Gypsy Rose Blanchard was convicted of second-degree murder in 2016 for her role in her abusive mother’s murder.
In June 2015, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard was found stabbed to death in her bed. Blanchard pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the murder. She served eight years and was released on parole in late December. She has been building her social media profile and making the media rounds ever since.
On Friday’s show, Megyn was joined by Will Witt, author of Do Not Comply, and The Federalist contributor Evita Duffy-Alonso to discuss the fascination with Blanchard and true crime.
The Crime
Experts believe Blanchard’s mother had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, which caused her to project fake illnesses on her daughter and lie about her real age.
After years of torment, Blanchard plotted with Nicholas Godejohn, a boyfriend she met online, to kill Dee Dee. Blanchard allegedly gave Godejohn – who has a history of mental illness and is on the autism spectrum – the knife he used to stab her mother 17 times. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Megyn called the situation “tragic” and said there aren’t “any heroes” despite what the media may have you believe. “They’ve made a bunch of documentaries about it… and the mother was a sick, sick person. You get to the point where you realize… [why Blanchard] felt like there was no way out,” she explained. “I’m not justifying murder, but… the whole thing is so freaking tragic.”
Gypsy Rose Speaks
Since getting paroled, Blanchard has quickly amassed more than 8 million followers on Instagram alone as she promotes her upcoming book and Lifetime special. During an appearance on The View last week, she received a great deal of sympathy from the hosts. “You’re very brave for being here – for telling your story,” Sonny Hostin told her. “I think it will help a lot of people.”
Duffy-Alonso was skeptical of the praise. “It’s been bizarre that she’s now become a celebrity,” she noted. “This is a woman who orchestrated the murder of her mother and now she’s making videos… she has high profile TV appearances, a book deal… I’m not sure how she’s going to help people. I’m not sure how she’s brave. I think she’s tragic.”
Later in the interview, co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin asked Blanchard how she feels about receiving a lesser prison sentence than Godejohn:
“I know that we both probably have a lot of regrets. I know I have regrets. I can’t speak for him, so I really don’t know his side of things. All I know is, you know, I did my time, he’s doing his time. That’s the best that I can do at this point. Like for me, I have to focus on myself right now. I can’t look in the past and worry about him or anything else going on. I have to prioritize myself in this moment.”
– Gypsy Rose Blanchard, January 5, 2024
Megyn noted that she believes Godejohn may have received too harsh a sentence for the crime, and Duffy-Alonso was inclined to agree. “I have a lot of sympathy for Godejohn,” she said. “He has a low IQ… his psychologist said that he has the mind of a child, he was deeply lonely, his parents said that he had no friends so she was really the first person that he ever felt like loved him outside of his own parents.”
In Duffy-Alonso’s view, Blanchard was “the mastermind” of the murder. “She asked him to kill her parents, she bought him the murder weapon, she bought his bus ticket from Wisconsin to her hometown,” she continued. “I think he did something evil, [but] I think she’s doing something evil.”
For those reasons, she found Blanchard’s response to be “selfish” and “gross” because she “doesn’t even care to think about him.”
The True Crime Obsession
Looking beyond this particular case, Witt said the obsession with Blanchard is reflective of a larger obsession with crime. “I don’t see any heroes in it whatsoever… definitely not these people in the media who are parading this poor woman who obviously has mental issues around and pushing her out to make a quick buck and to get headlines,” he said. “This is the real horrible thing of it… [and] part of it comes from the obsession so many people have nowadays with this true crime stuff.”
Megyn admitted to being a true crime fan herself and said she believes the interest comes from the mystery and escapism it provides. “This may sound sick, but I do think it’s a bit of an escape from your own life,” she said. “These stories have you thinking about somebody else’s very, very big problem. So it’s an escape.”
Witt wondered if it has something to do with how uninteresting life has become for people his age. “People around my generation [gen Z] have very boring lives and very meaningless lives in a lot of ways,” he concluded. “So, then these true crime documentaries come on with some excitement about someone who got absolutely brutally murdered and that’s what gives them excitement in their life.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Duffy-Alonso and Witt by tuning in to episode 701 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.