Hulu’s new true-crime miniseries The Act dramatizes the creepier-than-fiction story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who in 2016 was sentenced to ten years in prison for murdering her mother, Claudine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. Friends and neighbors knew Gypsy as a sickly, wheelchair-bound child, and Dee Dee as her devoted caregiver, but after Dee Dee’s death the truth emerged: Gypsy was perfectly healthy, but had been forced to pretend otherwise by her mother. Over the first twenty years of her life, Gypsy was subjected to a battery of unnecessary medical procedures, forced to use a wheelchair and feeding tube, and denied any semblance of a normal life: She didn’t attend school past second grade, and never left the house without her mother.
In her 2016 BuzzFeed article detailing the extraordinary case, Michelle Dean-who now serves as co-showrunner and executive producer on The Act-noted that Dee Dee’s behavior was indicative of Munchausen by Proxy syndrome (a variation on Munchausen syndrome, whereby a person feigns or induces symptoms of illness in themselves). After two decades of being abused and effectively held prisoner, Gypsy came up with an escape plan, enlisting her boyfriend Nick Godejohn to murder Dee Dee.
If you haven’t already dived into the first four episodes of The Act (which are streaming now on Hulu) then truly, what are you waiting for? If you have, and are curious to know more, here’s a comprehensive timeline of Dee Dee’s murder, Gypsy’s trial, and the disturbing sequence of events that preceded both.
March 2008
Dee Dee and Gypsy move into a house built for them by Habitat for Humanity. The two moved from Slidell, Louisiana to Aurora, Missouri in September 2005, and lived in a rental home before the Habitat for Humanity house was completed. Per BuzzFeed, Dee Dee claimed that their home in Louisiana had been hit by Hurricane Katrina, and their apartment destroyed. She also claimed that Gypsy’s medical records had been destroyed in the flood (this was later found not to be the case; many of her records did, in fact, survive Katrina) and that her daughter suffered from a range of chronic illnesses all stemming from “chromosomal defects," including muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, severe allergies, and asthma. At the time they moved into the house, Gypsy was wheelchair-bound and used a feeding tube and sometimes an oxygen tank.
February 2011
Gypsy made her first, and seemingly only, escape attempt. After meeting a man (his identity was kept anonymous in Dean's Buzzfeed article) at a science fiction convention she attended with Dee Dee, Gypsy began communicating with the man online. She was 19 at the time (though she and her mother claimed she was 15) and the man was 35. He took Gypsy back to his hotel room, but Dee Dee found them and presented paperwork stating that Gypsy was a minor. In the HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest, Gypsy recalls Dee Dee saying, “If you ever try to do that again, I’m going to smash your fingers with a hammer.” During Godejohn’s trial, Gypsy testified that after her escape attempt, Dee Dee smashed her computer and cellphones, and chained her to her bed for two weeks.
2012
During this year, per BuzzFeed, Gypsy continued to use the internet in secret after Dee Dee went to bed. While using a Christian dating site, she eventually met a man named Nicholas Godejohn. He was from Big Bend, Wisconsin and had been diagnosed with autism. In 2013, he had pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct for allegedly viewing p*rnography on his laptop at a McDonald’s and touching himself inappropriately. Gypsy and Godejohn went on to have a secret online relationship for two and a half years.
2014
This was the year Gypsy first confided in her neighbor, Aleah Woodmansee, about her relationship with Godejohn. According to BuzzFeed, Gypsy told Woodmansee that she and Godejohn were planning a future together, had discussed eloping, and had sexual exchanges online that included elements of BDSM. Alarmed-in part because she still believed Gypsy to be a minor-Woodmansee reportedly tried to talk her out of continuing contact with Godejohn, but assumed that the actual plans were just a fantasy.
March 2015
Gypsy and Godejohn came up with a plan to stage a meeting in real life in Dee Dee’s presence, hoping that Dee Dee might allow them to date if she thought they met for the first time in person. Godejohn traveled to Springfield, Missouri to meet Gypsy and Dee Dee at a movie theater, where they were going to see Disney’s Cinderella. The meeting did not go as planned-Dee Dee hated Godejohn-but Gypsy was still able to sneak away and lose her virginity to Godejohn in a bathroom stall, according to her testimony at his trial.
According to ABC News, Dee Dee punished Gypsy after the movie theater incident. “She got jealous, because I was spending a little too much attention on him, and she had ordered me to stay away from him,” Gypsy told 20/20. “And needless to say, that was a very long argument that lasted a couple weeks. Yelling, throwing things, calling me names: bitch, slu*t, whor*.”
It was after this day, according to Gypsy, that she decided Dee Dee had to die. “It was not because I hated her. It was because I wanted to escape her,” she said.
June 2015
On the day of the murder, per ABC News, Godejohn traveled to Missouri, checked into a motel, and awaited a text from Gypsy. When he got confirmation that Dee Dee was asleep, he went to the Blanchards’ house where Gypsy gave him a knife. She then went to hide in the bathroom with her hands over her ears while Godejohn stabbed Dee Dee to death.
“I honestly thought he would end up not doing it,” Gypsy told 20/20. “I heard her scream once, and there was more screaming but not like the kind in a horror film. Just like a startled scream, and she asked, ‘Who was it that was in the bedroom?’ And she called out to my name about three or four times, and at that point, I wanted to go help her so bad, but I was so afraid to get up. It's like my body wouldn't move. Then everything just went quiet.”
Both Gypsy and Godejohn say they had sex in Gypsy's bed in the Blanchard house immediately following the murder, according to ABC News.
June 14, 2015
After the murder, according to People, Gypsy and Godejohn stayed overnight at his motel in Springfield, before catching a bus to his home in Big Bend, Wisconsin on June 14.
That afternoon, a pair of disturbing posts appeared on Dee Dee’s Facebook page. “That Bitch is dead!” was the first message, leading friends and neighbors to wonder whether the account had been hacked. But the second message made it clear something was wrong, and prompted neighbors to alert the police: “I f*cken SLASHED THAT FAT PIG AND RAPED HER SWEET INNOCENT DAUGHTER…HER SCREAM WAS SOOOO f*ckEN LOUD LOL.”
It was later confirmed that Gypsy urged Godejohn to post the updates, to ensure that Dee Dee’s body would be found. “I couldn't stand the thought of her just there because what happens if it would have taken months to find her, so I wanted her found so she could have a proper burial,” Gypsy told 20/20.
After obtaining a warrant, police entered the Blanchards’ house and found Dee Dee’s body. Woodmansee told police about Gypsy and Godejohn’s relationship, and the police were then able to obtain his IP address from Facebook, and track him and Gypsy down at his home in Wisconsin.
June 15, 2015
Police agencies in Waukesha County, Wisconsin raided Godejohn’s family’s home in Big Bend, and took Gypsy and Godejohn into custody on charges of murder and felony armed criminal action. The pair were extradited back to Missouri and held on a $1 million bond. Although friends of the Blanchards were initially relieved to hear that Gypsy had been found alive, the Springfield sheriff warned in a press conference that “things are not always as they appear,” foreshadowing the news that would soon be reported. Soon, it emerged that Gypsy had never been sick, and Dee Dee had engineered the years-long ruse that had fooled their entire community.
July 5, 2016
Gypsy pleaded guilty to murdering Dee Dee, and was sentenced to ten years in prison for second-degree murder. At the sentencing, prosecutor Dan Patterson noted the "extraordinary and unusual" circ*mstances of the case. He told the Springfield News-Leader that while he believed he could have secured a first-degree murder conviction, which can carry the death penalty or life without parole in the state of Missouri, he didn’t believe it would be fair given the abuse Gypsy had suffered.
November 2018
Nicholas Godejohn was 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, and spoke about the “master and slave” role that she and Godejohn assumed within their relationship. She also testified that Godejohn said he wanted to rape Dee Dee on the night of the murder, and that she had offered herself to him in her mother’s place.
February 22, 2019
Nicholas Godejohn was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder, and a concurrent 25-year sentence on the charge of armed criminal action.
('You Might Also Like',)
