Grisly Missouri murder has Louisiana roots

A murder investigation unfolding in Springfield, Missouri, has roots in Galliano, a small bayou town an hour outside New Orleans.

Claudinnea "DeeDee" Blancharde, 48 and a former Galliano resident, was stabbed to death Sunday in her Springfield home. When her daughter Gypsy was located, with a boyfriend in Wisconsin, they were arrested and charged with Blancharde's brutal murder.

As the complicated investigation unfolds, it has uncovered:

•An allegation that Clauddinnea "imprisoned" the daughter and forced her to act like she was disabled — shaving her head and making her use a wheelchair.

•A charge that Gypsy instructed her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, 26, to kill her mother, and that they then stole several thousand dollars from a safe in Dee Dee's bedroom and fled to Wisconsin, where Godejohn lives.

•That Dee Dee and Gypsy moved to a Habitat for Humanity-built home just north of Springfield in 2008 claiming their home in Louisiana was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, although authorities think that was part of a financial sceme.

Bizarre Facebook post

A vulgar Facebook post on Sunday on an account that is shared by Dee Dee and her daughter, Gypsy, alerted friends that something might be wrong. The poster claimed responsibility for killing Dee Dee, and prompted friends of the two to go to their Springfield home to check on her welfare.

When no one answered the door, a neighbor entered the home through a window. The neighbor did not find anyone inside, but called authorities to investigate.

After the Greene County Sheriff's Office obtained a search warrant, deputies entered the residence and found Dee Dee stabbed to death.

Kim Blanchard — a close friend of the Blanchardes, who is not related — was among the friends who went to check on the family Sunday afternoon. Blanchard said she thought something was off when she saw the Facebook post, but initially thought the account had been "hacked."

"There were so many unknowns, and then this morning to have the information about Dee Dee come out was devastating," Blanchard said Monday. "It is just the worst heartbreak that you can think of."

Blanchard said Dee Dee was one of the most giving people she knew, and that attitude may have come from the woman's experiences during Hurricane Katrina.

"It may have been part of Katrina, or it may have just been part of her, but she gave everything," Blanchard said. "She gave of herself, she gave of her stuff."

But, Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott said, things are not always as they appear.

A 'ticking time bomb'

Dee Dee's daughter, Gypsy, and her boyfriend, Nicholas P. Godejohn, of Big Bend, Wisconsin, were charged Tuesday with first-degree murder in the death of Dee Dee. The pair is now in custody in Wisconsin and will soon be extradited to Missouri, according to Arnott. Their bonds have been set at $1 million.

Gypsy's boyfriend, Nicholas P. Godejohn, 26, came down to Greene County from Wisconsin and stabbed Dee Dee to death last week at Gypsy's request, authorities said.

Friends and neighbors believed Gypsy was disabled and confined to a wheelchair. But investigators say she traveled back to Wisconsin with Godejohn, where she was was captured — walking on her own two feet — on surveillance video at several businesses after her mother was slain.

Gypsy and Godejohn took "several thousand dollars" from Dee Dee's safe before fleeing to Wisconsin, according to Godejohn's statement.

Arnott said detectives have been shocked as the case has progressed and they learned more about what was happening with the mother and daughter, who are not connected to the rest of their family in Louisiana.

Bobby Pitre, Gypsy's cousin and Dee Dee's nephew, told the News-Leader that Gypsy's anger toward her mother may have been building for years.

He said Dee Dee "imprisoned" the daughter and forced her to act like she was disabled. She told people the girl had muscular dystrophy, forced her to take seizure medication that made her teeth fall out and even shaved the girl's head so it would look like she had leukemia.

"It was basically all a fraud," Pitre said. "I was so disgusted with the woman. I could not believe what she was doing."

Pitre said there were instances when Gypsy would get out of her wheelchair and push other children around. He said Gypsy once got up and started jumping on a trampoline only to "collapse" when Dee Dee came outside and saw her.

Pitre — who lives in Larose, Louisiana — said when family members started confronting Dee Dee about her treatment of Gypsy, the mother stopped communicating with the family. He has not talked with Dee Dee or Gypsy for the past 15 years, he said.

"Dee Dee would keep her as close as she possibly could," Pitre said. "I think that's how Dee Dee wanted it. I don't think she ever wanted her to leave."

Pitre said he's heard from other relatives that Gypsy attempted to run away from Dee Dee on a few different occasions over the years.

When Pitre got news Tuesday that Dee Dee was dead and Gypsy had been charged with murder, he said he was surprised — but only to a certain degree.

"It's a shocker, for sure," Pitre said. "But at the same time, I feel like it was just a ticking time bomb."

Louisiana roots

Dee Dee and Gypsy told people they moved to a Habitat for Humanity-built home just north of Springfield in 2008 after their home in Louisiana was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, but Arnott said the mother and daughter were involved in a financial scheme.

Pitre said he was not sure whether the mother and daughter lost their home in Katrina.

Arnott said the mother and daughter received financial donations under false pretenses and authorities do not even know Gypsy's true age, only that it is somewhere between 19 and 23.

The Daily Advertiser found a Clauddinnea Blanchard with two outstanding warrants issued by the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office from 1997 and 1999 for issuing worthless checks. Because it was so long ago, the record did not include determiners such as a social security number or date of birth to confirm the identity.

According to public records in Lafourche Parish, the person with those warrants had multiple aliases, including some with the last name Pitre.

Larry Peterson, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Springfield, said he was shocked by Tuesday's news.

"The main thing is we are just really, deeply saddened by the whole situation that we're all learning about," Peterson said. "Right now, we continue to offer our thoughts and prayers to our homeowners and residences of the habitat community."

Peterson said he stands by Habitat for Humanity's selection process and it appears as though the Blanchardes met that criteria. He said it is too early to speculate if Habitat had been duped by the family.

"It's a very twisted story trying to sort out what is true and what's not and as far as motives and how that all links back," Arnott said. "We just know there is a lot of deception."

Daily Advertiser breaking news reporter Seth Dickerson contributed to this report.