Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s experience in prison was heaven compared to living with her mother. She had been arrested for the connection to her mother’s, Clauddine “Dee-Dee” Blanchard’s, death who was found in her bedroom stabbed to death.
Dee-Dee had Munchausen syndrome, meaning that she faked her own daughter’s disabilities, therefore leading Gypsy to go under 30 unnecessary surgeries and put on many unnecessary medications. She controlled her with physical and psychological abuse. Clauddine even changed Gypsy’s birth certificate, to make her younger than she was, to keep Gypsy with her longer, even going as far as to convincing the world she had the mentality of a 7-year-old due to brain injury and had to keep Gypsy under her care. Squeezing her hand to the point of pain if she made it seem like she was not sick. She also convinced everyone that Gypsy could not walk and had to stay in a wheelchair.
Around 2012 Gypsy got into contact with a man named Nicholas Godejohn on a website online behind her mother’s back. Godejohn was recorded to have a dissociative identity, meaning that the person diagnosed has multiple personalities, each with their own memories and thoughts. After their first-time meeting in public behind her mother’s back, they started talking even more online and began to plot Dee-Dee’s murder. After Clauddine had gone to sleep one night, Gypsy let him into the house and allegedly gave him duct tape, gloves, and a fishing knife with the understanding that he would use it to kill her. Gypsy hid in the bathroom with her hands over her ears so that she could not hear her mother’s screams. Afterwards, the pair grabbed some money and then left the house.
After 5 days, the pair had left behind enough clues for the police to track them down for their arrest. Gypsy had posted bizarre Facebook quotes to lead people to find her mother’s body, but unknowingly leading them to her. The police used the posts to track the pair down to Godejohn’s home after figuring out that it was them by surveillance footage and bus tickets. While Gypsy only got a 10-year sentence, Godejohn got a life sentence.
During her time serving, she received hundreds of letters from men, but only one caught her eye. She saw that the address on the letter had the state Louisiana on it, where Gypsy was originally from. They began talking through letters which led to her getting married while she was still in prison. She got released after 8 years and immediately moved to Louisiana to live with her husband.
After people figured out that she was getting released, she immediately blew up all over social media. People were overjoyed that she was “finally free” and got “the happiness she deserved.” People crowded around the prison before getting released, but unfortunately were told to leave. After Gypsy got her own social media, she quickly rose to fame, and now everybody knows her name and story.
