Best friends Heidi and Magen were pregnant at the same time. Then one of them went missing.

It was a regular morning at the home of Heidi Broussard and Shane Carey. Carey said goodbye to his fiance, their six-year-old son, and their newborn daughter, before heading to work. Broussard bundled baby Margot into the car, and dropped her young son off to primary school. 

But when Carey returned home around 2pm, Broussard and their baby girl weren’t there. He couldn’t reach her by phone either, so after collecting their son from school, he called the police. 

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Broussard, 33, and three-week old Margot remained missing for eight days, before the young mother’s body was found in a duffle back in the trunk of a car outside a home in Houston. Following a search of the home, a baby who matched Margot’s description was found. She was unharmed. 

The home was owned by 37-year-old Magen Fieramusca, Broussard's childhood friend. Fieramusca was arrested and initially charged with kidnapping and tampering with a corpse. 

The woman — the victim's best friend of more than twenty years — would ultimately confess to her murder. 

Magen Fieramusca killed her best friend and stole her baby. Image: Austin Police Department.

According to a police affidavit, Fieramusca told friends and family that she and Broussard were pregnant at the same time. The pair were excited about the possibility of delivering on the same date, she'd said. Fieramusca was one of the first to arrive at the hospital when her best friend went into labour, giving birth to baby Margot. 

While no one knows if Fieramusca was ever really pregnant, she successfully convinced friends — as well as her ex-parter, Christopher Green, with whom she shared a home — that she was. Green believed he was about to become a first-time dad. 

On the day Broussard vanished, Fieramusca said she'd given birth to a daughter of her own. But the baby she brought home wasn’t hers. 

According to the affidavit, surveillance video showed Fieramusca's car in the parking lot of Broussard’s apartment complex the day she disappeared. A resident reported seeing a woman get into the back seat of a car, holding an infant, before it sped away. 

As part of their investigation, investigators followed Green as he left their home. He purchased baby clothes and formula before they approached him. 

“That’s the baby at my house,” he said, according to the affidavit, when showed photos of the missing woman and her baby. Green believed his ex-partner’s story that she’d been pregnant. He thought the baby was his.

"Sir, is somebody going over to get that baby?" Green reportedly said. "If she's capable of this, please go get that baby." 

Baby Margot. Image: Austin Police Department.

When Fieramusca was questioned, she told investigators she’d given birth at a birthing centre in a neighbouring suburb, bringing the baby home the same day. She couldn’t remember the name of the centre, she told them. 

Carey told police his partner met her killer at the Texas Bible Institute when the pair were just children. 

Fieramusca was indicted in 2020 by a grand jury in Travis County. She was accused of kidnapping Broussard and her baby and asphyxiating Broussard.

On January 4, 2024—five years after Broussard's murder and the kidnapping of baby Margot — Fieramusca was sentenced to 55 years in prison.  

As part of the plea agreement, “Fieramusca waived her right to appeal, meaning that her cases will not remain open for post-conviction litigation after sentencing,” Travis County District Attorney José Garza said in a statement. 

Margot was reunited with her father and brother.

Feature image: Austin Police Department.