Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a US woman who killed her abusive mother after conspiring with an online boyfriend, has been released early from prison on parole. She is now 32.
Her boyfriend was identified as Nicholas Godejohn.
Blanchard remained the centre of one of the most infamous true-crime cases in the past 15 years – a case that not just gripped the nation, but the entire world.
For years, her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, forced her to pretend that she was suffering from leukaemia, muscular dystrophy and other serious illnesses. In a way, she had kept her daughter prisoner, forcing her to use a wheelchair and feeding tube.
Blanchard killed her mother in 2015 in Missouri. She had pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder.
As quoted by media outlets, Karen Pojmann, who is a spokesperson for the Missouri department of corrections, said that Blanchard was released early in the day from the Chillicothe correctional centre. Pojmann said that she was granted parole after serving 85 per cent of her original sentence.
Blanchard gave a knife to her online boyfriend, who had fled the scene.
Many suspected it to be the case of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSP), which is a psychological condition that causes a caregiver to engage in attention-seeking behaviour. It makes the person or people under their care ill or makes people believe they are ill.
Michael Stanfield, Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s trial attorney, also said the same thing. He said, “People were constantly telling Dee Dee what a wonderful mother she was, and Dee Dee was getting all of this attention.”
How did her mother manage to con people?
Some reports mentioned that it is likely that this disorder, now termed a “Factitious disorder imposed on another,” is what prompted Dee Dee to lie to everyone. And also tried to convince everyone that her daughter was terribly ill and much younger than she was.
The act had helped the mother and daughter get philanthropic donations, a trip to Disney World, and even a home in Springfield from Habitat for Humanity. They also met star Miranda Lambert through the hoax.
Stanfield said that Gipsy Rose Blanchard’s mother deceived doctors by claiming her daughter’s medical records were lost during Hurricane Katrina.
She used to hire a replacement doctor and shaved the girl’s head to back up her account is being questioned.
Gipsy also underwent unneeded treatments – one such was the excision of salivary glands. Her mother even persuaded doctors that it was essential by causing drooling with a topical anaesthetic.
She didn’t attend proper schooling and was also misled. Stanfield said, “The doctors seem to confirm everything that you’re being told. The outside world is telling you that your mother is a wonderful, loving, caring person. What other idea can you have?”
During the trial, Gypsy testified that her mother used to beat her and chained her to a bed. She mentioned that she started to get what exactly happening to her later, and she wasn’t really sick.
In 2018, Gypsy had testified at the trial of Godejohn of Big Bend, Wisconsin. She had admitted that she forced him into it. “I wanted to be free of her hold on me,” Gypsy said.
(With inputs from agencies)
