A 24-year-old who was accused of murdering her mother with a man she met on a Christian dating website will only face 10 years in prison.
Gypsy Blanchard admitted to planning a murder plot against her mother, Clauddine 'Dee Dee' Blanchard, 48, as part of a plea deal to avoid a first-degree conviction, which carries a life sentence.
Gypsy's attorney Mike Stanfield said Clauddine held her daughter prisoner, barred her from attending school and pretended she was disabled in order to gain thousands in government money.
Gypsy's boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn, 27, is still facing a first-degree murder charge in connection to Clauddine, who was found dead in her Springfield, Missouri bed on June 14, 2015.
When you look at this case, it's a murder. And it's a first-degree murder. But it's also one of the most extraordinary and unusual cases we have seen,' Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson told the
News-Leader.
He acknowledged the abuse Gypsy suffered at the hands of her mother, and said he thought the second-degree murder conviction the 24-year-old received was 'more appropriate'.
Stanfield said Gypsy did not go to school after kindergarten before adding: 'Her mother would not allow her to spend any time alone with any other human being. Her mother, when they went to the doctor, did all the talking.'
Gypsy and Godejohn met on ChristianDatingForFree.com, starting an online relationship for two years before exacting a plot to murder Clauddine so they could be together, a search warrant has revealed.
Authorities allege the couple stabbed the mother - who reportedly did not approve of their relationship - in the home she shared with her daughter.
[…]
Godejohn then mailed the murder weapon - a knife given to him by Gypsy - to his home in Big Bend so that he wouldn't be caught with it, police said.
He will faces a first-degree murder charge when he goes on trial in November.