Gypsy Rose Blanchard Murders Mother

Gypsy Rose Blanchard is a woman from Missouri who was convicted in her role of the murder of her mother Dee Dee Blanchard

According to court documents Gypsy Rose Blanchard was a victim of abuse from her mother Dee Dee Blanchard who made her daughter and those around her that she was incredibly unhealthy with a variety of ailments ranging from cancer to muscular dystrophy

Gypsy Rose Blanchard would meet a man named Nicholas Godejohn. Soon the two were planning the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard. Nicholas Godejohn would sneak into the home while Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee were at a doctors appointment. When the two women returned Nicholas Godejohn would stab Dee Dee Blanchard multiple times as she lay in bed causing her death

Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Nicholas Godejohn would soon be arrested

Gypsy Rose Blanchard would receive a ten year prison sentence and will be paroled in December 2023

Nicholas Godejohn would receive a life sentence

Nicholas Godejohn Now

DOC ID	1336380
Offender Name	Nicholas P Godejohn
Race	White
Sex	Male
Date of Birth	05/20/1989
Height/Weight	6’0″ / 193
Hair/Eyes	Brown / Hazel

Gypsy Rose Blanchard Case

Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who was serving time in prison for her role in the murder of her mother, has been granted parole and is scheduled to be released in December, the Missouri Department of Corrections said Thursday, reports Ozarks First and the Springfield News-Leader.

In July 2016, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, 32, pleaded guilty to murder for her role in the killing of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Gypsy is set to be released on Dec. 28, 2023. By then she will have served 85% of her 10-year sentence. Prior to her prison sentence, Gypsy spent time in the Greene County Jail, and her time in the county jail contributes to her overall sentence.

Dee Dee Blanchard was found dead in June 2015, and soon after Gypsy and her boyfriend, Nick Godejohn, were both charged with first-degree murder.

After the couple were arrested, it was revealed that Dee Dee had fabricated all of her daughter’s medical issues, and Gypsy was a victim of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome — which is a rare form of abuse in which a guardian exaggerates or induces illness in a child for attention and sympathy.

Dee Dee had convinced her friends, family, and community that Blanchard was a terminally ill teenager with the mind of a 7-year-old who suffered from muscular dystrophy, leukemia, and other ailments. Additionally, Blanchard alleged her mother wouldn’t allow her to speak during doctor visits and told her that if she ever tried to escape, police wouldn’t believe her story.

In the 2018 Investigation Discovery documentary Gypsy’s Revenge, Blanchard explained what her childhood was like as she suffered abuse from her mother. “I couldn’t just jump out of the wheelchair because I was afraid and I didn’t know what my mother would do,” Blanchard said. “I didn’t have anyone to trust.

Following her 2016 sentencing, Gypsy Rose Blanchard told Dr. Phil McGraw that she didn’t “believe [she] deserve[d] as many years as [she] got.”

“I believe firmly that, no matter what, murder is not okay,” she told McGraw. “I do believe that I do deserve to spend some time in prison for that crime. But I also understand why it happened, and I don’t believe that I’m in the right place to get the help that I need.”

Blanchard’s boyfriend, Godejohn, 32, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2019 after a trial. He was convicted of first-degree murder for the 2015 stabbing, the Springfield News-Leader, local station KY3 and KOAM reported.

Godejohn met Gypsy Rose Blanchard online and traveled from Wisconsin to see her in Missouri. Blanchard said in court that she had “talked him into it.”

“That was, man, probably the best days of my life, that’s the only way I can describe it,” Godejohn said of his time with Blanchard in a prison interview for the 2019 Oxygen special Gypsy Rose & Nick: A Love to Kill. “I enjoyed every second of it.”

Godejohn continued, “From the very beginning, I just knew we were soulmates. Those five days when I was actually with her, physically with her, those five days were the most intense, and magical, and awe-inspiring days I’ve ever had.”

Blanchard and Godejohn have since separated. A family friend told PEOPLE in April 2019 that she was engaged to a man she met as a pen pal while in jail.

The case was the center of the HBO documentary Mommy, Dead and Dearest and inspired the Hulu miniseries The Act.

A spokesperson for Missouri Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for additional information on Thursday.

https://people.com/gypsy-rose-blanchard-victim-imprisoned-mothers-death-early-prison-release-7979147

Gypsy Rose Blanchard Videos

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Full Story

If you only know Gypsy Rose Blanchard from TikTok clips or Hulu’s The Act, you are missing the deeper, messier reality. Her case is not just true crime entertainment. It is a 20-year story of medical child abuse, systemic failure, a homicide, and now, an attempt at normal life as a free woman and mother.

Born July 27, 1991 in Raceland, Louisiana, Gypsy Rose became nationally known after she conspired with her online boyfriend to murder her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, in June 2015. She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and served about eight and a half years before being released on parole on December 28, 2023. 

In 2024-2025, her story entered a new chapter: marriage, divorce, a Lifetime reality series, and motherhood.

The Early Life That Wasn’t Sick at All

Dee Dee Blanchard told everyone Gypsy had leukemia, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, severe asthma, sleep apnea, and the mental capacity of a 7-year-old. None of it was true.

After Hurricane Katrina, the pair moved to Missouri, where they received an outpouring of charity. Habitat for Humanity built them a wheelchair-accessible home in Springfield in 2008. Gypsy Rose Blanchard was named the Oley Foundation’s 2007 Child of the Year for feeding-tube recipients. 

Behind closed doors, Dee Dee was shaving Gypsy’s head and telling her the medication would make her hair fall out anyway. Gypsy wore wigs, used an oxygen tank she didn’t need, and was fed PediaSure through a feeding tube well into her 20s. 

Doctors later concluded Dee Dee had factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA), formerly called Munchausen by proxy. She fabricated illnesses to gain sympathy, housing, donations, and control. Psychologists note this form of abuse is uniquely hard to prove because it relies on a parent’s testimony and circumstantial medical records. 

Dee Dee also forged Gypsy’s birth certificate, changing her birth year from 1991 to 1995. Gypsy later said she spent 14 years unsure of her real age. 

First Attempts to Escape

Gypsy Rose Blanchard was not completely isolated. She attended sci-fi conventions as early as 2001, where she could blend in with a wheelchair. In 2011, at age 19 (but believed to be 15), she met a man at a convention and hid in a hotel room with him. Dee Dee found her, produced the fake birth certificate, and threatened to call police. 

Months earlier, in June 2011, Gypsy shot Dee Dee 10 times with a BB gun, thinking it was real. Dee Dee told neighbors it was a Walmart robbery injury. 

Her father, Rod Blanchard, was told Gypsy had a “chromosomal defect.” In 2011 she was diagnosed with 1q21.1 deletion syndrome, a real genetic condition that can cause developmental delays, but it did not explain the wheelchair, feeding tube, or bald head.

Meeting Nicholas Godejohn

Around 2012, Gypsy met Nicholas Godejohn from Big Bend, Wisconsin, on a Christian singles site. They developed an intense, secret online relationship spanning years and hundreds of videos. 

In 2014, she told neighbor Aleah Woodmansee they had discussed eloping and picking baby names. Gypsy maintained multiple secret Facebook accounts despite Dee Dee allegedly smashing her phone. 

By 2015, their chats turned to murder. At trial, Gypsy testified they had “plans A, B, and C,” and had discussed killing Dee Dee for about a year. Less than a month before the crime, she sent Godejohn a video of herself pointing at Dee Dee’s pillow and making a stabbing motion.

The Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard: June 14, 2015

On June 10, 2015, Godejohn arrived in Springfield. After Dee Dee fell asleep on June 14, Gypsy let him in, gave him duct tape, gloves, and a knife, and hid in the bathroom covering her ears. Godejohn stabbed Dee Dee 17 times while she slept. 

Afterward, the couple had sex in Gypsy’s room, stole $4,400 in cash, and fled to a motel. They mailed the knife to Wisconsin, then took a Greyhound bus. Witnesses noted Gypsy walked unassisted wearing a blonde wig. 

The crime unraveled because of Facebook. Posts from Dee Dee’s account saying “That Bitch is dead!” alarmed friends. Police found Dee Dee’s body, but Gypsy’s wheelchairs were still in the house. Aleah Woodmansee gave police printouts with Godejohn’s name, leading Facebook to trace the IP to Wisconsin. Both were arrested the next day in Big Bend. 

Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott told the press, “things are not always what they appear.” Within days, the world learned Gypsy could walk, eat solid food, and had never had cancer. 

Trial and Prison

Prosecutors initially charged Gypsy Rose Blanchard with first-degree murder. Given the documented abuse, she accepted a plea deal for second-degree murder in 2016 and received 10 years.

Nicholas Godejohn went to trial in 2018. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole plus 25 years for armed criminal action. 

While incarcerated at Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri, Gypsy became a media subject. HBO’s Mommy Dead and Dearest (2017) featured prison interviews. Hulu released The Act in 2019, with Joey King as Gypsy and Patricia Arquette as Dee Dee, while Gypsy was still serving time. 

Gypsy Rose Blanchard earned her GED, worked in prison programs, and married Ryan Anderson, a Louisiana special education teacher, in a prison ceremony in 2022.

Release: December 28, 2023

Gypsy Rose Blanchard was granted parole after serving 85% of her sentence. She walked out of Chillicothe on December 28, 2023, at age 32, into a media storm. Within weeks she did Good Morning America, The View, and CNN interviews. 

Lifetime quickly launched Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up in 2024, documenting her adjustment: learning to use a smartphone, grocery shopping for the first time, managing money, and navigating marriage.

That marriage did not last. She separated from Ryan Anderson in early 2024 and finalized the divorce in April 2024. She rekindled her relationship with ex-fiancé Ken Urker, whom she had originally met through a prison pen-pal program years earlier.

Motherhood in 2024-2025

In July 2024, Gypsy announced she was pregnant. On December 28, 2024 — exactly one year after her prison release — she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Aurora Raina Urker, with Ken Urker. 

The name was intentional. Aurora references Sleeping Beauty, a Disney princess Gypsy identified with during her isolated childhood. Fans noted the symbolism: a girl put to sleep by a curse, waking to a new life.

By early 2025, Gypsy shared video of 14-month-old Aurora taking first steps, and told outlets she and Ken were considering IVF for a second child to manage risks related to her 1q21.1 deletion syndrome. 

Gypsy Rose Blanchard also announced she would step back from constant social media to protect her mental health, after receiving both massive support and intense criticism.

Where Is Gypsy Rose Blanchard Now in 2026?

As of 2026, Gypsy Rose Blanchard lives in Louisiana with Ken and Aurora. She is no longer on parole; her sentence is completed.

Her public life remains complicated. In March 2026, she sparked backlash after appearing in a TikTok “We listen and we don’t judge” trend with influencer Natalie Reynolds, where she made a joking reference to her mother’s murder. Critics called it tone-deaf; supporters said it was dark humor from a trauma survivor reclaiming her narrative. 

She continues advocacy work around FDIA and child medical abuse, speaking with A&E and child welfare organizations. Her memoir, Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom, was released in 2024, and she has hinted at a second book focused on motherhood after trauma.

Nicholas Godejohn remains in prison in Wisconsin serving life without parole and has no contact with Gypsy.