New details have emerged following the death of Ken Urker, the 34-year-old former fiancé of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who was found at his home in Louisiana last Thursday.
Urker had recently made comments about feeling depressed, and concerns about his behaviour prompted his boss and Blanchard’s brother, Dylan, to check on him after he failed to attend work.
A police report says the pair entered the property through an unlocked window and found Urker dead. Authorities said he appeared to have been there “for an extended period of time”.
A syringe, a holstered handgun and two shot glasses were reportedly found on the bedside table. Officers also discovered syringes, a spoon and a “brown powdery substance” in the bathroom.
Dylan told police he had attended church with Urker the previous evening, when Urker had spoken about feeling depressed and upset. The report also referred to a recent TikTok video in which Urker was seen driving without speaking.
Ken Urker death prompts conflicting claims
Blanchard said Urker had been affected by the intense public scrutiny surrounding their on-again, off-again relationship and the harassment directed at him online.
“I don’t know if it was intentional or not,” she told People. “He was not in a good state of mind lately.”
Blanchard said she was in disbelief and described Urker as “an amazing father and a man who was deeply loved”. She added that he would remain her “soulmate and my red string”, describing their connection as one that time, distance and even death could not erase.
Urker’s sister, Autumn, has disputed Blanchard’s account of their relationship. In a tearful TikTok live, she said her brother had told her shortly before his death that he and Blanchard were not together.
“I didn’t realise Gypsy had already gone to TMZ. She tried to paint a fake narrative that they were engaged,” Autumn said.
Blanchard and Urker first became engaged while she was serving a ten-year prison sentence for her role in the death of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. They later separated, before Blanchard married Ryan Anderson while still in prison.
Blanchard and Anderson divorced after she was released, and she later resumed her relationship with Urker. The pair had a daughter, Aurora Raina Urker, in December 2024.
Blanchard said she had sent Urker a birthday message on the day he died but received no response. In her statement, she said he had endured “an unimaginable level of public scrutiny and relentless cyberbullying” on social media.
“I believe the tremendous weight of that scrutiny and harassment had a profound impact on him,” she said, adding that Urker loved their daughter and that she would ensure Aurora grew up knowing how deeply her father loved her.
Urker first contacted Blanchard as a prison pen pal in 2017 after watching a documentary about her. Their relationship later became the subject of public attention, alongside the case involving Blanchard’s mother.
Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2016 after admitting she was present when her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, stabbed her mother. She received a ten-year sentence, while Godejohn was later convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
