But as the entirety of Gypsy’s shocking story came to light, investigators ultimately concluded that Dee Dee had spun a vast web of fraud and that her daughter was a victim of her sickness.
The posthumous expert consensus was that Dee Dee showed classic signs of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, when an attention-seeking or otherwise agenda-driven caregiver intentionally sickens, injures or creates the image of health problems in a dependent, usually their own child.
Acknowledging the abuse she’d suffered, prosecutors offered Gypsy a deal, and in 2016 she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for her role in her mother’s murder. She was sentenced to the minimum possible amount of time, 10 years in prison.
“When you look at this case, it’s a murder—and it’s a first-degree murder,” Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson told the Springfield News-Leader at the time. “But it’s also one of the most extraordinary and unusual cases we have seen.”
The fraud started “when Gypsy Blanchard was probably 4 or so,” he continued, and ended up “a part of her entire life growing up. And I think if you look at her medical records and the way the doctor’s visits were handled, it’s clear that the person who spoke to the medical professionals and others was Clauddine Blanchard.”
Gypsy’s attorney Mike Stanfield told the publication his client was healthier after a year spent in county jail than she’d been in Dee Dee’s care, back when she was taking medication that made her teeth fall out and undergoing unnecessary medical procedures.
“Even after reading through all of the records and going back and compiling them to provide to Mr. Patterson,” the lawyer said, “it was still difficult for me to read some of the things that I was reading.”
Though he believed he could have justified Gypsy’s actions to a jury, Stanfield said, taking the plea was “the right thing to do for everybody.”