Daughter made sick – woman had mother murdered: now she is free again

Gypsy Rose Blanchard has conditionally left a prison in the state of Missouri, several American media report, including ABC and the New York Times. Blanchard pleaded guilty in 2016 to a plot to kill her mother along with her then-boyfriend.

The friend who stabbed Blanchard’s mother to death in 2015 was sentenced to life in prison. Blanchard, on the other hand, got away with a relatively short prison sentence because she was previously tormented by her mother for years. As a young woman, she met her boyfriend on the Internet, who she later convinced to kill her mother.

Daughter was in a wheelchair and was artificially fed
The woman had pretended that her daughter suffered from leukemia, muscular dystrophy and other serious diseases. Gypsy Rose Blanchard was confined to a wheelchair, artificially fed and had to undergo various procedures and treatments – all of which later turned out to be completely unnecessary. She was malnourished, lived in complete isolation and largely uneducated.

One of Blanchard’s lawyers had vividly described the young woman’s upbringing in the 2016 lawsuit: “The gypsy’s mother held her like a prisoner,” he said. “The gypsy’s mother abused her physically and medically, giving her medication she did not need and making her undergo treatments she did not need.”

Mother suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy
Investigators believe the mother suffered from the rare Munchausen syndrome by proxy and systematically built a network of lies about her daughter’s condition. Those affected by the syndrome deliberately cause harm to the health of others – usually children – to gain the care of doctors and attention to themselves, presenting themselves as apparently self-sacrificing caretakers.

The unusual case attracted national attention in the US and was featured in several TV formats, such as the Emmy-winning miniseries ‘The Act’.