Not all murderers are built the same. Even when the legal rules of self-defense don’t apply, there may be, in a few select cases, some justification that we can understand, even if not condone, how it led to that irreversible outcome.
Gypsy Blanchard Rose had a hand in her mother’s murder. That is undeniable, she herself admits it candidly, but along with the admission of being the crime’s mastermind came the truth of how Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard’s Munchausen syndrome by proxy robbed her daughter of a normal healthy childhood and teenage years. There is the battered woman syndrome, and this should more or less fall into an equivalent category for persistent child abuse.
Nevertheless, a crime is a crime, a life was taken, and Gypsy had to atone for it with time in prison. But, as she claimed in interviews, even prison provided a freer life than the one she had had under her mother’s overbearing talons.
Gypsy Rose’s parole date
Unlike her ex-boyfriend and accomplice, Nicholas Godejohn, who was convicted of first-degree homicide and much more harshly condemned as the one who wielded the murder weapon, Gypsy Rose pled guilty to second-degree and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, a much lighter sentence which spells out an understanding for her circumstances. A sentence she won’t have to serve to the fullest extent, as revealed to the public in September 2023.
Gypsy Rose will be a free woman soon, in about a month from the time of this writing. Of the 10 years she got, she will have served seven by the time that she returns to everyday society. Her release date is scheduled for Dec. 28.
In 2024, Gypsy will be a free woman, 32 years old, and with the rest of her hopefully healthy life in front of her.