Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard was found stabbed to death in her Springfield, Missouri home in June 2015. Her daughter, Gypsy-Rose, and Nicholas Godejohn planned and carried out the murder together.
Clauddine Pitre was born on May 3, 1967, in Chackbay, Louisiana, to Claude and Emma Pitre. Everyone called her Dee Dee. She grew up in Golden Meadow, Louisiana, and as a young adult, she worked as a nurse’s aide.
When she was 23, she met 17-year-old Rod Blanchard at a bowling alley bar. They married on December 27, 1990, but the relationship did not last long. The couple separated shortly before their daughter, Gypsy-Rose, was born in July 1991. Rod later said he had married for the wrong reasons.
They picked the name Gypsy-Rose because Dee Dee liked the name Gypsy, and Rod was a fan of Guns N’ Roses. After Rod chose not to return to the relationship, Dee Dee moved back in with her family and brought her newborn daughter with her.
Things started getting strange very early. When Gypsy was just three months old, Dee Dee became convinced the baby had sleep apnea and started taking her to the hospital. Doctors ran repeated tests and found nothing wrong.
Over time, Dee Dee kept claiming that Gypsy had more and more medical problems, which she blamed on an unspecified chromosomal disorder. In 2012, Gypsy was diagnosed with 1q21.1 deletion syndrome, a condition that can cause delayed development and intellectual disability.
Gypsy’s former pediatrician also confirmed that Gypsy had strabismus as an infant, which required surgery to prevent blindness. That was a real medical issue, but Dee Dee used it as a foundation to build a much bigger and more damaging web of false claims.
Dee Dee later moved in with her father, Claude, and his new wife, Laura. Family members alleged that during this time, Dee Dee poisoned Laura’s food with Roundup weed killer, which contributed to Laura becoming seriously ill.
When relatives confronted Dee Dee about how she was treating Gypsy and raised concerns about Laura’s health, Dee Dee left with Gypsy. Laura’s condition reportedly improved after they were gone.
Dee Dee and Gypsy eventually settled in Slidell, a suburb of New Orleans, where they lived in public housing. Dee Dee supported herself through child-support payments from Rod and through public assistance that was tied to Gypsy’s supposed medical conditions.
She kept taking Gypsy to specialists, mostly at Tulane Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital of New Orleans. After telling doctors that Gypsy had seizures every few months, they prescribed her anti-seizure medication.
Gypsy went through surgery, and Dee Dee took her to the emergency room frequently for minor issues. Dee Dee regularly shaved Gypsy’s head, telling her that her medication would eventually make her hair fall out and that shaving it early was easier.
Gypsy wore wigs or hats to cover her head. When they went out, Dee Dee often brought along an oxygen tank and a feeding tube. Gypsy was fed a children’s liquid nutrition supplement called PediaSure well into her twenties.
The medical procedures kept escalating. Dee Dee had some of Gypsy’s saliva glands treated with Botox and eventually had them removed entirely, claiming Gypsy drooled too much.
Gypsy later said that Dee Dee had actually caused the drooling herself by applying a numbing cream to her gums before doctor visits. Tubes were also put in Gypsy’s ears to treat her many supposed ear infections.
Gypsy later wrote in her memoir that she developed an addiction to pain medication starting at age sixteen as a result of all the unnecessary medical treatment she went through.
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the region hard. Dee Dee and Gypsy left their damaged apartment and moved to a special-needs shelter in Covington. Dee Dee told officials that Gypsy’s medical records and birth certificate had been lost in the flood.
A doctor at the shelter suggested they relocate to Missouri, and the following month, they were airlifted there through a hurricane resettlement program.
They first lived in Aurora, Missouri, before moving to Springfield in 2008. Habitat for Humanity built them a small home equipped with a wheelchair ramp and a hot tub.
The story of a single mother caring for a severely disabled daughter who had escaped Hurricane Katrina attracted a lot of local media attention and community support. People gave generously.
The family received free flights to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, trips to Walt Disney World, and backstage passes to Miranda Lambert concerts through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Rod Blanchard continued sending monthly child-support payments of $1,200 and occasionally spoke with Gypsy by phone.
During one call on Gypsy’s eighteenth birthday, Dee Dee reportedly told Rod not to mention her real age because she thought she was 14. Dee Dee also told neighbors that Rod was an abusive drug addict who had never supported his daughter financially, which was completely false.
Dee Dee kept up appearances carefully. She regularly brought an oxygen tank and feeding tube when they went out. Gypsy’s shaved head, large glasses, nearly toothless mouth, and high childlike voice made her appear exactly as sick as Dee Dee described. Many people who met Gypsy were completely convinced.
Suspicion first arose in September 2007, when a pediatric neurologist named Dr. Bernardo Flasterstein examined Gypsy in Springfield. He became suspicious of her reported muscular dystrophy diagnosis and ordered MRIs and blood tests.
Everything came back normal. He observed Gypsy stand and support her own weight and told Dee Dee directly that he saw no reason why Gypsy could not walk.
He then contacted Gypsy’s doctors in New Orleans and found out that her original muscle biopsy had been negative, which directly contradicted everything Dee Dee had been claiming. He suspected factitious disorder imposed on another, a condition where a caregiver fakes or causes illness in someone under their care.
Dee Dee eventually got hold of his notes and stopped taking Gypsy to see him. Flasterstein did not report Dee Dee to social services. He later said other doctors had told him to handle the situation carefully and that he doubted anyone would believe him.
In late October 2009, an anonymous caller told police that Dee Dee used multiple names and birthdates for herself and Gypsy and suggested Gypsy was healthier than claimed. Officers conducted a wellness check but accepted Dee Dee’s explanation that she used false information to avoid an abusive ex-husband.
They concluded Gypsy appeared genuinely disabled, and the case was closed.
Meanwhile, Dee Dee appears to have forged at least one copy of Gypsy’s birth certificate, changing the birth year to 1995 to make it look like she was still a teenager. Gypsy later said she was unsure of her real age for 14 years. Dee Dee told her a copy showing the correct birthdate was simply a misprint.
Gypsy began pushing back. In February 2011, at a science-fiction convention, she tried to escape with a man named Dan whom she had met online and arranged to meet at the event. Dee Dee found her and used paperwork with a false birthdate to pressure Dan into letting Gypsy go.
Afterward, Dee Dee allegedly smashed Gypsy’s computer and phone with a hammer, threatened to break her fingers if she tried to escape again, leashed and handcuffed her to her bed, and starved her for two weeks.
Dee Dee also told Gypsy she had filed paperwork declaring her mentally incompetent, which made Gypsy believe that police would never take her side if she asked for help.
In June 2011, Gypsy tried to escape again by shooting her mother ten times with a BB gun, which she initially believed was a real firearm. Dee Dee told others the injuries came from a robbery attempt at a nearby Walmart.
Despite all of this, Gypsy continued using the internet secretly after Dee Dee went to sleep. In February 2012, the two were caught shoplifting arts-and-crafts items worth $21.53 from a Hobby Lobby. The items had been hidden under Gypsy’s legs in her wheelchair.
Around 2012, Gypsy met Nicholas Godejohn online through a Christian singles website. Godejohn has an IQ of 82, a history of mental illness, and autism spectrum disorder.
By 2014, Gypsy had confided in her neighbor Aleah Woodmansee that she and Godejohn were in an online relationship that involved BDSM elements, which Gypsy said reflected his interests more than hers. Aleah tried to talk Gypsy out of it.
She believed Gypsy was too young and possibly being manipulated. Despite Dee Dee’s repeated attempts to cut off her internet access, Gypsy kept in touch with Aleah, who saved printouts of her posts.
In March 2015, Gypsy arranged for Godejohn to visit Springfield by having him bump into her and Dee Dee at a movie theater showing of Cinderella while they were in costume. When they met in person for the first time, Godejohn said Gypsy led him to a bathroom stall where they had sexual intercourse.
The two kept communicating online and began planning to kill Dee Dee. Gypsy later admitted she had talked Godejohn into the murder plot. Less than a month before the killing, she sent him a video of herself pointing at Dee Dee’s pillow and making a stabbing motion.
Gypsy stole money and mailed it to Godejohn to buy a bus ticket back to Springfield. He arrived in June 2015, the day after Gypsy and Dee Dee had visited the emergency room to have Gypsy’s feeding tube replaced.
That same evening, after Dee Dee fell asleep, Gypsy let Godejohn inside the house. She gave him duct tape, gloves, and a knife she had shoplifted from Walmart. Godejohn stabbed Dee Dee 17 times in the back while she slept.
Gypsy later said she hid in the bathroom and covered her ears during the attack, though Godejohn claimed she was shaving her legs. Gypsy told authorities she cleaned up some of her mother’s blood with baby wipes before they left.
The pair took more than $4,400 in cash from the house, most of it from Rod’s child-support payments. They fled to a motel outside Springfield and stayed there for several days. They mailed the murder weapon to Godejohn’s home in Wisconsin and then took a bus there.
Back in Springfield, neighbors grew worried after seeing alarming posts on Dee Dee’s Facebook account and getting no answer when they called. Friends and neighbors went to the house and found Dee Dee’s car still in the driveway, which made the usual explanation of a medical trip seem unlikely. They called 9-1-1.
Officers arrived but had to wait for a search warrant before entering. Once inside, they found Dee Dee’s body. Woodmansee, who was among those gathered outside, told police about Gypsy’s secret online boyfriend and showed them the printouts she had saved, which included his name.
Investigators traced an IP address to Wisconsin, and the following day, law enforcement raided Godejohn’s home in Big Bend. Both Godejohn and Gypsy were arrested and extradited to Missouri, where they were held on $1 million bond.
Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott told the public that things were not always what they appeared. Local media soon reported that Gypsy had never been sick and had always been able to walk.
In July 2016, Gypsy accepted a plea deal for second-degree murder and was sentenced to ten years in prison. Her attorney noted that she had been so malnourished that she gained 14 pounds during her first year in county jail.
Godejohn faced a more serious charge. Prosecutors argued that he had committed the physical act of killing Dee Dee and had no connection to the alleged abuse.
After a trial in November 2018, jurors found him guilty of first-degree murder after about two hours of deliberation. In February 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, along with a concurrent 25-year sentence for armed criminal action.
Gypsy served her sentence at Missouri’s Chillicothe Correctional Center. She researched factitious disorder imposed on another on prison computers and told a reporter that she believed her mother had exhibited every symptom of the condition.
On September 29, 2023, the Missouri Department of Corrections confirmed she had been granted parole. She was released on December 28, 2023. She had married Ryan Scott Anderson on June 27, 2022, while still incarcerated, but the couple separated three months after her release in March 2024.
She then resumed a relationship with Ken Urker, whom she had originally met in 2017 when he began writing to her in prison. The two had become engaged during a 2018 prison visit but ended the relationship the following year. In April 2024, they got back together, and in 2025, the couple welcomed their first child.
Dee Dee’s family in Louisiana did not mourn her death. Her father, stepmother, and a nephew all said she deserved her fate and that Gypsy had already been punished enough. None offered to pay for her funeral. Rod Blanchard was more forgiving.
He told a reporter that he believed Dee Dee had started a web of lies she could never escape from, and said he was happy the first time he saw video of Gypsy walking on her own.
