A 19-year-old says members of his church held him down, choked him, and beat him for two hours, trying to cast out what they called his “homosexual demons.” That was in 2013. Thirteen years, a mistrial, and countless delays later, the minister accused of leading it is finally back in court.

I drove to Asheville, North Carolina, to be there. Inside the courtroom, members of Word of Faith Fellowship filled three rows, and some of the kids the minister once raised sat with her accuser. You’ll hear from Matthew Fenner, the district attorney, and former members who say they were there that night, along with my own 2018 conversation with the minister, Brooke Covington, and church leader Jane Whaley. The church denies any abuse.

Word of Faith Fellowship was the very first story I told on PRETEND. This is how it ends, at least for now.

New to the story? Go back to the beginning with Season 3 of PRETEND, “The Prophet,” where I first went inside Word of Faith Fellowship, met Jane Whaley, and heard from the former members who walked away. Find every episode at thisispretend.com or wherever you’re listening now.

Binge All 12 Episodes:

https://thisispretend.com/seasons/word-of-faith-fellowship/#episodes

Credits

Hosted, reported, and produced by Javier Leiva

Edited and mixed by Puneeth, Podcast Pundits

Music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net

Special thanks to Matthew Fenner, Sarah Anderson, Rachael Bryant, Danielle Cordes, Nancy Burnette, and Josh Farmer

PRETEND is a production of Creative Babble LLC.

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When Gypsy Rose Blanchard was a little girl, the thing that comforted her most was her mother's touch. In the final episode of The Gypsy Rose Obsession, I ask Gypsy when that changed. I also track down the attorney who drew up a power of attorney for Gypsy in 2013, and she tells me Dee Dee came into her office claiming her 22-year-old daughter was mentally disabled and asking for guardianship.

Then I follow the money in the Gypsy Rose economy. Sir Morbid X, the YouTuber who helped build the anti-Gypsy corner of the internet, tells me he now wants to tear it down. I also talk with Audacious Audrey, Fancy Macelli, Brande from the Dragon's Den, and Nancy Simpson from The Toll. Longtime listener Rebecca Catalfu tells me how her opinion of Gypsy swung back and forth over ten episodes, and my friend Andrew Barbari asks the question many people have wondered about: why such a violent death? I close the series with what I think is the most truthful thing Gypsy ever told me.

Go to thisispretend.com to contact me, find every episode, and find the latest news on the cases we've covered. For more, get early episodes and bonus content on PRETEND+ on Apple Podcasts, or join the PRETEND Patreon and become part of our Discord community. You can also watch the video version of my Gypsy interview on YouTube at @pretendpod. Everything is linked at thisispretend.com.

PRETEND is written and produced by Javier Leiva. This episode was edited by Puneeth Shenoy with Podcast Pundits, and our theme music is by Joe Basile with thechicken.net. Credits were read by Lexi, a PRETEND Patreon supporter.

PRETEND is a Creative Babble production.

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This week I'm handing the feed over to Andrea Dunlop and her show, Nobody Should Believe Me. Andrea has spent years covering medical child abuse, and she came to the subject through her own family.

In 2019, Dr. John Cox, an ER physician at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, brought his adoptive infant daughter to her pediatrician with an injured arm. Within months, he was charged with abusing her. NBC News covered his case as a wrongful accusation. Andrea went back to the records, talked to the prosecutor who filed the charges, and found a much more complicated story than the one that made headlines.

This is part one of a four-part special report. Follow Nobody Should Believe Me wherever you get your podcasts to hear the rest, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Patreon to binge the full series ad free.

nobodyshouldbelieveme.com

Content warning: this episode discusses the abuse of an infant.

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When Gypsy Rose Blanchard announced she was pregnant, the internet opened an investigation. The woman who spent her childhood trapped inside her mother's medical lies was now raising a daughter of her own.

In this episode, I look at what the research actually says about the cycle of abuse, and at what happens when a mother is watched as closely as Gypsy is. Strangers called CPS over a livestream and a baby with colic. Someone pulled her daughter's shot records from a state database and put them on TikTok. I talk to one of the women who made a CPS report, I go looking for whoever put a baby's medical records on the internet, and I ask Gypsy where she thinks the line is between protecting a child and isolating one.

Content note: This episode discusses child abuse and contains strong language.

Sources and further reading

• Cathy Spatz Widom, Sally J. Czaja and Kimberly A. DuMont, "Intergenerational transmission of child abuse and neglect: Real or detection bias?" Science (2015): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25814584/

• Cathy Spatz Widom, "The Cycle of Violence," Science (1989): https://doi.org/10.1126/science.2704995

• Fleming S. Pedroso et al., "The Diving Reflex in Healthy Infants in the First Year of Life," Journal of Child Neurology (2012): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21881008/

• Louisiana Children's Code, Article 609, Mandatory and permitted reporting: https://www.legis.la.gov/LEGIS/Law.aspx?d=73201

Written and hosted by Javier Leiva
Edited by Puneeth Shenoy with The Podcast Pundits
Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net

©2026 Creative Babble, LLC

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How does a doctor actually decide that a parent is making their child sick? Dr. John Melville is a child abuse pediatrician, president of the Ray E. Helfer Society, and one of the people who helped write the board exam that certifies child abuse pediatricians.

In this bonus episode, he walks me through how medical child abuse is diagnosed. He explains the difference between Munchausen by proxy, factitious disorder imposed on another, and medical child abuse. And he answers the criticism that child abuse pediatricians are self-appointed experts who took a short course and now override the specialists who know the patient best.

He also talks about what happens when he's wrong, in either direction, and about the myth that a child who's been abused is broken forever.

Dr. Melville has cerebral palsy, which affects his speech. He asked me to mention it up front.

Note: I didn't ask Dr. Melville about Gypsy Rose Blanchard, and he hasn't studied her case. He speaks here only about his own work, and for himself, not for any organization.

Written and hosted by Javier Leiva
Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net

© 2026 Creative Babble

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Ken Urker, Gypsy Rose Blanchard's partner and the father of their daughter, Aurora, died on October 1, 2026, his 34th birthday. The sheriff is still investigating, and no official cause of death has been released. Gypsy has said publicly that she believes it was an overdose, and that she doesn't know whether it was intentional or accidental. Throughout The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Gypsy told me that Ken was struggling with relentless online harassment. The night he died, she texted me three words: "They killed him." In this bonus episode, I talk about what we know so far, who Ken was to Gypsy, what the research says about online harassment, and why I'm worried about Aurora and Gypsy. Whatever you think about Gypsy, a little girl lost her dad this week. Before you post about a real person, remember that a real person is reading it. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Learn more: https://thisispretend.com/blog/gypsy-rose-ken-urker-death/

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Gypsy Rose Blanchard thought no one was listening.

For years, everything she said from inside Chillicothe was being recorded. Now it's public. More than five hundred hours of it.

Some of those recordings broke through on social media, because on them Gypsy and her now ex-husband Ryan can be heard using racial slurs. She eventually apologized publicly for it.

But that's not the part that got me. It's what she says about her mother, when there's no camera on and no reason to give a polished answer.

Fair warning. This one is rough.

Content warning: racist language and racial slurs, child abuse, sexual content involving a child, murder, and self-harm.

Written and Produced by Javier Leiva

Edited by Puneeth Shenoy | Podcast Pundits https://www.podcastpundits.com/

Music by Joe Basile | thechicken.net

Get early access and bonus content

PRETEND+ on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/pretend/id6443456985

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/pretendradio

Learn More:

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"I didn't f---ing get my own f---ing mother murdered just so I could live for everybody else."

That is Gypsy Rose Blanchard on a recorded prison line, saying the quiet part out loud. She had taken the plea and could never be tried again, so she let her guard down. Then a content creator asked Missouri for the whole archive, and four days later the state sent it to her.

So what does Gypsy actually sound like when she thinks nobody is listening?

In this episode you will hear:

• Gypsy doing the math on her own fame. She is going to be rich when she gets out. It seems like everybody in her orbit is trying to figure out how to cash in on the story.

• Gypsy has a new mom. She tells her stepmother Kristy that Mother's Day is a good holiday and a sad holiday at the same time. You can hear the two of them becoming family in real time.

• Gypsy threatens Fancy Macelli. Gypsy talks about what she plans to do to Fancy when she gets out of prison.

• Gypsy at her loneliest. Man after man writes to her after watching her on TV.

• Gypsy talks about going to a cancer dental clinic. In a call about a broken denture, she mentions the oncology dental clinic that made it and lets slip that they will not take her now that she is not a cancer patient. The internet calls that the smoking gun.

• Attorney calls leaked. Some of these recordings are conversations with her attorney, Mike Stanfield.

I have listened to a lot of these calls and I am sure I missed some. Now, the State of Missouri released the Nick Godejohn's calls too, so there are even more coming. If there is a call you think belongs in this series, tag me on social media and I will get to it.

Stick around to the end of the episode, because I want you to meet the other Javier Leiva. He owns javierleiva.com, which is the address most people assume belongs to me. Listener tips and story leads land in his inbox by mistake, including some of the biggest breaks I have ever gotten, and he forwards every one of them my way. We have been talking for years and it turned into a real friendship.

His site is javierleiva.com. Mine is thisispretend.com.

Our Patreon community has grown into something I am really proud of. Supporters get bonus episodes, early access to new content, and now a private Discord server where we talk in real time about case theories and episodes, plus live video calls with me. Tiers start at $3 a month, and you can find the link at thisispretend.com.

Today's episode was written and produced by Javier Leiva.

Edited by Puneeth Shenoy with the Podcast Pundits.

Theme music by Joe Basile with thechicken.net.

Credits read by Beau Hale, PRETEND Patreon supporter.

More at https://thisispretend.com

2026 © Creative Babble LLC. All rights reserved.

Think I missed a call?Guest shout outJoin us on PatreonCredits

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There are people online right now who don't believe Dee Dee Blanchard had Munchausen by proxy. Some of them don't believe Munchausen by proxy is a real thing at all. So if the abuse wasn't real, how do you explain the feeding tube, the shaved head, the free trips to Disney?

We also discuss the violence in the house leading up to the murder. If Gypsy is the monster, what does that make Dee Dee? For Gypsy critics, the pendulum swings the other way. Justice for Dee Dee, the movement that says the real victim here is the woman who died.

Was Dee Dee a sick woman, or was she a con artist with a kid?

In this episode:

• Alaura Flowers and Amber Dietz of Into the Weeds

• Content creator Audacious Audrey

• Fancy Macelli of the Good Wives Network

• Nancy Simpson, host of The Toll podcast

• Gypsy Rose Blanchard

Want more?

Ad-free episodes, early releases, and the latest on the stalker case are on Patreon and PRETEND+ on Apple Podcasts. More at thisispretend.com.

Written and hosted by Javier Leiva
Edited by Puneeth Shenoy with The Podcast Pundits
Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net

© Creative Babble 2026

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According to the anti-Gypsy camp, they've found it. The smoking gun. Gypsy Rose Blanchard has a rare genetic disorder, a microdeletion on chromosome 1, and depending on who you ask online, that one word explains the feeding tube, the leukemia, the paralysis. All of it. Which means, according to them, Dee Dee Blanchard wasn't abusing her daughter at all. She was just a mom trying to help a sick kid.

So I brought in a genetic counselor and made her explain this thing to me like I'm five, because I am not a geneticist and neither is anyone else arguing about this on TikTok.

Kira Dineen, a genetic counselor, walks through what a microdeletion on chromosome 1q21.1 actually is and what it can and can't explain.

Featuring

Kira Dineen, genetic counselor and host of DNA Today
Andrea Dunlop, host of Nobody Should Believe Me
Gypsy Rose Blanchard
Bree, Fancy Macelli, Audacious Audrey, and Amber & Alaura of Into the Weeds

Credits

Written and hosted by Javier Leiva
Edited by Puneeth Shenoy with The Podcast Pundits
Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net

Listen and support

New episodes drop weekly. Early and ad-free episodes are available now on Patreon and Pretend Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/pretend/id6443456985
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/pretendradio

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According to the anti-Gypsy camp, they've got the receipts. Gypsy really had leukemia. She really needed that bone marrow treatment, and the feeding tube and the surgeries were all real and documented, not fabricated. Case closed, they say. Munchausen by proxy, debunked.

That's the claim, anyway.

Three hundred pages of Gypsy's private medical records ended up online, and I got my hands on them. So do the documents validate the claims? We're going to dig in.

Want more? Ad-free episodes, early releases, and the latest on the stalker case are on Patreon and PRETEND+ on Apple Podcasts.

More at thisispretend.com.

Written and hosted by Javier Leiva
Edited by Puneeth Shenoy with The Podcast Pundits
Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net

2026 © Creative Babble

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