It was the murder case that had the whole world talking: Missouri woman Dee Dee Blanchard was stabbed to death in her own home in June 2015, and her sick, wheelchair-bound daughter was responsible.
The then 24-year-old Gypsy Rose had engaged her partner, a man she had met on a Catholic dating website two years earlier, to kill her mother and free her from her mother’s control.
Watch the trailer for Mommy Dead and Dearest. Post continues after video.
As the investigation into Dee Dee’s death unfolded, the public learned the horrific truth: that Gypsy Rose wasn’t sick and had actually never been ill at all.
For her whole life, the world had been led to believe that Gypsy was confined to a wheelchair due to muscular dystrophy and paraplegia, that she had developmental delays and was even undergoing treatment for leukaemia.
But her illness was an elaborate lie made up by her mother Dee Dee in what is considered one of the most severe cases of Munchhausen by Proxy Syndrome the world has ever known.
Now, as a documentary called Mommy Dead and Dearest about the shocking crime is due to be released, Gypsy's father Rod Blanchard says he "understands" why Gypsy turned to murder in order to escape her mother's sociopathic prison.