Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom

by Gypsy-Rose Blanchard

(Hulu’s The Act, Lifetime’s Love You to Death, HBO’s Mommy Dead and Dearest) and in genre books (the novel Darling Rose Gold).

“The Killer Thorn of Gypsy-Rose.”

And the case has been featured on dozens of other popular podcasts, including Martinis & Murder, My Favorite Murder, Crime Writers On . . . , Seeing Red, Inhuman, and Not Today.

moreover of how your own actions formed the circumstances around mine.

While writing it, I remembered all the people in our lives—my mother’s siblings, our neighbors who loved and cared for us, and Nick. All people who were either by blood or by choice taken in by my mother’s disease and the con act that hurt so many.

On the hammer I have Nick’s name, seeing him as a tool for doing this. Taking accountability, not hiding excuses, this is what I did—why I did it didn’t matter.

Out in the world, Dee Dee, the caretaker, and Gypsy, the special needs child, were public figures. We were a familiar pair in our small southern community of Springfield, Missouri; my mother handled the chair determinedly, with the ease that comes with long practice. Nobody suspected us.

And the thing is I trusted him when I told him how my mom was, and he used that trust to get me to do all those things he made me do and that whole BDSM thing.

When we confessed to the murder, the inevitable finger-pointing began, and Nick and I betrayed one another by deviating from the story and letting the truth out. I felt guilty for him being in prison because if he hadn’t met me, he wouldn’t have done what he did. Responsible. I couldn’t get out of my head that he was looking at going to prison for the rest of his life. I didn’t even realize I was faced with the same possible fate; it didn’t dawn on me that I was as deep in trouble as he was.

My first letter was an apology for him getting into this mess. I was still thinking he loved me enough to save me from what was going on at home, and I wanted him to know that I know what he sacrificed for me.

I went on a search for information about the outside world—what friends did together, what relationships looked like, how to kiss, how teenagers spent their day, what kids in classrooms did, and how teenagers spoke.

The conversations don’t last very long, but they always end with, “You know, you could’ve told us, instead of reaching out to men on Facebook, and you didn’t.”

Every time an interview request comes in or someone asks me for my autograph, I say to myself, You’re a murderer. No high horse here. That stays at the forefront of my mind.

All of my life I have had to conform to fit what others wanted me to be. My mother wanted an eternal child. Nick wanted a love slave to control and conquer. And Ken wanted me to be his Barbie. Well, I’m not a child, I’ll never be a slave, and I am no blonde Barbie Girl.