Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a US woman who plotted to kill the mother who had abused her and forced her to fake terminal illnesses, has been released from prison.
Blanchard was released from the Chillicothe Correctional Center at 3.30am, the Missouri Department of Corrections said.
She was granted parole and released three years ahead of her original release date, a spokesperson said.
The 32-year-old had been serving a 10-year sentence for second-degree murder, following the 2015 killing of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard.
The killing sparked a media frenzy and inspired the 2019 Hulu series The Act and HBO’s 2017 documentary film Mommy Dead And Dearest.
In court, it was claimed Dee Dee had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder in which a carer either makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms to make the person they are caring for appear sick, often for attention. It is now called fabricated or induced illness (FII) by the NHS.
Blanchard testified that her mother convinced doctors, and those around her, she had leukaemia and muscular dystrophy, forcing her to use a wheelchair and an oxygen tank when she didn’t need it.
She also claimed her mother shaved her head and forced her to eat through a feeding tube. She was isolated from the world, and home schooled while her mother cashed in donations from local charities.
Gypsy Rose during the trial of her ex-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn in 2018. Pic: AP
Gypsy ‘regrets’ mother’s murder
After years of abuse, Blanchard conspired to kill her mother with her then boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn, who fatally stabbed Dee Dee while her daughter hid in the bathroom of their Missouri home.
But she has since said she regrets her mother’s murder.
“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 told People Magazine on Wednesday, ahead of her release.
“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.”
Godejohn was sentenced in 2018 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. According to recent reports, he said he would do it again if it meant saving Gypsy.
