Gypsy Rose Blanchard has one big regret in her life — murdering her mother.
For those who don’t know her story, Gypsy Rose has been in prison for the past eight years after conspiring with her then-boyfriend, Nicholas “Nick” Godejohn, to kill mom Dee Dee Blanchard. Her murder is believed to have come after Dee Dee inflicted years of abuse on her daughter due to Munchausen by proxy, a rare disorder in which a guardian exaggerates or induces illness in a child for attention and sympathy.
When Gypsy Rose turned 7 years old, Dee Dee claimed her child already had several illnesses – including muscular dystrophy, which supposedly required her to be in a wheelchair. She then went through getting feeding tubes put in place and a Leukemia diagnosis, leading Dee Dee to shave Gypsy Rose’s hair. But none of it was true! Gypsy Rose didn’t suffer any of these ailments!
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Nevertheless, Dee Dee tricked family and friends into believing these illnesses were real. She also managed to convince doctors to diagnose and treat them. The mom even attempted to keep Gypsy Rose in the dark for a while. She explained to People in a new interview on Wednesday:
“Obviously I knew that I could walk and didn’t need a feeding tube, but everything else was a really big confusion for me. Whenever I’d question it my mother would say I’d had a seizure the night before and didn’t remember. There was always an excuse.”
Whenever Gypsy “would voice concerns” about these unnecessary procedures, she claimed Dee Dee “would get really, really upset with me and start manipulating me.” At a young age, Gypsy recalled that her mom would “say ‘If you do well at the hospital then we’re going to Toys ‘R’ Us to buy a new Barbie.’” On top of that, the 32-year-old said she “was very sheltered” as she never enrolled in school and was kept away from her father Rod, stepmom Christie, and her half-siblings:
“I was limited in what I could watch and the exposure I had to other kids. What I knew of the outside world was only in Disney movies and those don’t talk about warning signs of bad parents.”
As she grew older, she began to rebel against her mom. That is when Dee Dee became violent. Gypsy alleged she would verbally abuse her and started “hitting, punching, slapping” in order to get her way:
“I tried my best to be respectful but sometimes it was hard. She’d call me things like b***h, w***e, s**t. It was very similar to a domestic violence type of relationship. As long as you’re complacent everything’s fine. Put your foot down, then it’s bad.”
So, so awful. She was eventually forced into another unnecessary surgery by Dee Dee. And after years of abuse, Gypsy had enough and was “desperate to get out of that situation.” That desperation for freedom led her to plot Dee Dee’s murder with her former boyfriend Nick. In June 2015, he proceeded to kill her mom while Gypsy waited in the bathroom at their home in Springfield, Missouri.
Nick was sentenced to life in prison for carrying out the attack, and Gypsy received a 10-year sentence for second-degree murder. While spending eight years behind bars, Gypsy has had a lot of time to think about her actions. Looking back on the situation, she shared with People that she would’ve done things a lot differently if she had a second chance:
“If I had another chance to redo everything, I don’t know if I would go back to when I was a child and tell my aunts and uncles that I’m not sick and mommy makes me sick, or, if I would travel back to just the point of that conversation with Nick and tell him, ‘You know what, I’m going to go tell the police everything.’ I kind of struggle with that. Nobody will ever hear me say I’m glad she’s dead or I’m proud of what I did. I regret it every single day.”
Years of therapy and self-reflection have helped Gypsy realize her mom “didn’t deserve” what happened to her — even though she had been abusive all her life. She added:
“She didn’t deserve that. She was a sick woman and unfortunately I wasn’t educated enough to see that. She deserved to be where I am, sitting in prison doing time for criminal behavior.”
But now Gypsy is about to be released from jail two years earlier than expected on Thursday. While she is ready for nothing but “happiness” moving forward, she is still processing what her life had been like in the past:
“It’s a journey. I’m still really trying to come to a place of forgiveness for her, for myself, and the situation. I still love my mom. And I’m starting to understand that it was something that was maybe out of her control, like an addict with an impulse. That helps me with coping and accepting what happened.”
Ultimately, she hopes her story becomes a cautionary tale for others in a similar situation like hers. Gypsy said:
“I want to make sure that people in abusive relationships do not resort to murder. It may seem like every avenue is closed off but there is always another way. Do anything, but don’t take this course of action.”
Reactions, Perezcious readers? Are you surprised by what Gypsy had to say? Sound OFF in the comments below.
If you have sincere cause to suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org.
[Image via A&E/Dr. Phil/YouTube]