After serving eight years in a Missouri prison, Gypsy Rose Blanchard is scheduled for release on Thursday.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Blanchard will be released from the Chillicothe Correctional Center on December 28, after serving time for second-degree murder. According to Missouri state law, Blanchard qualifies for early release after serving 85% of her sentence, which she has nearly completed.
Blanchard was convicted of murder for the June 2015 death of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, who was found killed in their Springfield home. An autopsy report indicated that she had been stabbed 17 times.
Police said Blanchard didn’t stab her mother herself, but instead, orchestrated the murder while her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, carried out the grisly attack.
Neighbors in Springfield thought that Blanchard had mental disabilities with the intellect of a young child. They also thought she was terminally ill, battling diseases such as leukemia and muscular dystrophy.
In reality, she was a healthy adult who was planning out her mother’s murder with Godejohn, a man she met in 2012 on a Christian dating site. Both Blanchard and Godejohn were arrested and subsequently convicted of Dee Dee’s murder.
Godejohn is currently serving a life sentence behind bars in Missouri. Prosecutors considered the abuse Gypsy Rose Blanchard suffered at her mother’s hands and sought a lighter sentence.
A Missouri doctor said Dee Dee Blanchard is believed to have suffered from Munchausen by proxy — which entailed forcing her daughter to use a wheelchair and subjecting her to unnecessary medical treatments.
Despite a separate report raising similar concerns and prompting caseworker visits, Dee Dee dismissed the allegations as unfounded smears.
Dee Dee was also accused of fabricating Gypsy Rose’s age during her teenage years, exploiting the supposed loss of her birth certificate in Hurricane Katrina.
Blanchard tried escaping her mother during a science fiction convention in 2011, where she met up with an online acquaintance. Her mother located her in a hotel room, and falsely presented documents to assert Gypsy Rose’s status as a minor, even though she was 19 at the time.
Upon their return home, Gypsy Rose Blanchard recounted an episode where Dee Dee destroyed her computer with a hammer and subjected her to a two-week ordeal of being restrained and handcuffed to her bed.
A few weeks before the 2015 slaying, Blanchard’s mother allegedly isolated her and tied her to a bed to stop her from escaping.
Earlier this month, Godejohn’s new lawyer appealed his first-degree murder conviction, claiming his client had an ineffective counsel. He accused Godejohn’s trial lawyers of failing to present evidence from a qualified neuropsychologist specializing in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who is married, spent seven years behind bars. She told TMZ that she and her husband have tickets to attend the December 31 Kansas City Chiefs game — where she hopes to meet Taylor Swift.
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[Featured image: Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Clauddine Blanchard, Greene County Sheriff’s Office/Nicholas Godejohn, Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department]
Additional reporting by Jacquelyn Gray
