A woman from Texas has been given a sentence of 55 years in prison for the crime of murdering her closest friend and abducting her newborn baby.
On Thursday, 37-year-old Magen Fieramusca, chose to forgo her right to an appeal. Instead, she admitted her guilt in the 2019 murder of Heidi Broussard, 33, in an Austin courtroom.
At the start, Fieramusca was accused of capital murder, meaning she could have faced a lifetime in jail without being able to apply for parole. However, following her plea, she has been made eligible for parole after serving around half of her 55-year sentence. In addition, she will be given credit for the three years she spent in prison prior to her plea.
More than three years after Magen Broussard’s disappearance, Fieramusca was found guilty by the court. Broussard just had her daughter, Margot, when she vanished from her and fiancé Shane Carey’s Austin home on December 12th, 2019.
Following an extensive and widely-publicized search for Broussard, authorities eventually investigated Fieramusca’s residence in the northwest section of Harris County, near Houston. Upon searching the area, law enforcement discovered Broussard’s corpse in a duffel bag in the trunk of Fieramusca’s car, which was parked in the driveway.
A post-mortem investigation later revealed that Broussard had been strangled to death with a dog leash, according to police reports.
The infant, Margot, was located and reunited with her father.
Subsequently, Fieramusca was apprehended and indicted with capital murder as well as tampering with a corpse. Additionally, she was initially charged with abducting three-week-old Margot and claiming the baby as her own.