In interviews with ABC News’s “20/20” and Oxygen, Nick Godejohn has described himself as a “hired hit man” who was manipulated by Gypsy Rose Blanchard into killing her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, in June 2015. He has called Gypsy Rose “the mastermind behind it all,” spoken of the relationship as “love at first sight,” and said he feels betrayed by how differently the two of them were sentenced. He is serving life without parole at Missouri’s Potosi Correctional Center.
What Godejohn Told ABC News
Godejohn gave his most detailed public account in a sit-down interview for “20/20.” He described his role in the killing as that of a “hired hit man in its own weird sense” and identified Gypsy Rose as “the mastermind behind it all.” He told the network, “All the planning, she did every bit of it,” and said she “willed the knife in my hand to commit the deed herself.”
Asked why he did it, he framed the killing as both liberation and love. “I did it not only to release Gypsy, but I also felt it was the only way to be with her,” he said. “I saved someone’s life in the process.”
He described the relationship in romantic terms, calling it “love at first sight” and saying he believed Gypsy Rose was his “soulmate.” But the interview turned sharply when he spoke about what came after. “Unfortunately, because of how far I went, I feel as if she’s betrayed me. I feel that she’s abandoned me,” he said. He added, “As far as I’m concerned, she’s as guilty as I am,” and said he believed she “needed to serve some time for what she made me do.”
What He Said in the Oxygen Special
In the 2019 Oxygen special “Gypsy Rose & Nick: A Love to Kill,” Godejohn spoke from prison about the time he spent with Gypsy Rose in the days surrounding the murder. He called them “probably the best days of my life.”
He described the future he had imagined with her. “I was gonna get a job and start looking for an apartment. After a little ways down the road, I’d probably end up marrying her and end up having children with her.” Of the killing itself, he said, “I wanted to make sure her mom was not going to harm her anymore. I made sure of that.”
Godejohn was more measured when asked whether Gypsy Rose had accepted responsibility. “I did feel that she was not taking responsibility for her actions, but at the same time, due to the way I know she was raised, I can’t blame her,” he said in the Oxygen series.
The “Victor” Persona in His Own Words
A recurring subject in Godejohn’s interviews and in the trial record is the online persona he called Victor. Godejohn described Victor as a “500-year-old vampire” and his “evil side.” Gypsy Rose had a parallel persona named Ruby, which she called her “sinister side.” Text messages introduced in court showed the two shifting between these personalities during sexual and violent exchanges.
Gypsy Rose told Dr. Phil McGraw in 2017 that Godejohn “had multiple personalities that were violent and scary” and that she specifically asked Victor to carry out the killing. She said Godejohn spoke about Victor in the third person on the night of the murder, telling her, “Now he’s excited.” Dr. Phil characterized Victor as a “ploy to protect his ego,” a psychological buffer that let Godejohn express desires he could not voice as himself.
His Claims of Manipulation and Diminished Capacity
Godejohn’s interview statements track closely with the argument his defense made at trial: that he was cognitively impaired and manipulated into killing Dee Dee Blanchard. In court filings he wrote, “Due to my main disability, it’s pretty easy for me to be deceived,” and described himself as “blinded by love and a mental health illness.”
His father, Bobby Godejohn, said Nicholas was diagnosed with autism in elementary school. His mother told police after his arrest that her son “functions at a 15 or 16 year old level.” At trial, defense psychologist Kent Franks placed Godejohn’s IQ at 82 and said he functioned like a 10- or 11-year-old. Franks testified Godejohn spent most of his time online and playing video games and believed he was “doing the right thing” by killing Dee Dee because he intended to “rescue” Gypsy Rose.
Prosecutors saw it differently. They pointed to a statement Godejohn gave investigators: “She went into the bathroom, she locked it and I waited at least a minute and thought about if I really wanted to do it.” That pause, prosecutor Dan Patterson argued, was the deliberation required for first-degree murder. The prosecution’s expert, clinical psychologist Dr. Robert Denney, testified that Godejohn scored a 28 on an autism assessment scale where individuals with prominent autism traits typically score above 32.
At a 2022 post-conviction hearing, pediatric neuropsychologist Dr. Theodore Wasserman testified that Godejohn’s reading level was fourth-grade and that his Miranda warnings had been written at a sixth-grade level. Wasserman argued Godejohn had been “programmed” by Gypsy Rose through text messages and threats that he would lose her if he refused. The moment Godejohn described arguing with himself before entering the bedroom was not deliberation, Wasserman said, but “conflicting thoughts” that caused him to “snap.”
Clinical psychologist Dr. Marc Feldman, appearing on Oxygen’s “Killer Couples,” said Gypsy Rose had “learned at the feet of the master” and had “groomed Nicholas to be the instrument by which Dee Dee was killed.” Feldman said Godejohn’s life sentence may have been “too harsh” given his “significant level of impairment.”
Godejohn on the Sentencing Gap
Gypsy Rose Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in July 2016 and was sentenced to 10 years. Prosecutor Dan Patterson said a first-degree murder conviction would not have been “fair” given the “extraordinary and unusual” abuse Gypsy Rose had suffered. She was released on parole on December 28, 2023.
Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in November 2018 after a Greene County jury deliberated for roughly two hours. On February 22, 2019, Judge David Jones sentenced him to life without parole, plus 25 years for armed criminal action, to be served concurrently.
That gap is what Godejohn returns to when he speaks about betrayal. In his telling, Gypsy Rose “made” him kill her mother, provided the gloves, knife, and duct tape, and picked the night, while he carried out what she had planned. His father Bobby Godejohn echoed the point on “Killer Couples”: “My son, Nick, he’d like his side of the story told. Her side’s getting all this attention, left and right, and he didn’t get nothing.” He said he was “lost” and “dumbfounded” by the life sentence and believed Gypsy Rose “learned all those traits from her mom and turned around and used ’em on my son to get out of her situation.”
Where His Case Stands Now
Godejohn remains at the Potosi Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison in Washington County, Missouri. A Missouri appeals court affirmed his conviction on October 1, 2020. His post-conviction motion, which argued ineffective assistance by trial attorneys Dewayne Perry and Andrew Mead, was denied, and a 2024 appeal on similar grounds was also denied.
On March 10, 2025, Godejohn filed a federal habeas corpus petition in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, before Chief District Judge Beth Phillips. In June 2025, the court denied his request for appointed counsel but gave him more time to file his reply, which he submitted on July 15, 2025, followed by supplemental statements through the end of that month. The case remains active.