Criminology - Heidi Broussard

Episode Date: February 12, 2023

In 2019, Heidi Broussard and her 16-day-old daughter, Margo, went missing in Austin, Texas. Her fiancee, Shane Carey, was viewed by many as a prime suspect after he did several interviews. But, police were focusing on another suspect, someone who was also very close to Heidi. As shocking as this crime turned out to be, it was even more shocking who the police had in their sights as the prime suspect. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance and murder of Heidi Broussard. Heidi and Shane had built their life in Austin, Texas, and had a 6-year-old son when Margo was born. Friends and family all agreed that she would never just up and vanish, leaving behind her son and fiancee. When police arrested Heidi's good friend Magen Fieramusca for kidnapping and murder, it was a shock to all that knew them. And as it turned out, Magen's plan was to pass Margo Carey off as her own daughter, Luna Mae. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. So, everyone, and welcome to episode 244 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mike Morford. What's going on with you, buddy? Not a whole lot.

Just spent a half hour looking at paint colors. We're thinking about getting our house painted. And, you know, my wife and I are sort of debating on the colors. And she likes one that I don't like. and vice versa, and, you know, the story at the end of the day, she's going to win. So just have to visualize it with the color on it that she wants. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't even know why you are, you know, putting up any type of fight. She is going to win this battle.

So just go with it and everybody will be happy. Yeah, happy wife, happy, happy life, they say. No doubt about it. All right, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. we had Jay, Lacey Ann jumped out at our highest level, Helen Lambert, Lily Cash Bouchel jumped out at our highest level. We had Jen Melvin and Andrea Papa George. So a lot of great new support. Some of those names I recognize as maybe coming back.

We appreciate it all. Yeah, it all goes towards helping the show. And we thank you very much for that. And for anyone else that would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology. CrimeCon is coming up. It's just a little bit more than six months away. CrimeCon, 2003 is happening September 22nd through the 24th at the World Center Marriott in Orlando, Florida.

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criminology at checkout to save 10% on your standard badges. So now that we have all of that out of the way. Let's get right into this episode. You know, we cover a lot of different types of cases on criminology. Some are big, well-known cases that grab the national news spotlight, while other cases that are still riveting

and just as mysterious don't seem to grab as much widespread attention for one reason or another. And the case we're covering in this week's episode made smaller waves in the media. When it happened, in December 2019, definitely compared to some of the other cases from that same time period. In fact, this case finally came to a close just this month and pretty quietly for the most

part. We're talking about the shocking abduction and murder of Heidi Broussard and the abduction of her infant daughter, Marga. In 2019, 33-year-old Heidi Broussard was living with her fiance Shane Carey and their six-year-old son Silas in Austin, Texas. Shane had a daughter Addison from a previous relationship. They had moved to Austin from Louisiana in 2014 and built a life there together. Heidi and Shane were expecting another child, and on November 26, 2019, at 10, 12 p.m., they welcomed their daughter Margot Elizabeth Carey into the world. Shane was in the room for Margot's birth, as well as Heidi's good friends, Vicki Shreve's, and Megan Firamuska. It was a happy, A happy coincidence that Megan, one of Heidi's closest friends, was also pregnant and would soon

be giving birth herself. The two friends said that maybe their kids could be as good friends as they were. It's safe to say that Margot was surrounded by love from the very moment she was born. The next few weeks were filled with visits to Heidi and Shane's apartment with everyone meeting Margo and checking in on Heidi and Shane to see if they needed anything. and that's a good thing. As many people listening who have had children know, any help early on is appreciated because you are tired. So friends and family coming by gives you a little bit of time to breathe. I remember those days. You know, it's a great thing and then it's also tough because you are so tired because all of your energy is going into essentially one,

activity, and that is taking care of this newborn child. So it's great when people come by, but then also you feel like, oh, you got to entertain a little bit. Now, if it's close, close family and friends and stuff, maybe you can get a, get a nap in or something like that. Yeah, I remember those days of, you know, my parents or my wife's parents coming over and saying, oh, just go lay down for a little bit. And you couldn't, you know, you couldn't get to sleep fast in the

enough where you could just sleep well and know that someone's taking care of the baby and no worries. And then you wake up your refresh and you can do it again. So I definitely understand that. Heidi got back to her normal routine pretty quickly just now with baby Margot in tow on December 12th at around 7.30 a.m. Heidi dropped Silas off at Cowan Elementary School. Margo, who was then just 16 days old, was with her. This was actually Heidi's first solo outing since Margot's birth. Heidi's mother who had been staying with them to help out immediately after the delivery, and while the parents were adjusting to life with a newborn, had gone back to Louisiana one day earlier. So Heidi was juggling her routine on her own with baby Margo at her side.

At around 8 a.m., Heidi called Shane, and she told him about her visit to the school's book fair with her son. Heidi mentioned that she had bought three books at the book fair for about $25. After they hung up, Heidi and Megan texted back and forth a bit. Megan had just had a baby girl named Luna, just a few days after Margot was born. They exchanged breastfeeding tips and other parenting advice since they were going through the same exact thing at the same time. It seemed like a pretty typical day for Heidi with nothing out of the ordinary up to that point. At close to 2 p.m., Shane was headed home from work, and he called Heidi to check up on her and

Margo, but Heidi's phone didn't ring. It went straight to voicemail. Not long after Shane tried calling Heidi, he made it back to the apartment. And when he pulled into the parking lot, he saw Heidi's car parked there. When he went inside their apartment, it seemed a bit strange to Shane at the time that their apartment door was unlocked. Margot's car seat and the books that Heidi had talked about buying at the book fair that morning were inside the apartment. But both Heidi and Margo were gone. Shane figured that Heidi had walked to another neighbor's apartment because that was pretty normal for her, maybe for a quick visit, there's not a lot of details available as to what Shane did next while

he waited for Heidi and Margo to come home. Maybe he laid down, maybe took a nap. Shane worked for a moving company, which is a pretty physical and demanding job. So squeezing in a quick nap before the kids are out of school wouldn't be unusual. Whatever he did for the next three and a half hours is not ultimately that important. What is a little bit? What is a quick nap? It's not. It's not. It's important is that at around 5.30 p.m., Shane received a phone call from the school to let him know that Silas was never picked up from his after-school program. Shane walked outside to head to his car to go pick up Silas, and he saw Heidi's car parked there in the same spot that it had been parked earlier. It was unlocked and her purse was inside of it. Shane was starting to get really nervous as he drove to

the school and picked Silas up. From there, he returned home, but there was still no sign of Heidi or Margo, and that's when Shane became very worried. Once again, Shane called Heidi's phone, but it was going straight to voicemail. He called his dad to double check that he wasn't forgetting something, an appointment maybe or someone coming to pick Heidi and Margo up for a visit, but there was nothing scheduled. At 7.30 p.m., Shane called the police to report Heidi and two-week-old Margo missing. Police didn't waste much time, springing into action. They began to backtrack through Heidi and Margo's movements. Officially, Heidi and Margo were last seen that morning at Cowan Elementary School by staff there,

and surveillance video confirmed it. It seemed obvious to police that they had made a home because the car seat and books were in the apartment. An image of Heidi from the school surveillance camera was released to the public. The next day, Friday, September 13th, Shane gave his first interviews to the media. on December 15th, Shane appeared on Good Morning America. In all of his statements, Shane was adamant that Heidi had not just walked away willingly with their daughter. He felt that there was some kind of foul play involved.

And more of my first thought was, yeah, I would be saying those same things. I would be thinking those same things. I just can't imagine that, you know, my wife would willingly walk away. away with a baby that was 16 days old. And you can understand Shane being upset and worried about where Heidi and Margo were, especially because Margo was so young and required so much care. And let's not forget Silas. Right.

So the thought that, you know, a mother would voluntarily leave with a 16 day old, um, baby, but then also leave her son behind. right? You and I tackle a lot of unsolved cases, and it's not to say that these things couldn't happen, but when you're looking at the meter of plausibility, let's call it that, it doesn't seem all that likely. Shane was immediately ripped apart by most commenters on online forums that sprang up about the case. His mannerisms and speech in the interviews were compared to Chris Watts and his behavior in the interview that Chris Watts gave on his porch. Many found it suspicious that by the time Shane had called the police, Heidi and Margot technically hadn't been seen in 12 hours.

Some people thought that Shane could have called when he got home at 2 p.m. When he first found out they were missing, but he didn't. He also could have called police immediately upon learning that Heidi hadn't picked up their son from his after-school program, or could have called them before he calling his dad for advice, but he didn't. People wondered if Shane had done more than napped in the time between getting home and reporting the disappearance. He had also claimed to have looked through the dumpsters in the apartment complex to see if he could find Heidi's keys or cell phone, which many people viewed as suspicious, and that he was perhaps creating a cover for himself throwing away some kind of evidence. And we've talked about this many times, right? This speculation, this analysis of people involved in a case.

It's not uncommon, especially in cases like this, still online today. There are body language analysis posts with pictures of Shane next to pictures of Chris Watts, Scott Peterson, Kate and Jerry McCann and John Ramsey. Lots of people strongly believe that all of these relatives of missing or murdered family members were lying during their interviews as well. Some people said that Shane licked his lips too much. He looked down and he nervously shifted back and forth. For some, this was all they knew. needed to convict him in the court of public opinion. And it wasn't only strangers on the internet who suspected Shane. One neighbor identified only as Alan G. by the Daily Mail

claimed that he heard an argument through the wall between 1 and 2 p.m. on December 12. Another neighbor reported that Shane had been seen pacing in chain smoking on December 13th. And in their mind, this amounted to Shane being suspicious. And going to, back to you and I talking about this more, you know, I do think it's something that happens in many, many cases, especially when someone is giving interviews. Okay, there's something there to analyze and people are going to give their opinion. There's just no way around that. I've always said, I think you have to be careful in jumping to conclusions too quickly based on, you know, what you see, what you hear.

People in certain situations don't always act in the way that we believe they should or they believe we would in that very same scenario. Yeah, it's like when someone says that person isn't crying enough or they don't look sad or they're crying too much that looks fake. I think everyone handles these kind of situations different, no to, or exactly. the same. It depends on the person. And there are body experts, body language experts that can look at people and sometimes make determinations based on their expert opinion if someone's lying, that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, it's, you know, I think trained experts should

make that determination. But as we know, we all have her own opinions, especially on these forums. So, you know, even if they're not trained experts on these forums, they're still going to give their opinions as to if someone's language or their actions looks suspicious to them. Well, let's face it, sometimes people turn out to be right when they have these suspicions and sometimes they don't. You know, I go back to Chris Watts. You know, a lot of people thought that his interviews, his mannerisms were off. There was something wrong. And as we know, they turned out to be correct. But that's not always going to be the case. Yeah. And no cases come to mind right now, but I would venture to guess that there's probably more cases

in which someone seems suspicious, and they turn out not to be involved in any of the cases. Chris Watts is one glaring exception. On December 17th, the Austin Police Department gave the first press conference related to the disappearance. One question that came up was whether they believed this was a murder case or a missing person's case, and investigators clarified that they had no information that this was anything other than a missing person's case. Unfortunately, the disappearance didn't meet the criteria required to issue an amber

alert, even though Margot was just weeks old. Police didn't make any statements about Shane and did not work to clear him in the public eye. While everyone was focused on the person closest to Heidi and Margo, authorities behind the scenes were zeroing in on someone else, very close to Heidi. On December 18th, investigators received a tip about a sighting of Heidi the day she was last scene. It was reported that around 9 a.m. on December 12th, Heidi holding Margo had been seen happily getting into a car. She had greeted a woman standing outside the car before

getting into the backseat. The person who saw this didn't think there had been enough time for Heidi to have secured Margo into a car seat before the car seat before the car took off. And to those that knew Heidi, they knew this wasn't like her. She would never take a ride in a car without securing her infant daughter into a car seat. Could this have been evidence of Heidi being forced to leave by someone without having time to secure Margo into a car seat? As much as this tip provided police with something to go on, it also brought more speculation. This time, people wondered if Heidi hadn't been kidnapped at all, but had fled and had enlisted someone to help her. Text messages between Heidi and her friends discussing Shane's temper and

physical abuse grabbing Heidi's arm so hard that it left the bruise made their way online, only making Shane look more guilty to some people. To other people, it only strengthened their belief that perhaps Heidi had fled with Margot to escape an abusive relationship. Even if this was a possible scenario, how likely would it be that Heidi would flee with her daughter, but not take her son? So I mentioned earlier more the plausibility meter. How likely would it be that Heidi would just take off with her 16-day-old daughter Margo. Well, now we get more information to work with. There's information about abuse.

Shane has a bad temper based on text messages that are uncovered. That changes the plausibility meeting. Now, I think you still have the question, would she leave without her son? Now, behind the scenes, police didn't think Heidi had left on her own with Margot. And they didn't think that Shane had played any role in their disappearance. They had a suspect. And police showed that suspect in a photo lineup to the neighbor who saw Heidi greet a woman before getting in the car with her.

The neighbor pointed to their suspect and said that they felt 60 to 70% certain. That the person in the picture had been the woman. Heidi seemed happy to see. Looking back at surveillance from. the apartment, investigators found that Heidi had gotten into a silver 2015 Nissan Versa. And as it turned out, the suspect on police radar drove that same model of car. And this detail once again got people talking about an Amber Alert and why one wasn't issued in this case.

If police could tell from a video from Heidi's apartment complex the last morning she was seen that she got into a silver 2015 Nissan Versa with Margo and her. arms. That seems like enough information to put out in an Amber Alert. The criteria required are that the child in the Amber Alert is under 17 years old, which as a newborn, Margo definitely was. Also, there needs to be reason to suspect that the child has been abducted. There's a reason to suspect imminent harm, and there's enough of a description about the victim and the abduction itself that they could have broadcast something. The last step is that the child's information and the case information has been entered into the National Crime Information Center,

which I think could and should happen quickly for a case like this. So with this disappearance seemingly fitting all the criteria for an Amber Alert, it strengthens the argument for many who asked why one wasn't issued. And I think a lot of people in this case have questioned whether the issuance of an Amber Alert would have made a difference here. But those are the type of things that you can never know, right? If something doesn't happen, then obviously you can never know whether or not it would have worked, it would have helped, it would have made any type of difference. But you can see why people question it.

In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. It didn't take long for police to obtain a search warrant for the internet activity of their suspect who turned out to be Heidi's best friend. 33-year-old Megan Firamuska.

In the month leading up to Heidi's disappearance, Megan had searched for different forms of Heidi's name, Heidi Broussard, at least 162 times. On December 11th, the day before Heidi and Margot disappeared. Megan deactivated her Facebook account. On the 12th, the day of the disappearance. She searched for Amber Alert issued Austin and reasons for Amber Alert.

On December 14th, she searched for bodies found in Austin, Texas. Looking through her phone activity, investigators found that Megan, who lived near Houston, had been in Austin and near Heidi's apartment complex on the morning of December 12th. So, number one, shocking, more if that the police's suspect turns out to be Heidi's best friend, Megan Fierramuska. And then, you know, when you hear about these searches, very troubling and obviously would only strengthen the police suspicion on Megan, now you could make an argument that a friend could search for information about Amber alerts. Maybe they were wondering why one hadn't been issued.

You could even make an argument about searches for bodies found in Austin, Texas. but I think when you add it all together, and obviously more things are going to come out, it doesn't make Megan Firamuska look good. Yeah, we mentioned earlier, too, that she drove a car that matched the one that Heidi was last seen getting into. And from the eyewitness account, Heidi seemed to know this person and be happy to get in the car with him.

So we don't know what ultimately led to police to conclude that Megan was a suspect. but it could just be that it seemed like Heidi left with someone she knew and that this friend just happened to have that same kind of car. Maybe they put two and two together and decided it's likely this girl, Megan. On December 19, 2019, authorities moved in on Megan's home. Megan lived in Jersey Village, Texas with Christopher Green. Green claimed to be her landlord, but she hadn't been paying any rent and people on the internet quickly found a baby registry in the name of Christopher Green and a Megan Humphrey. It soon became clear that Megan was using the last name Humphrey. Police also found that the expected due date for Megan's daughter Luna May was

December 1st, which just happened to be Margot's original due date. Outside the home in Jersey Village, outside the home in Jersey Village, a silver Nissan Versa was backed up very oddly right to the door. It was like someone was trying to park there to be able to take something out of the back of the car without being seen by anyone on the street. Texas Rangers followed Christopher Green to Target, where they stopped him to ask him about the case of Margo and Heidi. He was at Target to buy a baby formula for his daughter, Luna Meg. Investigators showed him a picture of Margo,

and according to a KVUE.com article, he said, that's the baby at my house. Christopher told police that he and Megan had been in a relationship, but had broken up in March 2019. Around this time, Christopher said that he learned that Megan was pregnant. It seems clear that Christopher intended to step up and support his child, even if he wasn't in a relationship with the mother at that point. Christopher had allowed Megan to live in his apartment, rent-free,

along with the baby, that he knew to be his daughter, Luna Mae. And there's been a lot of. speculation online that this may have been Megan's plan the whole time, lying about being pregnant so that she could stay with Christopher and be taken care of, or that she may have actually been pregnant and suffered a miscarriage, but was afraid to tell Christopher, or that in some sort of psychosis-like state, believe that she would somehow still have a child. We don't know, but whatever the case. Details would emerge that would shock not just Christopher,

but the entire community. Christopher helped police fill in the blanks. On December 12th, Megan had told Christopher that she was going on a beach trip with her cousin, and at that time, he still believed she was pregnant. Christopher saw her again on December 13th, when she showed him a baby girl lying on the bed that she told him was his new daughter.

She claimed that she'd gone to a birthing center in the woodlands north of Houston alone, and that only she and the staff there had seen Luna be born. She told Christopher she couldn't remember the name of the birthing center she had gone to when he started asking questions about the birth. It slowly sank it for Christopher that the baby girl he thought was his own, wasn't, and that Megan had faked her pregnancy. Police wondered how it could have been possible that Megan had faked the pregnancy for so long.

Christopher confirmed to them that he had never seen. seen her stomach the entire duration of the pregnancy. He had only felt it over clothing a few times and said that he thought it felt heart. When the Rangers explained to Christopher that they believed the baby was really Margo Kerry, Heidi's daughter, he was shocked. KVUE.com reported that Christopher said, she's not my child. Are you serious?

Go get that baby. What are you all waiting for, man? One of Heidi's friends was actually on a YouTube live stream being interviewed when news of police moving in on the house broke. Eventually, the description of the car, the house, and the area clicked, and Heidi's friend shockingly said, That's Megan. The friend went on to disclose that Megan had just had a baby on December 3rd and had been worried sick about Heidi and Margo. One of the interviewers asked the friend to clarify that Megan did indeed have a baby girl that was about two weeks old, and she did. and the interviewer asked, have you ever seen her baby?

And the friend realized that she hadn't. In fact, no one else had either. Megan being involved in abducting baby Margo from her good friend Heidi and claiming her for her own child was shocking to everyone who knew both Heidi and Megan. Megan and Heidi had met his kids when they both went to a church camp at the Texas Bible Institute in Columbus, Texas. They were both 11 at the time. they immediately hit it off and stayed in touch throughout the years. In 2013, when Heidi was pregnant with Silas, Megan helped her with her baby shower invites,

and they also went to the Houston Bridal Show. By 2019, when Heidi gave birth to Margot, the two were still very close, so close that not only was Megan in the delivery room when Margot was born, but Heidi and Shane had given her a key to their apartment. on November 26th when she had stayed the night. She said she would leave it on the kitchen counter when she left on November 27th,

but she never did. Shane remembered looking for the key with Heidi and being unable to find it. Heidi's mom, Tammy, told People magazine, this is just unreal because to even fathom that a person you thought was your friend to do this, it's just unfathomable. We're trying to make sense of it. Heidi has so many friends, and she was supposed to be Heidi's friend.

Who does that to her friend? Shane said that Megan even called him after Heidi and Margaret disappeared, crying and begging him to call her if there were any updates. Obviously, in hindsight, her tears may have been an act that look like a concerned friend, or the tears were from her fear of being caught. Even Tim Miller, founder of Texas Equusurch, who has helped countless people in missing persons cases,

was shocked to hear the news that Megan was involved. He had offered his help in the case and had spoken to Megan on the phone during his investigation. They spoke for about 45 minutes. And before they hung up, Megan asked Tim if she could call him back if she thought of any new information. Tim Miller told ABC 13 news, I can't believe how sincere she sounded. So then we got the news yesterday. I was just scratching my head. while Tim Miller isn't technically an investigator trained to detect lies,

he has been involved in many searches for missing persons since he founded his nonprofit organization in August 2000. So my thought, Morp is that, you know, Tim Miller has talked to a lot of people involved with missing person cases. He probably has a really good BS meter. That's my thought.

having talked to so many different people, he knows what it sounds like when people are grieving, when they're upset. So Megan Fierermuska was able to fool him. Yeah, I think that means maybe she was a really good bullshitter because she fooled him, but also fooled Christopher, who she lived with, fooled him enough to think that the baby she had was actually his. It came to light that Megan Firmuska had a criminal history. In 2018, she was arrested for theft after stealing money from an Ace Express check-cashing business, where she was the assistant manager. Christopher Green paid for her bail after that arrest. Eventually, the case was dismissed due to lack of evidence.

Her court-appointed attorney, Eric Devlin, recalled for K-H-O-U.com that she did seem to have a progressing pregnancy, saying when I first met her, she wasn't pregnant. Clearly did not appear to be pregnant at all. And he added that by their last meeting, she appeared to be very pregnant. It seems as if Megan had pretended to be pregnant at the same time as Heidi and claimed that her baby was due at the same time as Margo arrived. This appears to have been something that she had put a lot of thought into. It's unclear if Megan was ever pregnant and had a miscarriage at some point or if the entire pregnancy was fake. A nurse had heard Megan say she was 37 weeks pregnant in the hospital the day that Margo was born. Multiple people did notice that she was

acting sort of strange that day. Megan had been sort of pushy asking to hold Margo even before Shane's dad got to hold her. According to the arrest affidavit, Shane Carey's father was surprised by the actions of Megan Fierramuska in that his first introduction in time with his grandchild was interrupted. by a friend of Heidi's. She didn't stay very long after the delivery either. Around December 8th or 9th, Shane remembered Heidi saying that Megan had given birth to a baby girl. And at the same time, Christopher Green,

that baby's supposed father, thought that Megan was still pregnant. So it seems as if Shane and Heidi had heard one story from Megan about the details of the pregnancy. And Christopher Green, who believed he was the father, Megan's baby, had been fed another story. It was becoming all too clear that Megan's baby girl Luna was really Heidi's daughter, Margo. But the question was, where was Heidi?

When police went to Christopher Green's home to take Megan into custody, the haphazardly parked Nissan Versa was very suspicious to investigators. According to KVUE.com, they immediately noticed the unmistakable odor of decomposing flesh coming from the car. Outside the home, standing just feet away from the car, Megan voluntarily spoke with investigators holding a baby monitor while she did. Authorities searched the car, which they confirmed was the one seen at Heidi's apartment complex, in the trunk of that car. Authorities found a large black duffel bag, and inside the bag was Heidi's body. She had been strangled to death. authorities rushed inside the home where they found a baby girl who they believed to really be Margo she was alive safely rocking in a baby swing later that night Megan Firamuska was arrested

and charged with one count of kidnapping and one count of tampering with a corpse her bond was set at $600,000 she would later be charged with the murder of Heidi Broussard Investigators had to wait for the results of a DNA test to prove that the baby inside the home was indeed Margot Elizabeth, not Luna May. It wasn't until December 23rd that the results confirmed police suspicions, and she was finally reunited with her father, Shane. That wait had been so painful as he agreed for Heidi and anxiously awaited the test results. On December 28, 2019, Heidi Resard was laid to rest back home in Lake Charles, Louisiana. as news of what happened made its way out.

People that knew both Heidi and Megan were shocked to hear that Megan had allegedly killed her friend and stolen her baby. And eventually the shocking case became nationwide news, but was widely overshadowed by other cases at the time. The legal delays in the case really began in early 2020. In January, Megan was supposed to have her first court appearance, but it was rescheduled to February 3rd. On January 9th, Shane Carey gave his first interview since Heidi and Margo were found, appearing for the second time on Good Morning America. Remembering Heidi fondly, he said, she was the best mom, the best person you could ever meet. He also mentioned that he didn't believe that Megan was the only one responsible since Heidi could have easily overpowered her. Despite Shane's suspicions, no one else was ever charged in connection with Heidi's murder or with Margot's kidnapping.

And let's go back to, you know, Shane's first interviews after Heidi and Margo disappeared. And we mentioned that many people were extremely suspicious of him. Now, obviously, by the time he's doing this second appearance on Good Morning America, the news has come out. It wasn't shame. He had nothing to do with it. So I think it kind of just emphasizes how careful you have to be. Initially, with, you know, looking at people when they're doing interviews and things so quickly after, you know, a tragedy, a disappearance, anything like that.

On January 28, 2020, Megan Faramuska was indicted by a grand jury on one count of kidnapping for taking more. Margot to Houston, and also for the capital murder of Heidi by terror threat. She was held on a raised bail of $1 million. The COVID-19 pandemic really brought the justice system to a halt, and there was no movement in the case. Megan Faramuska had not even been arraigned. Many people wondered there was some sort of mental competency issue with Megan, but there hadn't been any hearings about that.

It seems like the case just stalled. In 2022, Megan's lawyer. tried to have the case against her thrown out because authorities had entered the home before they received a search warrant. They wanted photographs and videos from the scene to be ruled inadmissible at trial because they had been illegally obtained. The argument was that authorities should have gotten a search warrant before they entered and collected any evidence, including photographs. Prosecutors argued that not only was there a search warrant that had been signed by the time authorities made entry, the officers at the scene had reason to believe that

Margo may be in imminent danger inside, giving them probable cause to enter the home. Even though Megan was outside the home when police raced inside and couldn't harm her, they still believed that Margo was medically in danger because she had been diagnosed with jaundice. And in some cases, that can lead to babies losing weight, which is dangerous. and small children. In May 2022, the request to dismiss the case due to the legality of the search warrant was denied. The judge ruled that regardless of the status of a search warrant, that warrantless entrance was justified.

This issue may have been part of why the case was not immediately tried. And no one had entered the niece until the search warrant was issued, making the finding of Heidi's body admissible evidence. And it didn't look good for Megan. Megan may have been hoping to get off on that technicality. Heidi's mother, Tammy Broussard, wanted answers from Megan, saying in a KVUE.com article, you came to our house, we loved you. You were welcomed into our home, and we cared for you on our home.

What were you thinking to murder our daughter? As far as we can tell, she never got any answers. Megan never testified or gave any statements. In January, 2023, there was finally movement on the case. The judge noted that Megan had already been in custody for, 1,119 days and that both sides need a resolution in the case. An arraignment was scheduled for January 31st with the grand jury trial to begin on March 13th. By January 24th, news outlets had received information that Megan was going to plead guilty.

On Thursday, February 2nd, 37-year-old Megan Firamuska pleaded guilty to the murder of Heidi Broussard and officially waived her right to ever appeal. As part of a plea deal, she received a sentence of 55 years in prison. At her sentencing hearing, she cried as Tammy Broussard spoke out about the murder of her daughter saying, Heidi's hugs were strong and full of love. I still feel them now. When I think of her, which is every moment and everything I do, I ask, what would Heidi say her thing?

And it gives me peace. As she was saying all this, Megan wiped her eyes with the tissue. Megan Faramuska will be eligible for parole in 28 years when she's 65 years old. Heidi's daughter Margo is going to grow up without her mom in her life. She's been robbed of the mother-daughter memories and experiences that she was supposed to have. And one day, she's surely going to ask questions about what happened to her mom. And her father, Shane, is going to have a tough task trying to explain to his daughter and makes sense of what happened to Heidi when it doesn't make sense at all.

And you got that right, man. It does not make sense at all. You know, frankly, most of the cases we do, there's so much that just doesn't make sense. You can throw the word senseless out in pretty much every case, right, that we talk about. This one, though, you know, I do believe as we wrap things up, shocked many, many people, both that, you know, knew the parties involved and, you know, really, just anybody reading the paper, watching the news or reading it online, to think that one of your best friends or your best friend, depending on what sources you look at, would plan all of this out, a pregnancy to coincide with yours. With the forethought that at some point, they're going to take your baby

as their own. And to do that, they're going to kill you. I mean, most people would think that's laughable. And that's a terrible word to use. But I think when most people sit down and think about it, they would think no way. My best friend would never hurt me, number one, would never go through all of this. And it's just, it's just so hard to make sense up. Yeah. And I think one of the frustrating things about this case is that without it making sense, there's so many unanswered questions that I'm sure Heidi's family has. And unless Megan changes are mine and starts providing them with some answers, they may never get as to why she did this. Was she so obsessed with having a baby that she decided she was going to steal her friends? Or had she been pregnant and lost that baby and

did have some kind of break that she was so anguished over that she hatched this plan. The one thing that jumps out to me is that it almost seems like she didn't have a plan in some ways because here she's got this body of her friend in her car parked right in her front yard. She didn't try and hide it or dispose of it. It's almost as if she was just going to carry on as this new mom with a baby while her friend's corpse is outside. So I wonder if she did have some kind of break here and just wasn't fully understanding what she was doing. And, you know, I'm not a medical expert and none of the, there's been no indication of whether she was tested or examined by medical experts, but

that's one thing. I'm curious about if that could be the case. Well, I think you, you hit the nail in the head because Megan hasn't come out and provided details around a lot of the things that we talked about. You know, there's still a lot of speculation and there's still a lot of unanswered questions. I think some of that, you know, comes from not having a full-blown trial. And I don't know if it would have come out during that anyway. I don't think she would have ever testified. But going back to what you said more, I do think it really does come down to one of those two scenarios that you kind of laid out. I tend to kind of think it's the first one. Because if not, if it's the second one, then it would just be pure coincidence that the two women's due dates were so

similar. And that could be. That could have happened. But now if it's the first one, then you're really kind of getting some insight into how far back Megan Fierermuska was planning this thing. Because obviously she was telling people she was pregnant for, you know, quite some time if she wasn't. Yeah, it's a very sad and frustrating case. And now this little girl is going to grow up without her mom. And like we mentioned, she's going to ask questions one day. And I don't know how easy it's going to be for her to get those answers. No, and very tough on Shane as well.

You know, he's left to raise a son and a daughter without Heidi. He had that kind of cloud of suspicion hanging over him. It wasn't for very long, though. You know, in some of these cases that suspicion hangs over someone's head for years and years, obviously, Heidi's body was found fairly quickly. So he didn't have it that long, but still, that would be very tough to know that a lot of people out there think you killed your fiance, you harmed your baby, but even tougher when the truth comes out. I mean, obviously he knew he didn't do it. But when the truth comes out and he finds out

that it was Megan, this person he knew, this person he had let into his life, into his home, into the delivery room, man, I don't know how you get over that. That's on top of. That's on top of, dealing with the grief of your loved one being gone is this betrayal. And we don't have that in all cases, right? A lot of the cases that we do, people's lives are taken by an individual that's unknown to the family. And that's, that's tough. That's hard. But here, Heidi's life was taken by someone whom, you know, her, who her family all knew. And, and, trust it apparently. That adds a different level to this case. It really does for me. But that's it for our episode on Heidi Broussard, Megan Fiermuska. Tough one. Tough one.

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