Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s Partner Ken Urker Dies at 34

Ken Urker, Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s partner and father of her child, died Thursday on his 34th birthday, according to several media reports.

Video above: Gypsy Rose Blanchard released from prison in 2023

The cause of his death is not known at this time.

Urker was found unconscious Thursday at his home in Louisiana by a family member, according to People. Officers were called to the home around 6:15 p.m. and Urker was found “dead on arrival,” the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office confirmed to People.

His death remains under investigation.

“I’m in disbelief. I can’t think,” Blanchard told People magazine on Friday. “I screamed until my throat burned.”

“There are no words to express the depth of this loss,” she added. “I ask for privacy and compassion for our daughter, our families and all those who are mourning Ken during this incredibly painful time.”

Jamie McCarthy

Gypsy Rose Blanchard in 2024

Blanchard became infamous due to her role in the murder of her abusive mother. She was released from prison in December 2023 after serving more than seven years of a 10-year prison sentence. Blanchard was a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, in which a caregiver fakes their child’s illness or induces symptoms to make their child sick.

Blanchard met Urker while she was in prison. Urker had written a “letter of support, without any romantic level” to Blanchard, and included her phone number, after watching “Mommy Dead and Dearest,” released in 2017, Blanchard said on the “We Need to Talk” podcast in June.

She added that she called Urker and “five minutes after speaking on the phone, it felt like we’d known each other forever.” After two years of dating, the couple got engaged while she was in prison, but Urker separated from her months later, she said.

Blanchard then married Ryan Anderson, a Louisiana professor, in a prison wedding ceremony in July 2022, but they separated in 2023 and she rekindled her romance with Urker.

Urker and Blanchard share a daughter named Aurora Raina Urker. The couple got engaged in October 2018 and then split. They got together in April 2024, shortly after Blanchard’s divorce from Ryan Anderson, and their daughter was born on December 28, 2024.

CNN contributed to this report.