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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

10 Years for Helping|to Murder Her Mother

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (CN) — A Missouri woman who helped her boyfriend stab her sleeping mother to death and posted "That bitch is dead!" on her mother's Facebook page was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in state prison.

Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, 24, of Springfield, pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years under a plea agreement. She will have to serve 8½ years before she can be considered for parole.

Blanchard could have been sentenced to death or life without parole, her attorney Mike Stanfield said after the sentencing hearing. But that was before the attorney uncovered decades of Gypsy's abuse at the hands of her mother.

Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson called the murder "neither justifiable nor excusable" but said the sentence took into account nearly 20 years of "systematic and purposeful" abuse by her mother, to facilitate her mother's fraudulent schemes.

The abuse included making Gypsy take unnecessary medications that rendered her nearly toothless and forcing her to undergo medical procedures she did not need so her mother could profit from falsely portraying Gypsy as disabled and mentally handicapped.

Gypsy's mother was "holding her prisoner," Stanfield said. She refused to let Gypsy spend "any time with any other human being," and the mother did all the talking during Gypsy's doctor visits.

Gypsy Blanchard made it through the second grade in school.

She handed the knife to her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, in June 2015.

Godejohn, who awaits sentencing, admitted to police that he climbed on top of Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard while she slept in bed and stabbed her in the back several times. He said he killed her at Gypsy's urging: that she even handed him the knife.

Godejohn had traveled by bus from Wisconsin to Springfield to visit Gypsy, and they hatched the murder plot via text messaging along the way.

Gypsy Blanchard told police she heard her mother screaming as she died but did nothing to stop the murder. She said she posted "That bitch is dead" on her mom's Facebook page because she hoped it would help police find her mother's body.

The couple stole several thousand dollars from a safe in Clauddine Blanchard's home and fled to Godejohn's home in Big Bend, Wisc., where they were arrested.

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