February, 2024
By Everett Saldaña, Staff Reporter
Many people know the name “Gypsy Rose Blanchard” but many people don’t know her story as much of her voice was lost while the media took advantage of her being locked away in prison. Many stories the media tells are inaccurate to the true events of Gypsy’s life and since she has recently been released from prison she can finally tell the world what really happened and how she plans to finally live her life.
Who is Gypsy Rose Blanchard?
Gypsy Rose Blanchard was born July 27th 1991. Her mother Dee Dee Blanchard was her primary caregiver as she grew up, however Dee Dee suffered from a very rare yet very severe mental illness known as Munchausen by Proxy. From early on in Gypsy would spend countless nights in hospitals and endless days at doctors offices as her mother Dee Dee claimed her daughter was very sick with things like vision and hearing impairments, frequent seizures, muscular dystrophy, and leukemia. Not only was Gypsy forced to live a life believing she was very sick, Gypsy didn’t even know her real age as her mother would lie about the year Gypsy was born claiming she was actually born in 1995 to make her seem younger(this was to prolong the benefits Dee Dee received from gypsy). Gypsy was forced into using a wheelchair, only able to be fed through feeding tubes, and had her salivary glands removed even though she was purely capable of living life without any of those things and was a relatively healthy kid.
The events leading to the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard
Gypsy eventually learns her real age and ends up trying to run away to escape but unfortunately was found by her mother. Upon Gypsy returning home, her mother handcuffed her to the bed for multiple weeks and did not let her leave that bed once, this is when Gypsy realizes that she is unable to run away. A few months after this incident when Dee Dee starts trusting her more, Gypsy meets a man online named Nick Godejohn whom she gets very close with and ends up forming a romantic relationship with. Gypsy tells Nick all about her home life and after meeting once at a movie theater, Nick tells Gypsy that he would protect her from anyone. After hearing this, Gypsy suggests killing her mother.
The murder of Dee Dee Blanchard.
Gypsy and Nick plan to kill Dee Dee Blanchard in her own home while she is sleeping and they both did research on how to proceed with it. They end up settling on killing her with a knife and Gypsy steals one from Walmart beforehand. Gypsy sends Nick a video of the layout of her house so he would know what room to enter and on June 9th 2015, Nick Godejohn enters the Blanchard house and murders Dee Dee Blanchard while Gypsy sat in the bathroom. The two run away together back to Nick’s mother’s house in Wisconsin and remained unnoticed for a few days. During these few days Gypsy leaves chilling messages on her shared facebook account alerting police and causing them to do a welfare check. The police discover Dee Dee murdered in her bed and Gypsy missing. It only takes police a few days to locate Gypsy and Nick and discover that Gypsy was not missing-she killed her mother and ran away. Gypsy was sentenced to 10 years in prison and Nick was sentenced to life in prison.
How is Gypsy now?
In December of 2023 Gypsy was released early from prison on parole and so far it’s been about a month since her release. But even though it’s been such little time, Gypsy has a lot she has planned for her life. As this is her first time she’s lived freely as an adult, she realizes that there has been a lot she’s missed out on, but this doesn’t get the best of her and she openly posts on social media showing off her family and her new life.
In prison she got engaged to Ryan Anderson whom she met while exchanging back and forth letters in prison. Gypsy is very open about being a Taylor Swift fan and she wants to meet her one day. Originally, she planned to go to a Chiefs game in hopes to see her but this plan was put on hold when she was forced to flee Missouri due to security concerns and moved to Louisiana.
She recently released her official documentary “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard” on multiple streaming platforms and released her own book telling her story. She is very active on social media and while she posts a lot about her family she also uses her platform to spread awareness on Munchausen by proxy, the mental disorder that her mother had, to prevent what happened to her from happening to someone else.
Gypsy has said in multiple interviews that she deeply regrets the decisions she made and is very aware that what she did was not the best choice. Gypsy has a ton of support from her family and from people all around the world who sympathize with her story. Gypsy just wants to live a normal life despite how much time was taken from her and she has mostly been adjusting to the free world smoothly and many people hope in a few months the media will get off her back so she can live a peaceful and normal life that many feel she deserves.
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