The world thought Gypsy Rose Blanchard was brain damaged and dying. Four words on Facebook were the first clue to the truth (2024)

Four frightening words on Facebook were the first sign for many of the dark secret a small-town mother and her disabled daughter were keeping.

Warning: This story contains details that may be upsetting for some readers.

June 14, 2015: "That Bitch is dead!"

A short time later, concerned friends and neighbours would discover the body of Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard, face down in her home in Springfield, Missouri.

She had been stabbed to death several days earlier.

Her daughter Gypsy Rose Blanchard — who the world believed had leukaemia, asthma, and brain damage — was missing.

What would come to light in the days, weeks and months following was a story of decades of abuse, lies and manipulation.

As Gypsy Rose celebrates her first weeks of freedom after serving seven years in prison, here's what we know about her mother's murder, and the spiralling series of events that led to it.

A search across state lines unfolds

As friends wondered whether Dee Dee Blanchard's Facebook account had been hacked, a new comment appeared.

"I f***en SLASHED THAT FAT PIG".

It then stated her daughter had also been raped.

Neighbours, having broken a window to get inside the home, called the police. The family car and Gypsy's wheelchairs were untouched.

A search warrant wasn't issued until almost 11pm, when Dee Dee's body was finally discovered in the bedroom.

With her mother lying dead in their home, authorities launched an urgent search for Gypsy.

"Gypsy has several medical issues and is wheelchair bound," the Greene County Sheriff's Office posted to its social media accounts.

Everyone feared the worst – friends held vigils and began arranging fundraisers for funeral expenses.

Just 12 hours later, they had their update. Gypsy had been found safe in Wisconsin, a full eight hours away by car.

The police had tracked Facebook messages and posts sent and shared by Gypsy to a man named Nicholas Godejohn, and when local officers arrived at his home, he quickly surrendered.

Both were taken into custody. The sense of relief would not last long.

"Things are not always as they appear," the local sheriff said in a press conference the following morning.

'Mother dead, daughter found'

Both Gypsy and Nicholas were charged with first-degree murder.

Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott said in his press conference police didn't "know the true background of this family".

"This is a tragic, tragic event surrounded by mystery and public deception," he said.

"It's a very twisted story trying to work out what is true and what's not … as far as motives and how this all links back we just know there is a lot of deception."

He added the pair had taken "thousands of dollars" from the house before fleeing in the days after the killing.

They mailed the murder weapon to Nicholas's house, took a bus to Wisconsin, with Gypsy seen on CCTV footage walking unassisted and wearing disguises.

Police said it was Gypsy who wrote the Facebook posts, claiming she had done so to make sure her mother's body would be found.

The same community that had raised the alarm and long supported the family was left devastated.

David Blanchard, unrelated, who had first climbed in the window to check on Dee Dee and Gypsy, told the Springfield News-Leader: "I'm still upset … but now I want answers.

"I want to know the whole story," he said. "Just like everybody else."

A dark secret inside the little pink house

Dee Dee Blanchard was the "nicest lady in the world", according to neighbours, including one who lived just a few houses down.

"I cannot believe how anybody could even have a bad word to say about her," Kevin Corbisier told the Springfield News-Leader the day after the death.

Others told the newspaper that mother and daughter were "kind of like family", delivering Christmas cards, cookies, offering to run errands.

Blanchard, 48, and her daughter had lived in the little pink house on West Volunteer Way in Springfield, Missouri for seven years.

The home had been built for them by a charity, Habitat for Humanity, in 2008, when they said they had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina and forced to leave their previous home in New Orleans.

It had been specially built with wheelchair ramps and a hot tub for Gypsy, who had only been recently named as 2007's "Child of the Year" by non-profit group the Oley Foundation.

"Gypsy Rose Blancharde [sic] is twelve years old, yet one of her friends says she has wisdom and compassion beyond her years," the organisation wrote at the time.

"At eight years old, Gypsy took the allowance she had been saving for a trip to Disney and used it instead to buy food and blankets for those in need."

According to Gypsy's father, Rod Blanchard – who would later be denied access to his daughter – Dee Dee had become convinced baby Gypsy had sleep apnoea just three months after her birth.

Things would escalate rapidly in the years following: an unspecified chromosomal disorder, muscular dystrophy, seizures, hearing and vision problems.

By the time she was around eight years old the child was restricted to a wheelchair in public.

Not long after that she was removed from school and homeschooled by her mother.

Emergency room visits were common and at some point Dee Dee began shaving her daughter's head in an effort to make her appear to be undergoing chemotherapy.

Gypsy underwent multiple surgeries, including having her saliva glands removed, the majority of her front teeth extracted and tubes implanted in her ears.

Doctors, friends and family were told she was several years younger than she was, and she was diagnosed with a mental disability.

Paediatric neurologist Bernardo Flasterstein had suspicions in 2007, according to notes seen by Buzzfeed News in 2016.

"Analysing all the facts, and after talking to her previous paediatrician, there is a strong possibility of Munchausen by proxy, maybe some underlying unknown etiology [causes] to explain her condition."

After this visit, Dee Dee switched doctors.

Thinking he wouldn't be believed, the doctor did not report his suspicions to social services.

Growing independence and the 'last resort'

For more than a decade, Gypsy claims, she remained unaware of her real age and had little contact with anyone other than her mother.

Documentary filmmaker Erin Lee Carr, who created a 2017 documentary about the case, told Rolling Stone: "We don't know what happened in that house.".

"They were by themselves. Her mom was a really dangerous, scary person who sometimes showed her love, but also showed her physical violence."

Gypsy says she used the internet after her mother had gone to bed – it was then that she made contact with Nicholas Godejohn on a Christian dating site.

The relationship continued for at least two years, according to the police, using multiple Facebook accounts.

"[Dee Dee] got jealous, because I was spending a little too much attention on him, and she had ordered me to stay away from him. And needless to say, that was a very long argument that lasted a couple weeks," Gypsy said in a 2018 interview.

"Yelling, throwing things, calling me names: b----, slu*t, whor*."

Messages released by the police describe the killing as a "last resort", according to the Springfield News-Leader.

In June 2015, Nicholas travelled to Missouri and checked into a nearby motel, waiting for Gypsy to call him.

When he arrived at the home, Gypsy handed him the knife, gloves and duct tape, then hid in the bathroom. Nicholas went into the bedroom.

"I wanted to go help her so bad, but I was so afraid to get up," she said.

"It's like my body wouldn't move. Then everything just went quiet."

'I regret it every single day'

In 2016, Gypsy Rose Blanchard was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the murder of her mother.

She was released from prison on parole on December 28, 2023.

The now-32-year-old was released eight years into the sentence, telling People magazine she was “ready for freedom”.

"I'm ready to expand and I think that goes for every phase of my life," she said in the interview, given shortly before her release.

"No-one will ever hear me say I'm proud of what I did or I'm glad that she's dead. I'm not proud of what I did. I regret it every single day.

"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 behaviour."

Her trial attorney, Michael Stanfield, said in 2016 her condition behind bars was "evidence to the rest of the world as to just how bad what Gypsy was going through really was".

"I can honestly say I've rarely had a client who looks exceedingly better after doing a fairly long prison sentence," he said.

Her story has inspired a HBO documentary and a TV miniseries, and been the subject of global media coverage.

Nicholas Godejohn, now 32, continues to serve a life sentence.

In a 2019 interview from prison, he said the five days he spent in person with Gypsy were "probably the best days of my life".

They have since separated. Gypsy is now married to a teacher she met while in prison.

"When I'm at home with my family, with my husband's arms around me and I'm surrounded by loved ones," she told People.

"That is when I will be happy."