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In Gypsy Blanchard’s world, nothing is as it seems. For years, people saw her as a sickly girl plagued by medical issues. She was wheelchair bound. She suffered from mental delays. She had trouble breathing. Her life was marked by constant doctor visits and too-frequent surgeries. All the while, her doting mother Dee Dee was by her side. Then one day, someone updated the status on Dee Dee and Gypsy’s shared Facebook account. They wrote, “that bitch is dead.” Friends and neighbors were in for the surprise of their lives.

Then Brandi tells us about four murders at a Chinese hostel. When police arrived at the crime scene in 1995, they had little to go on. The murders were as random as they were brutal. The few leads police developed were vague at best. The case went cold for nearly 20 years. Years later, with the help of DNA testing, investigators took another look at the crime scene. Their discovery led them to a surprising suspect.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

The HBO documentary, “Mommy Dead and Dearest”

“Gypsy Blanchard’s ex-boyfriend upset with his attorney as murder trial approaches,” Springfield News-Leader

“Judge sets trial date for next year in Nicholas Godejohn case,” Springfield News-Leader

“Charged with murder, Godejohn give his side of the story,” Ozarks First

“Anhui Author Detained for 1995 Quadruple Murder” by Fan Yiying, sixthtone.com

“Farmer-writer-killer sentenced to death” by Ma Zhenhuan, China Daily

“Killer author who murdered four people 23 years ago then wrote acclaimed novels ‘inspired by the case’ is sentenced to death in China” by Tracy You, Daily Mail

“Crime writer arrested for four murders committed 22 years ago” The Punch

“Chinese author of unsolved-murder novel arrested over unsolved murders” by Sarah Zheng, South China Morning Post