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Salon
Salon
Politics
Kelly McClure

Gypsy Rose Blanchard gets early release

The Missouri Department of Corrections confirmed on Thursday that Gypsy Rose Blanchard will be paroled at the end of December from Chillicothe Correctional Center, after serving seven of the ten years she was sentenced for her involvement in the 2015 murder of her mother, Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard.

The details of the Blanchard case were made widely known in the 2017 HBO documentary, "Mommy Dead and Dearest," directed by Erin Lee Carr, which recounted the years of abuse that Gypsy Rose suffered at the hands of her mother, who robbed her of her childhood by making it seem as though she had a variety of illnesses she didn't actually have. 

After meeting a young man named Nicholas Godejohn on a Christian dating website, Gypsy Rose arranged for him to murder her mom while she herself hid in the bathroom. After suspicions arose as to the mom's whereabouts, police were issued a search warrant for the Blanchard home, where they discovered Dee Dee's body. From there, the couple were tracked down by law enforcement and both eventually fessed up to their crimes, with Nicholas receiving life without parole in 2019. 

In interviews conducted after detainment, Gypsy Rose said she felt more free in prison than she did throughout much of her life prior, because she was allowed to just be a normal person there. She is now 32-years-old. 

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