Talk:Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard

Merging Gypsy-Rose Blanchard back into this article

Per the outcome of the AfD, closed as no consensus since it seemed like a merger was preferred (I had nominated it for deletion primarily because there was so little content to merge back into this article that wasn't already here). So I have appropriately tagged both articles. Daniel Case (talk) 23:09, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

• I will Oppose this. Gypsy is notable enough to have a bio-article. BabbaQ (talk) 08:29, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Okay, but what is there to say about her that does not duplicate content from this article? Sure, she's notable, but her notability is entirely overlapping with the event notoriety. There isn't much outside of that, and it isn't long enough to warrant a size/content split. Should not have her own page, IMO PARAKANYAA (talk) 11:42, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  I am not generally opposed to perpetrators of high profile crimes having individual articles, but what aggravates me is that 99% of the time when people do it they basically write it backwards which makes both pages worse: the best way to write these kinds of articles is to get the main page as well-developed and comprehensive as possible (at least GA, IMO, or as close to FA as these kinds of articles can get) and at that stage open a discussion as to whether a split would benefit both articles, rather than creating an article that substantially duplicates an existing one. They want a separate article because they feel like it should, not because it adds anything. Another plus is it's less likely to get dramatically AfD'd. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:02, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  +1 I still do not see why we need a separate Trayvon Martin article even though it has survived two AfDs (in fairness, neither one was a keep). Daniel Case (talk) 02:25, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  At least that one's a size split. The main article is massive. There's not really a similar justification here: this article is only C class, is confusingly written in many places, and has a lot of improvements to be made to it. I will never understand why people want to make separate articles for the perpetrator without first making the main one good. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:40, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  If the main article was massive, that to me suggested that maybe there was too much in it. Daniel Case (talk) 02:45, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  Fair point, but trying to trim an article of a topic as politically contentious as that is often like pulling teeth, I'm afraid. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:46, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

• As a possible compromise: Merge this article into Gypsy-Rose Blanchard. I understand that such a merge might not exactly fit standard practice, but given that that there is a single killing, killer and killed, this might be more likely to gain consensus. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 12:19, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  Usually we don't name an article about a single crime after the perpetrator (when known) ... i.e. Murder of Sherri Rasmussen, not Stephanie Lazarus. I think, in addition to the event being what's notable, it also has to do with not wanting to reward real-life misconduct. Serial killers, and killers already notable for something independent of the crime, are different. Daniel Case (talk) 02:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

  But why? What benefit does that have to the presentation of the information here? PARAKANYAA (talk) 13:30, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I dont know how to do merging or how that works but I also do not see the point in there being 2 pages as it is just duplicate information. Hayleywatson971 (talk) 17:54, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Actually, having read through both articles it is pretty obvious there is a distinction between the two articles. One focusing on Gypsy and the other solely on the crime and more on the mother and her life.BabbaQ (talk) 11:43, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Which part of the Gypsy page is not covered here already? Hayleywatson971 (talk) 12:39, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, of course the content will be arranged differently, but there's nothing that would be undue to say on the crime page. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:25, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:SIZESPLIT. It would better to improve and crossreference the two articles rather than merge these. Abcmaxx (talk) 17:37, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

  Per the article statistics page, it's currently at 6,600 words, just only slightly above the size at which SIZESPLIT says length alone is not a justification for splitting. I don't find the article's size a valid reason to split it up. Daniel Case (talk) 19:36, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, but I'm taking into account that given the person in question is alive and active in the public sphere, it is likely to be expanded, especially given that the depth and quality of the article can be vastly improved as well. Abcmaxx (talk) 10:30, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

  "Likely to be expanded" is another way of saying WP:CRYSTAL. If and when it's expanded, then we can consider that argument more seriously. Right now it doesn't hold water. Daniel Case (talk) 20:10, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

  I would rather the effort be put into expanding and improving articles rather than merging only to unmerge them again. The article is already split, this is a proposed merger rather than proposed split, therefore I see no good reason for an overhaul. And my argument is nothing like WP:CRYSTAL; the person is verifiably alive and active in the public sphere. Abcmaxx (talk) 15:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

  Merges are cheap. It's not like it would impose such a huge burden on us. And this argument doesn't engage the key question: is Gypsy-Rose notable yet for anything outside the context of killing her mother? I notice she's sort of faded from media view over the past couple of months since someone decided they just had to create a separate article. Daniel Case (talk) 17:30, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose, a lot of sources are very focused on Gypsy's experience as a victim of Munchausen by proxy and not just on the murder. She has also become an activist of sorts for the disorder. 2804:D59:878F:900:950A:194A:3E9B:F021 (talk) 22:37, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  what sources and I respectfully disagree with you she has not become and activist of any sort as of yet. Hayleywatson971 (talk) 22:57, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Has become independently notable in the aftermath. DrewieStewie (talk) 19:00, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose - while originally she definitely was only notable for the event of the murder, there is now new content beyond the original event that appears to raise her into some celebrity status, such as the new documentary that just released earlier this year that goes more into depth about her herself or this people magazine article from just today that seem to indicate that the public is going to continue discussing her life in the future, beyond the original event and Lifetime announcing another series that will discuss her continued life beyond the original event just last week. Basically her status is moving from the notability criteria of WP:CRIME into that of WP:ENT as she is starring in the TV shows and would satisfy the entertainer criteria for notability. Raladic (talk) 23:09, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

  Some interesting thing I just found - since the split, the pageviews for Gypsy-Rose Blanchard have been high, whereas the pageviews for this Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard article have gone down and is about 2-3x less of the other. There still seems to be a correlation between the two articles, but relatively speaking it does appear more people read the article about Gypsy rose in isolation and only a portion follow through to the Murder of her mother article. Raladic (talk) 03:53, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

  Probably because the article about Gypsy was created at the time she was released. Nevertheless, we don't make decisions about whether we split or merge articles based on pageviews. Daniel Case (talk) 05:06, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

  Yes that’s probably right. But also my original point I made a month ago appears to stand. Just typing Gypsy Rose Blanchard into search engine right now yields a fair amount of almost daily news stories (a fair amount of which is celebrity gossip magazines) of her now life, so it appears she has risen into notability just on the basis of WP:ENT now. Raladic (talk) 05:19, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Update the lead and help with the trial.

Dee Dee had changed her name after her family, who suspected she had poisoned her stepmother, confronted her about how she treated Gypsy-Rose.

Can that bit be changed, I know her family have accused her of this but we don't know if it is true. We do know that she was committing multiple frauds and it's more likely to do with that and the family stuff if true was just an extra reason to change names.

The trial part

While the charge of first-degree murder can carry the death penalty under Missouri law or life without parole, County Prosecutor Dan Patterson announced he would not seek it for either Gypsy-Rose or Godejohn, calling the case "extraordinary and unusual"

I am not sure about this bit because he did get life without parole.

Hayleywatson971 (talk) 02:10, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

He meant he would not seek the death penalty. Since Godejohn pleaded not guilty to murder one and was convicted, the judge imposed life without parole. Daniel Case (talk) 03:38, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

In February 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison for the murder conviction, the only possible option since prosecutors had declined to seek the death penalty.

Was it just the death penalty that was said to be taken off the table or both options and was that for them both or was that just what was offered to Gypsy.

Im not sure and ive not changed anything because im unsure and have done the talk post to what others think. Hayleywatson971 (talk) 04:19, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

no.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard needs a different image rather than the girl who killed her mom 166.91.253.57 (talk) 20:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

How could she be anything else? Besides, this should be discussed on that article's talk page, for as long as it lasts (And the image has to be a freely licensed one). Daniel Case (talk) 20:50, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Really bad article - any ways of fixing?

I've just come across this article now. For such a high-profile case and for such a long article, this is embarrassingly poor. Is there any way of gathering more people to work on this? I'm shocked that a page for a reasonably well-known murder could be of such low quality. Feels like it's off a WordPress crime blog. Toffeenix (talk) 08:44, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, as the editor who started it and did all the work on it for years, it was in pretty good shape until Gypsy was released a couple of months ago, attracting a whole bunch of newer editors to the article, quite a few of whom were determined that things like the explicit account of what Godejohn and Gypsy did the night of the murder belonged in the article. And I really didn't have the time to clear things up and argue with people here on the talk page anymore than I already have. It's one of those things where you tell yourself that at some point in the future when it's not really a thing anymore you'll clean it up. Daniel Case (talk) 18:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Discuss how to change it

I agree with Daniel Case that this is supposed to be an article about the "Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard", and not about her daughter, whose notoriety was gained, after all, by being convicted of a role in her death, and who is now paroled. At this point, for instance, the Lede has gory details about the murder scene, but hardly covers when and where Godejoy and Gypsy were arrested, whether there was a trial, and what the disposition of their cases were. It was my understanding that in the case of murders, editors are encouraged to focus on the victim not the perpetrator. We should at least establish how the mother and daughter got to Missouri, how long they were there before the murder, and what was going on in relation to that event. I think the background on the pair is too long. Maybe we should deal with what was first known about their circumstances, and later introduce the material about the fabricated childhood.

Given Gypsy's difficult childhood, this is a highly unusual case, and she was also a victim. But that does not mean we have to provide endless details from all the material that has been published; it could be summarized. This is supposed to be encyclopedic and based on fact. I'm still reading the article, but it appears that no medical/psychiatric doctor ever diagnosed Gypsy as having suffered Munchausen by proxy (or its new name). It certainly sounds as if that was what her mother was doing, but editors should be more clear about what was established, versus what has been discussed and speculated.

Maybe another early step is to try to focus on content from Reliable Sources, per Wiki MOS, rather than entertainment and fashion magazines and sites: Bustle.com, Cosmopolitan, Variety, Elle, Marie Claire, E!online, and other sources that especially appear in relation to the many documentaries and TV shows produced are not generally sources for legal and medical information. See <<Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources>> for a thorough listing so that editors can check their sources, and weigh them against the content under question.

Maybe if we sort out the basics about the murder/trial/pleas, some background (limited), and incarceration, we could try to deal with the phenomenon of Gypsy's notorious profile and media frenzy about her since her release. I've started editing the article - may copy it to Sandbox to work on it.

Any thoughts? Parkwells (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Well ... my argument is that Gypsy-Rose doesn't yet deserve a separate article as her crime is the sole source for the time being of her notability. So, some editors have sort of been trying to coatrack everything they think is notable about Gypsy-Rose into this article.

As for those sources you list, Variety is actually green at RS/PS, although you're right, I'd look for sources more known for medical and legal coverage first. But, yes, Bustle and Cosmo are case-by-case, and the other ones we don't have a consensus strong enough to put on that page yet.

You are also correct that Dee Dee was never diagnosed with factitious disorder imposed on another (what we should be calling it, the name you're trying to remember). I believe we even quote Dr. Fliederman saying that such a diagnosis is possible only on a living patient, although Dee Dee certainly showed a lot of the signs of it. Daniel Case (talk) 03:46, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Since she is only known because of the murder, I agree that she doesn't deserve a separate article. I think it is wrong to have even a proposed article about her start like this: "[she is ] is an American author and TV personality, who was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, and sentenced to ten years in prison.[1] Following her mother's death, Blanchard gained international notoriety, and her story was eventually adapted into a Hulu limited series, The Act (2019)." She is a convicted murderer first. Don't some states have laws against convicted criminals being allowed to profit from their crimes? Parkwells (talk) 19:09, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, to be fair, she pled guilty to the crime, rather than being convicted, even if that makes no legal difference (although as a practical matter sparing the state the expense of a trial does pay off with consideration in sentencing, as Gypsy's lawyers doubtless knew).

As for the Son of Sam law you mention, some states have them but not all; you are correct. And in Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Crime Victims Board the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional as then applied (it has been amended so it applies to all economic activity derived from the crimes, not just publishing, but then what other legal activities derived from the crime could there possibly be?) Daniel Case (talk) 22:12, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, in this case there have been at least two TV series, two or more documentary films, the book that Gypsy Blanchard published, interviews and personal appearances she may have been paid for. It would seem she was selling some part of her story.Parkwells (talk) 01:14, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

As she appears to be making money off her crime and story, it would appear that Habitat for Humanity and other charities that assisted her and her mother may have claims to some part of that profit.Parkwells (talk) 01:22, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Intro/Lede

I think this should be written from the point of view of a relatively straight summary of facts, what is known.

So, we could say Dee Dee Blanchard was murdered on June 10, in an event jointly planned by her daughter and her boyfriend, and committed by him. They also took money from her safe. Since they left town, Blanchard was not immediately noticed to be missing, and her body was not found until June 15. Details about what the neighbors noticed or thought (and their contacting police) could be in body of article.

The couple were traced to WI, arraigned and extradited to MO. The investigation and trial revealed the complicated story of the abuse suffered by Gypsy-Rose and her participation in the frauds carried out by her mother. Short overview.

Initial charges were first-degree murder, which had potential for capital sentence. Before trial she pleaded guilty to lesser charges and received a 10-year sentence. Godejohn was convicted and sentenced to LWOP.

Media response to the crime and related story gave Gypsy-Rose notoriety, with documentaries and limited TV series completed while she was still in prison, and high-profile interviews, appearances, etc soon after she was released on parole. Parkwells (talk) 01:41, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

MI is Michigan. Missouri is MO. Daniel Case (talk) 04:32, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Typo, thanks for correction. Parkwells (talk) 20:04, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Very much agree and have said similar many months ago. I'm currently drafting a new lede along the same lines as what you've written. Thanks. BoldGnome (talk) 08:28, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

@Parkwells, I've implemented the new lede as discussed. I'm sure it can be improved, but I hope it's an improvement in itself! I found the Dee Dee/Gypsy-Rose issue to be a bit tricky in drafting the lede, but landed on referring to Gypsy-Rose as "Blanchard" and the one reference to Dee Dee as "Dee Dee", given that the context makes it clear which Blanchard is being referred to after Dee Dee's murder. BoldGnome (talk) 09:07, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I made some amendments to what you wrote:

• I put the date first, both because it was buried too far down otherwise (I mean, I think readers would want to know when this happened first and foremost along with who it happened to and where it happened ... several years working in journalism will teach anyone the importance of answering those five WH-questions in your lede) and because this article is about an event, not a person.
• The name issue is governed by MOS:SAMESURNAME. Two people sharing the same last name discussed at the same point in an article are referred to by their first names always where the possibility of such confusion exists.
• We really needed to make the point before the arrests that everyone in the Springfield area feared for Gypsy at first because they believed she was severely disabled and ill. The discovery that she was perfectly healthy, that Dee Dee had been fooling everyone all those years, actually seems from the media coverage to have come as more of a shock locally than that Dee Dee had been killed. The discovery that Gypsy was the victim of unimaginable abuse by a woman who had gained such widespread public sympathy has a lot to do with Gypsy being America's most sympathetic convicted murderer (or at least seen that way), and the case getting the coverage it did.
• We really needed to link factitious disorder imposed on another from the intro, given how central it is to this event.
• It also needed to be stated clearly that Gypsy pleaded guilty while Godejohn did not, the main reason for the disparity in their sentences.
• Per MOS:PARA's reminder that "[t]he number of single-sentence paragraphs should be minimized", I appended the last sentence to the graf before it. Also, I tightened up the last sentence ... while it stands to reason that the case would be the subject of significant news coverage (we wouldn't have an article on it otherwise), it is noteworthy enough to mention in the intro that the case has been the subject of multiple fictional dramatizations, not all of them in the US either.
• Lastly, I cleaned up some of the awkward and wordier aspects, and some errors that seem to have come from AutoComplete trying to make sense of names typed into it ("Goodjones")

I'm actually happy with how this has turned out. It's the kind of intro that works now, almost a decade after the subject event happened. We just always need to remember when writing intros, though, how much for so many readers it's going to be all they bother to read, whether we like that. Daniel Case (talk) 20:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I have rejected your edit as it re-introduces many of the long-standing problems that have been criticised on this Talk Page since 2019. Please do not edit war and gain consensus for your edits. You are an administrator. BoldGnome (talk) 02:17, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Neither of us has consensus for our edits; most of mine were simply improvements to the prose. Obviously, Cjhard, we shouldn't edit war. Your edits, while certainly well-intended, introduced as I noted above some MOS violations and spelling errors (as well as minor punctuation errors like "June 10 2015").

Usually this kind of edit does not result in a wholesale revert. When editors understand what AGF means, they have the sort of productive back and forth that has occurred on many talk pages, and is a big part of what makes Wikipedia great. Usually in this situation there is no need to talk about consensus; that is behind whether certain facts are in the article or not, whether certain sources are used or not, but not over phrasing differences with no real factual import.

A Wikipedia editor who understood what good faith means would be responding at length, point by point, explaining why they disagreed with my editorial choices. Not reverting and saying I needed consensus. At the very least in your response here you could be going into more specifics.

Two editors in a discussion, both taking different sides, is not and cannot be consensus. Would you like to involve others? We can request a third opinion; we can ask on noticeboards. Whatever you'd like.

(Readers happening across this discussion may be interested in looking at how this discussion between myself and BoldGnome under their previous username ended a few months ago. I am still owed an apology and, I believe, a retraction of that last remark (after which the user skedaddled away from this page, not to return until now). Daniel Case (talk) 02:45, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Please comment on content, not contributors, on article talk pages. BoldGnome (talk) 05:34, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

And your accusation of bad-faith behavior on my part that you didn't bother to stick around and substantiate was somehow a comment on content?

Disingenuously mouthing platitudes is not doing my estimate of your reputation (and ability to assume good faith on your part) any favors. Daniel Case (talk) 06:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

As a reader "happening across this discussion", I would like to add that I don't think it's appropriate or relevant to bring up old arguments that happened months ago, or accusations of "skedaddling", especially just for the admitted purpose of displaying this to bypassers to disparage another editor.

Getting back onto the topic though, if I'm following this correctly I think this edit / revert is the one being discussed (please correct me if I'm wrong). Seeing as it looks like this talk page needs more people to form a consensus I'll weigh in and say I agree that Gnome's revert is warranted, as the proposed change has multiple problems, including a non-encyclopedic tone that feels like its from a children's murder mystery story ("At first investigators and neighbors feared for", "Police soon learned", "it was revealed that", etc). The changes have an emotive inflection and focus on the participants feelings and sounds like it's trying to entertain rather than inform, even though this is an encyclopedia.

For instance a reader wanted to quickly get the gist of the article, if they read only the first paragraph (not the whole lede) of Daniel's proposed version, they would only learn that 1. Dee Dee was murdered and 2. Investigators and neighbours feared for her daughter, because they "knew" she had chronic illnesses. This doesn't inform concisely or accurately enough. It doesn't convey important info quickly, and the choice of word "knew" implies what they "knew" was true - despite the next paragraph dramatically revealing her medical claims were false. Its unnecessary flourish and doesn't fit the expected tone or purpose of the website.

With Gnome's version, after reading the first paragraph, the user would know 1. Dee Dee was murdered and 2. Who the murderers were, and their relation to Dee Dee. This is far more useful to the reader and conveys the gist of the article quickly. The second paragraph then explains the secondary information (fake medical claims) plainly and directly.

With that being said, Gnome I think you could have stated your reasoning for revert a bit more precisely, which would have made this talk page section easier to wade through as Daniel would have been given the chance to discuss any concerns more directly. BugGhost🎤 16:43, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your rationally and civilly stated comments. It's important to convey somehow before we get to the arrests that everyone believed Gypsy was what Dee Dee represented her as being—that shocking reveal spurred a lot of the interest in the case when the story broke. I can see your issues with the tone and when I have time later I will post some proposed changes to that. Daniel Case (talk) 18:29, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

No worries - glad I could help. I would argue however that conveying the public's timeline of knowledge shouldn't be a big priority of the lede, as the topic is the murder itself, rather than public response. How details of the event were revealed to the public is a secondary detail, so shouldn't obscure the articles documentation of the actual murder. BugGhost🎤 18:55, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

OK, here's an attempt at the first graf (or rather, a combination of the first two:

On June 14, 2015, Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard (née Pitre; born May 3, 1967, in Chackbay, Louisiana) was found stabbed to death at her home in Springfield, Missouri, United States. She had been murdered four days earlier by her daughter, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, and her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn. After fleeing to his native Wisconsin, they were arrested and returned to Missouri. Police there disclosed that Gypsy had none of the serious medical conditions Dee Dee had long represented her as having, and was instead a victim of factitious disorder imposed on another. Daniel Case (talk) 02:56, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

This has the same problems described above and is still worse than the current version. In addition, this proposes to introduce 2 factual errors into first paragraph of the lead: First, that Dee Dee was "found stabbed to death" on June 10. She was murdered on June 10. She was found on June 14. Second, that the police disclosed "that Gypsy had none of the serious medical conditions...". This contradicts the article itself which says that the "media in Springfield soon reported the truth of the Blanchards' lives: that she had never been sick and had always been able to walk, but her mother had made her pretend otherwise". BoldGnome (talk) 05:47, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Amended the date information appropriately. But "Gyspy had none of the serious medical conditions" cannot be read as contradicting the quoted passage, that "she had never been sick and always been able to walk". It is an improvement since per summary style, and the exhortation at MOS:LEAD to avoid " overly specific descriptions", (i.e., the reader can and should be persuaded to read the body of the article and find out exactly what those conditions were) and fits Gnome's apparent general preference for as minimal an intro as possible (notwithstanding that, per MOS:LEADLENGTH, there is room for a longer intro, and one of our other pages on writing intros warns against giving information short shrift as much as getting into too much detail).

"The truth of the Blanchards' lives" also sounds rather melodramatic, like something you'd find in the log line for a soap opera, the sort of thing Gnome was complaining about in my text (I think) when they said it sounded like "a murder mystery written for children". Surely we can go with something drier? Daniel Case (talk) 02:24, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Gnome again on this one - not sure if this is an improvement over the existing paragraph. To be honest I don't think the lede as it currently stands has any real issues - it might be better to keep what is in the current article and focus efforts on other areas. BugGhost🎤 07:40, 22 May 2024 (UTC)