Gypsy Rose

 

Gypsy Rose Blanchard set to be released from prison

CHILLICOTHE, Mo. (Gray News) – Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the woman who conspired to kill her abusive mother who forced her to pretend to be disabled, is expected to be released from prison Thursday.

The Missouri Department of Corrections announced earlier this year that Blanchard, 32, will be released from the Chillicothe Correctional Center in northern Missouri on Thursday after the state granted her request for parole.

Upon her release, Blanchard said she hopes to meet Taylor Swift, who she told TMZ inspires her.

The convicted felon told the media outlet she has tickets to a Kansas City Chiefs game on New Year’s Eve and hopes to run into her idol at Arrowhead Stadium.

Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in July 2016 in connection to the death of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard.

She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Investigators said Gypsy Blanchard convinced her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, to stab her mother to death in 2015. He was sentenced to life in prison.

In court, Gypsy Blanchard testified that her mother forced her to use a wheelchair and undergo unnecessary medical tests to collect gifts and charitable donations.

She also said she planned her mother’s killing, considering poison, arson or using a gun.

According to investigators, Dee Dee Blanchard used her daughter as a disabled poster child to gain sympathy and con people out of money.

It is widely believed that Gypsy Blanchard was a victim of Munchausen by proxy, a rare form of abuse in which a guardian fakes illnesses in a child for attention and sympathy. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the abuse can also be called Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another.

The case made national headlines and led to the 2017 HBO documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest” and the 2019 Hulu miniseries “The Act.”

After seeing her story told by others in the media, Gypsy Blanchard will publish an eBook, titled “Released,” on Jan. 9 with a collection of interview transcripts and journal entries to tell her side of the story, according to  Penguin Random House publishing.

Gypsy Blanchard will also tell her story in Lifetime’s new docuseries “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard,” premiering Jan. 5.

The Blanchards moved to Springfield, Missouri, from Louisiana in 2006 after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

In a new interview with PEOPLE, Gypsy Blanchard said she regrets having her mother killed but was “desperate to get out of that situation.”

Looking back, she said she should have confided in her extended family members about what her mother was doing to her or she should have told the police.

“ 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,” she told PEOPLE.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard is PAROLED and set to be released from prison three years early - after being jailed for murdering her Munchausen-suffering mother who convinced her she was terminally ill

• Blanchard was sentenced to 10 years for conspiring to kill her mother in 2016
• Her mother 'Dee Dee' convinced her daughter that she was terminally ill 
• Nicholas Godejohn, her accomplice, was given a life sentence in 2018

• Gypsy Rose Blanchard has been granted parole after being jailed for ten years for murdering her mother. 

  The 32-year-old pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Clauddine 'Dee Dee' Blanchard in 2016, with the case garnering national attention.

  Clauddine convinced her daughter that she was terminally ill, with Blanchard's lawyers saying she was 'abused' by her mother as part of an elaborate fraud scheme.

  Missouri's Department of Corrections has confirmed that she will be released on December 28 - after serving just seven years. 

  She was handed a ten-year sentence for plotting to kill her mother, while her accomplice Nicholas Godejohn was given a life sentence

  

  Gypsy Rose Blanchard, 32, pleaded guilty to the murder of Clauddine 'Dee Dee' Blanchard in 2016, with the case garnering national attention 
  
  

  
  

  

  Clauddine, who suffered from Munchausen by proxy syndrome, had led everyone to believe that her daughter was a terminally ill teenager with the mind of a seven-year-old
  
  

  Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder for stabbing Clauddine, with a judge earlier this year refusing to vacate the conviction. 

  He had been appealing to get a new trial on the grounds that he had 'poor representation' for his 2018 conviction.

  Blanchard is being released after serving 85 percent of her sentence, as required by state law, and will be given credit for the time she spent in jail before her plea. 

  She found love in prison, getting engaged in 2019 to a pen pal who started writing her after her story was the subject of a HBO documentary - Mommy Dead and Dearest - which aired in 2017. 

  Joey King also starred at Blanchard in a Hulu mini-series called The Act, which aired in 2019. 

  Photos of Blanchard posing with her fiancé, Ken,  and family were obtained by E! News in 2019

  In one photo Blanchard is seen holding hands with Ken alongside her father, Rod Blanchard and her stepmother Kristy.

  Clauddine was found stabbed to death in her bed at her home in Springfield, Missouri, in June 2015. 

  

  She was handed a ten-year sentence for plotting to kill her mother, while her accomplice Nicholas Godejohn (right) was given a life sentence
  
  
  
  

  

  Gypsy Rose Blanchard's pen pal fiance, Ken (right, with Gypsy), has been pictured for the first time since the couple announced their engagement in April
  
  

  She suffered from Munchausen by proxy syndrome, and convinced everyone that Blanchard was terminally ill. 

  As part of the scheme, she said the then-teenager had the mind of a seven-year-old who suffered from muscular dystrophy, leukemia and other ailments.

  Blanchard shocked the world after she walked into her first court hearing without assistance.

  All who knew her believed that she was wheelchair-bound, with her mother convincing health professionals of her ailments. 

  Clauddine moved to Springfield when Blanchard was a child, claiming they had fled from Hurricane Katrina.

  The two lived in a home built by Habitat for Humanity, and Clauddine was a full-time caretaker for Blanchard, claiming the girl suffered from ailments including chromosomal defects, epilepsy, sleep apnea, leukemia, and severe asthma.

  She even made her daughter shave her head so it appeared as though she lost her hair through chemotherapy. 

  Her ruse fooled even doctors, who doled out prescriptions and performed surgeries on Blanchard. 

  The mother also accepted financial donations and the two went on charity-funded trips to Disney World. She had barred her daughter from attending school after kindergarten.

  

  Blanchard's story was currently the inspiration for Hulu's latest television series, The Act, in which she is played by Joey King (above)
  

  

  Blanchard - whose story is the subject of Hulu's The Act - is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence after she admitted to planning her mother's murder

  

  Clauddine was found stabbed to death in her bed at her home in Springfield, Missouri, in June 2015

  
  

  

  Clauddine even made her daughter shave her head so it appeared as if she lost her hair through chemotherapy. Gypsy is pictured above wearing a wig
  
  
  
  
  

  

  
  Blanchard shocked the world after she walked into her first court hearing without assistance
  

  Blanchard eventually met Nicholas Godejohn on ChristianDatingForFree.com and started an online relationship for two years. 

  When she opened up to her boyfriend about her mother's behavior, they came up with a plot to murder Clauddine so they could be together.

  Godejohn slipped into the house and allegedly stabbed Clauddine while Blanchard hid in the bathroom. The couple then took 'several thousand dollars' from a safe in the home and spent some time in Springfield following her death.

  Surveillance footage at local businesses showed Gypsy wearing different disguises and walking on her own before they took a bus 565 miles to Wisconsin.

  A shocking Facebook status from Clauddine and Gypsy's shared account on June 14, 2015, read: 'That B**** is dead', which prompted alarmed neighbors to call police.

  A second, more disturbing post, read: 'I - SLASHED THAT **** AND RAPED HER SWEET INNOCENT DAUGHTER. ..HER SCREAM WAS SOOOO LOUD LOL.'

  The Facebook posts were traced to Godejohn's house in Big Bend, Wisconsin, and the two were arrested on June 16, 2015.

  
  

  
  

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