The apparently disabled girl was named the honorary queen of the Krewe of Mid-City, a child-oriented parade held during Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

[25][26] After Hurricane Katrina devastated the area in August 2005, the pair left their ruined apartment for a shelter in Covington set up for people with special needs.

Habitat for Humanity had built a small house for them there, specially equipped with a wheelchair ramp and hot tub, as part of a larger project on the city's north side.

The story of a single mother with a severely disabled daughter forced to flee Katrina's devastation captured considerable local media attention.

[28] In the summer of 2009 Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics published a story featuring the reunion of Dee, Gypsy and Dr Robert Beckerman after an appointment at the Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center.

In Louisiana, mother and daughter had at most availed themselves of occasional stays in Ronald McDonald Houses during medical appointments; in Missouri, they received free flights to see doctors at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, free trips to Walt Disney World, and backstage passes to Miranda Lambert concerts (where she was frequently photographed with Lambert) via the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

She told her neighbors in Springfield that Gypsy's father was an abusive drug addict and alcoholic who had never come to terms with his daughter's health issues and never sent them any money.

Her 5-foot (150 cm) height,[b] nearly toothless mouth, large glasses, and high, childlike voice reinforced the perception that she had all the problems her mother claimed she did.

When she said something that suggested she was not genuinely sick or seemed beyond her purported mental capacity, she recalls that her mother would squeeze her hand very tightly.

[34] Around the same time, she would typically hide out from her mother to use her computer, Gypsy Rose says she had shared explicit images of her body online and says that she did this to make her feel good about herself.

[36] Sometime around 2012, Gypsy, who continued to use the Internet after her mother had gone to bed to avoid her tightened supervision, made contact online with Nicholas Godejohn, from Big Bend, Wisconsin, whom she said she had met on a Christian singles website.

[8] Godejohn, who describes his life as lonely before he began talking to Gypsy,[37] was arrested on April 18, 2013, for masturbating to pornography at a McDonald's for nine hours.

They fled to a motel outside Springfield, where they stayed a few days while planning their next move;[44] during that time, they were seen on security cameras at several stores.

Blanchards' acquaintances feared that even if Gypsy had not been harmed, she would be helpless without her wheelchair, medications, and support equipment like the oxygen tanks and feeding tube.

"Previous warrants say friends told investigators Gypsy had alternate Facebook accounts under the names Emma Rose and Devona Wolf where she reportedly "liked" pictures of sadomasochism.

She was so undernourished up to this point, during the year she was in the county jail, her lawyer told BuzzFeed that she had gained 14 pounds (6.4 kg), in contrast to most of his clients who typically lose weight in that situation.

[8] In January 2017, his trial was postponed when prosecutors requested a second psychiatric exam; his lawyers contend that he has an intelligence quotient of 82 and is on the autism spectrum, suggesting that he has diminished capacity.

In February 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison for the murder conviction, the only possible option since prosecutors had declined to seek the death penalty.

Godejohn asked Judge David Jones for leniency on the armed criminal action charge, which carries a minimum sentence of only three years, saying that he had fallen "blindly in love" with Gypsy.

In denying the motion, Jones conceded that an appeals court could find the latter point significant and consider it a reversible error.

[46] In a news conference, Arnott said of the case: "[Springfield is] a giving community, we surround people with love and finances that we believe that needs it.

When she did, she told BuzzFeed reporter Michelle Dean that she had been able to research Munchausen syndrome by proxy (now known as factitious disorder imposed on another) on prison computers, and her mother had every symptom.

[62] On September 29, 2023, the Missouri Department of Corrections confirmed that Gypsy had been granted parole, and she was released on December 28, 2023,[63] after serving 85% of her sentence, per state law.

[64] Flasterstein, the pediatric neurologist who believed Gypsy was capable of walking on her own and wrote in his notes that he suspected Munchausen by proxy, says it was only the second such possible case he had ever come across.

"[H]e had a gross misunderstanding of his obligations as a physician, as well as the legal requirements to report suspected abuse or neglect," Feldman said.

[66] HBO produced the documentary film Mommy Dead and Dearest (2017), directed by Erin Lee Carr, about the murder and its relationship to FDIA.

[67][68] On August 13, 2017, the Sony Entertainment Television series CID aired an episode titled "Death on Social Media" based on the case.

[69] On November 21, 2017, the CBS network talk show Dr. Phil, episode "Mother Knows Best: A Story of Munchausen by Proxy and Murder", featured interviews with Gypsy, her father Rod Blanchard and stepmother.

[70][71] On January 5, 2018, The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) news and information series Good Morning America aired an exclusive in-prison interview with Gypsy, in a segment entitled "Mother of All Murders".

[85] On July 13, 2019, Oxygen network aired the Snapped: Killer Couples episode "Gypsy Rose & Nick: A Love to Kill For".