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Topics: Crime, Parenting, True crime, US News, Gypsy Rose Blanchard
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: Crime, Parenting, True crime, US News, Gypsy Rose Blanchard
Gypsy Rose Blanchard has been released from prison after serving seven years of her 10-year sentence.
The 32-year-old was sentenced in 2016 after she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the death of her mom Clauddine 'Dee Dee' Blanchard.
After serving 85 percent of her sentence, she was released from the Correctional Center in Chillicothe, Missouri, earlier today (28 December), TMZ reports.
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Blanchard's mother was found stabbed to death in her home in Missouri in June 2015.
In the years leading up to her mother's death, Blanchard claims she was mentally and physically abused by her.
On the stand, she said her mom told everyone she was terminally ill, forced her to use a wheelchair, oxygen tank and also took her to the doctors tricking them into diagnosing and treating her daughter for conditions such as leukemia.
Blanchard subsequently claims she was a victim of 'Munchhausen syndrome by proxy'.
The Cleveland Clinic explains: "Munchausen syndrome (factitious disorder imposed on self) is when someone tries to get attention and sympathy by falsifying, inducing, and/or exaggerating an illness. They lie about symptoms, sabotage medical tests (like putting blood in their urine), or harm themselves to get the symptoms.
"Diagnosing and treating Munchausen syndrome is difficult because of the person’s dishonesty."
Experts also believe Blanchard's mother suffered from Munchausen syndrome, but 'by proxy' making it seem her daughter was the one who was ill instead.
Blanchard has since been proven as not actually having any diagnosed illnesses apart from a lazy eye, Women's Health reports.
And during her trial, she shocked the court by walking unassisted.
After years of enduring the alleged abuse, Blanchard and her boyfriend at the time Nicholas 'Nick' Godejohn decided to plot to kill her mother.
Gypsy was later convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison, Godejohn currently serving a life-sentence without parole.
In an interview with PEOPLE, Blanchard reflected on her mother's death.
She said: "If I had another chance to redo everything, I don't know if I would go back to when I was a child and tell my aunts and uncles that I'm not sick and mommy makes me sick.
"Or, if I would travel back to just the point of that conversation with Nick and tell him, 'You know what, I'm going to go tell the police everything.' I kind of struggle with that."
However, Blanchard notes she will never say she's 'glad' her mom's dead, or that she's 'proud' of what she did.
She resolves: "I regret it every single day."
Blanchard's story has already garnered much attention and been the subject of multiple film and TV productions such as 2019 drama The Act.
A six-hour series titled The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard is set to begin on 5 January, 2024, in which Blanchard shares her 'story' and 'truth'.