Gypsy Rose Said Prison Gave Her WHAT?!

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

This is The Big Breakdown, a long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today. This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

Tony Brueski (0:17)

Let's get into prison life a little bit. Gypsy Rose Blanchard served eight and a half years for the murder of her mother. For most people, that's the story. She was harmed, she killed her mother, she went to prison, she came out. But what happened inside that prison is where the psychology gets even more complicated. Gypsy said she felt freer behind bars than she ever did living with her mother. She said she was denied one-on-one therapy. A former cellmate says that's a lie. We're going to dig into this here with Shavaun Scott, psychotherapist and author and Robin Drake, retired FBI Special Agent and Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Unit. As we break through what the heck is Gypsy Rose's brains all about, let's walk through those eight years in a cell, what it actually does to someone who's never processed anything outside of that very, very limited world with mom acting as a child, participating in this scheme and now suddenly behind bars, never once having normalcy whatsoever.

Someone for a healthy brain that has had a normal life suddenly facing prison, that's going to be a giant shift. What does that do to a brain of someone who's never had normal? This is just going to an abnormal to more abnormal of life.

Shavaun Scott (1:48)

I think it says so much when she said she felt freer in prison than she had ever felt before.

You can be physically contained as prison physically contains you, but free of the psychological game playing and in essence, the medical torture that she went through repeatedly, which is horrendously abusive. In prison, she got structure. She had a routine.

She was probably treated better than she had ever been treated by her mother. And so it's almost, I mean, this is kind of a strange way to look at it, but it may have been what she needed at the time. You know, that structure, the predictability and being free from having to manufacture these illnesses in a manipulative way.

So I think it probably was good for her.

Robin Drake (2:44)

And she also had social contact, too, that she didn't have. Again, self-reported by her on the specials, I know, edited and everything else. But from what she was reporting and what is seen in the show, shows, multiple of them, is that her only social contact and the only time she left her house that her mother was hoarding, like she had a hoarder room in there, was when she actually only had the medical appointments in which she went to be abused. And so the only social contact was when she's going to medical appointments and on the very, very limited other times when she was being touted around for profit. And so yeah, it's easy to see that life in prison for her was of relief, which is again, psychologically, again, at that early ages of development for the brain. Can't imagine the craziness going on in there.

Tony Brueski (3:32)

What do you think it did to her skill set? I mean, it seems she didn't have a lot of skill sets going into prison, but one of them was manipulating people because that's what she knew with Dee Dee.

And that's where I was saying last night, there's a gray area there of when Gypsy was very little, she was a child, a small child going along with whatever mom is saying. At some point, Gypsy basically kind of has to start to go along with some of the shit just to survive. And then it becomes normal, and it's all you know, and this is what life is. And maybe she does catch on that it is a ruse, but it is normal to her because that's what life is like around her. So manipulation already somewhat of a strong suit. She knew how to turn that shit on in front of radio and TV when mom carted her around and people just ate it up. So she was able to then, or then she was not able to, she was sent without choice to prison.

And that's a place where you're also going to have to use some of those skill sets. You know, call it manipulation, call it whatever you want. You're going to be using that skill set to survive. Does that harden that skill set even further in a person like Gypsy where that's really the main mental muscle that's been used with mom and now she's in prison? Now go use this even more to survive and now let's put you in the real world. This doesn't seem, I mean, I can see where it was probably a good place for her and probably a place that she did somewhat need, but it also probably exercised a muscle in her brain that maybe should have used a little bit, you know, more, let's tamper this down, not let's make this rock solid. What are your thoughts there?