Complex Emotions and Tragic Circumstances

Late on the evening of June 14, 2015, deputy sheriffs in Greene County, Missouri, found the body of Dee Dee Blancharde laying facedown in a pool of blood from the stab wounds that had killed her several days earlier.  There was no sign of her teenage daughter, Gypsy Rose, who, according to Blancharde, suffered from leukemia, asthma, muscular dystrophy, and several other chronic conditions, and had the mental capacity of a 7-year-old. In the days and weeks that followed, the police came to understand the crime and the treacherous web of lies, child abuse, mental illness, and forbidden love that set the stage for this horrendous and brutal murder.