Gypsy Rose Blanchard opened up about her feelings after she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for murdering her mother, Dee Dee, in 2015.
In an interview with Dr. Phil, the now 31-year-old revealed that she didn't believe she deserved such a lengthy stint in prison for her crimes given the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mom.
Throughout her life, Gypsy was falsely diagnosed with medical conditions which resulted in her undergoing surgeries that she did not need due to Dee Dee's elaborate lies.
After Gypsy was born in 1991, Dee Dee claimed that she had sleep apnea - a condition that causes the breathing to stop and start while a person sleeps - and within a few years, there was a string of other fabricated illnesses that followed, including leukemia and muscular dystrophy which saw the little girl bound to a wheelchair for a substantial period of her life.
It wasn't until medical professionals finally caught wind of things that they concluded that there was nothing wrong with Gypsy and it was, in fact, her mother that was suffering from an illness called Munchausen by proxy syndrome.
As per the Cleveland Clinic, Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSP), now better known as factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA), is a mental illness in which a person acts as if an individual he or she is caring for has a physical or mental illness when the person is not really sick.
Upon finding out about the deception - which included forging her birth certificate to make her appear younger - Gypsy decided to take matters into her own hands and plotted to kill her mother along with Nicholas Godejohn, a man she met on an online dating site.
She asked Nicholas, who also suffered from severe mental health issues, if he would carry out the horrific deed to which he agreed after outlining some specific conditions.
In June 2015, Gypsy's lover took a bus to her home and stabbed Dee Dee while she was in bed.
Gypsy was in the bathroom at the time with her hands over her ears though she said that she heard her mom yelling before there was complete silence.
Gypsy accepted a plea deal of second-degree murder for her part in the crime and is currently serving a 10-year sentence, which could now come to an end as early as next year.
Despite admitting to her part in the murder, Gypsy stated that she did not believe that she deserved such a harsh sentence.
When asked by Dr. Phil whether she deserves to be in prison, she responded: "To be honest, I have complicated feelings about that. I believe firmly that no matter what murder is not okay. But at the same time, I don't believe I deserved as many years as I got."
"But for you initiating the sequence of events she would still be alive?", Dr. Phil questioned. "So in that sense, you are responsible for her death? What would be a just punishment?"
"I'm not really certain on that," she told the interviewer. "I do believe that I do deserve to spend some time in prison for the crime, but also, I understand why it happened and I don't believe I'm in the right place to get the help that I need [...] At the time I knew I was being abused but I didn't know exactly what kind of abuse it was."
She also added: "I just knew that I wasn't allowed to do a lot of things and my mother was the reason. She would force me to be in a wheelchair and forced me to go to doctors' appointments that I didn't need. I just wanted that life to stop. Ultimately I didn't want her dead, I just wanted that life to stop and that life to be dead."
Gypsy Rose will be eligible for parole in 2024.
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