Gypsy Rose Blanchard is released from prison in Missouri

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

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

Her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, was murdered in Springfield, Missouri in June 2015. Ms. Blanchard, then in her early twenties, used a wheelchair at the time and appeared to have diminished mental capacity. Researchers soon realized that she could walk and that her medical problems were largely fictitious.

Investigators later suspected that Ms. Blanchard’s boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, had stabbed her mother to death. They also found evidence indicating the couple had done so planned the murder together.

Ms. Blanchard, now 32, pleads guilty second-degree murder in 2016. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison – the minimum for second-degree murder – under a plea deal 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 am ready for freedom,” Mrs. Blanchard told People magazine in an interview published Thursday. “I’m ready to expand and I think that applies to 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 book 8,000 word story for Buzzfeed about the case in 2016. In the series, Joey King played Mrs. Blanchard and Patricia Arquette played her mother.

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