To think a teenage girl who killed her mum after years of abuse should not have been prosecuted?

[GrifringGrifting]

I saw a documentary the case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard last night and it has fascinated me.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Dee_Dee_Blanchard

She was a healthy neurotypical child who's mother convinced her, her father and friends and family that she was mentally disabled, had muscular dstrophy and leukemia. She kept her locked up in the house, away from school and her mum only took her out to use her to get charity money off the public. She also filled her with medicine and banned her from contact with her father.

As a teenager Gypsy realized she wasn't so ill after all and her mother's control tightened. She eventually met an older boy online behind her mum's back and he was who she confided in.

Eventually the pair murdered her so Gypsy could be free of her. Gypsy went to jail and is still in now.

AIBU to think she should not have been sent to jail? I'm not saying she should have been let off completely, but surely a different setting where she could recieve therapy for her trauma etc would be more appropriate? As for the mother, I have no sympathy.

I was shocked when I heard this story. It seems too extreme to be real, but it is.
I think Gypsy Rose should have been found not guilty by reason of insanity and then slowly rehabilitated back into the world.
The boyfriend deserves a custodial sentence.

CigarsofthePharoahs I agree on all points.

It's probably due to the amount of planning that went into the killing. Don't get me wrong, the mother was a terrible person but did she have to kill her?

I agree with Cigars that GR should have been gradually rehabilitated and taught to live independently if it was possible.

I also think the boyfriend belongs in jail and can't bring myself to feel any sympathy for the woman murdered. I can't think of much in the world more despicable than lying about your own child for personal gain.

Hmmm not sure really. Obviously what the mother did was beyond evil and no one is really going to mourn someone capable of that scale of cruelty. On the other hand, the daughter plotted to murder her - she could have just plotted to run away! Mind you, having suffered such psychological abuse perhaps she was not viewed as really capable of murder per se, hence the second degree bit which I suppose is something akin to what we would call diminished responsibility.

As Masha said, it was probably the degree of planning, forethought and confederacy that was key.

She couldn't successfully claim diminshed responsibility as her whole reason for killing her mother was that she was normal, in mind and body, and didn't deserve the life she had been forced to live.

Fucked up doesn't even begin to cover it!

In answer to your thread title, yes she should have been prosecuted, because an unlawful death occurred and that cannot be just let go.

Whether she should have been jailed, and for how long, is a whole other matter for the judge, the sentencing guidelines and the evidence in the case (which will largely not be publicly known).

I know judges often get a bad rap for not just throwing away the key (or vv), but having a read a lot of their reports, I am frequently surprised at the detail they go into and how much research and very in-depth deliberation they undertake before deciding a sentence. Stuff you or I wouldn't even think of, let alone delve into as relevant and applicable.

Hi, where is that documentary? I've followed that case for a while...

(agree with the majority of PP also)

In regards to - did she have to kill her? No, of course not, but there were a lot of psychological factors at play and I could never judge the amount of trauma that poor girl went through.

The thing was, she could have just left her mother. She was over the age of 21, if she'd run off with the boyfriend, went back to her father, exposed the whole thing, she would have been "free" of her mother. There was nothing stopping her (other than I'm sure the mental control her mother had on her) from going to the police.

But she didn't go to the police, she murdered her mother.

That's what judges & juries have to look at in these cases, was there another way for her to get out.

To be fair. She only got 10 years, and will most likely be eligible for parole in 5. She's also said that she's enjoying prison and really learning who she is as a healthy adult and getting counseling and schooling.

I’m also fascinated by this case.

I think it’s probably reasonable that she’s in prison simply because when you look at how much planning went into the murder, I’m not convinced she had no other options available to her. I feel like she could have left with her boyfriend, sought help from elsewhere or even incapacitated her mother and got away. The fact that they didn’t try any of these and went straight to murder makes me think it was revenge rather than self-defence.

That said, it’s a tragic situation and I feel desperately sorry for how abused she was. I can’t recall if her sentence was reflective of the serious mitigating factors, but I certainly hope it was.

I believe there was also the issue that it was Gypsy's word against her dead mothers. There was enough reasonable doubt that maybe Gypsy wasn't entirely an unwilling participant to make it hard to find her completely innocent.

What’s the documentary called please

@Jasper - its in the link given

The case was the subject of a 2017 HBO documentary, Mommy Dead and Dearest, directed by Erin Lee Carr; Lifetime and Hulu have also produced dramatizations of the case. The case was also the subject of the 2018 documentary Gypsy's Revenge.

I only have to read the first line to know the family wasnt 'normal' - Dee Dees real name was Clauddine, she had siblings called Claude and Claudia .... presumably named after Dad, Claude.

Anyway, ever so slightly premeditatedwasnt it??

The next year Gypsy arranged and paid for Godejohn to meet her mother in Springfield. Her plan was for him to just bump into her while she and Dee Dee were at a movie theater, both of them in costume,[15] and apparently strike up a relationship that way, then for her to introduce him to her mother. As soon as they did meet in person for the first time, Godejohn says, Gypsy led him to the bathroom, where the two had sex.[8] However, she apparently did not find him as desirable in person as he had seemed online; she later said he was "creepy". The two continued their Internet interactions, however, and began developing their plan to kill Dee Dee.[3]

Godejohn returned to Springfield in June 2015, arriving while Gypsy and her mother were away at a doctor's appointment. After they had returned home and Dee Dee had gone to sleep, he went to the Blanchard house. Gypsy allowed him in and allegedly gave him duct tape, gloves and a knife with the understanding that he would use it to murder Dee Dee. Gypsy claimed later that she did not expect him to be able to do it.[15]

Gypsy hid in the bathroom and covered her ears so that she would not have to hear her mother screaming to death. Godejohn then stabbed Dee Dee several times in her back while she was asleep.[8] The two had sex in Gypsy's room,[15] took $4,000 in cash that Dee Dee had been keeping in the house, mostly from her ex-husband's child support checks, and fled to a motel outside Springfield. They may have remained for several days while planning their next move;[16] during that time they were seen on security cameras at several local stores. Gypsy said at that point she believed the two had managed to get away with their crime.[15]

They mailed the murder weapon back to Godejohn's home in Wisconsin to avoid being caught with it,[17] then took a bus there. Several witnesses saw the pair on their way to the Greyhound station and noted that Gypsy wore a blonde wig and walked unassisted.[2]

Wasn't she 24' not a teenager?

TBH, going by the summary on Wiki (which obviously isn't all the into etc) it seems the sentencing was right given the plotting. Obviously it's not possible to judge mental state from third party written words though.

No way should she be in jail but I'm glad she's finding it positive for her own sake.
Her mother stole her childhood and young adult life i hope she suffered in her final miserable moments.

Well it was a planned murder though wasn’t it? It wasn’t an accidental in the moment self defence murder.

Why not plan to run away? Plenty of people disappear every day.

Mum was evil and it’s a Very complex case but yes if you plot to murder then yes you should probably be found guilty of murder.

Everyone saying she pre-meditated it and therefore she deserves her sentence - can you not imagine how AWFUL it must be to be raised believing you're unwell when you're not? To have a mother (the person who's meant to love and care for you the most) who lied to you your entire life - lead you to believe you were mentally and physically disabled and that you had cancer?

She's not a normal 24 year old. She might not be mentally disabled as her mother claimed, but she would be so traumatised after going through that. Her brain won't work in the same way yours or mine will. What her mother put her through would have scarred her for life.

What her mother put her through would have scarred her for life.

You mean like the other severely abused children that go on to become murderers as adults?

Prison is hardly full of people from normal healthy backgrounds.

Prison is hardly full of people from normal healthy backgrounds.

I'm not saying that it is.

I'm saying that people arguing "why didn't she run away" aren't really thinking it through.

I'm saying that people arguing "why didn't she run away" aren't really thinking it through

I think they are. I think the jury did. That's why she got 10 years not life like her boyfriend did.

I would argue that she needs therapy and professional help, not a prison sentence.

SoupDragon Oh, you're right. It seems she thought she was a teenager though.

I would argue that she needs therapy and professional help, not a prison sentence.

She's getting that in prison though. You can't not punish someone for pre-meditated murder, that would set an incredibly bad precedent and the American judicial system is heavily based on precedent.