JANUARY 3, 2024:
UNDATED (AP)- Gypsy Rose Blanchard said she has found a way to forgive her mother — and herself. But it has been a long journey from years of abuse and the darkest parts of her life splashed across tabloids to living in prison.
Blanchard, now 32, was paroled last week (Dec. 28, 2023) from a Missouri women’s prison. Her release came 8 1/2 years after she persuaded her boyfriend at the time to kill her abusive mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard — in a desperate bid to be free of her.
For years, her mother forced her to pretend that she was suffering from leukemia, muscular dystrophy and other serious illnesses.
“At first I was really angry with her, very confused. And I’m still confused,” Blanchard told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday. “But I understand that she had a lot of mental issues. And so I think that’s brought me to a place of forgiveness by just trying to understand where she was coming from. I don’t believe that she was evil.
“I know, that she was very sick,” she continued. This journey, Blanchard explained, also involved forgiving herself.
Dee Dee Blanchard had essentially kept her daughter prisoner and duped doctors into doing unnecessary procedures by telling them that her daughter’s medical records had been lost in Hurricane Katrina. Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s attorney said the mother 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.
The mother-daughter duo received charitable donations, and even a home near Springfield from Habitat for Humanity.
Forced to use a wheelchair and feeding tube, Gypsy felt trapped. She said her mother, who lied about Gypsy’s age to make her seem younger, prevented her from having much of a relationship with her father — or with anyone else.
“I wish I could go back and tell my younger self, ‘Call your dad. Reach out for help with people because they will actually believe you,’” she said. “The main reason why I didn’t is because I really felt like nobody would believe me whenever I said that things just wasn’t right at home.”
When she turned 23, she supplied a knife to her boyfriend, and hid in a bathroom while he repeatedly stabbed her mother, according to the probable cause statement. Then Gypsy and Nicholas Godejohn, who she met on a Christian dating website, made their way by bus to Godejohn’s home in Wisconsin, where they were arrested.
Godejohn is serving a life sentence in Missouri while prosecutors cut Blanchard a deal because of the abuse she had endured.
Incarceration was “nothing but self-discovery,” she said. She made friends, earned her GED and overcame early shortcomings in her education that left her unable to do basic math. While behind bars, she even met and married someone who forged a relationship with Gypsy by writing to her on a whim.
“I was in a little cocoon. And now that I’m free, I’ve emerged as a butterfly,” she said.
She describes her husband Ryan Scott Anderson, a 37-year-old special education teacher from Lake Charles, Louisiana, as a “teddy bear.” In the pre-dawn hours last Thursday, Anderson picked her up at the prison. They had planned to go to the Kansas City Chiefs game on Sunday; she dreamed she might even bump into superstar Taylor Swift as she cheered on her boyfriend, tight end Travis Kelce. Swift’s music had been an inspiration to Blanchard.
But going to the game was deemed too much, too soon. Instead she headed to Louisiana and started to settle into post-prison life. Her father also lives in the state, and she said she is finally “getting to know him as an adult.”
“This is what I’ve been wanting for so long,” she said. “But it’s an adjustment. But it’s a wonderful adjustment.” She added that given her childhood, it also is her “first taste of actual, real, full fledged freedom.”
This week, she is delighting in the little things. She used a Keurig coffee maker for the first time Tuesday. She played video games with her father using a virtual reality headset. She described both experiences as “amazing.”
She isn’t sure yet what will come next and said she wants to give herself a little bit of time before she decides. Eventually, she wants to have children with her husband. But when is a question mark, as is possibilities for employment. The only jobs she has ever had were all in prison, where she took photos and helped out with janitorial tasks.
“Right now, I’m really not sure what my skill is,” she said, “so I’m going to have to kind of discover that over time.”
As she adjusts, there has been a fresh round of media coverage. A Lifetime docuseries “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard” and her own eBook, “Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom” (Penguin Random House) are coming out this month.
Around the U.S. people learned about the bizarre case from the 2017 HBO documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest” and the 2019 Hulu miniseries “The Act.”
While there have been many TV specials and interviews over the years, she steered clear of watching them, fearing it would be “emotionally traumatizing,” she said. This docuseries will be the first she has ever watched.
“I am at least putting myself out there to be a cautionary tale,” she said. “because I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I went through.”
DECEMBER 28, 2023, UPDATE:
UNDATED (AP)- Gypsy Rose Blanchard has been released from prison on parole years after she persuaded an online boyfriend to kill her abusive mother. A spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections says the now-32-year-old Missouri woman was released early Thursday (Dec. 28, 2023) from the Chillicothe Correctional Center. Blanchard’s case sparked national interest after reports emerged that her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, essentially kept her prisoner, forcing her to pretend for years that she was suffering from cancer and other serious illnesses. Michael Stanfield, Gypsy Blanchard’s trial attorney, has said that her mother 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.
DECEMBER 28, 2023:
UNDATED (AP)- Gypsy Rose Blanchard is set to be paroled years after she persuaded an online boyfriend to kill her abusive mother. The now-32-year-old Missouri woman is scheduled to be released on Thursday (Dec. 28, 2023). Her case sparked national tabloid interest after reports emerged that her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, had essentially kept her daughter prisoner, forcing her to pretend for years that she was suffering from cancer and other serious illnesses. Michael Stanfield is Gypsy Blanchard’s trial attorney. He has said that her mother 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.
Extended version:
UNDATED (AP)- Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the Missouri woman who persuaded an online boyfriend to kill her mother after she had forced her to pretend for years that she was suffering from leukemia, muscular dystrophy and other serious illnesses, is set to be paroled on Thursday (Dec. 28, 2023).
The case sparked national tabloid interest after reports emerged that Gypsy Blanchard’s mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, who was slain in 2015, had essentially kept her daughter prisoner, forcing her to use a wheelchair and feeding tube.
It turned out that Gypsy Blanchard, now 32, was perfectly healthy, not developmentally delayed as her friends had always believed. Her mother 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, said her trial attorney, Michael Stanfield.
“People were constantly telling Dee Dee what a wonderful mother she was, and Dee Dee was getting all of this attention,” he said.
Through the ruse, the mother and daughter met country star Miranda Lambert and received charitable donations, a trip to Disney World and even a home near Springfield from Habitat for Humanity.
Stanfield said Gypsy Blanchard’s mother was able to dupe doctors by telling them her daughter’s medical records had been lost in Hurricane Katrina. If they asked too many questions, she just found a new physician, shaving the girl’s head to back up her story. Among the unnecessary procedures Gypsy Blanchard underwent was the removal of her salivary glands. Her mother convinced doctors it was necessary by using topical anesthetic to cause drooling.
Gypsy Blanchard, who had little schooling or contact with anyone but her mother, also was misled, especially when she was younger, Stanfield said.
“The doctors seem to confirm everything that you’re being told. The outside world is telling you that your mother is a wonderful, loving, caring person. What other idea can you have?” Stanfield said.
But then the abuse became more physical, Stanfield said. Gypsy testified that her mother beat her and chained her to a bed. Slowly, Gypsy also was beginning to understand that she wasn’t as sick as her mom said.
“I wanted to be free of her hold on me,” Gypsy testified at the 2018 trial of her former boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn of Big Bend, Wisconsin, who is serving a life sentence in the killing. She went on to add: “I talked him into it.”
When she took the stand at his trial, prosecutors already had cut her a deal because of the abuse she had endured. In exchange for pleading guilty in 2016 to second-degree murder, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The first-degree murder charge she initially faced would have meant a life term.
“Nick was so in love with her and so obsessed with her that he would do anything,” Godejohn’s trial attorney Dewayne Perry argued in court, saying his client has autism and was manipulated.
Prosecutors, however, argued that he was motivated by sex and a desire to be with Gypsy Blanchard, whom he met on a Christian dating website.
According to the probable cause statement, Gypsy Blanchard supplied the knife and hid in a bathroom while Godejohn repeatedly stabbed her mother. The two ultimately made their way by bus to Wisconsin, where they were arrested. She has been incarcerated since then at a state women’s prison in Chillicothe.
“Things are not always as they appear,” said Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott as the strange revelations began to emerge.
Even Gypsy’s age was a lie. Her mother had said she was younger to make it easier to perpetuate the fraud, and got away with it because Gypsy was so small: just 4 feet, 11 inches (150 centimeters) tall.
Law enforcement was initially so confused that the original court documents listed three different ages for her, with the youngest being 19. She was 23.
Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson described it as “one of the most extraordinary and unusual cases we have seen.”
Stanfield recalled that the first time he met Gypsy, she got out of breath walking the 75 yards (69 meters) from the elevator to the room where he talked to her. He described her as malnourished and physically frail.
“I can honestly say I’ve rarely had a client who looks exceedingly better after doing a fairly long prison sentence,” Stanfield said. “Prison is generally not a place where you become happy and healthy. And I say that because, to me, that’s kind of the evidence to the rest of the world as to just how bad what Gypsy was going through really was.”
Gypsy Blanchard later said it wasn’t until her arrest that she realized how healthy she was. But it took time. Eventually, she got married while behind bars to Ryan Scott Anderson, now 37, of Saint Charles, Louisiana.
The bizarre case was the subject of the 2017 HBO documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest,” the 2019 Hulu miniseries “The Act” and an upcoming Lifetime docuseries “The Prison Confession of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.” Daytime television psychologist “Dr. Phil” McGraw interviewed her from prison. The novel “Darling Rose Gold” draws upon the story for its premise and Blanchard’s own account, “Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom” is set for publication next month.
Amid the media storm, corrections department spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said no in-person coverage of her release on Thursday would be allowed “in the interest of protecting safety, security and privacy.”
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