Gypsy Rose Blanchard has spent 7 years in prison for helping murder her mom Clauddine Blanchard with ex-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn and now she’s set to be released from jail. Details explored.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard grew up with her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, making claims about her health that resulted in a series of dire diagnoses and medical interventions. However, Gypsy wasn’t actually unwell — her mother had been lying about her symptoms.
In 2010, Dee Dee was telling everyone that Gypsy Rose was 14, but she was actually 19 years old. By then, she knew she wasn’t as sick as her mother claimed — as she was well aware that she could walk.
Experts believe Dee Dee’s behavior stemmed from the mental disorder Munchausen syndrome by proxy; because Dee Dee wanted to be a caretaker, she feigned and induced illness in her daughter.
The truth about Gypsy and her mother only came out after Gypsy arranged for an online boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn to murder Dee Dee in 2015.
Gypsy, who was sentenced to 10 years behind bars in 2016, is reportedly set to be released from prison after serving seven years for murdering her own mother. Here’s everything we know about her, and why she was arrested.
Who is Gypsy Rose Blanchard?
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is a 32-year-old woman who was born on July 27, 1991, in Golden Meadow, Louisiana, United States.
He parents are Clauddine Blanchard (aka Dee Dee) and Rod Blanchard.
Gypsy spent her entire life being controlled and monitored by her mother and she wasn’t allowed to go to school.
Her dad is alive while her mother has been murdered, and she was later charged for her death, and is currently convicted.
Gypsy’s mother, Dee Dee, falsely claimed her daughter was suffering from different illnesses until Gypsy arranged for her boyfriend to kill her mother in 2015.
What did Gypsy Rose Blanchard do to her mother?
Gypsy’s mother Dee Dee Blanchard is thought to have had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a condition in which a person compulsively makes another person ill in order to get attention, sympathy, and even monetary gain.
Dee Dee spent years making it seem as though Gypsy had many illnesses, including leukemia and epilepsy, and forced her to use an oxygen tank and a wheelchair to sell the act.
Though Gypsy was of normal intelligence, Dee Dee told everyone her daughter had a mental age of seven. When they were out in public, Dee Dee constantly held Gypsy’s hand, squeezing it when she wanted her daughter to be quiet.
As Gypsy grew older, Dee Dee began to lie about her age, going so far as to alter the dates on Gypsy’s birth certificate to make her daughter seem younger. But Gypsy was still becoming harder for Dee Dee to control.
In 2011, Gypsy tried to get away from her mother by running away with a man she’d at a science fiction convention. That attempt failed and she managed to get online where she joined a Christian dating site, and met Nicholas Godejohn.
Gypsy once sneak away and lose her virginity to Godejohn in a bathroom stall, according to her testimony at his trial.
She told him the truth about her mother’s actions and ended up asking him to kill Dee Dee so they could be together.
In June 2015, he came to her house and stabbed Dee Dee 17 times in her back while she was asleep while Gypsy waited, ears covered, in the bathroom, during the murder.
People who knew the mother-daughter pair viewed them as inseparable and loving and Dee Dee as a devoted parent.
That was until a Facebook post appeared on the pair’s shared Facebook profile on June 14, 2015.
It read: “That b*tch is dead! I f***ing slashed that fat pig and raped her sweet innocent daughter . . . her scream was soooo f***ing loud LOL,” soon followed. When people saw the post, some of Dee Dee’s concerned neighbors alerted authorities. She later explained she made the posts because she wanted her mother’s body to be discovered.
After Dee Dee’s murder, many people who’d known Gypsy wondered why she had gone so far as to kill her. Since she could walk, she simply could’ve exposed Dee Dee’s lies by standing up in public. Yet Gypsy had been conditioned to think no one would believe her. She explained, “I couldn’t just jump out of the wheelchair because I was afraid and I didn’t know what my mother would do. I didn’t have anyone to trust.”
When police responded to the home, Dee Dee was found dead and Gypsy was gone.
She was later found at Nicholas Godejohn’s house, her then-partner, who also had a hand in Dee Dee’s death.
Where is Gypsy Rose Blanchard now? She’s set to be released from jail this year.
Gypsy pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge in 2016 and was handed a 10-year sentence.
After sentencing, Gypsy told Buzzfeed: “I feel like I’m more free in prison than with living with my mom. Because now, I’m allowed to just live like a normal woman.”
While in prison, Gypsy got married to 36-year-old Ryan Scott Anderson in prison and then divorced from him four months later.
Gypsy will be released from prison on December 28, 2023, Missouri Department of Corrections Communications Director Karen Pojmann told In Touch.
Family friend Titania Gisclair grew up with Dee Dee and shared her reaction to news that Gypsy will soon be a free woman, three years before her original release date.
“I believe she will, with the help of a lot of people, she will thrive and she will become a better person. And I think that that will help her to become that person,” said Gisclair.
The family friend said that Gypsy has received “very little” mental healthcare while in prison and she hopes she’ll have more access to it outside the facility.
“I think she’s ready. I think my opinion has changed a lot over time,” Gisclair said.
“My opinion hasn’t changed about her needing psychiatric help. That has not changed because all of the statistics, all of the research, everything says you need to get mental health help. She needs mental health help.”
There is more to Gypsy’s story that has yet to be told, according to Gisclair, and Gypsy is ready to tell it upon her release.
“There are things that are coming once she comes out of prison … She is going to reach out into the true crime industry and be able to share her story. I think she will also share her story of what has happened to her and the things that she discovered while she was in prison.”
She also gave insight into Dee Dee’s character, explaining how she could trick people so easily.
“She was a good friend, but she just had a way of befriending someone, pretending to be their best friend, and then turning around and stabbing you in the back and you not even realizing it,” said Gisclair.
“So a lot of times when these people say, ‘I can’t understand how she manipulated these doctors and manipulated these nurses and manipulated all these people,’ I can see it. I can see it because I saw it firsthand.”
Where is Nicholas Godejohn now?
Godejohn was found guilty of first-degree murder in Dee Dee’s death and received a life sentence without the possibility of parole, meaning he will remain in prison.