Gypsy Rose Blanchard set to be released from prison after serving nearly a decade for mother's murder
Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a woman who was found guilty murdering of her mom alongside her then-boyfriend in 2015, is set to be released from prison—two years earlier than her supposed 10-year sentence.
According to an AP News report, Gypsy will be released from prison on Thursday, Dec. 28 after being granted parole in September 2023. In case you didn’t know, Gypsy Rose was arrested in 2015 alongside her then-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn who she convinced to kill her mom, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard.
The grueling act stemmed from Gypsy’s desire to escape from her mom who she said made her like a “prisoner” by subjecting her to multiple and “painful” medical procedures for her made-up illnesses, like leukemia, muscular dystrophy, seizures, muscular dystrophy, and more. With this, Gypsy lived using a wheelchair and a feeding tube for nutrition and medicine despite being healthy.
According to court documents, her mom also lied about her age and made her believe that she was years younger than her actual age, which made DeeDee easily manipulate her.
The then-19-year-old Gypsy also tried to escape in 2011 to meet a 35-year-old man she talked with online but got caught by her mother. As a result, she detailed how DeeDee punished her by destroying her phone and computer, chaining her to a bed, and placing bells on all the doors to prevent her escape.
In 2015, Gypsy met Nicholas via a Christian dating website, which DeeDee did not approve of. The two then plotted a murder plan to get away from her mom.
According to Michael Stanfield, Gypsy’s trial attorney, DeeDee had Munchausen syndrome by proxy—a psychological disorder in which caregivers, in this case, the mother, make “exaggerated or made-up illnesses of their children” to seek empathy.
In her interview with People, Gypsy admitted she regrets killing her mother “every single day.”
"If I had another chance to redo everything, I don't know if I would go back to when I was a child and tell my aunts and uncles that I'm not sick and mommy makes me sick," she said, adding: "Or, if I would travel back to just the point of that conversation with Nick and tell him, 'You know what, I'm going to go tell the police everything.' I kind of struggle with that."
"Nobody will ever hear me say I'm glad she's dead or I'm proud of what I did,” Gypsy stressed. “I regret it every single day."
The extraordinary case became a sensation and has been adapted into multiple television series and documentaries, including HBO’s 2017 documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest, Hulu’s miniseries The Act, and an upcoming docuseries The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
Gypsy will also release an e-book titled Released on Jan. 9, 2024.
