Gypsy Rose Blanchard released from prison

Gypsy Rose Blanchard was released from a Missouri prison early Thursday after serving time for convincing her then-boyfriend to kill her mother following years of abuse, according to multiple reports.

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Blanchard, now 32, was released around 3:30 a.m. from Chillicothe Correction Correctional Center, according to the Kansas City Star. She was paroled after serving 85% of her 10-year sentence, Karen Pojmann, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections, told The Associated Press.

Blanchard pleaded guilty in 2016 to second-degree murder in the death of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. One year earlier, the elder Blanchard had been stabbed to death by Nicholas Godejohn, Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s then-boyfriend.

During Godejohn’s trial in 2018, the younger Blanchard admitted that she convinced the Wisconsin man to kill her mother in an effort to escape years of abuse, the Star reported. Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, according to the newspaper.

Authorities said the younger Blanchard was abused by her mother for nearly two decades. Dee Dee Blanchard subjected her daughter to unnecessary medical procedures, forcing her to use a wheelchair and a feeding tube, the AP reported. For years, Dee Dee Blanchard duped doctors into believing that her daughter had a litany of health issues, claiming that her daughter’s medical records had been lost in Hurricane Katrina and moving care to different doctors if too many questions were raised.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s attorney, Michael Stanfield, told the AP that Dee Dee Blanchard had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder in which parents or caregivers seek sympathy through the exaggerated or made-up illnesses of their children.

“People were constantly telling Dee Dee what a wonderful mother she was, and Dee Dee was getting all of this attention,” he said.

Before her release Thursday, Gypsy Rose Blanchard told People, “I was desperate to get out of that situation.”

“Obviously I knew that I could walk and didn’t need a feeding tube, but everything else was a really big confusion for me,” she said. “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.”

In 2012, Gypsy Rose Blanchard met Godejohn after sneaking onto a Christian dating site, sparking an online relationship that lasted years, USA Today reported. In 2015, the couple began to plot Dee Dee Blanchard’s death, according to the newspaper.

Godejohn stabbed the elder Blanchard to death on June 9, 2015, as Gypsy Rose Blanchard hid in the bathroom of the family’s home with her ears covered, USA Today reported. They fled to Wisconsin, where they were later arrested.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard told People that she regrets plotting to have her mother killed.

“She didn’t deserve that,” she said. “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.”

Gypsy Rose Blanchard married Louisiana teacher Ryan Anderson, 37, while behind bars, according to People. She said that she hopes people take her situation as a cautionary tale.

“I want to make sure that people in abusive relationships do not resort to murder,” she told People. “It may seem like every avenue is closed off but there is always another way. Do anything, but don’t take this course of action.”