Man Gets Life for Killing Girlfriend's Munchausen Mom After She 'Talked Him Into It' to Stop Abuse

Nicholas Godejohn, the Wisconsin man who killed his girlfriend’s mother in 2015 at her request, was sentenced to life in prison without parole, according to multiple reports.

On Friday, Godejohn, 29, was sentenced by a Greene County, Missouri, judge after being convicted by a jury in November of first-degree murder for the 2015 stabbing of Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, the Springfield News-Leader, local station KY3 and KOAM report.

Godejohn stabbed Blanchard, 48, to death in June 2015 at her home in Springfield. The murder was orchestrated by Blanchard’s daughter, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who had been abused by her mother all her life and was convicted of her murder.

While no one disputed whether Godejohn killed Dee Dee, his attorneys had argued that he was manipulated by Gypsy to kill her mom and should have his charges reduced to second-degree murder, the News-Leader reported at the time of his conviction.

Experts have said that Gypsy was the victim of Munchausen by proxy, a rare form of abuse in which a guardian — in this case Gypsy’s mother — exaggerates or induces illness in a child for attention and sympathy.

Dee Dee began to abuse Gypsy soon after she was born and up until Dee Dee’s death when Gypsy was 23.

Before her murder, Dee Dee had convinced her friends, family and community that her daughter was a terminally ill teenager with the mind of a 7-year-old who suffered from muscular dystrophy, leukemia and other ailments.

During Godejohn’s trial, Gypsy testified that she came up with the plan to kill her mother because it was the only way she could escape her life of abuse, the News-Leader previously reported.

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She told the court how, two weeks before her mother’s murder, she changed her mind because she “started having doubts [and] second thoughts.” But after the pair got into an argument days later, Gypsy decided Dee Dee had to die and told Godejohn, her then-boyfriend, to travel from Wisconsin to Missouri to kill her, according to the News-Leader.

When asked who talked who into killing Dee Dee, Gypsy responded in court, “I did, I talked him into it,” the paper reported.

In July 2016, Gypsy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. She is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence. The case and her story was the subject of HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest and garnered national attention.

Godejohn’s attorneys and the prosecutor’s office could not be reached for comment Monday.