The young woman serving a prison sentence for the murder of her mother — who kept her daughter confined to a wheelchair nearly her whole life due to made-up ailments — appears to be thriving in prison, even prompting a friend to describe the outcome of the murder and the conviction as a “happy ending” for Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who will remain in jail until at least 2024, when she will first be up for parole.
Gypsy Rose was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2016 after she pleaded guilty to her role in the stabbing death of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, who suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental illness that typically results in parents or caregivers assigning false ailments and illnesses to those in their care. For most of her early life, Gypsy Rose and her doctors believed she suffered from a number of serious ailments, including cancer and muscular dystrophy, and that she was unable to take care of herself in any way. Dee Dee also told the girl she was several years younger than she actually was. After meeting a boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, on the internet, Gypsy convinced him that they could only be together if Dee Dee was out of the picture; and during a visit to their Missouri home in June 2015, Nicholas allegedly stabbed Dee Dee to death. He is still awaiting trial for Dee Dee’s murder.
In an upcoming documentary “Gypsy’s Revenge,” premiering November 6 on Investigation Discovery, Gypsy Rose reportedly opens up about her mother’s murder and her misguided expectation that she and Nicholas would somehow get away with it — despite posting incriminating messages on the Facebook page Gypsy and Dee Dee shared.
‘We thought that we would never get caught,’ Gypsy says in documentary, according to the Daily Mail. “
“I felt like this is a fairytale, and I was gonna be the princess that gets rescued – and then I’d be happy in Wisconsin, where I’d be loved and I’d have my freedom and have this wonderful new life … What started as a fairytale ended as a horror movie.”
But as CrimeOnline previously reported, Gypsy has said in an interview with ABC News earlier this year that she felt “freer in prison” than she did living with her mother.
And according to her reported comments in the upcoming documentary, Gypsy feels free of any ties to the man she convinced to kill her mother — although he remains devoted to her.
“To this day, I still do love her – and I know for a fact that she still does love me,” he says, according to the Daily Mail.
Gypsy does not concur.
“Now that I’ve grown and matured, I know the difference between love and infatuation,” she says in the film. “He wants to feel whatever he wants to feel, but I don’t love him no more.”
Gypsy’s neighbor and friend Aleah, who was a confidant during the time Gypsy quickly became serious with Nicholas but who had no idea the extent of Dee Dee’s illness or the plans for her murder, also appears in the documentary, and seems to believe that Gypsy is better off now, despite being behind bars.
“We were very friendly to each other, but we hadn’t really gotten to know each other on like a real friendship level until she started messaging me [on Facebook,]” Aleah says in the documentary, according to the Daily Mail.
“Gypsy had set up a secret Facebook account so that we could talk and she could vent without having to be filtered or censored by her mom – because her mom was always present every time we were hanging out together…
My view of Dee Dee – I mean, once I started realizing the extent of what she did and her actions – I started realizing how cruel she was and how she allowed her daughter to be essentially tortured constantly for all of her life.”
Referring to a prison phone call in which Gypsy apologized to Aleah and came clean about what she had been hiding from her, Aleah reportedly says, “It sounds like she’s just away for college.”
“And I feel like, as sad as it may sound, her story really does finally have a happy ending – at least for her.”
“Gypsy’s Revenge” premiere on Investigation Discovery on November 6 at 8 p.m./7 p.m. CT.
