Gypsy Rose Blanchard Is Released From Prison in Missouri

Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who was found guilty of helping to kill her mother in a murder that inspired an HBO documentary and a Hulu miniseries, was released from prison on Thursday, the authorities in Missouri said.

Karen Pojmann, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said in an email that Ms. Blanchard was released from Chillicothe Correctional Center at 3:30 a.m. on Thursday.

Her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, was killed in June 2015 in Springfield, Mo. At the time, Ms. Blanchard, then in her early 20s, used a wheelchair and appeared to have a diminished mental capacity. Investigators soon realized that she could walk and that her medical problems had largely been fictitious.

Investigators later came to suspect Ms. Blanchard’s boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, of stabbing her mother to death. They also found evidence suggesting that the couple had planned the murder together.

Ms. Blanchard, now 32, plead guilty to second-degree murder in 2016. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison — the minimum for second-degree murder — under a plea agreement that acknowledged the abusive relationship with her mother.

Three years later, Mr. Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, The Springfield News-Leader reported.

Ms. Blanchard’s trial attorney, Mike Stanfield, could not immediately be reached for comment.

“I’m ready for freedom,” Ms. Blanchard told People magazine in an interview published on Thursday. “I’m ready to expand and I think that goes for every facet of my life.”

In 2019, Hulu released an eight-part series, “The Act,” which was based on Ms. Blanchard’s life. The series was created by Michelle Dean, a journalist who wrote a widely read 8,000 word story for Buzzfeed about the case in 2016. In the series, Joey King played Ms. Blanchard, and Patricia Arquette played her mother.

An HBO documentary, “Mommy Dead and Dearest,” premiered in May 2017 and examined the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard.