Month: December 2023

A Missouri Corrections official confirmed that Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who plead guilty to helping her boyfriend kill her abusive mother, was released from prison on parole on Thursday. Missouri Department of Corrections spokesperson Karen Pojmann said of the conditions of Blanchard’s release that “her original 10-year sentence started in June 2015, so, barring parole violations and other extenuating circumstances, it’s expected that she’ll be on parole supervision and reporting to a parole officer until June 2025.”

Blanchard was the victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy at the hands of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard. Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a rare syndrome in which a caregiver fakes, exaggerates or induces illness in a child to gain attention. Dee Dee was found to have convinced those around her, including doctors, that her daughter was afflicted with leukemia and muscular dystrophy among other ailments.

In 2016, Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after confessing that she convinced her boyfriend to stab her mother to death as she slept. In the days after Dee Dee’s killing, details started to emerge that revealed the unusual situation, with Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott saying at a June 2015 press conference that “things are not always as they appear.” In a plea deal, prosecutors sentenced Gypsy Rose to 10 years in prison, after attorneys uncovered the abuse she had experienced at the hands of her mother. Blanchard, who admitted to being in the house at the time of the murder, said that she knew her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, was going to stab Dee Dee and she did nothing to stop it. Godejohn was convicted of murder and sentenced in 2019 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Court filings show he admitted to stabbing Dee Dee and said he only killed her because Gypsy asked him to.

The case of Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee gained national attention, after the release of the HBO Max documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest,” as well as the 2019 Hulu miniseries “The Act,” starring Patricia Arquette as Dee Dee Blanchard.  In an interview with People magazine shortly before her release, the now 32-year-old Blanchard said she regretted her role in the killing “every single day … 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 behavior.”

Blanchard will release the upcoming book “Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom” on January 9, 2024, which tells her story through her own perspective, with the help of writers Melissa Moore and Michele Matrisciani.  In addition, a six-hour Lifetime special “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard” is set to premiere on January 5, 2024, featuring interviews with Blanchard from prison.

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On Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley attempted to clarify the remarks she made in which she failed to mention slavery as the cause of the Civil War.

The former governor of South Carolina and ex-United Nations ambassador came under fire Wednesday night after a video of her exchange with a voter in New Hampshire during the town hall in Berlin, N.H. circulated on social media. When pressed by the voter over the cause of the Civil War, Haley said, “Well, don’t come with an easy question, right? I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do .. We need to have capitalism, we need to have economic freedom.”  After the voter responded it was “astonishing” that she did not mention slavery while discussing the Civil War, Haley asked: “What do you want me to say about slavery?” the voter responded:“You answered my question. Thank you.” 

However, during a New Hampshire radio interview, Haley attempted to clarify her comment, saying: “We know that. That’s the easy part of it. What I was saying was what does it mean to us today? What it means to us today is about freedom. That’s what that was all about.” She later accused the voter who asked her about the cause of the Civil War of being a “Democrat plant.”

Republicans and Democrats both slammed Haley’s initial comments — Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), a supporter of Trump, wrote on X that the answer was “slavery, period.”  Meanwhile, the campaign of fellow candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted the video of Haley online with the word, “Yikes.”   And President Biden reposted a video of the exchange, writing simple, “It was about slavery.”

Haley and DeSantis are neck-and-neck for second place behind Donald Trump in national polling. As of Thursday, Trump leads the national polls with 63.1 percent of the support, followed by Haley with 10.8 percent and DeSantis close behind with 10.6 percent.

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