Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who pleaded guilty to helping kill her abusive mother, is released from prison
CNN, KYTV
By Cheri Mossburg and Harmeet Kaur, CNN
(CNN) — Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who admitted to helping her boyfriend kill her abusive mother in a case that generated national attention, was released from prison on parole Thursday, a Missouri corrections official told CNN.
Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2016 after confessing that she convinced her boyfriend to stab her mother Dee Dee Blanchard to death as she slept. Prosecutors sentenced her to 10 years in prison in a plea deal after attorneys uncovered the abuse she experienced at the hands of her mother.
Blanchard was the victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a rare syndrome in which a caregiver fakes, exaggerates or induces illness in a child to gain attention. Dee Dee was found to have convinced those around her, including doctors, that her daughter was afflicted with leukemia and muscular dystrophy among other ailments — a subject examined in the HBO Max documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest.”
Blanchard admitted to being in the house at the time of the murder, knowing her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, was going to stab Dee Dee and doing nothing to stop it, court records show.
Godejohn was convicted of murder and sentenced in 2019 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Court filings show he admitted to stabbing Dee Dee and said he only killed her because Gypsy asked him to.
Speaking about the conditions of Blanchard’s release, Missouri Department of Corrections spokesperson Karen Pojmann said, “her original 10-year sentence started in June 2015, so, barring parole violations and other extenuating circumstances, it’s expected that she’ll be on parole supervision and reporting to a parole officer until June 2025.”
CNN has reached out to Blanchard’s attorney for comment.
In the days after Dee Dee’s killing, details started to emerge that revealed a complex and unusual situation, with Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott saying at a June 2015 press conference that “things are not always as they appear.”
“I’ve never encountered anything that is even close to what Gypsy has gone through,” Blanchard’s attorney Michael Stanfield says in the HBO documentary “Mommy Dead and Mommy Dearest.” “Her mother appeared to have taken great steps to keep Gypsy in a very juvenile role, making her act several years younger than her actual age.”
In an interview with People magazine shortly before her release, Blanchard, now 32, said she regretted her role in the killing “every single day.”
“She was a sick woman and unfortunately I wasn’t educated enough to see that,” she said. “She deserved to be where I am, sitting in prison doing time for criminal behavior.”
An upcoming book, “Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom,” tells Blanchard’s story through her own perspective, with the help of writers Melissa Moore and Michele Matrisciani. It is set to be published on January 9, 2024.
A six-hour Lifetime special, “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard,” featuring interviews with Blanchard from prison, is set to premiere on January 5, 2024. The case was also the subject of the 2019 Hulu miniseries “The Act,” starring Patricia Arquette as Dee Dee Blanchard.
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