true crime

In 2015, Nick Godejohn killed Gypsy Blanchard's mum. He remembers the time as "magical".

 

 

It’s a story that seems more like great fiction than real life.

In 2015, Gypsy Rose Blanchard orchestrated the murder of her mother Dee Dee with her online boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn.

In a case that has both captivated – and horrified – the world, Gypsy was brought up believing that she was terminally ill and that she had everything from leukemia to muscular dystrophy, leaving her confined to a wheelchair.

In addition to being told that she had developmental issues, Gypsy never knew her real age.

In the end, however, none of these medical conditions were real.

Watch the official trailer for The Act: Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose below. Post continues after video.

Gypsy’s mother, Dee Dee, had invented her daughter’s ailments, reaping the benefits of her daughter’s fabricated disabilities.

She was suspected to have suffered from Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy – a condition that makes a guardian exaggerate or invent illness in a child for sympathy.

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But when Gypsy Rose met Nicholas Godejohn, now 29, online, she saw a way out of her mother’s grip.

After meeting on ChristianDatingForFree.com in 2012, the pair became each other’s confidants, with Gypsy sharing details of her mother’s abuse with Nick.

Eventually, after a failed plan for Gypsy to run away from home, the couple began to plan Dee Dee’s murder.

After sharing a solely online relationship for months on end, Gypsy and Nick met in person for the first time to enact their murderous plan.

As Gypsy hid in the bathroom, Nick stabbed Dee Dee to death in her sleep with a knife and gloves that Gypsy had stolen from a local Walmart.

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Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her mother Dee Dee.
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Several days after the murder, Dee Dee was found facedown in her bedroom in Louisiana. The following day, Gypsy and Nick were discovered in Wisconsin. Those few days on the run were the only time the two spent together, in person, as a couple.

In February this year, Nick was sentenced to life in prison. Gypsy, on the other hand, will be eligible for parole in 2023, when she is 32.

Although Gypsy and Nick are no longer in contact, with Gypsy now engaged to a man she met through her prison's pen pal program, this weekend, Nick will open up about his relationship with Gypsy prior to the murder in his first interview since being sentenced.

In a promo for his interview on Oxygen's Killer Couples: Gypsy Rose: A Love to Kill For, Nick has shared what the days leading up to Dee Dee's murder were like.

"That was, man, probably the best days I've had in my life. I mean, that's the only way I can describe it. I enjoyed every second of it," he shared in the sneak preview.

"Those five days where I was physically with [Gypsy], those five days were the most intense and magical and awe-inspiring days I've ever had," he added.

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"I somehow just knew deep within my heart, somehow, me and her would end up being together in the end. There's no other option. We have to."

Nick also shared the plans he had with Gypsy prior to carrying out the murder.

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"From the very beginning, I just knew we were soulmates," he said.

"I was going to get a job, start looking for an apartment... I'd probably end up marrying her and having children with her," he added.

"That's something I've never had with someone else. I've never, ever had it and to this day, she's the only one I've had it with.

"It was a very deep, intimate relationship. She told me everything. She told me her mum abused her. I wanted to make sure her mum was not going to hurt her anymore."

Speaking to US ABC News about her relationship with Nick in January 2018, Gypsy admitted that Nick was "controlling".

"He was very much like my mother in certain ways," she said.

"Both of them were very controlling... and I feel like I was trained my whole life to do as I was told, and I feel like he wanted that for a girlfriend."

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Gypsy arranged for her boyfriend Nick to kill her mother. Image: Greene County Sheriff's Office.
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In a 2017 interview with Dr. Phil, Gypsy also revealed that Nick "had multiple personalities that were violent and scary".

"He thought he was a 500-year-old vampire named Victor," she added.

But while Gypsy is currently serving 10 years in prison, she feels more free than ever before.

"The prison that I was living in before, with my mum — I couldn't walk. I couldn't eat. I couldn't have friends," she told ABC News.

"I feel like I'm freer in prison than living with my mum. I guess now I'm allowed to just live like a normal woman," she explained.

Nick Godejohn's full interview with Oxygen will air in the US on July 13.

The Act: Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose is available to watch on Foxtel now.

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