How long was Gypsy Rose Blanchard on the run?

In 2015, Dee Dee Blanchard was found dead. Dee Dee’s daughter, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, and Gypsy’s then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, were arrested for her murder. How long after Dee Dee died were Gypsy and Nicholas arrested, and did Gypsy Rose spend any time on the run?

As was revealed in Dee Dee’s murder investigation, her daughter Gypsy was born in 1991. In her early life, Dee Dee subjected her daughter to several unnecessary medical treatments in what is now believed to have been a case of Munchausen by proxy — a psychological disorder whereby caretakers, often mothers, fabricate healthcare issues and seek unneeded medical attention for their children, and attention and other benefits for themselves.

By 2015, Gypsy, then in her 20s, had met Godejohn on a dating site, and in June of that year, Godejohn snuck into the Blanchard home in Springfield, Missouri, and stabbed and killed Gypsy’s mother. Gypsy and Godejohn planned the attack, and in 2018, Godejohn was given a life sentence for the crime, according to the Springfield News-Leader.

Gypsy, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to planning her mother’s murder, and two years before Godejohn’s conviction in 2016, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to People.

Gypsy Rose and Godejohn were arrested in Wisconsin

When Dee Dee Blanchard was murdered, Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s then-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn lived in Big Bend, Wisconsin. He traveled to Springfield, Missouri, to murder Dee Dee, and as the Springfield News-Leader reports, the couple stayed in Missouri for a few days after Dee Dee’s death before returning to Godejohn’s home via bus. Authorities caught up with Gypsy and Nicholas in Big Bend, and there was reportedly a minor standoff before both were arrested. In total, they were on the run for just a few days after Dee Dee’s death.

In 2023, Gypsy told People from prison she regrets killing her mother after years of mental and physical abuse. 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 … [O]r, 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.”

via People

In late Dec. 2023, Gypsy was released from prison early. That same month, Nicholas Godejohn, serving a life sentence for killing Dee Dee Blanchard, filed an appeal for a new trial, citing Godejohn’s “mental capacity” when Dee’s Dee’s murder took place.