What Did Gypsy Rose Blanchard Do?
Early on, Clauddine, who went by Dee Dee, claimed her daughter had sleep apnea at 3 months old. When Gypsy Rose was 8, she got into a motorcycle accident riding with her grandfather resulting in road rash. “She nursed me as if I had an amputation,” Gypsy Rose said of Dee Dee in her memoir My Time to Stand.
Within a few months, Gypsy Rose was in a wheelchair she didn’t need. Her mother claimed her daughter needed it for her muscular dystrophy. Dee Dee invented ailments for her daughter such as epilepsy, asthma, brain damage, leukemia and paralysis from the neck down.
Tired of all the lying and maternal control, Gypsy Rose tried to escape on multiple occasions, only to be punished for her efforts. By age 23, she saw murder as the only option.
Gypsy Rose persuaded her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, to travel from Wisconsin to her home in Springfield, Mo., and kill her mother. Gypsy Rose hid in the bathroom while Godejohn entered Dee Dee’s bedroom and stabbed her in her sleep on June 9, 2015. They then travelled back to Wisconsin with the intent of starting their new lives together.
When Did Gypsy Rose Blanchard Get Out of Prison?
Dee Dee’s body was discovered on June 14 2015, after Gypsy Rose wrote on Dee Dee's Facebook, "That Bitch is dead!". The runaway couple was arrested the following day. That’s when Gypsy Rose’s narrative fell apart.
She was spotted by police walking around unaided and in perfect health. Public sympathy morphed from that of a gravely ill girl to a victim of Munchausen by proxy.
MBP falls under Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIA), which is recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).
“It is very difficult to diagnose given that deception is a core feature, “Dr. Barbara Bursch, a professor at UCLA and leading expert on MBP, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “Victims may have genuine medical problems that are being manipulated or induced, thus traditional medical and psychological assessments are usually not sufficient to diagnose medical abuse due to FDIA. Prevalence is difficult to track and training is not mandated for child and adult protective services staff or law enforcement.”
A lack of understanding or legislation to combat MBP abuse allowed Dee Dee to continue the charade for decades. There were signs of Gypsy Rose faking ailments.
In 2007, a pediatric neurologist who evaluated Gypsy Rose noted that “there was a strong possibility of Munchausen by proxy.” There is no indication that these concerns were reported to child protective services at the time.
The Springfield News-Leader reported that in 2009, an anonymous person told a Greene County Sheriff’s deputy that they didn’t see “any symptoms that would support what (Dee Dee) alleges to be wrong with her daughter.”
Family members were also suspicious. Gypsy Rose’s cousin, Bobby Pitre, said that on some occasions, she would get out of her wheelchair and push other kids around in it.
Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Gypsy Rose’s original charge of first-degree murder was lowered to second-degree murder. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in July 2016.
In a news release, Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson stated that he took her sentence was “taking into account the extreme mitigating circumstances of the nearly two decades of systematic and purposeful abuse of Gypsy Blanchard by her mother to facilitate her mother’s fraudulent schemes.” when determining her sentence.
Gypsy Rose served 85% of her sentence before qualifying for parole. She was released on December 28, 2023. Her time in custody while awaiting the trial counted as time served.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard Now
Despite Gypsy Rose’s newfound freedom, her legal problems persisted. She married Ryan Scott Anderson while incarcerated, then divorced him soon after her release. She then reunited with a former boyfriend, Ken Urker, and the two welcomed a daughter, Aurora Raina, one year after her release.
In 2017, Gypsy Rose reached an agreement with aspiring producer April Johns to pursue various projects. After two years and no sign of progress, Gypsy Rose severed her ties with the producer.
Johns responded by criticizing Gypsy to the press and on social media. After Gypsy's release, Johns posted online: “I’m so sick of Gypsy. Like I honestly want to bury her so far down a rabbit hole and I think if I dig enough I could make her look so f------ bad.”
Johns also accused Gypsy Rose of “conning the world one paycheck at a time!!!” Gypsy Rose has disputed these claims.
In may 2024, Gypsy Rose sued Johns for fraud, breach of contract and defamation, among other counts. The case was dismissed, and Gypsy Rose shared her post-prison story in Lifetime’s Life After Lock Up.
Gypsy Rose has said she’s not trying to attract the spotlight, but her recent participation in a TikTok challenge called “We listen and we don’t judge,” in which social media users reveal unflattering truths, received backlash. In the video she said, “I went to prison for eight and a half years because I kccch my own mom,” mimicking the sound of a death choke while crossing her arms in an X.
In a TMZ interview, she apologized if she came off as too abrasive. “I do deeply apologize to anyone who may have been offended by it,” she said. As far as killing her mother goes, Gypsy Rose said she already paid her debt with prison time.
