A Wisconsin man charged with murdering his ex-girlfriend’s mother said he believes his online love used him in a plot to escape from her mother.
"She was basically the mastermind behind it all [and] I was basically a hired hit man in its own weird sense," Nicholas Godejohn, 28, said in an exclusive interview with ABC News “20/20.”
Godejohn of Big Bend, Wisconsin, is charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action for allegedly stabbing and killing Dee Dee Blanchard, 48, of Springfield, Missouri, in June 2015.
“I loved Gypsy to the point where I would ... do anything for her. I've proven that with what I did,” Godejohn said. “Unfortunately, because of how far I went, I feel as if she's betrayed me. I feel that she's abandoned me.”
Godejohn first met Blanchard’s daughter Gypsy Rose Blanchard, 26, on a Christian dating website in 2012.
Godejohn said he instantly fell in love when she messaged him and he saw her profile.
“It was almost like love at first sight,” Godejohn said. “I just connected instantly with [her].”
Godejohn lived in Wisconsin, 600 miles away from Springfield, Missouri, where Gypsy lived with her mother. But the distance was not the biggest challenge in their relationship.
Gypsy revealed to Godejohn that she had a series of health problems: she used a wheelchair and said she had a variety of medical conditions such as leukemia, muscular dystrophy, seizures and needed a feeding tube to eat.
She also lived with her caregiver mother, Dee Dee, who, Gypsy said, did not allow her to date or go anywhere by herself, so their online relationship had to be kept a secret.
Despite the obstacles, the pair’s romance took off online. The couple communicated on the dating site and Facebook unbeknownst to Dee Dee, sending messages and photos and even making plans to get married and have a future family together.
“I truly believed that she was, like, my soulmate,” Godejohn said.
About a year into the relationship, Gypsy revealed that she could in fact walk, Godejohn recalled.
“I flat out told him I could walk,” Gypsy told ABC News.
After communicating online for more than two years, Godejohn traveled to Springfield and they met at a local movie theater to see "Cinderella" in March 2015.
She was dressed as Cinderella, and she saw him as her Prince Charming. She hoped when Dee Dee met Godejohn that she would approve of him, but she didn’t.
Gypsy said Dee Dee forbade her from seeing him.
"She got jealous because I was spending a little too much attention on him, and she had ordered me to stay away from him. And needless to say, that was a very long argument that lasted a couple weeks,” Gypsy said. “Yelling, throwing things, calling me names: b----, slut, whore.”
Godejohn said Gypsy no longer wanted to live with her mother and wanted to run away with him to be together.
But Gypsy said running away wasn’t an option. She told Godejohn she had tried to run away once in the past, but her mother quickly found her and severely punished her, chaining her to her bed. Gypsy said she had enough. She didn’t hate her mother, but she wanted her dead.
“It was not because I hated her. It was because I wanted to escape her,” Gypsy said.
In an ABC News interview, Godejohn recalled his conversation with Gypsy about discussing the killing.
Godejohn said that Gypsy asked him: "'How badly do you want to be with me?' And I said I would be willing to do anything for [her],” Godejohn said.
“'Even kill my mom?'" he said she asked.
“At first, I freaked out,” Godejohn said. ”And she told me she was serious ... because she wanted to be with me, and she said it was the only way to be with me.”
"I asked her, 'Are you willing to risk everything to have everything?' ... And she said, 'Yes. I want to marry you. I want to be with you. I want everything with you. I'm willing to risk everything if that means being with you for the rest of my life.'"
Gypsy said that she doesn’t know how their plans to be together escalated to murder.
“I would talk about different scenarios to help me get out of my situation with him, and we would try and come up with something other than murder,” Gypsy said. “It’s sad to say but I don't even remember how the murder plot even began … and we always said, 'That's, that's plan B, that's the last option, we're not going to do that.'”
But they ended up going with Plan B.
Three months later, in June 2015, Godejohn returned to Springfield, where he checked into a local motel and said he waited for Gypsy to let him know that Dee Dee was asleep.
Godejohn then went to Gypsy and Dee Dee’s house where he said Gypsy handed him gloves, a knife and duct tape.
He later admitted to police that he stabbed Dee Dee while Gypsy hid in the bathroom.
Gypsy said she never thought he was capable of murder, saying, “I honestly thought he would end up not doing it.”
However, Godejohn has a different recollection of what happened.
“All the planning, she did every bit of it,” Godejohn said. “She pretty much willed the knife in my hand to commit the deed herself. She is the mastermind behind the entire thing.”
Gypsy said it was Godejohn’s idea to stab her mother.
“He said that he was very good with knives and he had led me to believe that that was the painless option,” she said.
They would later mail the murder weapon to Godejohn’s house in Wisconsin.
“He had suggested that I take it with me and put it in my backpack on the bus ride back to Wisconsin, and I had never been on a bus, so I figured there would be metal detectors, um, so I thought let's mail it,” Gypsy said. “People buy knives all the time off the Internet, so it's not a big deal.”
Five days after Dee Dee was killed, police tracked Gypsy and Godejohn down at his home in Wisconsin and arrested him.
Godejohn's mother told police her son functions at a 15 or 16 year old level.
He told ABC News said he went through with the stabbing because Gypsy told him it was the only way they could be together. He said he thought he was saving her from her mother.
“I did it not only to release Gypsy, but I also felt it was the only way to be with her….” Godejohn said. “I saved someone's life in the process of what I [did].”
Gypsy said she thinks Godejohn went through with the plan for selfish reasons and wanted her for himself.
“He was very much like my mother in certain ways. Both of them were very controlling... and I feel like I was trained my whole life to do as I was told, and I feel like he wanted that for a girlfriend,” Gypsy said.
Godejohn told ABC News he has prayed for forgiveness while in jail.
Gypsy pleaded guilty in July 2016 to second-degree murder. She is currently serving 10 years in a Missouri state prison.
“As far as I'm concerned, she's as guilty as I am,” Godejohn said. “I believe she needed to serve some time for what she made me do.”
Godejohn continues to sit in Greene County Jail in Missouri. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is awaiting trial scheduled for November 2018. He faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted.
Two-and-a-half years since his arrest, Godejohn said he has had some time to reflect on what happened and his and Gypsy’s relationship. And while torn, he said he still loves her.
“There is a part of me that will probably always love her, but she's hurt me so badly,” Godejohn said.
“I guess you could say my feelings got the best of me. I ended up loving someone way too much.”
