It was a string of alarming messages posted on her personal Facebook page that alerted the neighbors of Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard and that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong with her.
What they did not know until later that day, the 14th of June, 2015, was that Dee Dee had been murdered some days before, and the identity of the person who was writing the messages: her supposedly leukemic, paraplegic, epileptic, muscular-dystrophic, hearing, vision and cognitive-impaired daughter.
In a word, she had been murdered by her daughter, who turned out to be a perfectly healthy person.
But further disturbing revelations came to light as the little city of Springfield, Missouri, heard in disbelief that her mother was perfectly aware of her daughter’s state and that she had been the cause behind the false medical problems, as her abuser.
Join us as we review ten striking facts about this convoluted story of lies, abuse, manipulation, and murder.
10 /10 Simple Beginnings
In many ways, the story that ended with Dee Dee’s murder began only as it could: she walked into a Louisiana hospital with her three-month-old daughter, explaining that she suffered from sleep apnea.
Although repeated tests and overnight stays revealed that her baby didn’t suffer from this condition, she remained convinced that Gypsy Rose, her daughter, was affected by various health problems.
She attributed it to a “chromosomal disorder,” bud didn’t say much more. This was the beginning of a long series of imaginary illnesses that Dee Dee would impose on Gypsy to express her mental health problems.
The loving and concerned mother suffered, in fact, from Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP), a syndrome by which a caregiver projects false diseases on a person under his or her care to gain emotional and economic support for himself or herself.
9 /10 Just The Two Of Us
This condition became the single most crucial factor in Gypsy’s life as she grew up and as she became more and more isolated from the world.
Following the classic pattern of abusers, her mother would eventually push away her father, Rod Blanchard (who had divorced Dee Dee but remained in contact with his daughter), and her whole family eventually became the only person that she interacted with daily.
She also took Gypsy out of school and ‘homeschooled’ her; in fact, barely letting her learn how to read on her own by repeatedly practicing with Harry Potter books.
Dee Dee managed to alienate her family by slowly poisoning her stepmother while she lived at her father’s house and by her subtly abusive behavior towards Gypsy.