operations. Putin doesn't want Ukraine. He wants to stop the bad globalist actors. Oh, here we go. From releasing another biological weapon, causing another plan Demick and harming his citizens. Is it starting to make sense? Why all the W E F W f w u god w e f slash globalist people are freaking out and all of a sudden care about ukraine after not giving a shit about the war going on there for

eight years biden trudeau uh macron soros schwab clinton obama etc oh why don't these fuckers ever throw trump in there? Why is it always, it's everyone, it's never Trump. Right, right, because he's such a perfect person. It's because Putin just took over the biological black sites and ruined their next biological attack on the world. But not only that, Putin now has the means to prove that these people created and released COVID, implicating them in crimes against humanity.

Folks, this is it. This is the only chance we have at saving humanity, of course, from a group of psychopaths hell-bent on using biological weapons to shape the future the way they want it. This is undoubtedly the greatest crime against humanity in history. They always go big, and it's not close.

This is the final stand. And then Christian writes, phew, man, if you didn't read that whole thing, I don't blame you. He lost me after Putin. This is it, Dan. It's the final stand. Get ready.

Better bring the fucking Whipple. I can totally see my uncle becoming part of a cult or something that you may end up sucking one day. Who knows? Sorry for the fucking novel, but sending you a little blurb of the text didn't seem like it would do it justice. Instead of responding to this message, I simply texted back. Happy St. Patrick's day to you too. I mean, how the fuck do you respond to that after near zero communication for years? Fucking weird.

Hope I didn't put you to sleep, but I didn't think, uh, but I don't think I mentioned this already. You're a beautiful bastard. I love what you and everyone at bad magic have been able to build. It's something so unique and original. No one will be able to build,

uh, come close to replicating it. My girlfriend and I are big fans, both suckers. She's better than me because she's also a space lizard and whatever weird shit you call your scared to death listeners. See you next Monday, Dan. Best of luck. Lots of love.

Michael Horny. P.S. I'm really surprised you don't have a word cap on these things. Wow. Michael, that was a lot to digest. Strong pony boy Putin is such a hero. He's such a strong patriot. Stand up to globalist actors.

I know he's a good guy. He saved the world. Everyone against him, Satan has many puppets. No belief is off limits for some people. And why does it? I will never understand why Trump doesn't get thrown in with all the globalists. I don't understand how conspiracy theorists see him as the savior. It fucking baffles me.

Holy shit. Now, crisis actor Dion Brass pretends to ride in from a fake country. Crikey! You nailed the Irwin sack, you silly little cunt. In fact, I had no idea he did so much for conservation. I honestly thought he was just a twat for, uh, twat,

amplifying his awesomeness for ratings. I appreciate you bringing all just a twat for, uh, twat, amplifying his Aussiness for ratings. I appreciate you bringing all this and his family's hard work, uh, all of his and his family's

hard work to light. Also, if you're going to take the piss out of an entire nation, Australia's your safest bet. We're a continent

of hecklers that adore being heckled. I've re-listened to the Emu Wars, Emu Wars, and Erwin episodes because they make me laugh harder

than a kookaburra. Kookaburra! Three and a half stars wouldn't change a thing except maybe work on your accent. I know. Truly loving the weekly deep dives you give us, Dan and crew. Such a kick ass crew. Please keep taking the piss out of Australia.

If you do read this on air, please give a thank your mother for the rabbits to one of the best mates, Matt Bloody Johnson. To one of my best mates, Matt Bloody Johnson. It'd make him happier than Steve inside a crock. Dion. Well, thanks a crock. Dion. Well, thanks for writing in, Dion. I have some more Irwin information for you. Did you know that Irwin was actually also really good at MMA?

Not even kidding. Had that brought to my attention on the Secret Suck, but one of our wonderful space leaders looked into it. I was like, oh, wow. He had a bodyguard security guy who was good at MMA, wanted to be an MMA fighter and would spar with that guy. And that guy said he was strong as shit and really good. There's pictures of him doing all these head kicks and stuff.

He was into it. And Matt Bloody Johnson, thank you. Thank you, mother, for the rabbits. Thank you, mother, for the rabbits. Matt Johnson. Now, sweet sack, Kyle, French name. Kyle Pouillier shares uh, share some tough news. I know Kyle's a long time, uh, uh, listener, uh, writing dearest suck master on a high.

This is a short and sweet and sad one. I'm sure this will be lost in the ether ether of hundreds, if not thousands of emails. But if you do read it, I would like to shout out my stepdad, Ron. He's going through a particularly rough personal time. And just when it didn't seem like it could get worse, found out, life found its own special ability to kick him in the teeth and his dad, Mike Swampy Brewer, passed due to complications from esophageal cancer.

My mouth doesn't want to work for me today. On August 6th, 2002. If Woody could give them, Ron and Swampy, words of encouragement and praise, that would be amazing. As per standard, three and a half stars. Or three out would be amazing as per standard three and a half stars or three out of five stars that's three and a half was the other one uh don't change a thing

sorry not sorry for the long email space lizard kyle those who suck together stay together well kyle uh sorry for your stepdads tough times and tougher loss and yes uh i know woody hasn't shown up in the show for a while we got to figure that figure that out. But he is here to, you know, follow your wishes. Just tell your stepdad Swamp is doing fine. I have him set up with a real sexy succubus. And tell Ron that I've been spraying some rapier powder on his butt at night to keep a real frisky incubus from possessing his colon. I got them both covered and taken care of.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Charles Gottman stole my fortified wine again and daddy needs to take the edge off. Whee! Rest in peace, Swampy. And thanks for writing in, Kyle. And finally, got a lot of messages about this from a lot of wonderful St. Louis area suckers. Jeff Burton, longtime St. Louis radio personality

on 105.7 The Point, who bravely fought cancer for nearly a year and a half died this past Monday. As I record this, uh, August 15th, you know, he's a member of the Rizzuto show. He was a 55 beloved member. Burton diagnosed with prostate cancer in March of 2021 for seven months in 2021. As Burton lost his hair from the effects of chemotherapy treatment, he wore a hat advertising the St. Louis business. It's kind of duty was that made a donation to kids rock cancer program at

Maryville university that helps children cope with the emotional challenges of being diagnosed with cancer through his man of many hats campaign raised more than $35,000 for that program. Uh, the Rizzuto show are, uh, said that their entire team will be honoring Jeff in the coming months. But for now they ask that you simply keep Jeff's family in your thoughts.

Remember the man who contributed so much to that station and to the St. Louis community. That was an announcement by the station. Let out on Monday, Burton worked in radio since the mid-1980s, in addition to his wife, survived by his two daughters, Abby and Cassie. I only met him a few times. He was a wonderful man each time, as are all the guys on the Rizzuto Show. So rest in peace, Jeff

Burton. Hope Nimrod takes you on the most wonderful adventures. May your soul live on forever and worlds beyond this one. And that is all for today, everybody. Next time, suckers. I needed that. We all did. Another Bad Magic Productions podcast in the vault.

Please don't make someone you're supposed to be taking care of, like your kid or your fur baby, think that they're sick this week when they're not. How about instead you go fuck yourself or maybe throw yourself off a cliff, you fucking psychopath. Or maybe instead of faking, you know, anyone's illness, just keep on sucking. Sucking.

Sucking. Or maybe instead of faking, you know, anyone's illness, just keep on sucking. Add Magic Productions. Nine hours. Nine hours jerking off. Straight in public. I've never jerked off more than a little under three hours straight. And I guess I was kind of in public. I mean, I was sitting here at this desk recording the Ripper Crew episode. Is that wrong?

That's probably a little bit wrong, isn't it? I mean, I had a tough time finishing. So maybe that makes it a little less wrong. Hey, Lucifina