CNN –
Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who admitted helping her boyfriend kill her abusive mother in a case that drew national attention, was released from prison on parole Thursday, a Missouri corrections official told CNN.
Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2016 after confessing to convincing her boyfriend to stab her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, in her sleep. Prosecutors sentenced her to 10 years in prison as part of a plea deal after lawyers uncovered her mother's abuse.
Blanchard was a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a rare syndrome in which a caregiver feigns, exaggerates or induces an illness in a child to get attention. It turns out that Dee Dee had convinced those around her, including doctors, that her daughter suffered from, among other things, leukemia and muscular dystrophy – a topic explored in the HBO Max documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest.”
Blanchard admitted to being in the house at the time of the murder because she knew her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, was about to stab Dee Dee and did nothing to stop it, court records show.
Godejohn was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2019. Court records show he admitted to stabbing Dee Dee and said he only killed her because Gypsy asked him to.
Regarding the conditions of Blanchard's release, Karen Pojmann, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said: “Her original 10-year sentence began in June 2015. Therefore, absent probation violations and other extenuating circumstances, she will be considered under parole Supervision of probation conditions is due to report to a probation officer by June 2025.”
CNN has reached out to Blanchard's attorney for comment.
In the days following Dee Dee's murder, details began to emerge, revealing a complex and unusual situation. Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott said at a news conference in June 2015 that “things are not always what they seem.”
“I have never experienced anything even remotely close to what Gypsy went through,” Blanchard’s attorney Michael Stanfield says in the HBO documentary “Mommy Dead and Mommy Dearest.” “Her mother appeared to have gone to great lengths to keep Gypsy in a very youthful role, causing her to act several years younger than her actual age.”
In an interview with People magazine shortly before her release, Blanchard, now 32, said she regretted her role in the murder “every day.”
“She was a sick woman and unfortunately I wasn’t educated enough to realize that,” she said. “She deserves to be where I am, in prison and serving time for criminal behavior.”
The forthcoming book, “Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom,” tells Blanchard’s story from her own perspective, with help from authors Melissa Moore and Michele Matrisciani. Release is scheduled for January 9, 2024.
A six-hour Lifetime special titled “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard” featuring interviews with Blanchard from prison is scheduled to premiere on January 5, 2024. The case was also the subject of the 2019 Hulu miniseries “The Act,” starring Patricia Arquette as Dee Dee Blanchard.