Original subtitles

- There was emotional and physical abuse.

I started to feel like it was either her or me.

He sent me a text that said,

"Tonight be the night that we run away together."

I had a blonde wig so no one would recognize me.

That's when he tells me he couldn't leave the state.

(tense music)

Once she got me inside the house,

she chained me to the bed.

We both went into the men's stall.

It was the first time that I had ever seen a penis,

other than what happened with my grandfather.

and I pulled the trigger.

♪ No, you could never take my soul ♪

(birds chirping) (tense music)

If I get paroled and it is the earliest parole date,

it would be at the end of 2023.

It would mean that I can start living my life.

When I was younger,

my mother told me flat out,

"There are some things that you will never do."

But a year after release,

I expect myself to be fully independent

and have my own place, my own car,

earning my own money.

My mother cooked, cleaned, did everything.

I did nothing.

And I have this opinion about myself

that I have to lean on everybody for support

because I just don't feel like I could do it on my own

and do it correct.

(phone ringing)

- [Operator] This call is from a correctional facility

and maybe monitored and recorded.

- [Gypsy] Hey, can you hear me okay?

- Yes, how are you?

- [Gypsy] Oh, I'm doing all right.

How are you?

- I'm good.

- [Gypsy] I've been doing some self-reflecting

over the last few days

because, I mean, such a big moment for me,

a pivotal moment in my life.

- When you do get out,

I'm definitely always gonna be a big part of your life.

But what do you think you're gonna need from me as a father?

- [Gypsy] My mom had told me so much crap,

and I don't know what's the truth and what's a lie.

And we're gonna have to dive into some hard conversation.

So I just need you to tell me

what's the truth and what's the lie?

What she told me.

(pensive music)

- I wasn't the best dad.

Should've went and checked.

And I had suspicions.

Man, I'm not trying to make excuses,

but it was hard not to believe Dee Dee.

Doctors believed that,

her friends, neighborhood,

everyone believed those lies.

- Since childhood, my mother lied about my age.

When I thought that I was 15,

I found my Medicaid card,

and it said that I was actually 19.

At that time, I met this guy Dan at Visioncon,

and he kept telling me,

"You're an adult and you could leave."

And so I ran away.

I thought that it was a possibility that he was the one,

but he doesn't even have a car.

He doesn't even have a place of his own.

He's staying at his friend's house.

I'm like, okay,

this is not what I expected at all.

That night, my mother had awoken

probably about four o'clock in the morning,

noticed that I wasn't there.

She then goes to look around the house,

and my cell phone fell out of my backpack.

So she sees the messages between me and Dan,

and she instantly knows who I'm with.

Then she begins to call their mutual friends

from the convention,

and one of them told my mother where I was,

and there she was able to come and find me.

It's about eight o'clock in the morning.

She arrives in the door, and at this point,

me and him are sleeping.

His friend was like, "Your mother is here."

And my heart just sinks to the ground.

And I see her walk in the door.

And I sit up,

and the first thing I say to her is,

"I know I'm 19 and I can be here if I want to."

And she's like, "Where are my pills?"

I stole her pain medication.

So I give her her pills back.

She's like, "Where's the money?"

I give her the money back that I stole out of her wallet.

It was about $1,000.

And she's like, "Can we talk on the porch?"

We go sit on the porch and she's like,

"If you come back with me, I will let you see him."

And at that point, I believed her.

I was completely dependent on her,

and so I went back with her.

- Of course Gypsy would concede.

After that episode, and even others

where she tried to get a little bit of independence

because her utter survival depended on her mother.

(gentle music)

- On the way back,

I was confronting her about my age.

I never confronted her before that point.

And she tried to convince me otherwise.

And so she stopped at a Staples,

and she had a copy of my birth certificate.

And she comes out about 10 minutes later,

and it says 1995.

- [Interviewer] How did she modify it?

- I'm thinking Wite-Out. (laughs)

She said, "Here's your actual birth certificate.

And I'm your mother, you should trust me.

If you didn't believe me, now here's proof."

- [Interviewer] Did you believe her?

- I did believe her, yes.

I wanted her to be telling the truth

because I still loved her and she was my mother.

- I think Gypsy had Stockholm syndrome,

which is the term that's applied to people

who are kidnapped and held hostage

where they fall in love with their captor.

And it's counterintuitive.

And so people tend to blame the victim.

Well, why did you stay?

But Gypsy loved her mother.

(melancholic music)

- [Gypsy] I never told anyone,

but at one point she gets a pregnancy test

because she thinks that I had sex with Dan.

I kept telling her like,

"I'm a virgin. I'm not pregnant."

And she's like,

"I don't know what you did with him."

And she told me I can get pregnant by kissing a guy.

And so I take the pregnancy test,

and it came back negative.

- There was absolutely a fear on Dee Dee's part

that she was starting to lose control of Gypsy,

and also, really, fear

that she would lose the sickness in her child,

which was her lifeline.

It was her reason to live.

And so she had to teach Gypsy a lesson.

(somber music)

- Once she got me inside the house,

she chained me to the bed.

She smashed my computer and my cell phone,

and I was chained for two weeks.

- [Interviewer] What did she use to bind you to the bed?

- Handcuffs and a dog leash.

The dog leash was connected to her,

so anytime that I would move,

she would feel me move.

And if she was asleep,

I would move, she would wake up.

I was at her mercy for everything.

So to go to the bathroom, for food.

As punishment, she would not feed me every day,

and she would eat whatever she wanted.

So it was these things that she would do

that was almost haunting.

- [Interviewer] Did you know that Dee Dee punished her

by chaining her to the bed for two weeks?

- Whoa, I didn't know she, I didn't know

that she had chained her to the bed for two weeks.

That's all going through my head now thinking about it,

just, just, I could see,

I could see it taking place.

It's (beep) terrible, (beep) crazy.

Wow, what a mom.

What a mom.

- I felt enraged.

I was angry because she didn't have to go through that.

- This is very clear communication

that when you cross that line,

first of all, you don't get away with it,

and second of all, next time, it will be worse.

- She knew the things that I was afraid of.

She knew the things that would break me,

and there was no indication an end was ever going to happen

of this way of life.

(gate buzzing)

- My mother never laid a hand on me

until my attempt to run away.

Anything that she found displeasing,

she would hit me.

And it would either be with a coat hanger,

it would be with her hand.

She would punch my leg, in the thigh.

- When I think of being chained up like an animal,

that would be a mark of a mother who had no conscience,

did not care about what her daughter thought or felt.

(ominous music)

- For two weeks, I tried to gain more of her trust,

a lot of begging on my part.

"I promise I won't do it again. I'll be good.

I will never talk to Dan again."

To the point where she believed me enough

to start allowing me little freedoms

like going to the bathroom on my own,

taking a bath on my own.

So leaving her sight for small amounts of time

until she took me off the chain completely.

After this attempt,

she was very sensitive to when I would move in the bed.

And she kept a knife by her bedside table,

and she threatened me that if I was to attempt to run away,

I would be punished for it.

- Dee Dee was very controlling, but yet dependent.

And so there's gonna be pretty harsh punishment and abuse

if she defies her mother.

- After the two weeks that I was chained,

my mother put a voodoo hex on me.

She printed out a picture of Dan

and she printed out a picture of me,

and she went to the store

and got a mason jar and a cow tongue.

She put the cow tongue in the mason jar

with the two pictures

and a little bit of my menstrual blood.

Put it in a mason jar, buried it in the backyard,

and said that, "You will never find love.

You will never be happy."

So I think that it's true.

I'm sorry. (sniffles)

I just think it's true

because it's like every time I get close to someone,

they leave me.

Many men write to me in prison.

That's how I met Ken.

We got engaged in 2019,

but it didn't work out.

I was still such a young girl.

I had so much to learn about relationships.

(somber music)

And he left me,

and it broke my heart.

And so it's like I always bring it back to that curse

where I'm like I believe it's true.

She never wanted me to find love or be happy,

and I just kind of feel like that stuck.

(somber music)

- So, Dee Dee was putting spells on Gypsy.

That's wild,

but it's not so far out of the bounds of what I would think.

Dee Dee had this wizard that was tattooed on her leg,

it was on her ankle,

and she would play with magic.

When I was a kid,

I seen Dee Dee playing with the Ouija board and spells

and playing people over to get what she wanted,

maybe mind control.

And controlling these doctors

and controlling this whole world around her

like a puppeteer.

It was probably very satisfying to her.

- It's almost a scene out of "Carrie."

Now, Dee Dee is threatening her daughter

and acting in this bizarre, wicked fashion.

And certainly, Gypsy could be haunted

by these seeming like spells for years.

- At this point,

there was a significant part of our relationship

that I believe broke.

I'm like, well,

I can just wait 'til she passes away naturally.

But I didn't know how long that was gonna be,

and she could have lived to be 70 years old,

and by that time,

I would be too old to do the things that I would want,

like have children and have a life of my own.

So I really started to weigh out the pros and the cons

and realizing that I needed to get out of this situation now.

(intense music)

(birds chirping) (tense music)

- Growing up,

my mother instilled in me to be mistrusting of people.

And I feel like in prison,

I have to constantly be on guard and be strong.

And today, the day before the parole hearing,

I can think about how I want my demeanor to be.

Do I wanna go in there

like I'm this strong, big, tough bitch?

Or do I want to show that I am vulnerable?

Because whenever I was younger,

when I let my guard down,

I got hurt again and again and again.

After my mother released me from the chain,

she took every precaution that she could

to make sure that I had no attempts to reach anyone

by social media or phone at all.

My mom bought a gun,

and that scared the ever living F out of me.

I was afraid that she would kill me.

I wanted to reach out to people,

but I couldn't because I knew the repercussions.

And you don't know if someone is gonna help you or not,

or is it gonna go back to being worse

and my mother doing something worse to me

than just hitting me and starving me.

It is an incredibly lonely and hopeless feeling

to feel like you are trapped.

And that's exactly how I felt, trapped.

- My name is Bracy Bays.

When I met Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose,

I was an assistant manager at the movie theater

in Springfield, Missouri.

I was in charge of promotions.

They were at the theater quite a bit.

At times, they would come three times a week.

And I've asked myself more than one time,

would I have believed Gypsy if she would've pulled me aside?

And the thing that people have to understand

is that Dee Dee set it up

that Gypsy was mentally challenged.

It seemed genuine.

It really seemed for real.

So I don't know if I would have,

and that hurts my heart.

It really does.

Oh, this is one of my promotional albums,

and it has some of Gypsy's pictures in it

because of course she was an integral part

in a lot of our promotions.

This one was for the Leukemia Society,

and you can see, there's Gypsy in her wheelchair.

And we did "Over the Rainbow",

and all of the proceeds went to the Leukemia Society.

At the time, my sister had leukemia.

And so when Dee Dee said,

"Yes, she has leukemia,"

and so that kinda struck a chord with me.

And we wanted to do what we could do for them.

- Dee Dee wanted everybody to believe

that they were destitute,

that they had nothing.

And the old woe-is-me because dad was out of the picture.

- I told Dee Dee,

"You're never gonna be able to work.

You're taking care of Gypsy 24/7."

I told her,

"I'm gonna give you everything I can."

I think I was giving her 11 or $1,200 a month.

- We would always raise money for them.

And Gypsy did actually become

kind of a symbol of hope for us.

- Dee Dee was defrauding a whole bunch of people.

Dee Dee's ability to manipulate people was unrivaled

with anything I've ever seen.

- Dee Dee presented as a chameleon

where people around her

thought she was the mother of the year,

but did not see the other part or side of this woman

who was handcuffing her daughter for weeks at a time.

So I believe that Dee Dee was perhaps a psychopath.

She had no conscience,

and she would do anything to keep her daughter under wraps.

(tense music)

(gate buzzing)

- [Gypsy] After that whole incident happened

with being chained to the bed,

she started telling me that nobody's ever gonna want me

and that Dan doesn't love me.

And if he loved me so much, he would come and rescue me,

and he hasn't done that.

And I stopped trying to communicate with him after that.

I kind of felt like, oh my God,

I am trying everything I can,

every turn, she catches me.

And there's just no escape from her.

So I decided to run away again.

And I packed my bag and hid it under the couch.

But one night,

she had a suspicion and she found my bag.

She was like,

"You were gonna run away again, weren't you?"

And my heart was pounding,

like a million things were going through my mind

of how bad this was gonna be.

And I saw her gun on the table.

She normally kept the gun in the safe in her bedroom,

but she had used it to practice shooting earlier that week.

And that's when I grabbed the gun

and I threatened her with it.

And before I knew it,

I pulled the trigger as many times as I could.

(gunshots)

- If I get the news that I am being paroled,

I, gosh, I can't even really put it into words

how I'm going to feel.

It's going to feel like finally, finally I get to be free.

(tense music)

But the punishment is having that guilt,

realizing that I can't undo what I've done,

have it in my heart to deal with every single day.

When I shot my mother,

I just remember thinking like, oh my God,

did I just do that?

- [Interviewer] Gypsy tells a story about picking up

a BB gun and shooting Dee Dee 10 times with it.

- I don't know about that.

- [Interviewer] You don't know the story,

she thought she killed her?

- No, there are some things

Gypsy said she wants to talk to us about in person.

So there's things that y'all probably know

that we don't know, but good for her.

(tense music)

- [Gypsy] I had never stood up to my mother,

and I just kind of offloaded all of my anger

and my questions,

like why won't you let me have a normal life?

Why is my life this way to begin with?

And she just kept reiterating

that she takes good care of me

and I need special care.

At that point in time, I half believed her.

I couldn't see cancer,

I couldn't see some of the diagnoses

that she said that I had.

And I started crying and I told her,

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I hurt you."

My mom was such a good master manipulator

that she was able

to slip me right back into submission again.

- The object of a person with Munchausen by proxy

is the most important person in the world to them.

And so when Dee Dee did go in and get medical care,

the records show that she lied about it

because she would not risk anybody connecting the dots.

- [Gypsy] She told people that me and her were robbed

in the parking lot of Walmart

by this mystery robber that shot her with the BB gun.

- So Dee Dee kills two birds with one stone.

No one figured out that her daughter rebelled.

And then everybody felt sorry for Dee Dee

because she was held up and almost killed.

- The world was colluding with her mother.

Gypsy still had no confidence

that the world would recognize her situation.

- It really felt like there was no escaping the situation.

I thought that I would live forever at home with her.

So I needed to go online again.

Online, I could be the Gypsy that has all these friends,

the version of myself that is normal.

There's this fantasy world that I created.

- I think there's a connection between the fairytales

and daydreaming and dissociation and trauma.

Gypsy was in so much pain,

and so many trauma victims will dissociate

as a way to repress the trauma they're going through.

- That night, we went to sleep

and she took her sleeping meds that she takes every night.

And I went to my bedroom

and I started talking with a neighbor on Facebook about Dan.

She's like, "Oh, well,

you should get on that online dating website

called christiandatingforfree.com."

And after looking at a couple dozen profiles,

I came across a profile that stood out.

It's silly.

One thing that attracted me is he plays video games,

like it's special or something.

I sent him a message that just said,

"Hi, my name is Gypsy."

And he sent me a message back saying,

"Hi, my name is Nicholas."

And we started communicating via this website.

And then pretty soon,

I invited him to friend me on Facebook.

I had different aliases

because she kept finding my Facebook account.

So Emma Rose was my name.

And it progressed very quickly.

Two weeks after first communicating,

did we like make it official on Facebook

that we were in a relationship.

(tense music)

And again, I was in that mindset that, oh,

this is my knight in shining armor.

So when one of his ex-girlfriends

actually messaged me on Facebook,

I didn't listen to her.

I thought she was a jaded ex.

She told me that he is violent

and that he's verbally abusive, controlling.

But even though those red flags,

I saw them,

I ignored them

because of this notion that I had found love at first sight.

(intense music)

(gate buzzing)

- If you would've asked me years ago,

did I think that getting hurt was a part of love?

I would've told you no.

But since then, I have experience

that has taught me that love could be painful.

First, with Nick,

and then in prison.

The relationship that I had with Ken,

I was still so naive.

But now I have had time to reflect on the past.

About six months ago,

I met a man named Ryan.

He is a southern Louisiana boy.

And he's just like,

"I heard your story and I wanted to get to know you."

And so we've started dating,

but I am taking it slowly.

With Nick, the relationship was strictly online.

He was living with his mother in Waukesha, Wisconsin,

and I was living in Springfield, Missouri with my mother.

So eventually, I stole cash from my mother's wallet.

And when my mom and I made a trip to Walmart

and she let me go to the bathroom,

and I went to the electronics department

and traded the cash for a cell phone.

And from then on,

I can text Nick through Yahoo Messenger.

The dialogue between Nick and I,

it was just fun.

It was about this fantasy world

that he and I created together.

I needed a way out of my reality.

At that time, whenever I was at home with my mother,

arguments would occur

anytime that I would get caught on the computer,

on social media,

if I didn't wanna take medication that night.

And at this point,

my mother had scheduled more surgeries, more medication.

I was scheduled for another procedure to have on my throat.

It was gonna be a surgery

to look into why I have such a high pitched voice

because it was something to do

that my larynx didn't close properly.

I have a big fear of tubes

being put down my throat or my nose or anything.

For all my other procedures,

I was put under general anesthesia.

And I asked her, I'm like,

"Can you make sure that they put me to sleep?"

And she's like, "No, you're old enough now."

I'm terrified at this point.

But Nick was there for me.

I told him that my mother didn't allow me to have friends,

I told him that I could walk,

and about the abuse.

I told him everything.

And he was telling me how he would protect me.

- It was sad that she opened up to Nick,

and I wish she could have come to me.

But I guess she felt comfortable enough

that she can open up to him and trusted him.

- I often told him, I'm like,

"If I lived with you or if I was just some other girl,

I would be able to visit you.

We would be able to go on dates.

But I can't because I'm living this life.

My mother won't let me."

- At this point,

Gypsy has lived in this toxic bubble with her mother,

and she's starving for some type of affection.

Anyone with any, just, sliver of interest in Gypsy,

she would probably rush to.

- I started to realize that Nick was a little different

after about three months.

There was a certain phrase that I had to repeat

after every conversation.

And if I didn't say this phrase

the way he had instructed me to say it,

he would get very verbally aggressive.

- [Interviewer] What was the phrase?

- "I love and adore you, my king charming, goodnight."

(tense music)

But I didn't see what was happening.

I was still stuck in that mindset that this is my hero.

And I villainized my mother, and I wasn't seeing

the connection between their behaviors.

- Nick and Dee Dee have a lot in common.

They're manipulative, aggressive, controlling,

and that's a comfort zone for Gypsy.

- It was probably a month later,

he said he had a BDSM fetish.

- So, Gypsy, I know this is in many ways

can be re-traumatizing for you,

but hopefully it's healing for you as well.

- [Gypsy] Yes, I think it will be.

- Excellent.

Well, let's talk about the relationship with Nick.

Did some of this have sexual components to it?

- [Gypsy] It did.

He was very sexualized and craved it,

talked about it nonstop.

I had never even heard of BDSM before I met him.

At first it was very out of my element,

but then it was exciting because I was opening a door

to something I had never experienced before,

and it made me feel empowered.

- Gypsy was submissive by nature,

so she would certainly be at risk to gratify her partner

as she always gratified her mother's wishes.

- I was the perfect candidate for what he wanted.

It doesn't matter what he would do to me,

positive or negative,

I would just look at him with adoring eyes.

But looking back,

I feel like Nick is a very disturbed person

that lives in his own created fantasy world.

And he doesn't wanna acknowledge

the difference between what's right and wrong.

- No matter what, ultimately I will get released,

but I don't know

if there is a possibility of a happy ending for me.

And I don't really think

that it's going to be the Disney fairytale

that I grew up with.

I don't know if I'm ever gonna find the one.

I don't know if I'm gonna have kids.

All that I do know is that what I have right now

is my father and my stepmother,

and that's what I can count on right now.

- It hurts my heart actually that she's incarcerated.

She was in one prison with her mom.

She's in another prison now.

We talk on the phone.

But to see her,

we can't wait to have her home.

- During visitation, you're only allowed like, a brief hug.

So the first thing I want to do whenever I get released

is hug my family for like 10 minutes (laughs)

where a guard isn't like, "Okay, that's too close,"

or, "That's enough." (laughs)

(tense music)

Every relationship in my life

has been a long distance relationship.

Nick and I would trade messages back and forth

for almost three years.

We were trying to figure out plans

to meet for the first time,

and "Cinderella" was set to come out in theaters in 2015.

And so the whole setup was to meet at the movie theater

because where's the one place

that my mother actually took me out in public

besides the grocery store?

I was allowed to dress up as "Cinderella."

It was just like the fantasy world

that he and I created together.

My thought was to have him meet my mother

and act like we had never met before,

and she could see what a wonderful person he is

and that she would let me start this friendship,

and then this friendship can turn into a relationship.

(tense music)

That day at the movie theater,

he comes up to us and starts talking to us

and he makes conversation.

And of course the conversation that he makes is like,

"So, the weather's nice (laughs)."

I'm like, looking at him

like, you couldn't come up with anything better?

And so she was polite to him at first,

but then she immediately started to question

why is this guy that's obviously an adult

at a little girl's children's movie by himself?

No kids, no girlfriend, no family.

So as we go to take our seats,

she's got our eyes dead locked on us.

But we also came up with this plan

that I was gonna lose my virginity to him.

So he left the auditorium first.

Then I told my mom, "Can I go to the bathroom?"

And she let me.

We both went into the men's handicapped stall.

It was the first time that I had ever seen a penis,

other than what happened with my grandfather

and the molestation when I was nine.

He couldn't get an erection,

but we just called it, okay, I lost my virginity to him.

And it just kind of felt like that was weird.

It was kinda shameful.

I was very disappointed because I built this up in my mind,

and I didn't feel any closer to Nick than before.

It just kind of felt like, well, that was disgusting.

And I knew my mother would be coming soon.

So we left the bathroom.

By the end of the movie,

she storms out of the auditorium.

So my mother takes me home,

and we instantly get into an argument.

She says, "You're such a slut for wanting a boyfriend,

you're a devil spawn.

I should have aborted you when I had the chance."

And Nick is online.

He's waiting for me, to know what's going on.

So I messaged him and I'm like, "My mother did not like you."

He's like, "Okay, well, what now?"

So that's whenever we start going into other plans.

(suspenseful music)

I wanted that life that I was living to be over.

I started to really feel like it was either her or me.

His alternate personality's name is Victor,

that he's a 500 year old vampire, Victor,

and he would kill my mother for me.

- [Prayer] Dear Lord, Heavenly Father,

please open the hearts of the parole panelists.

Give them understanding

to Gypsy's progress that she's made, Lord.

- [Gypsy] Okay, so I got my answer today.

- [Interviewee] Gypsy was like,

"Where do you want this relationship to go now?"

- I have been keeping a secret.