Full Transcript for Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy?

00:00:05 Speaker 1: Appoja production. 00:00:10 Speaker 2: This is episode four of poison the podcast that delves into the allegations that a social media influencer in Australia drugged a child to illstit social media followers and cash. This matter is currently before the court and we're limited in what we can say about the specific case, but it's brought up some issues that we're exploring. Generally, the discussion that follows is not related to that case. The accused mother in the matter is entitled to a fair trial and we want to make sure. 00:00:38 Speaker 1: That's allowed to occur. 00:00:44 Speaker 2: Each episode, I'm joined by Micky Fisher, who's a content creator, a Reykid practitioner and a mum. If you have information you want to share with us, you can email us anonymously at podcast Poisoned at gmail dot com. Before we speak to an expert in criminal psychology, we wanted to cover some of the huge profile cases where the defense of Munchausen's by proxy have been used. 00:01:06 Speaker 3: Well, the first time I ever heard about it, I think, was to do with the gypsy Rose Blanchard case, and that was the first time I'd sort of been aware that such a thing really existed, and all I know about more chausends making up like a medical disorder and then by proxy it's to do it to somebody else. 00:01:25 Speaker 2: We're talking about Gypsy Rose is probably one of the more high profile cases. And she was American, right. 00:01:30 Speaker 3: Yes, I followed it quite deeply, like like when I first told Yeah, when I first heard about the story, I was so interested and intrigued and shocked to shit about like how such a thing could happen and occur and how people could get away with something like that for such a long time. Re researching it recently, given you know this type of case that we're investigating, it is fascinating. 00:01:57 Speaker 2: So maybe for those people that don't know the story of Gypsy Rose and her mum, d D. Blanchard, do you want to just give us an view of what happened? 00:02:06 Speaker 1: Okay? So the general story is that DEDE. 00:02:08 Speaker 3: Blanchard was found stabbed to death in her Missouri home on the fourteenth of June twenty fifteen, after friends and family alerted authorities after seeing a Facebook post that was posted by Gypsy on her and a mum's shared ACCOUMP that said that. 00:02:23 Speaker 1: Bitch is dead. 00:02:25 Speaker 2: Oh wow. 00:02:25 Speaker 3: Obviously red flags started to go off. DEDI had been stabbed to death by Nicholas, who was Gypsy's. 00:02:34 Speaker 1: Boyfriend at the time. 00:02:35 Speaker 3: So he's currently still in prison serving his time for first degree murder. But let's backtrack to the mum and sort of what led to the stabbing and kind of like how this all occurred and the why and everything. That's what's so interesting because it ended up being a murder and the woman who had the more chosen by proxy and was essentially abusing her daughter ended up becoming a victim of murder. 00:03:03 Speaker 1: And then so that's where it sort of back and forth. 00:03:05 Speaker 3: But according to Rod Blanchard, who is Gypsy's father, when Gypsy was three months old did he had become convinced that Gypsy had sleep apnea and had begun taking her to the hospital. It was found that she had no sign of the condition, but it just continued. Diddy was just like convinced that Gypsy had like a range of health issues, which she attributed to an unspecified chromosomal disorder, and she even claimed that Gypsy had muscular dystrophy and made her use a walker. Her parents would like take her to the special Olympics events, and Dede would tell people that Gypsy was younger than she was, like an accept sage. She was ten years old, but she'd be telling people, oh no, she's only eight, and generally claimed that Gypsy was disab well, that was the whole thing. Gypsy's you know, she's got this, that and the other thing, the medical disorders, like just sort of went on and on and on, and then eventually ended up in a wheelchair. In two thousand and five, they moved because of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, and that's where they were living at the time, and so Dedi claimed that because of the hurricane, all of Gypsy's medical records were flooded, they were lost, and so they moved to Missouri. By this stage, she was claiming that Gypsy had been diagnosed with multiple conditions, including leukemia and again the muscular dystrophee and in two thousand and eight, a couple of years later, they were gifted a pink house that was built by an organization called Habitat for Humanity. The house included accessibility features like the wheelchair ramp, the oxygen tank, and feeding tube. But Gypsy and DD received a lot of support again from the community organizations like Make a Wish, celebrities, They were donating massive amounts of money, they were going on charity chip trips like Disney World and all of. 00:05:03 Speaker 2: These things, because like they are amazing organizations that help people that actually need really and they are going, well, Gypsy Rose is really ill, san let's. 00:05:15 Speaker 3: Help, and the normal person is never going, what if they're making it up? You're seeing sick kids every day, you're involved in it, or like you know, you're just a general person and you're hearing this horrible, awful story and you just want to be able to do anything to help these people and help this child. But between two thousand and seven and two thousand and nine is when some red flags started to sort of appear, so doctor started having doubts. Gypsy's former neurologists reportedly found no evidence of her conditions, and that was in two thousand and seven. 00:05:50 Speaker 1: He even wrote a letter to Gypsy's. 00:05:52 Speaker 3: Primary doctor stating that he believed that the mother suffers from more Chausen's by proxy. 00:05:58 Speaker 1: So that was in two thousand and seven that he mentioned that. 00:06:01 Speaker 3: Two years