Gypsy Rose Blanchard was released from prison on December 28, 2023 after serving eight years. She was released from the Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri.
Blanchard told PEOPLE magazine, “I’m ready for freedom. I’m ready to expand and I think that goes for every facet of my life.”
Blanchard was sentenced to ten years in 2016 after pleading guilty to murdering her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Bankchard. Gypsy was 23 at the time of the sentencing and was sentenced along with her boyfriend, Nick Godejohn.
After the sentencing, it was discovered that Gypsy was a victim of Munchausen by proxy syndrome, a form of abuse where a guardian exaggerates or fabricates an illness on the child for attention, money, or sympathy. During Gypsy’s life, Dee Dee had told everyone that Gypsy was terminally ill and had the mental capacity of a seven-year-old. It started with Dee Dee claiming that Gypsy had sleep apnea when she was a baby.
When Gypsy was eight, Dee Dee then claimed that Gypsy had leukemia and muscular dystrophy. She forced Gypsy to use feeding tubes and a wheelchair. She would continue to also claim seizures, asthma and hearing and visual impairments. These all lead to Gypsy having numerous surgeries and taking multiple medications for her “illnesses.”
Gypsy decided to murder her mother before she was forced to undergo another unneeded medical procedure. Godejohn and Gypsy met online and he traveled to Missouri from Wisconsin to visit Gypsy. Once there, Gypsy said that she talked Godejohn into murdering her mother together. On Godejohn’s involvement, Gypsy said to PEOPLE, “I would travel back to the point of that conversation with Nick and tell him, ‘You know what, I’m going to tell the police everything.’ I kind of struggle with that.”
Gypsy and Godejohn have since split and Gypsy married Ryan Anderson in 2022 while she was in prison.
Gypsy said, “I want to make sure people in abusive relationships do not resort to murder. 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.”
On January 5, Gypsy’s story was told in the Lifetime documentary “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.” In this documentary, Gypsy explains the events from her perspective in order to try to help others in abusive relationships.
