Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who was convicted of aiding and abetting her mother's murder in a murder that inspired an HBO documentary and Hulu miniseries, was released from prison Thursday, Missouri authorities said .
Karen Pojmann, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said in an email that Ms. Blanchard was released from Chillicothe Correctional Center at 3:30 a.m. Thursday.
Her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, was killed in June 2015 in Springfield, Missouri. Ms. Blanchard, then in her early 20s, was in a wheelchair at the time and appeared to have reduced mental capacity. Investigators soon discovered that she could walk and that her medical problems were largely fictitious.
Investigators later came to suspect that Ms. Blanchard's boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, had stabbed her mother. They also found evidence that the couple had planned the murder together.
Ms. Blanchard, now 32, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2016. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison – the minimum for second-degree murder – under a plea agreement that acknowledged an abusive relationship with her mother.
Three years later, Mr. Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, The Springfield News-Leader reported.
Ms. Blanchard's trial attorney, Mike Stanfield, could not immediately be reached for comment.
“I’m ready for freedom,” Ms. Blanchard told People magazine in an interview published Thursday. “I’m ready to expand, and I think that applies to every aspect of my life.”
In 2019, Hulu released an eight-part series based on Ms. Blanchard's life called “The Act.” The series was created by Michelle Dean, a journalist who wrote a widely read, 8,000-word story about the case for Buzzfeed in 2016. In the series, Joey King played Mrs. Blanchard and Patricia Arquette played her mother.
The HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest premiered in May 2017 and examined the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard.