Gypsy Rose Medicine Cabinet: Invented Illnesses and Needless Surgeries

The medicine cabinet and medical equipment inside Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s Springfield, Missouri home told the story of a gravely ill young woman who did not exist. Prescription bottles for leukemia, epilepsy, and muscular dystrophy sat alongside a wheelchair, a surgically placed feeding tube, a breathing machine, and an oxygen tank. None of it was medically necessary. For most of Gypsy’s life, her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, fabricated serious illnesses for her daughter, subjected her to needless surgeries and medications, and used the charade to collect charity and public sympathy.¹²

What Was Inside the Home

When Greene County sheriff’s deputies searched the Blanchard residence after Dee Dee’s murder in June 2015, they recovered Gypsy’s wheelchair, medication belonging to Gypsy, numerous wigs, and several medical books, among other items.³ The unsealed search warrants listed the medications generically rather than by name, but the broader medical record documents the scope of the pharmaceutical abuse: Gypsy had been prescribed a significant volume of drugs for conditions she did not have, including medications for leukemia, epilepsy, and muscular dystrophy.²

The equipment around the house was consistent with the pharmacy. Gypsy was forced to use a wheelchair despite being able to walk, to sleep with a breathing machine, and to rely on an oxygen tank she did not need.⁴ Dee Dee also shaved Gypsy’s head to simulate the effects of chemotherapy, and kept wigs on hand to complete the picture of a cancer patient.¹

The Illnesses That Were Invented

Dee Dee began manufacturing health problems for Gypsy in infancy, initially claiming the baby suffered from sleep apnea. By the time Gypsy was eight, the list had grown to include leukemia, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, severe asthma, hearing and visual impairments, and a chromosomal disorder. Dee Dee also claimed Gypsy was paralyzed from the waist down and had the cognitive development of a young child.¹

None of these diagnoses were real. Medical tests frequently returned results that were “negative and clear” or “inconclusive or contradictory.”⁵⁶⁷ That real diagnosis bore no resemblance to the catastrophic illnesses Dee Dee invented and did not justify any of the treatments she imposed.

Surgeries and Procedures Gypsy Did Not Need

The unnecessary procedures went further than the pills. Dee Dee had a feeding tube surgically inserted into Gypsy’s abdomen when she was around eight years old; it required re-insertion every six months.⁵

Gypsy later described the removal of two salivary glands from behind her neck as the most painful procedure she endured. Dee Dee had induced the supposed need for surgery by rubbing the topical anesthetic Orajel on Gypsy’s gums before doctor’s appointments, causing excessive drooling that she presented as a medical complaint. The surgery left Gypsy with permanent side effects, including chronically thick saliva and the need to constantly clear her throat.⁸ Gypsy’s teeth eventually rotted, likely a consequence of missing salivary glands, the medications she was forced to take, or outright dental neglect, and were pulled out.¹ She underwent additional surgeries on her eyes and what she described in her 2024 memoir, My Time to Stand, as “countless” other procedures that left her with scars on her throat and neck.⁹

In the memoir, Gypsy wrote that a proposed exploratory surgery on her larynx was the final straw before the murder plot took shape. An ear, nose, and throat specialist had referred her to a pulmonologist at Dee Dee’s urging, because Dee Dee complained that Gypsy’s voice was too “squeaky.” Gypsy viewed the proposed procedure as her mother’s attempt to silence her and feared she might die on the operating table.⁹

How Dee Dee Kept the Deception Going

Dee Dee had worked as a nurse’s aide, which gave her fluency in medical terminology and the ability to describe symptoms convincingly to physicians.¹⁰ She sometimes administered medication to Gypsy before appointments to mimic symptoms of conditions the girl did not have. She forbade Gypsy from speaking during medical visits, ensuring that only her version of the medical history reached doctors.¹

Outside the exam room, Dee Dee kept Gypsy almost entirely isolated, allowing her little schooling and almost no contact with anyone outside the household. She lied about Gypsy’s age on legal documents to make her appear younger; at the time of Dee Dee’s death, Gypsy was actually 23, though records listed conflicting ages.¹¹ When Gypsy tried to assert independence, Dee Dee destroyed the family computer, physically chained her to her bed, and placed bells on the doors to prevent escape.¹²

The fabricated illnesses also brought in money and gifts. The Blanchards received charitable donations, trips to Disney World from organizations like the Make-A-Wish Foundation, free medical transport, and other benefits. In 2008, Habitat for Humanity built the family a wheelchair-accessible pink house in Springfield.⁴ Dee Dee also received roughly $1,200 per month in child support from Gypsy’s father, Rod Blanchard, whom she had cut out of Gypsy’s life by falsely telling her he was a drug addict who had abandoned them.¹⁰ After the murder, Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott described the family’s history as a “long financial fraud scheme.”¹³

Why No One Stopped It

Many doctors and institutions interacted with Gypsy over the years without intervening. Dee Dee’s primary strategy was doctor shopping: whenever a physician expressed doubt, she stopped bringing Gypsy to that provider and found a new one. She frequently cited Hurricane Katrina as the reason medical records were missing, preventing new doctors from verifying anything she claimed.¹¹

At least one doctor saw through the deception. In 2007, pediatric neurologist Dr. Bernardo Flasterstein noted in Gypsy’s medical file that there was a “strong possibility of Munchausen by proxy” and that Dee Dee was “not a good historian.” Dee Dee responded by pulling Gypsy from his care.⁵ When Gypsy was 14, another Missouri neurologist independently concluded she was a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy but did not report the case to authorities, later saying there was “not enough evidence to act.”¹

An anonymous report filed in 2009 asserted that Dee Dee’s accounts of Gypsy’s medical conditions had no basis. Two caseworkers from child protective services visited the home but left after Dee Dee persuaded them nothing was wrong. No further action was taken.¹ Experts who have studied the case point to a fundamental “blind spot” in the medical profession: providers generally do not expect a seemingly devoted, overprotective parent to be the source of a child’s suffering, which makes factitious disorder imposed on another (the current clinical term for Munchausen syndrome by proxy) exceptionally difficult to detect and even harder to prove.¹⁴

How the Abuse Ended

By 2015, Gypsy had been secretly communicating online with Nicholas Godejohn, a man from Wisconsin she met on a Christian dating site. On June 10, 2015, Godejohn traveled to the Blanchard home in Springfield and stabbed Dee Dee multiple times while she slept. Gypsy hid in the bathroom during the killing. Afterward, the two took several thousand dollars from a safe in the house and fled to Wisconsin by Greyhound bus.¹⁵¹⁶

Dee Dee’s body was discovered on June 14, 2015. Both Gypsy and Godejohn were initially charged with first-degree murder. In 2016, Gypsy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to ten years in prison, a term the court acknowledged reflected the “extraordinary and unusual” abuse she had endured. Her attorney, Michael Stanfield, later said that when he first met her she was malnourished and physically frail, and appeared “exceedingly better” after years in prison.¹⁵¹¹ Gypsy served eight years and was released from the Chillicothe Correctional Center on December 28, 2023.¹⁷ Godejohn went to trial in November 2018, was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action, and was sentenced by Judge David Jones to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus a concurrent 25 years for the armed criminal action charge.¹⁸

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Biography. Gypsy Rose Blanchard and the Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard
2
Oxygen. What Diseases Did Gypsy Rose Blanchard Fake
3
Springfield News-Leader. Authorities Seize Blancharde Home
4
NBC Miami. Gypsy Rose Blanchard and FDIA
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Entertainment Weekly. The Act True Story: Gypsy Rose Blanchard
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People. Gypsy Rose Blanchard Reveals Daughter Doesn’t Have Her Genetic Condition
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MedlinePlus. 1q21.1 Microdeletion
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People. Gypsy Rose Details Most Painful Unnecessary Procedure
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Newsweek. Shocking Stories From Gypsy Rose Blanchard Memoir
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BuzzFeed News. Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter to Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom Dead
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NPR. Gypsy Rose Blanchard Released From Prison
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USA Today. Daughter in Murder Case Can Walk; Fraud Also Alleged
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A&E. Nicholas Godejohn: Gypsy Rose Blanchard Accomplice
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Springfield News-Leader. Daughter, Boyfriend Charged in Murder of Dee Dee Blancharde
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Yahoo Entertainment. Gypsy Rose Blanchard Celebrates Freedom
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Springfield News-Leader. Nicholas Godejohn Sentenced to Life in Prison