A 26-year-old Missouri woman serving 10 years in prison for the second-degree murder of her mom said she feels more free in prison compared to when she was in the care of her mother.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard told FoxNews that her mother once chained her to a bed and kept her confined to a wheelchair even though she was perfectly healthy.
“The prison that I was living in before, with my mom, it’s, like, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t have friends. I couldn’t go outside, you know, and play with friends or anything,” Blanchard told FoxNews. “Over here, I feel like I’m freer in prison, than with living with my mom. Because now, I’m allowed to … just live like a normal woman.”
Gypsy Blanchard says it’s fear that kept her from speaking up about her mother Dee Dee’s fraud: “I was always so afraid of her. Afraid of the consequences after.” #ABC2020. https://t.co/RPT3b7h3CU pic.twitter.com/x8NRgZOeoR
— 20/20 (@ABC2020) January 6, 2018
Blanchard is serving a 10-year prison sentence at Missouri’s Chillicothe Correctional Center for conspiring with her boyfriend to kill her mother. Dee Dee Blanchard likely had a mental illness called Munchausen syndrome by proxy, in which the affected person tries to produce symptoms of illness in those they care for in order to draw attention to themselves.
Dee Dee Blanchard claimed that her daughter could not walk starting at the age of 7 and suffered from muscular dystrophy, leukemia, and epilepsy.
But Gypsy Blanchard was completely healthy.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard (Greene County Sheriff’s Office)Blanchard said that she knew she was able to walk but never thought about doing so and we terrified of her mom.
“I was so young, so me looking up to her so much and just believing she knows best — I didn’t question it,” said Gypsy. “It’s sad because I think about all the times that I could have been walking around like a normal person, skating, riding bikes and stuff, and I’ve never done any of that.”
“I honestly didn’t think about that,” Blanchard said. “I was always so afraid of her — afraid of the consequences after.”
Woman says mom made her use a wheelchair and invented illnesses leading to years of treatment: "It was a fraud." Gypsy Blanchard said she always knew she could walk but her mother Dee Dee Blanchard made her stay in a wheelchair. #ABC2020 https://t.co/RPT3b7h3CU pic.twitter.com/vhk6oORGKa
— 20/20 (@ABC2020) January 6, 2018
The mom and daughter were well known in their community. They received after they lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. Their home was built by Habitat for Humanity.
Police found Dee Dee Blanchard’s body on June 14, 2015. Gypsy Blanchard and her boyfriend, Nicholas Paul Godejohn, were apprehended two days later.
Nicholas Paul Godejohn (Greene County Sheriff’s Office)Godejohn said that Gypsy Blanchard was the mastermind behind the murder.
“All the planning she did, every bit of it. She pretty much willed the knife in my hand to commit the deed herself. She is the mastermind behind the entire thing,” Godejohn told FoxNews.
Gypsy Blanchard and Godejohn met online. Dee Dee Blanchard became “jealous” after Gypsy Blanchard fell in love.
“Needless to say, that was a very long argument that lasted a couple weeks,” Gypsy said. “Yelling, throwing things, calling me names.”
“It was not because I hated her. It was because I wanted to escape her,” Gypsy said.
"She is the mastermind." Gypsy Blanchard’s former boyfriend Nick Godejohn, whom she met online, says from jail that Blanchard planned the murder of her mother. He is awaiting trial for killing Gypsy's mom and has pleaded not guilty. #ABC2020 https://t.co/RPT3b7h3CU pic.twitter.com/rrUFA8ceTB
— 20/20 (@ABC2020) January 6, 2018
Blanchard claims that Godejohn had no remorse after killing her mom. Godejohn meanwhile says they he can’t imagine getting back together with Blanchard.
Blanchard said that she thinks of her mother every day.
“All I could hope is that wherever she is, that she still loves me in some small way,” she said tearfully. “And I want her to know that I am sorry. I am so sorry.”
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