The story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the 25-year-old who had her boyfriend murder her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, shocked the world.
Especially after it was revealed that Dee Dee had been faking her daughter’s illnesses for her entire life.
Everyone around her believed Gypsy was confined to a wheelchair due to muscular dystrophy and paraplegia, that she had developmental delays and was undergoing treatment for leukaemia.
However, Gypsy had none of those illnesses – in fact, she could walk perfectly fine on her own.
Dee Dee had forced her daughter to lie all of her life, in the most serious case of Munchhausen by Proxy Syndrome the world has ever heard.
Gypsy’s own father, Rod Blanchard, who separated from her mother before she was born, even believed the lies, saying to the New York Post that Dee Dee rarely let him see his daughter as he “wasn’t equipped” to handle her care.
With a new documentary, called Mommy Dead and Dearest, due to be released about Gypsy’s life and the crime, her father says he “understands” why his daughter did what she did.
“Yeah, it’s wrong, and there were other options that Gypsy had,” he said to PEOPLE.
“[But] she tried some of those avenues and they didn’t work out.
“Bad as it sounds, she [Dee Dee] asked for what she got.”
Gypsy is currently serving 10 years in prison for plotting the crime, with her partner, Nicholas Godejohn, 26, still awaiting trial. If found guilty, he faces life in prison.
Rod says, if she’s released, Gypsy “will always have a home.”
