Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard

Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard (née Pitre), born May 3, 1967, in Chackbay, Louisiana, was a 48-year-old woman killed at her home in Springfield, Missouri, in June 2015. For years, Blanchard had represented her daughter, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, as suffering from severe illnesses including leukemia, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, and developmental disabilities. Investigations following her death indicated that many of these conditions were not consistently supported by medical documentation and were later determined by investigators to have been misrepresented or fabricated, a pattern widely discussed in connection with factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA).

Police discovered Blanchard's body five days after the killing, after neighbors saw alarming Facebook posts attributed to Gypsy Rose and requested a welfare check. Investigators, aided by information from a neighbor about Gypsy Rose's online relationship with Nicholas Godejohn of Big Bend, Wisconsin, traced the pair to Godejohn's home, where both were taken into custody on charges of murder and felony armed criminal action.

According to court records and the probable cause statement, Gypsy Rose Blanchard had communicated with Godejohn in advance about killing her mother, provided the knife, gloves, and duct tape used in the attack, and hid elsewhere in the house while Godejohn stabbed Dee Dee Blanchard 17 times in the back as she slept. The pair took cash from the home and fled to a motel before traveling to Wisconsin, mailing the murder weapon ahead of them. During post-arrest interrogation, Gypsy Rose Blanchard initially denied any involvement, stating "I'm innocent."

Prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty for either defendant, calling the case "extraordinary and unusual." In July 2016, Gypsy Rose Blanchard accepted a plea agreement, pleading guilty to second-degree murder and receiving a ten-year sentence; her plea deal did not require her to testify against Godejohn. She was granted parole in September 2023 and released on December 28, 2023, after serving more than eight years.

Godejohn's case proceeded to trial in November 2018. Prosecutors presented evidence including online messages between Godejohn and Gypsy Rose discussing plans for the killing, and the defense argued diminished capacity due to autism spectrum disorder. Gypsy Rose Blanchard testified during the trial that she had "talked him into it." After approximately two hours of deliberation, the jury found Godejohn guilty of first-degree murder and armed criminal action. In February 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole on the murder count, with a concurrent 25-year sentence for armed criminal action. A motion for a new trial was denied, though the judge acknowledged an appeals court might view certain evidentiary rulings as significant. In late 2023, a public defender filed a further appeal seeking a new trial for Godejohn, with no timeline set for review as of that filing.

The case drew extensive public attention to the pattern of alleged medical abuse Dee Dee Blanchard subjected her daughter to over many years, including unnecessary treatments, feeding tubes, medication, and repeated relocations that fragmented medical records, which became a significant factor in public discussion of the killing.