Updated 12/15/17
Gypsy and DeeDee Blanchard
Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight were held captive in Cleveland by Ariel Castro, who chained them and bea, and raped them regularly. Elizabeth Smart was held captive and raped by Brian David Mitchell.
Had any such victims been able to get free only by killing their captors, would they have been considered justified – or imprisoned? Does anyone doubt that in either of these cases, or similar ones, if any of the victims had the opportunity and means to kill their captors, they would be found not guilty? Why is it different if the abuser and/or captor is a domestic partner, or worse – a parent?
Gypsy Rose Blanchard was victimized by a mother who is thought to have had Munchhausen Syndrome by Proxy. Gypsy’s mother, Claudine "Dee Dee" Blanchard, 48, divorced, moved multiple times and went from doctor to doctor claiming that Gypsy had leukemia, muscular dystrophy, and other ailments. Gypsy was kept wheelchair-bound, and if she got out of the wheelchair to walk – as she was totally capable of doing – she was threatened with physical violence or chained to her bed.
Gypsy Rose was kept wheelchir bound for years despite being able to walk
Dee Dee convinced doctors to perform multiple unnecessary surgeries on Gypsy’s eyes and her legs – removing muscle – and poisoned her with unnecessary medications that caused the loss of Gypsy’s teeth and other serious side effects. Dee Dee shaved Gypsy’s hair to make her appear to be getting chemotherapy, claiming that Gypsy was terminally ill.
Dee Dee had Gypsy declared mentally incompetent, claimed that she had the mind of a seven-year-old, and kept her confined and unschooled beyond second grade. She was kept totally isolated, not allowed any friends, and told that her father wanted nothing to do with her.
Gypsy was medically abused by Dee Dee for the attention garnered by having such a seriously ill daughter and also for financial gain, having a home built for them by Habitat for Humanity and benefiting from other charity events held for them. The exploitation of Gypsy was in fact what they survived on.
Gypsy, whose story is the subject of an HBO documentary, Mommy Dead and Dearest, eventually met a Nicholas Godejoh online when she was 18. Over the course of two or three years, Gypsy believed that she loved Nick, who allegedly claimed to have multiple personalities and continued to exploit her naiveté. Together they hatched and carried out a plot in which Nick stabbed Dee Dee to death.
Nick is awaiting trial. Gypsy took a plea deal.
Gypsy when interviewed by Dr. Phil.
Dr. Phil recently interviewed Gypsy, who spoke to him from jail, and unequivocally condemned her for her involvement in the murder of her mother. Would he have done so if these atrocities had been committed by a stranger who held her captive and had her cut open and poisoned?
Parenticide and Battered Person Defense
Both Gypsy Blanchard’s and the Menendez brothers’ cases were recently televised. Both involve young adults killing a parent or parents after years of alleged abuse – both physical and emotional – committed by a loved parent or parents. According to Barbara Walters’ report, Could the menendez Brothers get a Retrial?, in the second trial:
“ . . . the brothers were not allowed to use a “battered women’s syndrome” defense in their second trial because they’re men.”
Gypsy, though female, did not use the battered person defense, a defense designed for people accused of an assault or murder who may have been suffering from battered person syndrome, often called battered wife syndrome, caused by domestic violence or abuse.
To understand both cases, we need to look at the broader category of domestic violence and the paralyzing fear that victims experience. According to Wikipedia:
Usually the victim's fears are based in reality, as she may lack the social support, financial means, or may be too [severely] physically or emotionally disabled to survive on her own. Victims may have low self-esteem, suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, and are often led to believe that the abuse is their fault, that they deserved it, and, due to misplaced feelings of loyalty, or fear of retaliation from their abuser, may be unwilling to press charges against their abuser.
The 1977 murder committed by Francine Hughes of Lansing, Michigan, inspired the book and movie “The Burning Bed,” describing how Hughes:
…killed her sleeping husband by igniting gasoline that she had poured around his bed. The introduction of evidence demonstrating years of repeated physical abuse led the jury to acquit her on a finding of temporary insanity.
Thomas G. Kieviet, in “Battered Wife Syndrome: A Potential Defense to a Homicide Charge,” shares two additional cases of domestic abuse that led to murder, in which the circumstances held sway in the convictions:
In Orange County, California, Evelyn Ware entered a plea of self-defense after shooting her abusive husband five times. The jury absolved her of guilt after considering evidence of habitual beatings and disregarded a judicial instruction on manslaughter.
In Shasta County, California, the judge in a non-jury trial ruled that Wanda Carr was innocent of the murder of her husband after she testified that he repeatedly attacked her over an extended period of time and that she shot her husband when she ‘felt’ that he was about to attack her again.
Battered spouse/person syndrome, aka domestic violence, as a defense has been met with mixed success, but in some cases an established record of abuse has proven to be a major factor in an acquittal in the killing of an abuser.
Lyle and Eric Menendez alleged a lifetime of sexual abuse, which was confirmed by family members and illicit photos of them as children. Their defense, however, was imperfect self-defense, an argument that – in some jurisdictions – allows the defendant to mitigate punishment or sentencing for a crime involving the use of deadly force by claiming “the honest but unreasonable belief” that the actions were necessary to counter an attack.
According to the laws in California, where the Menendez case took place, juries can be instructed that a “not guilty” ruling is allowed in cases where the person who committed the murder was in imminent danger of being the victim of a forcible and atrocious crime. The defendant must also believe that the imminent use of deadly force was necessary to defend against that danger.
Their first trial ended in a hung jury; The judge refused to allow the imperfect self-defense argument in their second trial, and the brothers were found guilty.
Why Not Leave?
In cases of ongoing abuse, the question of why victims stayed or returned is often asked, and the answer is always the same: fear. According to BreaktheSilence.org:
On average, a woman will leave an abusive relationship seven times before she leaves for good, according to The National Domestic Violence Hotline. And although society might question this statistic, and how it is possible for survivors to return to their abusers, there are many factors that play into leaving an abusive relationship permanently.
As defined by Dr. Lenore E. Walker, there are four specific stages to domestic violence that include:
- The victim believes that the violence was/is their fault.
- The victim is unable to assert the responsibility of the violence anywhere else.
- The victim fears for their safety and the safety of others in their family.
- The victim believes that the antagonist (abuser) is omnipresent.
The fear of leaving an abuser is real. One in three women who are victims of homicide were murdered by an abusive partner. These statistics are reflected in findings published by Prevention Magazine in 2001 that only 4% of abused victims had used a domestic violence hotline or shelter within the year prior to being killed by an intimate partner.
Some statistics show that 50-75% of domestic violence homicides happen after the victim leaves his or her abuser. Others claim that 65-80% of female intimate partner homicide victims were previously abused by the partner who killed them.
Many are trapped in abusive relationships out of fear of the consequences of leaving. “You’re most at risk of being killed when you leave,” according to Gudrun Burnet, UK’s Peabody Housing Association’s domestic violence expert.
Canada’s Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (DVDRC) likewise found:
Never assume that a victim is safe because she is planning to leave a violent relationship or has just left a violent relationship. Although leaving will increase her safety over the long term, the most dangerous time for her is just before she separates, while she is leaving and shortly after she separates. Safety planning is critical during this period.
A victim is also at risk if the abuser suspects that she wants to leave, even if the victim has given the abuser no indication that this is her plan.
Eric, Lyle, and Gypsy
A slight difference between the Menendez and Blanchard cases is that Eric and Lyle’s abuse was of a sexual nature. A seemingly more glaring difference is that the brothers were educated, had vehicles, and thus allegedly had the means to get away that Gypsy did not have. Of more importance, however, is that in both cases these young adults felt that had they tried to leave, they would have been found. Gypsy had in fact tried to leave and was indeed found and brought back. The Menendez brothers knew that their very wealthy father was powerful and would probably find them, and they also had reason to believe that he would carry out his threats to kill them.
All three of these young adults were threatened with more violence or death if they revealed the abuse to anyone, sought help, or tried to leave. They felt trapped and were convinced that they were powerless to end the abuse. It is neither illogical nor difficult to understand that to both the brothers, and to Gypsy, the only way to end the abuse and be free, seemed to be by killing their abusers.
Had they been kidnapped and abused by non-related strangers, or persons they were wed to, would society have judged differently their decisions to use violence to free themselves?
Is it that there is some inherent debt a child is held to owe to those who gave them life? Is that what makes parenticide uniquely difficult to comprehend and why it seems so much worse than any other murder of an abuser?
Lyle and Eric Menendez are serving life sentences in separate prisons, perhaps in part because the murders took place in 1989, before we knew what we know now about domestic violence and the mental stranglehold it has on its victims. Perhaps, too, the pressure on the prosecutor and judge in the wake of the O.J. Simpson acquittal played a part.
Gypsy pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.
You can sign a petition to help Lyle and Eric here or here.