Hulu's The Act fictionalizes the twisted real-life events that led to Dee Dee Blanchard's murder at the hands of daughter Gypsy's boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn. Gypsy (played by Joey King on the show) spent 20 years effectively held prisoner by her mother Dee Dee (Patricia Arquette), who subjected her daughter to unnecessary medical procedures and forced her to use a wheelchair, in what appears to have been a classic case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Ultimately, Gypsy enlisted her boyfriend, Godejohn, to kill Dee Dee. As you watch the series (which just aired its finale yesterday), here's what you need to know about Godejohn.
He had a criminal record before the murder.
In 2013, Godejohn pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, after police arrested him for allegedly viewing pornography on his laptop at a McDonald’s and touching himself inappropriately. When he met Gypsy on a Christian dating website om 2012, Godejohn was living with his family in Big Bend, Wisconsin. Little else is known about him prior to meeting Gypsy, although news reports indicate he had been diagnosed with autism.
He and Gypsy had a secret online relationship for over two years.
According to BuzzFeed, Gypsy told her neighbor Aleah Woodmansee in 2014 that she and Godejohn had discussed eloping, and were making plans for a future together. Gypsy also detailed her online sex life with Nick, which involved elements of BDSM and role play:
Godejohn referred to his “evil side” because he and Gypsy had constructed an elaborate online fantasy life, mostly through a jigsaw puzzle of Facebook accounts. They were into BDSM imagery. They had specific names and roles for each other. They took pictures of themselves in costumes, Gypsy dressing up at one point as the comic book character Harley Quinn, posing with a knife. Reality and fantasy blended quite a lot, for both of them.
“She was talking about this new guy that she was now in love with, and that they had met on a Christian dating site and that they were already planning on naming their children after him,” Woodmansee told ABC News. “Honestly, what I was thinking whenever I saw these messages, is that these were just like fantasies and dreams and nothing like this would ever really take place.”
Gypsy lost her virginity to him in a movie theater bathroom.
This particularly extraordinary moment from The Act’s fifth episode is played out just how it happened in real life. In March 2015, Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee attended a screening of Disney’s Cinderella (their shared love of Disney movies was well-documented; Dee Dee regularly took Gypsy to conventions in Disney costumes). According to Gypsy's testimony at Godejohn's 2018 trial, Gypsy hoped that by engineering a seemingly chance encounter with Godejohn in public, she could create a situation where Dee Dee might warm to him. Godejohn traveled all the way from Big Bend, Wisconsin to Springfield, Missouri to make this "chance encounter" happen.
Unfortunately, things dd not go entirely to plan. “[Dee Dee] got jealous, because I was spending a little too much attention on him, and she had ordered me to stay away from him," Gypsy told ABC News. "Needless to say, that was a very long argument that lasted a couple weeks. Yelling, throwing things, calling me names: bitch, slut, whore.”
Godejohn killed Dee Dee Blanchard at Gypsy's urging.
Both Godejohn and Gypsy testified at trial that the murder was Gypsy's idea, and that Godejohn carried out the act in June of 2015.
On the day of the murder, Godejohn traveled to Missouri, checked into a motel, and waited for Gypsy to text him after Dee Dee went to bed. Once the text came, he went to the Blanchard house, where Gypsy gave him the murder weapon (a knife) along with gloves and duct tape. Gypsy testified that she hid in the bathroom with her hands over her ears while Godejohn stabbed her mother to death.
“I honestly thought he would end up not doing it,” Gypsy told 20/20. “She called out to my name about three or four times, and at that point, I wanted to go help her so bad, but I was so afraid to get up. It's like my body wouldn't move. Then everything just went quiet.” After the murder, the couple took a taxi back to Godejohn's motel, and later traveled to Godejohn's family's house in Wisconsin, where they were arrested days later when police raided the home.
Godejohn says he felt remorse after the murder.
As BuzzFeed's story notes, Godejohn had no history of violence before he murdered Dee Dee. “I felt horrible about it," Godejohn told 20/20. "When me and her were in the hotel room … she kept on telling me, 'Stop crying, stop crying. There's no reason, reason to cry. It was my idea, it wasn't yours." He added that he went along with the plan solely because he wanted to protect Gypsy. “I … did what I did because I loved her. I really wanted a life with her, I really did,” Godejohn said.
He is serving a life sentence.
Godejohn was found guilty of first-degree murder after a four day trial last year. In February, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Gypsy, who was sentenced to ten years in prison for second-degree murder in 2016, has distanced herself from Godejohn since their arrest. “There's a big difference between someone who asks someone to kill someone and someone that actually does it,” she told 20/20. “Because I would never kill somebody. I would never physically go through with killing somebody. I can't.” Of Godejohn, she said, "I don't hate him. I feel sorry for him, and just that somebody could do something so heartless and not express remorse and not feel like he's responsible for it.”
At his sentencing hearing, Godejohn reiterated that his motivation for the crime was his love for Gypsy. "I was blindly in love," Godejohn said. "That was always very much the case." In addition to a life sentence, he received a concurrent 25-year sentence on the charge of armed criminal action.
