Spoilers ahead for The Act Season 1, Episode 7. The April 24 episode of Hulu's The Act picks up in the aftermath of Dee Dee Blanchard's murder. After staying in a nearby motel for several days, Gypsy Rose and Nicholas Godejohn go to his family's home in Big Bend, Wisconsin. It's there that police find and arrest them after discovering Dee Dee's body and tracing a Facebook post shared from their location.
Those are the general events of the real-life story, too, though there isn't a lot of information online about Godejohn's parents. His mother, Stephanie Goldammer, married another man at some point, and it was actually his mom and his stepfather, Charles Goldammer, that Godejohn lived with and that Gypsy met. The Act seems to have relied heavily on the Goldammers' statements to police to build out those characters, since they're not really in the spotlight like Gypsy's family is. However, Charles did do a little bit of press when Godejohn first got arrested, and expressed shock that his stepson was involved in Dee Dee's murder. (Gypsy was sentenced to 10 years in prison and Godejohn was sentenced to life in prison without parole for their roles in the crime.)
"All I know is the SWAT team came this morning took my wife and I out of here — something with my stepson, supposedly he did something in Missouri, which we don't believe because he wouldn't hurt a fly," Charles told ABC 12 at the time.
Charles also spoke about how Gypsy could walk — which was news to those who knew the Blanchards and had only ever seen Gypsy in a wheelchair. Experts now believe Gypsy's mother had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and that she fabricated Gypsy's inability to walk along with several other illnesses and conditions.
"There's nothing wrong with her. She's OK. She walks and talks and does everything fine," Charles said of Gypsy in the same interview. "I don't really know anything about her except [Godejohn] and her were talking to each other online. It's his girlfriend, and he went down there to get her and brought her back up here. That's about all I know."
The police tapes shown in Mommy Dead and Dearest illustrate a similar level of confusion from the Goldammers. Stephanie's interview was used almost verbatim in The Act.
"You know, it was weird because when I picked them up from the bus station, I even asked her, 'How's your mom doing?' ... I was told she was in a homeless shelter. Her mom kicked her out," Stephanie recalled in the real police interview about first meeting Gypsy. "So I asked her how her mom was doing. That might have been the first thing I asked her. No big deal, they acted like nothing."
As the detective explained what Godejohn and Gypsy were suspected of, Stephanie grew increasingly upset. "Are you serious?" she asked when told that the couple had mailed the murder weapon to her house. "Oh, my God ... my God," she kept repeating. "Just the way the girl acted — I mean, how can you do something to your mother and lose your mother, and just act like that? I'm just trying to wrap my head around it."
Charles was equally mystified in his own police interview shown in the documentary. "They acted like two normal people. That's what's really freaky. How can you do that?" he said. He also acknowledged that Godejohn had received a package, but that he had no idea the murder weapon was inside it. "I don't go through mail. Maybe I should have," he said.
According to the Goldammers' accounts, they never expected Godejohn to be involved in a murder, and they seemed most upset by how he and Gypsy were able to seemingly put the whole thing behind them and act normal.
The Act portrays things a little differently since, in the show, Godejohn and Gypsy were anything but calm following the murder. Gypsy was constantly on edge about getting caught, and the two weren't necessarily getting along all that well — at least according to the series.
The episode ended with Gypsy walking into the courtroom, so the focus is back on her, which means Godejohn's family probably won't appear in a big way again. But considering that the real Godejohn will remain in prison for the rest of his life, the case has clearly impacted his family forever.
