The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Part 3

Javier: Everyone has a hot take about Gypsy Rose Blanchard. So what's your opinion on Gypsy Rose Blanchard?

Lilly: Um,

Speaker: I

Lilly: think that she was abused when she was younger, and I think she definitely had some mental illnesses that led her to do what she did. But I also think it was unfair of her to get a lesser sentence than Nick. Although Nick was the one that actually did it, I feel like he was very susceptible to what she was saying.

Kale: I don't know. It's a really complicated situation that I've never been in, and I would never pretend to be in. Yeah. And I don't wanna speak on somebody else's pain and trauma because that's I mean, like-

Lilly: Yeah ...

Kale: holy fuck. I mean, it ended up in- Murder ... somebody losing their life. Well, Gypsy lost her life now, right? Like, or the chance at, like, a normal life, and then, I mean, her mother lost her life. Whoever that fucking bum-ass boyfriend was- Nick ... wherever he is. Jail.

Javier: It's just, like, a

Kale: very complicated, horrible situation. It is.

Speaker: Javier (2): Lilly: andrew (2): andrew (2): to come out of jail, and then now be this kind of influencer star, feeling like we're giving her, like, this credit, and she's great, and she's got a show, she's got a puppy, she's got a baby. But it didn't feel good.

Javier: Like I said, everyone has opinions. But what do the facts say? You're listening to the Gypsy Rose Obsession. I'm Javier Leiva and this is PRETEND... Stories about real people pretending to be someone else.

Speaker: intro act one

Javier: Some of her critics don't just say she faked her illnesses. They say Gypsy was the one who posed a real threat. That Dee Dee was the true victim. That behind closed doors, Gypsy was the violent one. And they point to something that actually happened. At some point before the murder, Gypsy shot Dee Dee with a BB gun. That part is true and Gypsy has never denied it.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: So the BB gun incident happened when I attempted to run away for a second time. So my mom had found my bag in the living room. She had came at me, and this is an attempt, a runaway attempt, um, that failed. And so she came at me and I got scared, and there was a BB gun on the table, um, kitchen table, and I grabbed it out of fear and I released the BBs at her. Um, so that- What

Javier: was your intention, though? Like-

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Just to scare her. I, I don't e- I didn't even think that I would pull the trigger until I got scared. I knew that it was not a real gun. I knew that it was a BB gun, so I knew that it was not going to kill her. so I think it was, it was out of fear. I freaked out and I released it.

Javier: Just to scare her. Now the anti-Gypsy community uses this as Exhibit A. Proof that Gypsy was dangerous. That she was capable of violence against her own mother long before June 2015. There's no doubt that the older Gypsy got, the harder she was to control. Some of these stories have become legend in the Gypsyverse. And this one is no exception. All we have is Gypsy's account. She says after her first escape attempt failed, Dee Dee chained her to a bed for two weeks. Smashed her phone and her computer with a hammer. Put bells on every door in the house. Being chained to your bed.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Mm-hmm.

Javier: How often did that happen? And-

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: It was a, it was a one-time thing for about two weeks, and it was after my first runaway attempt. Mm-hmm. And i- it was just kind of like, I had been trying to do these runaway attempts.

Gypsy: Mm-hmm.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Um, and I wasn't good at them.

Gypsy: Yeah.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: I would pack bags, and you know, now in hindsight I'm just kinda like, "Why pack a bag?" Like, just get ... Go. Leave. It's like give away or- Like, you know what I'm saying? Like- Right ... but back then I didn't have the smarts to, to look back on it and think, "Don't do that. just get out."

Javier: You talked about multiple attempts to run away. Mm-hmm. And, and obviously looking back, you could have done it better-

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Yeah ...

Javier: right?

Gypsy: Yeah.

Javier: Um-

Gypsy: Absolutely ...

Javier: but here's the thing that I don't understand, is that when you ultimately came to the conclusion that the only way out was to kill her-

Gypsy: Mm-hmm

Javier: right? Your plan was to run away and, and try to become a missing person.

Gypsy: Mm-hmm.

Javier: That seems even more far-fetched- I know ... than the actual murder. Why not just run away? I mean, I, I ... This is what your critics say. Mm-hmm. But it's, like, a legitimate question- Right ... because you, you really didn't have to murder her- Mm-hmm because she, from what I understand, she wasn't very tech-savvy.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Mm-hmm.

Javier: Right? Like, what were

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: your- She had friends that were, but yeah.

Javier: No, but I'm saying, like, if you ran away to Wisconsin or something like that- Mm-hmm ... um, what were you ... Why was the murder necessary, I guess is my question.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: It wasn't. It wasn't necessary. However, you know, you, you can look on things, I can look on things now, and see all the ways that I could have done things differently. Um, knowing what I know now, it's like, yes, go to the police. Tell a friend. But- The person that I told was Nick.

Javier: Mm-hmm.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: And the same, you know, I'm not trying to deflect or anything, but the same question could be asked for him. Why didn't you tell your mom, tell the police? There was just so much that could have happened differently and it didn't. But we only see that now in hindsight, because before it was like this urgency, this, you know, have to get out of this situation by any means possible.

Speaker: WAS IT LOVE OR MANIPULATION?

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: In hindsight. That's how we talk about this case. But Gypsy reminded me that when she first met Nick Godejohn on a Christian dating app in 2012, she says she wasn't just looking for a way out. She told me she was genuinely looking for love. Nick was what she thought love looked like at the time. Her critics see it differently. Nancy Simpson is a journalist out of Springfield, Missouri who covered this case from the very beginning. She runs a podcast called The Toll. Nancy has a very clear point of view on what Gypsy was really doing when she found Nick online.

Javier: From your point of view, like when, when did this, when did Gypsy take the reins on this fantasy life that they were living?

Speaker: Grooming Nick to Kill

Nancy Simpson: Oh, I think it was the moment she sought out a man to come to Missouri and kill her mom. I feel that she was shopping on those dating sites. I feel that she found a person she thought she could manipulate enough to get here, and then immediately that started in. And then that was that two and a half years of grooming Nick and getting him to to come and planting that seed in his mind over and over and over, "We can only be together if you kill my mom." I truly believe that Nick would not be in prison for murder today had Gypsy not manipulated and worked him for two and a half years. Nancy Simpson landed two exclusive interviews on this case, both for her podcast, The Toll. An interview with Dee Dee and Gypsy's neighbor. And a sit-down with Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott.

Speaker: Sheriff Interview Exclusive

Javier: So let's, let's talk about your interview with the sheriff, because that was a huge exclusive, but that's because you already had a working relationship with him, right?

Nancy Simpson: Sure, sure. Yeah, I worked at the radio station for nearly 30 years, and had known Sheriff Arnott almost the entire time, and so I went over there and met with him, and I sat with him for a couple of hours

Javier: Yeah

Sheriff Arnott: What we really try to do is keep an open mind and not get tunnel vision on, or narrowly focused on something. Authorities didn't even know a crime had taken place until Gypsy posted a Facebook status that alerted her friends. It read: "That bitch is dead." Now whether that post was a cry for help, a moment of relief, or just a colossal mistake, nobody knows. But it worked like a flare gun. Sheriff Arnott's deputies did a welfare check and discovered Dee Dee stabbed to death in her bedroom. Gypsy was nowhere to be found. And when we had what we thought to be an abduction and maybe a possible another murder, um, I was very concerned about that. being a detective most of my career, time is, uh, of the essence,

Javier: But Gypsy and Nick were not criminal masterminds. Police traced the IP address on that Facebook post straight to Godejohn's house in Wisconsin. And the whole thing fell apart fast. Here's Sheriff Arnott at one of his first press conferences.

Sheriff Arnott: And I want to start off with saying Things are not always as they appear the issue is everybody thinks, "Oh my gosh, what happened to Gypsy? She's a victim." And then my thoughts were things are not always as they appear. You may think that this person's a victim when it's just the absolute opposite. This person's a suspect Sheriff Arnott isn't picking a side. He believes Gypsy really was a victim of abuse. But in his eyes, victim doesn't mean innocent. He still believes she could be just as conniving as the mother who spent 23 years controlling her. She has turned into her mom. She is, she is doing the manipulation. She is doing those things. And so how much of that is she responsible for? How much is that, uh, a total influence and manipulation by her mom? You've got to figure that out for yourself, and that's, that's why we have the justice system to make those decisions. And the justice system did make a decision. Prosecutors put a deal on the table. Plead guilty to second degree murder, serve ten years, and walk. Down from a first degree charge that could have meant the rest of her life behind bars. She took it. I understand the prosecutor was doing what's best for the case, uh, and to get a conviction, and, uh, I don't disagree with it. Would I like to have seen Gypsy go away for a lot longer than she did? Because I think she was more culpable than what her plea deal was, of course. Our part is over. You know, she went to prison and did time and go to John is still there. But as you know, the story is so much bigger and it's not always as it appears.

Javier: In your interview with him, he said, "Justice was served,

Pamela: Justice was served

Javier: but not to everyone's satisfaction." Right? And I think that that's the whole crux of this whole thing, is that justice was served, right? But the community's like, "Ugh, Nick got more justice than Gypsy, and that's not fair." And do you believe that that's why we're even having this conversation today?

Nancy Simpson: I do believe. absolutely. If she was doing life, she would not be out here on the internet and social media and making money and all the stuff that goes with that. When we come back. Was Nick tricked into killing Dee Dee? We have the text messages, the prison interviews, and the public records. And they paint a very complicated picture. That's after the break. Here's something I didn't expect when I started reporting this story. Some of the loudest voices in the Gypsyverse have flipped the script entirely. In their telling, Nick, the man who physically carried out the murder, became the victim.

Alma Rose Tiktok: Everybody talks about Gypsy Rose Blanchard, but I don't think enough people talk about, honestly talk about Nicholas Godejohn, and how his disabilities and his legal defense shaped this case. Content creator Alma Rose on TikTok is making that case. I don't think enough people know that Nicholas was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Experts who evaluated him also found out that he has a low IQ, placing him in the borderline intellectual functioning range. At the time of the unaliving, he was receiving state benefits for disability. Because of his mental capacity, he couldn't hold down a job. People with his profile are highly vulnerable to influence, especially in relationships where somebody else appears more confident or dominant. That's the most common characterization of Nick in the Gypsyverse. And it's not just TikTok. Here's content creator Brande from the Dragon's Den on YouTube.

Brande: You had Nick groups and Gypsy groups, and there was no in between, and people were brutal. And I began, in about 2021, seeing Nick a little bit differently. I didn't see him as the big evil monster. Content creator Audacious Audrey agrees.

Audrey: Nicholas and that kid that was manipulated in a way, and I'm not saying that Nick didn't have a dark side to him, but who's to say that dark side would have ever come to light like it did without Gypsy? And here's Amber and Alaura from Into the Weeds.

Speaker: nick sympathy

Javier: it almost seems people are more sympathetic to Nick than they are Gypsy

Alaura Flowers: a lot of people are just blinded by their hatred of Gypsy- Mm-hmm ... that they can't

Amber: of

Alaura Flowers: They just really to her and something to finally be proven. And I, I don't know what they think is actually

Amber: sense if you go and watch any of channel- Mm-hmm ... you will see that Nick was definitely not the mastermind in that it relationship. as a matter of fact- Right most of those videos I can't even get through because it's- It's

Alaura Flowers: hard ...

Amber: so hard to speak.

Nick Godejohn: And I'm telling you right now I would be able to dominate you to probably where I would scare you right now if y- I was to go my most roughest and such and such on you right now to where you would be scared.

Alaura Flowers: And then you actually listen to what he's saying, and I'm like, eh, I'm not even trying to be rude, I just genuinely cannot make out the words that are coming out of his mouth. There's no way that she really thought all of that about the way that he described things

Javier: Yeah

Alaura Flowers: He was no mastermind

Javier: In 2016, a psychologist named Kent Franks met with Nick twice at the Greene County jail. His conclusion was blunt. Nick functions like a 10 or 11 year old. Here's Nick in 2018, talking in a jailhouse interview about his defense.

Nick Godejohn: I was planning on using my mental disability, which is clearly documented, His lawyers argued borderline intellectual functioning. Which is the clinical way of saying he's not legally disabled, but he's not far off. They put that on the stand. They made that argument. Twelve jurors heard it. Didn't matter.

Javier: It's done

Alaura Flowers: Yeah he's in jail for life By October 2025, Nick Godejohn hit a dead end in federal court. A federal judge rejected his petition to overturn his state conviction, dismissing his claim that his constitutional rights were violated during the original trial. Life without parole. That's where it ends. I think that Nick's where he belongs even though I do feel bad for him

Speaker: Alaura Flowers:

Alaura Flowers: I still felt bad for him I still feel bad for him It's just complicated unfortunately

Amber: he's an autistic man who was getting, um a Social Security check you know a disability check from the government, which is actually hard to do.

Alaura Flowers: Especially with autism Yes.

Speaker: Amber:

Alaura Flowers: But they also infantilize him a little bit I think

Amber: Yes they do

Alma Rose Tiktok: Is Nicholas Good at Dawn secretly a good guy? Here's Nick Godejohn talking from the Greene County Jail to the producer of Gypsy's revenge.

Nick Godejohn: The only thing I don't regret is getting her out of that situation. I regret, however, the way that I had to get her out of the situation, but I don't regret getting her out of it. If I would've been able to run away with her, I wouldn't have any regrets at all.

Javier: but surprisingly the video I saw he still stands by her or

Amber: Oh yeah

Alaura Flowers: but I He still does to this day Yeah and he even says- Sure that there's one thing that he'll never tell anybody and he'll take to his grave and who knows what that is

Speaker: Nick Godejohn:

Nick Godejohn: I still love her to this day. Th- that's never gonna change. I will always love her. I, I promised her that that would never change, I'd always unconditionally love her. She apparently says she doesn't love me anymore, which means she was using me. Me, on the other hand, to this day, I still love her. So was Gypsy manipulating Nick to get him to commit the crime? This isn't a hypothetical question. Because of the public records request, the FOIA files, we have minute by minute, hour by hour text messages from Nick and Gypsy leading up to the murder. We also have prison interviews from both defendants recalling what led to it. Listen to this recently released prison call with Gypsy Rose Blanchard and BuzzFeed reporter Michelle Dean.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: This whole thing got started was that he was talking about how he thinks he was this assassin in another life, in like a past life, and he said that he'd do anything to protect me and protect me from anybody. And I said, "Anybody?" And he said, "Yes." And I said, "Even my mom?" And he said, "Yes." And I guess that's how the whole thing got started.

Javier: In order to get the job done, Nick had to activate his dark side. A persona he and Gypsy created together. His Evil Side was a separate entity in his mind. A different person who lived inside him and operated by different rules.

Nick Godejohn: She ended up, uh, telling me basically that, she, didn't believe I was capable of it and, and I was just making it seem, as if I'm just putting up on a show when I was dead serious the entire time, that when I keep my word, I keep my word. She, uh, kept on egging me on there, she ended up throwing an ultimatum out of nowhere. And the thing was, I wanted us to work out, uh, no matter what happened. She said, uh, "You know, this is the only way we can be together because if my mom... As long as my mom's alive, she will not let anyone get between me and her." She made that very clear. These are their actual text messages. Entered into evidence. Available in the public court record. I've read through all of them and I have to tell you, it's a lot more shocking than what we all saw in Mommy, Dead and Dearest. Because it's not just what they're planning. It's what they were saying while they were planning it. Let me read you some of these texts. On the night of June 9th, 2015, Gypsy texts him: "Your evil side, does he require just the gloves and knife?" Nick responds that his evil side also wants duct tape. To muffle her. Gypsy says: "OK baby, we have that. I'll pre-cut it." She is pre-cutting duct tape to silence her mother. And in the next message she's talking about her nail color. What she's going to wear. What they're going to do when it's over. In one message Gypsy types: "I'll hand him the knife and duct tape inside, Darling." Then a few minutes later she tells him: "Darling I'm getting naked in the tub." Each instruction was laced with something sexual. At 8:30 PM she writes: "I left the gloves outside the front door and the screen door is squeaky so try to open it just enough to get in and close it gentle." Then: "Tell him my private parts are shaved." The murder and the longing, completely tangled together. And she keeps calling him back to his dark side. She texts: "For motivation's sake, bring your A game. This is life with me on the line." At around 11 PM she texts him: "I'm just going to be in my nightgown with painted pink nails and lip gloss." Then a few messages later: "I'm shaking. I'm nervous. I guess it's the IF it all goes OK." And I read that line three times trying to figure out what exactly she was nervous about. Just after 1 AM, she asks him one more question. "How long must I hold my ears?" Five minutes at the most, he tells her. Five minutes. She is asking how long she has to cover her ears while her mother is being stabbed in the next room. And he gives her a number. Like a countdown. At 1:41 AM, about 20 minutes before Nick gets in the cab, she sends him this. "I just wanna say this. Thank you. You're my hero. And I will never leave you. I'm staying with you for eternity." The last text is at 2:05 AM. Gypsy tells him: "She's sleeping very light." 2:07. Nick responds: "I'm here."

Javier: Nick entered Dee Dee's bedroom while she was asleep and stabbed her. Fourteen times. And then this. Immediately following the murder, Nick walked into Gypsy's bedroom, the room right next to her mother's body, and they had sex. I have no words.

Speaker: She wanted to have sex with you? Yes. Okay. And so where'd you guys have sex at? In her bedroom. In- Her bed ... her bed. Yes. In, uh, Gypsy's bed? Yes. Okay. Now. The anti-Gypsy community reads these texts, listens to these clips, and sees an architect. A manipulator who weaponized a vulnerable man's alter ego to do her dirty work. I wondered what Gypsy thinks about all of this.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: And then you have someone like Nick, who, yes, it was diagnosed with, being on the spectrum, um, having Asperger's. but his level of functioning, he could function to a d- you know, a degree. He speaks very well. if you read, you know, my critics have read the messages between us. He's not slow. uh, not in a way that would be so obvious to the naked eye. so it's like, did his parents not teach him when something's wrong, go to the police? Uh, all kinda show- You know- ... what ifs. Yeah, In other words, Gypsy was a victim of abuse. But she knew exactly what she was doing. She had other choices. She chose murder. And Nick has autism. But he knows right from wrong. If being a victim of abuse isn't an excuse, Nick having autism shouldn't be either. Andrea Dunlop hosts Nobody Should Believe Me, a podcast about Munchausen by proxy abuse. And she made a point I don't want to gloss over.

Andrea Dunlop: There's no evidence that people who are autistic are more likely to commit violent crimes There's evidence that they're more likely to be victims of crimes but so I think that that line of of uh thinking around Nicholas Godejohn is actually pretty detrimental um and can really perpetuate some very negative stereotypes aaround people who are neurodivergent So I think that might be accomplishing the opposite of of what they're what they're thinking And again I think it's this real like black and white this is not a s this is not a sporting event Andrea says, we don't need to pick teams. was Nicholas Godejohn manipulated by Gypsy Rose Blanchard Was that something she was taught to do for a long time Was that sort of a w a w a weapon of choice Like yeah there's there's probably a a lot of truth to that and she was also a victim at the time she met him and was extremely isolated So the question is... why are we extending sympathy to Nick and not to Gypsy? Is it because he got a longer prison sentence Well okay then your quibble is with the prosecutor not with Gypsy It's just a very like there's a lot that's being collapsed onto her shoulders and I think that's that's really unfair and it really Again this has real implications for other victims and y I think people especially who are saying this publicly on big platforms need to understand that they are creating an environment that makes it much harder for Munchausen by proxy victims to come forward and for all victims of abuse to come forward Amber from Into the Weeds and I have been going back and forth on email about this. And she said something that stuck with me. "One thing I've noticed is that people seem to give Gypsy a pass because of what happened to her. I understand extending grace. I believe in grace. But I don't think grace and accountability are mutually exclusive. To me, it's possible to believe she was victimized and still believe she's responsible for the choices she made as an adult. Those two things can exist at the same time." That's the tension at the center of this whole story. And it's one nobody seems to want to sit with. Because both things are true. Gypsy was a victim. And she made consequential choices. The question is at what point does a victim become responsible for her own choices? Her supporters say you can't hold someone accountable for choices made under years of psychological abuse and coercive control. Her critics say at some point, adulthood is adulthood.

Javier: You know, one thing that you mentioned earlier was- Yeah Nick's autism.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Mm-hmm.

Javier: And the anti-Gypsy community has a lot of sympathy for him.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Yeah.

Javier: Right?

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Yeah.

Javier: But wh- why don't they show you that same grace?

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Um, well, I, I have, you know... They think I'm the, the master puppeteer that didn't love him and only used him to commit the crime. and that's not how it was. Like, I, I really believed that I loved Nick at that time. You know, my, my little understanding of what... I was in love with the idea of being in love, and I felt like I loved him. Um, it, it wasn't until later that I, I realized that, you know, it was a toxic relationship, and maybe there was a level of An unintentional manipulation that was going on on both parts. You know, y- you have Nick, who has this level of, you know, autism, but you also have me that also has been sheltered. So it's kind of like why excuse one without the other?

Javier: Mm-hmm.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Can't you just chalk it up to both are, you know, not very worldly and have b- sympathy for both? You know, hate both or sympathize with both?

Speaker: Javier Leiva (2): Gypsy Rose Blanchard (2): Javier Leiva (2):

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: You can't say, and I get this in my comments all the time, "Free Nick. Free Nick." But Nick is the one that did the physical crime. He is the one that murdered my mother in cold blood.

Javier: what they think is that you got off easy.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: I, I will agree that my 10-year plea deal is not reflective of the severity of the crime, and I can very much say if I was to have spent the rest of my life in prison, that would have been fair, too. Thankfully, in the case of me, the justice system gave me a second chance. I don't apologize for that second chance. All I could do is go on to make my life worth something, to do some good with that second chance. but yeah, I understand that.

Speaker: Javier Leiva (2): Gypsy Rose Blanchard (2): Javier Leiva (2):

Javier: when you look at Nick, especially like when you read his messages, when you look at him in the courtroom, when you watch his interviews- Mm-hmm you don't see a person that's capable of doing that. Mm-hmm. When I talk to you right now, like I, I... the whole time I ha- I just have a hard time, uh, envisioning that the person in front of me was capable of doing something like that. Mm-hmm. And I guess my question to you is- Is it within all of us, like do we all have that ability to, to commit a crime like that, but we just haven't been put in that situation?

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: I mean, that's... I think that that is biology. You know? We are If we are pinned person to person, and it is you, you know, kill or be killed, I think all of us has the need and want and drive and biologically fight to survive. And whether it be physically or by brain, um, mentally, you know, we are always trying to self-preserve our own selves. that's a loaded question. That is a very loaded question. Um, do I

Javier: think- So I got you with a question

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: that always- Y- y- you got me. You got me. That is a loaded one.

Javier: Well, I don't know. I, I wouldn't even know the answer to that. Maybe it's a rhetorical question. I don't, I don't know-

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Yeah, maybe

Javier: because, uh, I've never been put in that position. Right. But I could imagine myself in that position. Mm-hmm. Right? So I could imagine somebody hurting my wife or my kids.

Gypsy: Mm-hmm.

Javier: just the thought of somebody hurting my kids, I could see myself get into that place.

Gypsy: Mm-hmm.

Javier: I don't know.

Speaker: The lies. The inconsistencies. The accusations of manipulation. Gypsy's critics add it all up and say she's not a victim. She's a liar. And that can be debated. But one thing can't be dismissed. Gypsy did not have a normal childhood. Point to one actual piece of evidence of abuse when we know she had a genetic fucking disorder that lines up with every single person that has the same rare neuromuscular disorder as she does, it's like check, check, check, check, Gypsy's private medical records were leaked online. And her critics say they found evidence that Gypsy was really sick. And that Dee Dee did not have Munchausen by proxy at all. That's next time on PRETEND.