Random Facts About The Munchausen By Proxy Case of Dee Dee Blanchard (11 items)

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  (#11) Gypsy Rose Was Granted Early Parole

  In September 2023, Gypsy Rose Blanchard was granted an early parole and will be released from prison in December 2023, at which time she will have served 85% of her 10-year prison sentence. Her stint in the Greene County Jail prior to sentencing counted toward her overall sentence. 
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  (#9) Gypsy's Co-Conspirator Was Sentenced To Life In Prison Without Parole

  On February 22, 2019, Nicholas Godejohn, Gypsy's online boyfriend who helped her end her mother's life, was sentenced to life in prison without parole. 

  Back in 2015, Godejohn confessed to the crime, saying he did it because of love. "I did actually stab her... I would have never did it if it were not for me and her [Gypsy]."
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  (#4)  The Assailant Posted 'That B*tch Is Dead!' On Facebook

  On June 14, 2015, a disturbing post went up on 48-year-old Dee Dee Blanchard's Facebook page: "That B*tch Is Dead!" Immediately, friends and family begin to post messages of alarm and concern. They were unsure if they should call the police or whom to alert. Then, another comment appeared on the status, again posted from Blanchard's Facebook account:

  I f*cken SLASHED THAT FAT PIG AND RAPED HER SWEET INNOCENT DAUGHTER…HER SCREAM WAS SOOOO F*CKEN LOUD LOL.

  A family friend unsuccessfully tried to reach Blanchard and contacted the police after she saw Gypsy's abandoned wheelchair at the residence. When police obtained a search warrant later that night, they made an unexpected discovery.
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  (#1) Blanchard Made Gypsy Undergo Needless Surgeries

  Blanchard's ruse of having an ill child went beyond parading Gypsy in a wheelchair. The toothless girl required a feeding tube, received repeated eye surgeries, and had Botox injected into her salivary glands before they were removed entirely. Gypsy, who believed she had leukemia and received chemo treatments, also had an oxygen tank as a daily staple. Until she reached adulthood, Gypsy believed that she was "paralyzed from the waist down" and required the use of a wheelchair. 

  Blanchard was reportedly controlling and even educating her daughter, deemed by her as too sick for school, at home. According to family friends, Blanchard exhibited physical control over her daughter in the company of others. Psychologists later speculated Blanchard's domineering behavior as a means to prevent her daughter from accidentally exposing her fraud. In HBO's documentary on Gypsy Rose, an expert on Munchausen explained that the abuser exerts control both physically and mentally. 
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  (#8) Dee Dee Blanchard Had Been Dead For Days

  At 10:45 PM, the Greene County Police searched the Blanchard house, located just outside of Springfield. All of the sick girl's medications and mobility aids where present, but the teen was missing. When investigators searched the upstairs, they found Blanchard, who had passed several days prior from stab wounds. 

  While the family friend organized funerary services and initiated a charity campaign to cover the expenses, police tried to locate Gypsy Rose. Local concern grew for the safety of the missing girl everyone believed to be physically and mentally incapacitated.
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  (#2) Blanchard's Ex Was In The Dark

  Dee Dee Blanchard had changed the spelling of her last name when she relocated from Louisiana. She and former husband Rod Blanchard had separated after a brief marriage, but he reportedly was by no means the distant, cruel, and negligent father Blanchard had presented him to be. Rod had taken Gypsy on trips when she was younger and maintained pleasant exchanges with his ex on the phone. He had consistently been paying Blanchard $1,200 a month in child support to help with medical expenses, even after Gypsy turned 18.

  However, Rod had been in the dark about the extent to which Blanchard had manufactured Gypsy's health issues. Rod explained that Gypsy had been healthy until she was about 3 months old - when Blanchard became convinced the infant had sleep apnea and seizures. Blanchard began to speak about Gypsy's chromosomal defect and, backed with medical terminology from her time working as a nurse's aid, seemed to know what she was talking about. Rod believed her.

  In a 2016 interview with BuzzFeed, Rod explains his ex's possible motives:

  I think Dee Dee’s problem was she started a web of lies, and there was no escaping after [...] She got so wound up in it, it was like a tornado got started, and then once she was in so deep that there was no escaping. One lie had to cover another lie, had to cover another lie, and that was her way of life.

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