Gypsy Rose Blanchard to be released from prison after 8 years for 2015 killing of abusive mother
Dec. 28 (UPI) -- A Missouri woman who conspired with her boyfriend to kill her abusive mother in 2015 was released from prison Thursday after serving eight years.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard was released from the Chillicothe Correctional Center at 3:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.
Blanchard, 32, was granted parole in September after serving more than 85% of her 10-year sentence, making her eligible to walk free from Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri.
Blanchard and her then-boyfriend Nick Godejohn were both convicted of killing Dee Dee Blanchard in her Springfield, Mo., home on June 14, 2015.
Ahead of her release, Blanchard told People she now feels a deep sense of remorse for the crime.
"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," she said.
Eight years ago, police were alerted to an unusual social media post that appeared on Dee Dee Blanchard's Facebook page, which said: "That B---- is dead!" before investigators found the woman's body in a pool of blood.
Gypsy Blanchard was not initially a suspect as she was confined to a wheelchair, but investigators were later shocked to learn she could walk without assistance, raising suspicions that she and her mother had engaged in a fraud scheme that began when Gypsy was barely 7 years old.
At the time of the killing, Gypsy was 24 and still living at home when Godejohn stabbed the older woman to death as the daughter waited in a bathroom, fully aware of her mother's fate.
Blanchard later confessed that she instructed Godejohn to carry out the murder so she could escape a cycle of abuse perpetrated by the mother, who for years made false claims about Gypsy's health, including conditions like leukemia, asthma and muscular dystrophy, in order to secure disability payments and charitable gifts.
After the murder, the pair fled to Wisconsin but they were eventually apprehended and put on trial.
Godejohn received life in prison for his role, while currently seeking to throw out the conviction on grounds his lawyer failed to emphasize that he is autistic, suggesting a potential diminished capacity defense if his case is ultimately retried.
Blanchard, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received 10 years in light of the extraordinary evidence of a lifetime of psychological and physical torture.
During the trial, Blanchard's defense attorney claimed the mother forced her daughter to undergo years of painful physical procedures and surgeries that were not medically necessary.
Psychologists testified that Dee Dee Blanchard likely suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy -- a rare mental condition in which a caregiver or parent fabricates or induces physical or psychological harm to someone under their care to garner attention or sympathy, allowing the abuser to be seen as a nurturing figure.
Blanchard told People that she was "desperate to get out of that situation" but now wishes she would have handled things differently.
"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," she said. "Or if I would travel back just to the point of that conversation with Nick and tell him, 'You know what, I'm going to tell the police everything.' I kind of struggle with that."
The sensational case made headlines across the globe, and eventually became fodder for films, reenactments and true crime documentaries, including a new docuseries, The Prison Confession of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, which premieres on Jan. 5.
Blanchard, now 32, recently announced the publication of her new eBook titled Released, which is due Jan. 9, and said she plans to attend the New Years Eve game between the Bengals and Chiefs in Kansas City.
