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Gypsy Rose Blanchard — who pleaded guilty in 2016 to second-degree murder in the death of her mom, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard — is set to be released from prison on parole Thursday and says she regrets plotting the slaying.
Blanchard, now 32, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the 2015 murder of her mother, who allegedly forced her into unnecessary medical procedures for years. Blanchard’s expected Thursday release from the Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri, confirmed to Oxygen by the state’s Department of Corrections, will see her paroled three years ahead of the end of her prison sentence.
Believed to be a victim of factitious disorder imposed on another, formerly called Munchhausen syndrome by proxy — a mental illness in which someone pretends that a person they’re caring for is sick when they’re not — Blanchard has alleged that her mom abused her by acting as though she had various illnesses and conditions and making her undergo treatments for them.
How was Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard killed?
Dee Dee was found dead from stab wounds in the bedroom of her home near Springfield, Missouri in June of 2015. Nicholas Godejohn — a Wisconsin man who was 26 at the time and whom Dee Dee’s daughter had met online and developed a romantic relationship with — was convicted of killing her.
Blanchard, who was 23 when her mother was killed, testified during Godejohn’s trial that she helped plot Dee Dee’s murder after feeling there was no escaping her abuse and all the unnecessary medical treatments and surgeries imposed on her. Blanchard gave Godejohn the knife used to repeatedly stab her mom and provided details about her mother’s routines.
“I was desperate to get out of that situation,” Blanchard told People of why she wanted her mom killed in a new interview out Tuesday.
What does Gypsy Rose Blanchard now say of her mom’s murder?
Despite her desperation at the time and the alleged abuse she suffered, Blanchard now says she regrets her decision to ask Godejohn to kill her mother, which he did while Blanchard waited in the bathroom of the home she lived in with Dee Dee.
“Nobody will ever hear me say I’m glad she’s dead or I’m proud of what I did,” Blanchard told People. “I regret it every single day.”
She added, “If I had another chance to redo everything, I don’t know if I would go back to when I was a child and tell my aunts and uncles that I’m not sick and mommy makes me sick, or, if I would travel back to just the point of that conversation with Nick and tell him, ‘You know what, I’m going to go tell the police everything.’ I kind of struggle with that.”
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Dee Dee allegedly forced her daughter into a number of painful and uncomfortable procedures for serious illnesses her daughter never had, lying to medical workers and family members.
Blanchard was forced to use a wheelchair because her mom claimed she suffered from muscular dystrophy, even though the child had no issue walking. Dee Dee had also claimed her daughter had leukemia and shaved her head, and the child was even given feeding tubes at one point.
“Obviously I knew that I could walk and didn’t need a feeding tube, but everything else was a really big confusion for me,” Blanchard told People. Recalling an epilepsy diagnosis, Blanchard added, “Whenever I’d question it, my mother would say I’d had a seizure the night before and didn’t remember. There was always an excuse.”
Blanchard, who was kept out of school by her mom and held back from having a relationship with her father and other family members, adds that she was very sheltered, which kept her from seeing the full picture of what was happening and reporting it.
“I was limited in what I could watch and the exposure I had to other kids,” Blanchard told People. “What I knew of the outside world was only in Disney movies and those don’t talk about warning signs of bad parents.”
Is Gypsy Rose Blanchard married?
Blanchard is now married to Louisiana teacher Ryan Anderson, whom she wed last year while she was still in prison. “We’re in love,” she told People.
Where is Nicholas Godejohn now?
Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in Dee Dee’s killing and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Now 34, he’s behind bars at the Potosi Correctional Center in Washington County, Missouri, according to Missouri Department Of Corrections records reviewed by Oxygen.
Ahead of her prison release, Blanchard admits she’s still coping with her troubled past.
“It’s a journey,” she said to People. “I’m still really trying to come to a place of forgiveness for her, for myself and the situation. I still love my mom. And I’m starting to understand that it was something that was maybe out of her control, like an addict with an impulse. That helps me with coping and accepting what happened.”
