The hype surrounding true crime cases still hasn’t stopped. One of the most well-known of these is that of Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, who was convicted in 2016 for the murder of her own mother Dee Dee. “The Bitch is dead,” Blanchard wrote on Facebook in June 2015 after her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, whom she met online, stabbed her own mother 17 times. Blanchard and Godejohn were both behind the murder, even though he ultimately committed the crime. Godejohn was sentenced to life in prison, Gypsy-Rose to ten years. After eight of them, she has now been released – and is being celebrated online.
It didn’t take long before she started posting on several social media platforms. Gypsy-Rose knows how to keep her fans updated. Six million people follow her on Instagram and even more on TikTok. A considerable sum when you consider that Gypsy-Rose lived her everyday life behind Swedish curtains for years.
On the one hand, there is the reason for Blanchard’s crime. For almost her entire childhood and adolescence, Blanchard was physically and emotionally abused by her mother, Dee Dee. Dee Dee claimed her daughter suffered from a variety of illnesses, including leukemia, asthma, epilepsy and muscular dystrophy. She made her daughter sit in a wheelchair, shaved her head, and gave her strong medication that she didn’t need and that caused her teeth to rot. Because she convinced friends and acquaintances to care for her seriously ill daughter, many people were willing to donate their money.
In fact, Gypsy-Rose wasn’t sick, Dee Dee was. In medicine it is called “Münchausen by proxy syndrome”, a mental illness that caused Dee Dee to make her own daughter sick. If doctors treating Gypsy-Rose became suspicious, Dee Dee immediately changed practices. Since she was also teaching her daughter at home, there were no teachers who could have intervened.
When Gypsy-Rose was already 19 years old, her mother told everyone that her daughter was only 14. But Gypsy-Rose became more independent and increasingly noticed that she was actually doing well physically. She was also able to walk, even though her mother always said otherwise. When Dee Dee was in bed, she used the Internet more and more often. She started talking to Godejohn on a Christian dating site. The two chatted for a long time and met two years later.
“Me and Nick were talking one night and he said he would do anything to protect me. And I asked him, ‘Anything?’ and he said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Anyway, in front of whom?’ I asked. ‘Yes.’ ‘Even my mother?’ I asked. And he said, ‘Yes,'” Gypsy-Rose reported in a documentary, for which she was interviewed in the hospital.
On the fateful evening of June 14, 2015, she herself opened the door for her internet boyfriend and hid in the bathroom on his instructions. As Godejohn stabbed her mother, she heard her scream. “And at that point I wanted to help her so badly, but I was afraid to stand up. It’s like my body wasn’t moving. Then everything went quiet,” she told ABC News several years ago. Blanchard and Godejohn then celebrated at a motel and were arrested just a day later.
In 2016, Blanchard was convicted of second-degree murder for inciting Godejohn to commit murder. Several documentaries covered the case, and actress Joey King played Blanchard in an HBO production. Blanchard became famous – and her fans’ expressions of solidarity became louder and louder. A petition called for Blanchard to be released from prison.
The young woman now seems to be taking advantage of exactly this hype. With her first selfie after her release, the 32-year-old generated more than six million likes. Since then, photos have been added with her husband, whom she met when he contacted her while in prison, as well as photos with other family members. She will also tell her story in a new documentary “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard” from the US channel “Lifetime”. She is already busy promoting things on Instagram. Her rapid online growth and Blanchard’s willingness to talk about her past could set her up for a successful career.
And her fans support her passionately. Blanchard is the true victim of the tragic murder case, her mother is the perpetrator – this has been clear to many true crime fans for years. And that’s how they treat the young woman. A short New Year’s greeting from Blanchard has already been viewed over 60 million times on TikTok. “I’m back home in Louisiana enjoying a beautiful day outdoors,” she says in a TikTok clip. “I have a lot of great things happening soon. My documentary series ‘The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard’ is coming out. I just released an e-book that I’m very proud of,” Blanchard said.
Gypsy-Rose could unpack one of the most famous and discussed true crime cases of the past decade – especially in the USA, people have become famous for much less.
Quelle: “ABC NEWS” / “HuffPost” / Instagram
