E17: Dee Dee Blanchard Murder Trial Defense Closing Argument

E17: Dee Dee Blanchard Murder Trial Defense Closing Argument

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Nicholas, go to John is notguilty of first degree murder simply because he
didn't have the ability to deliberate.And it's not as simple as the prosecutor
just told you. It's a verycomplex process. And I'm gonna talk about
all the things I want you toconsider in deciding whether he did, in
fact deliberate, And I believe whenyou hear all all of what we all

(00:21):
have to say, and you thinkabout all of the evidence, you will
come to that conclusion he did notdeliberate. Now, let's get one thing
straight. Who wanted Claudine Blanchard dead? Who Gypsy did? Gypsy wanted Claudeene
Blanchard dead. And but for thatsimple fact, we're not here are Gypsy's

(00:49):
focus during this entire process is gettingout of that home. That's all she
ever thought about. What was Nicholas'sfocus in that entire time? Gypsy?
Do you remember the interview with lawenforcement when they started asking him questions about
this murder? What did he talkabout Gypsy? He talked about Gypsy.

(01:14):
This whole thing comes back to Gypsy'sdetermination to do whatever it took, Plan
A, Plan B, Plan C, to do whatever it took. To
get out of that home. Andwe can understand that, We can absolutely
understand that she wanted out of thathome so bad that she would kill her

(01:37):
mother. And let's also not forgetwhy she didn't kill her mother. By
that, I mean personally, whydidn't she kill her mother? Because she
couldn't do it. She couldn't doit. You saw her, she's trained,
she's training. Plus I mean probablyshe just emotionally couldn't do it,

(02:01):
but she wouldn't stop until it wasdone, and she was gonna find somebody
to do it, whatever it took. I want you to think about the
ways that she set about doing this. The most important way is she did
in fact manipulate him. She didin fact manipulate him, and we can

(02:23):
call it anything we want, that'swhat she did. She manipulated him into
doing this. And again, whydid she kill her? Because in her
mind, she had no choice.She wanted to have a normal life,
she wanted to be a normal person, but her mother wouldn't allow it.

(02:46):
Let's also not forget with regard tothe three plans A, B, and
C. She actually tried one ofthem and I can't remember that which one
was which, but I think itmay have been plan A. And if
you remember what that was, shewanted to run away, and she didn't.

(03:07):
What happened her mother brought her back, and then what happened things got
worse. She was chained to abed, she was deprived food, she
was beatn That's how that worked.Remember the other plan for her to get
pregnant. Why because if she gotpregnant, well, then after all they

(03:28):
could get married or they'd have tobe together. She'd already tried running away,
She'd tried everything, and so thenshe reaches a point where she feels
like she's stuck and she's got todo something. She'd had enough. She
did manipulate him, and she herselfis fully capable of deception. It was
her life. She is fully capableof deception because that's how she lived her

(03:52):
life. She was trained that wayby her own mother. She was trained
to pretend to be sick, althoughmuch of that time she probably didn't realize
that she wasn't sick. She wastrained to pretend to be a child,
and she got tired of that.She manipulated this situation in so many ways.
There are two people in this casethat, in so many ways are

(04:15):
very childlike. Nicholas go to Johnand Gypsy for very different reasons. Gypsy
because of the way her mother forcedher to live her life, and Nicholas
because of the life he had.And if you just think about some of
the facts in this case, tothink about what you've heard and think about
the childlike nature of some of thisstuff. What did they do with the

(04:38):
murder weapon? They put it inan envelope and mailed it to his house
with what her return address. Doesthat seem like a person that has a
lot of capacity to hung around forSpringfield two days after this happened for two
days. That doesn't seem to makemuch sense. They went to his parents'

(05:00):
home. They thought they were goingto get married and move on with their
life, as if nothing happened.I think Gypsy said, Hey, I
thought they'd forget about me and Icould just go on living my life.
They didn't realize these online conversations thatwent on forever about all kinds of stuff,
much of it fantasy. They didrealized that was being recorded, or

(05:21):
they'd figure out where they went.They checked into these rooms, they used
what names their name. They tookcabs. He took a cab from his
hotel right to this house. Andthen after the murder, what did they
do. They took a cab fromthis house away from it. That is
a childlife decision, if you thinkabout it. A real killer would have

(05:46):
been a whole lot more smart.At least a real killer that had the
capacity to deliberate would have been alot smarter than that. Even the texts
themselves were rather juvenile, and yousaw the texts. Much of it was
fantasy, all kinds of stuff,all kinds of fantasy. And these two

(06:08):
they got stuck in this fantasy andit's hard for them to know where fantasy
ends and reality starts. Even andthe prosecutor showed you one of the text
about I believe it was the tape. If you looked real close to you,
notice that's a sex toy website.That's a sex toy rab site.
This case has to be one ofthe most unique cases you'll ever see in

(06:31):
a homicide. There is a uniqueset of facts in this case that just
doesn't seem to come around very often. Think about the unique set of facts.
In some ways, everybody involved inthis case is a victim sort of,
and I use that word very cautiouslybecause I don't want to say something
outrageous, DEDI was certainly certainly victimizedGypsy and horrible ways, horrible ways.

(07:02):
Gypsy manipulated Nick, a low functioningperson with a lot killing, and then
Gypsy pressures Nick into committing a homicideagainst her mother. And that's the way
that it's sort of a triangle,and they all sort of victimize each other
in some way. It's also uniquein that you have this twenty three year
old woman who has to pretend tobe sixteen, and she acted the part

(07:29):
well. She learned to manipulate.She was forced to live in a wheelchair
by her mother, and she actedthe part well. And again, she
was so desperate that she felt likethe only option for her to have a
life was to kill her mother.Her mother lived off charity. It's white.

(07:50):
Gypsy was in a wheelchair. Gypsylearned that gys learned to stealed,
just like her mother. She wasstealing from her mother, among other places.
That's all she knew. That's whatshe was taught. Her mother used
manipulation to take advantage of people,so certainly so would she. And then
when you're taken somebody in the situationthat Nicholas Godi Johnny is in. With

(08:13):
the cognitive deficits that he has,it's not real. Hard to manipulate him
as it, it's not real.Prosecutor talked about some of the things that
but for Nick, wouldn't have happened. You'll also notice but for Gypsy,
they wouldn't have happened either. Notanything would have happened in this case,

(08:35):
but for Gypsy. She was tiredof not being able to grow up.
She wanted a real life, andwith Nick, she felt like she had
one, and she felt like hewas her rescuer, and she felt like
he could do what she needed done. And she manipulated Nick. She planned
virtually the entire thing. She obtained, the gloves, she obtained, the

(09:00):
knife. She paid for everything.He didn't have any money, He couldn't
have paid for anything. She paidfor everything. I guess she's technically stolen
knife, but she told him when, and she made the decision to move
it up. She decided, weneed to do this quicker because you're about
to have money. That was herdecision. It was her decision to kill

(09:24):
her mother. She talked him intoit. He didn't talk her to do
something doing it. She talked himinto doing it. Let's talk about you
go to John for a second.When we had one job, couldn't hold
it, not because he's a badperson, because he just didn't have capacity
to hold the job. It wasn'ta terribly difficult job, but like all

(09:48):
jobs, it is difficult, andit's important work. It's good work,
and that's what he couldn't hold.It didn't have a driver's license. It
comes up with this story, accordingto the prosecutor, of what they're going
to tell the police when they getcaught or if they get caught, which
is interesting since they didn't think they'regonna get caught. I'm not sure why
they wrote needed a story. Butif you stop and think about this story,

(10:09):
it doesn't even make any sense.The story is, if we get
caught, we're gonna say I raninto you out by the motel and I
took you to Wisconsince. But younotice something about that story. What does
it not account for her mother's death. There's no explanation as to how they're
gonna explain that. It doesn't accountfor that. This is a story they're

(10:31):
gonna tell his mother about why Gypsy'sin Wisconsin. That's the point of his
story. Nick was so completely inlove with her and so obsessed with her
that he would do anything, andGypsy knew that, and Gypsy knew that.
In his mind, he thought exactlylike her, that there was no

(10:52):
alternative. He was told you triedto run away. He was also told
why she couldn't run away that day. Remember her mom had papers. What
does that mean, Well, notonly can she go get her, but
she can force her to come backlegally, even though she's twenty three years

(11:13):
old. Nick, let's go toJohn wanted Gypsy to be happy, and
he wanted her to have the lifeshe deserved. In his own mind,
he thought of himself as her rescuer. Again, we're recognizing that that doesn't
make what he did right, butyou have to look at it from his

(11:35):
perspective, with his cognitive condition,he worshiped her. He'd lived an isolated
life. The prosecutor likes to talkto these girlfriends he had, They were
all online. Those were not girlfriendsas we normally think of it. Gypsy
was his girlfriend. He now hadthe life he wanted, just like she

(11:56):
had the life or saw the lifeshe wanted. His disability is clear.
From all this, including the tapethe interviews, you can see it.
It's obvious his disability is clear andthat would have affected his mind. There's
a lot of discussion of texts inthis case, and you'll notice most of

(12:20):
these texts are just meaningless conversation.And one of the things to keep in
mind about any kind of text oremail or anything like that is it only
has real meaning if you see thewhole context, and to take little portions
of it and try to spin itin the worst possible way and make it

(12:41):
as bad as possible. There's talkabout a dark side and a good side.
He made the same comment with thereporter, Remember that he talked about
that. He even said she talkedabout running away. The fact of the
matter is the text don't really tellus a lot. I'm not saying they
don't take us anything, as theydo tell us some things, but they

(13:01):
don't tell us anything about deliberation,anything about cool reflection. All they tell
us about is discussions they had.Now all of this has to be viewed
in the context of the experts,doctor Franks and doctor Denny. Doctor Franks
gave you an honest, straightforward explanationof what he found. He found after

(13:26):
evaluating Nicholas go to John that hesuffered from or he had excuse me,
had autism spectrum disorder level two requiringsupport with accompanying impairment. And we know
that Nick didn't have a lot ofsupport at home. He pretty much lived
on his own. Doctor Franks feltlike a person in that situation might very

(13:50):
well struggle to deliberate. That washis opinion. Doctor Denny mostly talked about
Doctor Denny. He mostly talked abouthis CD and all the papers he wrote
and all that stuff, all atone hundred and fifty dollars an hour.
If you're wondering why he talks somuch, there's your answer. He didn't

(14:11):
really tell us much about Nicholas,Godi John. He mostly wanted to criticize
doctor Frank. What was his experiencewith persons with autism? He evaluated four
to five, not a whole lotof real experience, Not a whole lot
of real experience. He tried todownplay his own IQ scores for Nick,
even though it was lower than DoctorFrancis had this chart bail chart and had

(14:37):
this extensive discussion of where the medianis the bottom mind his number was seventy
seven. Intellectual disability is seventy.He also said there's numbers have a little
bit of play. And despite thefact that as that was in single digits
in terms of percentile, I wantto say it was it was less than
ten, meaning more than ninety percentof the population would have a higher IQ.

(15:00):
He tried to somehow explain that putit in the middle. Remember his
little chart, And he also toldyou that most of the numbers were close
to one hundred. I believe thatwas his testimony because he said the higher
up you went and that would betoward one hundred, the numbers kind of
began to congregate. But he kindof explained it as if most people are
all in this small range. Peoplefit along that chark, and there's a

(15:24):
reason that Nicholas go to John's HQis twenty three points lower than the average
person, and that's significant. Evenhe had to admit that's poored. He
also talked about doctor Frank's DADA beingoff despite the number being bigger, But
he never really told you how itwas messed up. He just he figured

(15:45):
he fixed it. That's how hedid that. And he said something that's
really interesting. He said the datais what the data is, that is
seventy seven. All evidence in thiscase demonstrates that Nicholas go to John has
a low IQ that is undisputed byanybody. The simple fact of the matter

(16:07):
is Nicholas go to John did nothave the ability for cool reflection. And
if you look at the instruction andyou don't have a copy, you man,
you may have copies on instruction numbersix, paragraph third. The prosecutor's
shown you that and it says thatdefendant did so after deliberation, which means

(16:29):
cool reflection upon the matter for anylength of time, no matter how brief.
Let's take the second part or thelast part first, for any length
of time, no matter how brief. It's not a function of time.
It doesn't say if it's less thanfive seconds or more than five seconds.
It's saying the time. It doesn'tmatter no matter how brief. The real

(16:52):
important part is the cool reflection.That's the important part. The cool reflection
far more important than the other part, because if you have that, it
doesn't matter for how long. Butyou have to have that. We don't
have in this case. When youconsider all the evidence, does he really
have the ability to deliberate. Doeshe really have the capacity to deliberate given
all the evidence in this case,when you consider his cognitive disorder, when

(17:18):
you consider the pressure she put onhim to do this, her unwillingness to
consider other alternatives. He talks abouthis dark side, and he still talked
about that when he was interviewed byI believe the report. We don't have
the cool reflection in this case.I would ask every one of you to
think long and hard about the factsof this case, and consider all the

(17:41):
facts, and consider all the evidenceand all the witnesses, including our witnesses
we put on Gypsy Blanchard and doctorFranks. Consider all the evidence and decide
what's appropriate and has some compassion foreverybody. Deed, he deserves compassion,
really does. I mean? Iknow she did a lot of all the

(18:02):
stuff, and I agree with theprosecutor she should have been prosecuted rather than
murdered. Gypsy deserves a lot ofcompassion, obviously, given what she went
through. Had a little bit forNick as well. I'm not asking you
not to spread it out. I'mjust asking to have a little bit for
Nick too. Consider his situation.It's not as simple as a prosecutor said,

(18:26):
consider his situation, and I'm talkingabout his entire situation. He was
only trying to help the woman heloved. He didn't do it the right
way. We all agree with that, but he was only trying to help
the woman he loved. Nick isnot guilty of first to ring murder because
he simply lacked the ability to deliverit. Find Nick not guilty of first

(18:48):
togree murder, and then look atthe alternatives, the other homicides that are
available to you, and decide whichone best fits the facts. I believe,
after all the OVID that you consider, there is reasonable doubt as to
his capacity to deliberate the first degreemurdered, and I believe the appropriate verdict

(19:11):
in this case is one of thelesser homicides. Thank you very much for
your time.