▶ Watch Video: Ken Urker, Gypsy Rose’s partner, dead at 34
Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s partner, Ken Urker, has died at the age of 34, a Louisiana sheriff said.
An investigation into his death is underway. Capt. Brennan Matherne of the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office told CBS News that there are no signs of foul play. TMZ was first to report the news.
According to police records, Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s half-brother and his wife, Dylan and Anita Blanchard, went to Urker’s home and attempted to gain access to it. After failing to do so, Anita called the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office and requested a wellness check. She said that Urker was in a “dark place,” owned a gun and had threatened suicide, according to the records. Officers were dispatched to the home around 6:15 p.m. on Thursday.
Anita told police that Dylan had knocked at the home’s door for an hour with no response. Police said Dylan and another person, Justin Daigle, were eventually able to enter the home through an unlocked bedroom window. Daigle said that he touched Urker’s body and realized he was cold and not breathing.
When police arrived on the scene, they found Urker dead in his bed. He “appeared to have been there for an extended period of time,” police noted, with the report mentioning his face and arms had turned blue.
Next to Urker was a handgun, syringe and two shot glasses, according to the police report. Other drug paraphernalia, including a brown powdery substance, was found in Urker’s bathroom, police said.
A cause of death has not been announced.
Thursday was Urker’s 34th birthday.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard, 35, and Urker connected while she was in prison for the 2015 murder of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. They share a 21-month-old daughter, Aurora. In a statement to People magazine, Gypsy Rose Blanchard said Urker’s death was a shock.
“I’m in disbelief. I can’t think,” she said. “I’ve screamed until my throat burns.”
“Ken was an amazing father and a man who was deeply loved,” she told the outlet.
On Instagram, Blanchard wrote that Urker “will always be (her) greatest love story” and “will be remembered and loved forever.”
Blanchard was previously engaged to Urker in 2018 and started dating him following her separation from ex-husband Ryan Anderson.
Blanchard and Anderson split up in early 2024, three months after they wed while she was in prison for her role in the murder of her mother. She had been sentenced to 10 years for second-degree murder over the death of her mother, who was killed by Blanchard’s then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn. Blanchard, who accused her mother of subjecting her to years of medical child abuse, was released in 2023 after seven years in prison. Godejohn was sentenced to life in prison.
Anita Blanchard told the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office that Urker had recently made comments about being depressed and upset, and that he had not shown up to work on Thursday. Gypsy Rose Blanchard told People magazine that Urker “wasn’t in a good state of mind lately” and had recently been a victim of cyberbullying.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard said on her Instagram story that the “cruelty directed toward” Urker “was something no human should have to endure.”
“I believe the tremendous weight of that scrutiny and harassment had a profound impact on him, and I hope his passing serves as a reminder that there is a real person behind every screen, every headline, and every comment,” she wrote.
CBS News has reached out to Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s rep for comment.
