Gypsy Rose Blanchard released from prison on parole

News

By Snejana Farberov

Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the Missouri woman who convinced her boyfriend to kill her mother after suffering years of medical abuse, was released from prison Thursday.

Blanchard, now 32, had been serving a 10-year sentence on a second-degree murder conviction in connection with the 2015 stabbing death of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard.

Gypsy was granted parole in September, clearing the way for her early release nearly three years ahead of schedule.

On Sunday, just days after regaining her freedom, Gypsy and her husband, Ryan Anderson, are expected to attend a Kansas City Chiefs game, where she is hoping to run into her idol, Taylor Swift, she recently told TMZ.

Her case inspired the HBO documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest” and the Hulu scripted series “The Act”, both of which explored Gypsy’s harrowing childhood spent being forced to pretend she was suffering from leukemia, muscular dystrophy, and a host of other ailments.

Dee Dee Blanchard had Munchhausen by proxy syndrome, a psychological disorder in which parents seek sympathy and attention through the exaggerated or made-up illness of their children, according to Gypsy’s defense attorney.

Despite being perfectly healthy, Gypsy was confined by her mother to a wheelchair and forced to use a feeding tube.

Dee Dee presented her daughter to the world as terminally ill and having the mental capacity of a 7-year-old.

Through her years-long con, the mother received charitable donations from various organizations, was gifted a free trip to Disney World, and received a home from Habitat for Humanity.

Blanchard was able to hoodwink doctors by telling them that Gypsy’s medical records had been lost in Hurricane Katrina. If they became suspicious, she would switch doctors and shave her daughter’s head to make her look like a cancer patient.

Besides the medical abuse, which included an unnecessary surgery to remove her salivary glands, Gypsy testified that her mother also beat her and chained her to a bed.

As she became more curious about the outside world after growing up in isolation, Gypsy met Nicholas Godejohn on a Christian dating website, and the two became romantically involved.

In June 2015, Godejohn stabbed Dee Dee to death in her Springfield Missouri home, where Gypsy Rose hid in the bathroom.

The couple then went on the run but were tracked down and arrested.

Godejohn told police he killed Dee Dee at Gypsy’s request and with a knife provided by her. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years.

Gypsy pleaded guilty in 2016 to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years.

In her testimony at Godejohn’s trial, Gypsy admitted to talking him into killing her mother, saying, “I wanted to be free of her hold on me.” 

Gypsy’s account of her life, titled “Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom,” is set for publication next month.

With Post wires