Published: 11:44 AM PST, December 28, 2023
Gypsy Rose Blanchard has been spotted for the first time since being released from prison.
Photographers spotted Blanchard leaving her hotel room on Thursday in Chillicothe, Missouri, alongside her husband, Ryan Scott Anderson. Blanchard could be seen carrying bags of what appeared to be snacks and other essentials. She was also seen rolling out luggage.
A closer look at the photo showed Blanchard walking in a clean pair of white socks while wearing jeans and a sweater. Meanwhile, Anderson’s walking backwards while wheeling out a bigger piece of luggage and a 12-pack of Dr. Pepper. It’s the first time Blanchard’s been spotted since she was released from prison. The release comes eight years after she pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard. She had been serving a 10-year sentence.
ET confirmed that she was released early in the day from the Chillicothe Correctional Center at 3:30 a.m. local time. Karen Pojmann, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections, told The Associated Press that Blanchard was granted parole after serving 85 percent of her original sentence.
Dee Dee’s 2015 murder came after she was believed to have inflicted years of abuse on her daughter due to Munchausen by proxy, a rare disorder in which a guardian exaggerates or induces illness in a child for attention and sympathy.
Just days before her release, Blanchard told People she regretted conspiring with her then-boyfriend, Nicholas “Nick” Godejohn, to kill her mom. Nick, who killed Dee Dee in her home while Blanchard waited in the bathroom, received a life sentence for the crime.
“Nobody will ever hear me say I’m glad she’s dead or I’m proud of what I did. I regret it every single day,” Blanchard said. “She didn’t deserve that. She was a sick woman and unfortunately I wasn’t educated enough to see that. She deserved to be where I am, sitting in prison doing time for criminal behavior.”
Blanchard’s harrowing tale was the subject of a 2019 Hulu series, The Act, and a 2017 HBO documentary, Mommy Dead and Dearest. Her life story will hit the small screen once again in the upcoming Lifetime docuseries, The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, set to premiere Jan. 5.
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