Daughter who ordered killing of mum who forced her to fake cancer to leave jail
Gypsy Rose Blanchard has been granted parole after being jailed for a decade for murdering her mother Dee Dee Blanchard. Missouri's Department of Corrections has confirmed that she will be released on December 28 - after serving just seven years.
She was handed a ten-year sentence for plotting to kill her mother, while her accomplice Nicholas Godejohn was given a life sentence. Previously Gypsy insisted she would choose prison over her old life any day.
She was subjected to years of abuse in one of the world's most famous cases of what is known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy. This is when a person pretends someone under their care is sick, often falsifying medical records and lying to doctors in a bid to gain sympathy and attention.
Dee Dee said her daughter was unable to walk or eat unassisted (HBO)In Gypsy Rose's case, she was forced to use a wheelchair, and had her head shaved so she looked like she was receiving chemotherapy.
She was also given oxygen and a feeding tube, medication for seizures that made her teeth rot as well as multiple operations including on her eyes - all of which she did not need.
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Dee Dee even falsified her daughter's birth certificate, pretending she was much younger than she was and insisting her mental age was even younger.
She was able to get away with lacking proof of Gypsy's multiple "illnesses" by claiming they had lost documents in the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.
But had Dee Dee not forced her daughter into unnecessary medical treatments, which even culminated in her having her saliva glands removed for a non-existent "drooling" issue, Gypsy Rose would have been perfectly healthy.
The problems are thought to have first begun when Dee Dee took Gypsy to the hospital after she’d noticed she was having breathing problems when she was three months old.
Gypsy was diagnosed with sleep apnoea and sent home with breathing apparatus.
Dee Dee pretended Gypsy Rose was suffering from leukaemia (HBO)But Dee Dee wasn’t satisfied and told her family she was convinced there was something else wrong and was determined to get answers.
When Gypsy was seven, Dee Dee told friends and family that she had a chromosomal disorder. It didn’t have a name, but it meant Gypsy would need a wheelchair and she wouldn’t develop like other children, she said.
She then moved to Louisiana, far away from her family, who say they had wanted to help but were pushed away.
When Gypsy's weight dropped too low, she was given a feeding tube, while her "severe asthma" meant she needed oxygen whenever she left the house.
When Dee Dee told doctors Gypsy was having epileptic seizures, she was given drugs to control them - which caused her teeth to crumble and fall out.
Killer dances in his victim's house with twerking model who later turned on him
Gypsy Rose Blanchard was treated to Disneyland trips as support from well-wishers flooded in
Young Gypsy Rose in the wheelchair she was forced to useDee Dee would tell people muscular dystrophy meant Gypsy needed a wheelchair and her learning difficulties required her to be home-schooled.
She told people Gypsy had the mental capacity of a seven-year-old - before - in an even more sick twist - deciding to tell people Gypsy had leukaemia.
And with her bald head, rotted teeth and wheelchair, no one would doubt that they were looking at a very poorly child - and Gypsy became a local star, given free trips including to Disneyland, with well-wishers paying their bills.
Dee Dee would always hold Gypsy Rose's hand, and her daughter says she would squeeze it painfully hard if anyone ever demonstrated doubt about her condition in front of them, to ensure she remained complicit.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard's story was depicted in drama The Act, where she was played by Joey KingGypsy was banned from speaking at doctor’s appointments and Dee Dee talked down any suspicious medical staff, but as she grew older, Dee turned to violence to control her daughter.
Once, when Gypsy tried to run away, her mum chained her to the bed for two weeks.
When she tried to tell someone she wasn’t ill, Dee Dee blamed her confusion on mental problems.
In 2013, Gypsy joined a Christian dating website and started talking to Nicholas Godejohn, 23, from Wisconsin.
He became the catalyst for Gypsy's escape.
Dee Dee pretended Gypsy was younger than she was, and had learning difficultiesNicholas had a criminal record for indecent exposure and a history of mental illness – but once he told Gypsy he wasn’t daunted by the fact she was in a wheelchair, she was smitten.
And she confided in him that all her health problems were invented by her mother.
Gypsy said her mum was overprotective, so they chatted in private using secret Facebook accounts, before arranging to pretend to meet each other for the first time at the cinema in front of Dee Dee.
But Dee Dee found out about their relationship and smashed Gypsy's computer before forbidding her from ever speaking to Nicholas again.
So now it was time for what Gypsy and Nicholas called "Plan B" - they were going to kill Dee Dee.
Gypsy Rose said she felt more like a prisoner while with her mother than she does now in prison (HBO)On 12 June 2015, Nicholas came to the Blanchard home when Dee Dee was asleep, and Gypsy let him in, handing him gloves and a large serrated knife.
She hid in the bathroom and covered her ears while Nicholas stabbed Dee Dee 17 times, before covering her with a duvet and heading into Gypsy's room, where they had sex.
The pair fled to Wisconsin, but Gypsy did not want her mother's body to lie undiscovered, so she wrote a post on her joint Facebook page she shared with her mother.
‘That b***h is dead,’ they wrote. Then followed it with a longer comment suggesting that whoever had killed Dee Dee had also raped Gypsy.
On 14 June, officers found Dee Dee’s body and announced that vulnerable Gypsy was missing, and that wherever she was, she didn't have her wheelchair, oxygen or medication - leaving her in grave danger.
Nick Godejohn and Gypsy Blanchard's mugshots following their arrestsFans of Gypsy and Dee Dee were heartbroken and began to raise money for the funeral costs - but the police were starting to suspect something even darker than they first thought.
They traced the Facebook status to Wisconsin, where they found Nicholas and Gypsy - who initially denied any involvement in Dee Dee's killing.
The police wondered of Nicholas had taken advantage of mentally impaired Gypsy - but then the truth unravelled.
Gypsy told them what her mum had done to her since she was a baby – that she was a victim of child abuse and that Nicholas had agreed to "Plan B" to help her escape. He confirmed the story.
In court, Gypsy garnered sympathy because of the unthinkable abuse she had endured for years, and she was given a plea-deal to accept a ten-year sentence for second-degree-murder, which she accepted.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is said to be "thriving" in prison where she is studying beauty and taking care of dogs (Courtesy ABC News)The judge took into account the abuse she had suffered, but could not ignore the pre-meditated, brutal murder.
After a brief trial in November 2018, Nicholas was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Gypsy testified at Nicholas’ trial, where she talked about how desperate she had been to be free of her mother, but how terrified she was of Dee Dee, meaning she could not go to the authorities.
"I didn’t think anyone would believe me," she told the court.
"I thought they would eventually tell my mom and make my home life even worse for me. I feared my mom more than I feared anyone else."
Behind bars, Gypsy reportedly thrived, with her hair growing and her weight returning to normal. Medics gave her a clean bill of health.
A spokesperson for Gypsy, family friend Fancy Macelli, says she has developed a passion for photography and cosmetology, and is taking part in a program where she takes care of dogs.
In 2019, Gypsy announced she was engaged to a man called Ken, who had become her pen pal in prison, and they plan to tie the knot when she is released.
Asked in 2018 how her life in prison differs to her life with her mother, Gypsy told E!: "In some ways, they’re the same, but now I’m so much freer.
"The prison I was living in before with my mom, it was like I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t have friends. Over here, I feel like I’m freer in prison than living with my mom.
"I can live like a normal woman."
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