'Please go get that baby': Defense in Heidi Broussard case alleges evidence was improperly gathered

Christopher Green wondered what officers were waiting for, after they told him that the infant with his then-girlfriend, Magen Fieramusca, at their house might not be hers.

"Sir, is somebody going over to get that baby?" he told the Texas Ranger who was questioning him in the parking lot of a Target. "If she's capable of this, please go get that baby."

The interview clip was played Thursday as part of an evidence hearing in the case of Fieramusca, whom investigators have accused of strangling Austin mom Heidi Broussard to death and planning to pretend the victim's 2-week-old infant was her own.

During Fieramusca’s first in-person court appearance since the pandemic began, her attorneys argued that police entered her home, examined the property and took photos before obtaining a warrant, so the evidence should be suppressed. They also said investigators illegally detained and questioned her, so her statements from that time should also not be used.

"All evidence obtained by members of law enforcement was the result of an illegal detention or seizure," her defense attorneys wrote in a filing. The investigating agencies were the FBI, Austin and Houston police, the Department of Public Safety, and the Texas Rangers.

Defense attorneys and Travis County prosecutors presented evidence and questioned witnesses Thursday and Friday. Both sides will give closing arguments April 28, and state District Judge Selena Alvarenga is expected to make a decision then.

A Texas Ranger testified Thursday that, while investigators entered the house without a warrant to make sure the baby, Margot Carey, was safe, they did not search the house or vehicle until warrants were signed hours later. Police are allowed to enter a residence in an emergency, and, in this case, they were concerned for the baby's life, the investigators said on the stand.

"A person who goes out of their way to take a baby from its family, is that someone who’s making healthy decisions?" prosecutor Guillermo Gonzalez asked a Texas Ranger. "Is that someone you think is capable of killing a 3-week-old baby?"

Texas Ranger Gary Phillips answered that investigators did believe Fieramusca was a threat to the child.

Investigators left Margot inside with victims services personnel and an Austin police officer, and Texas Rangers detained Fieramusca in the backyard for roughly seven hours while they waited for warrants.

Broussard had vanished Dec. 12, 2019, with Margot, touching off a frantic search that drew national attention. A neighbor of Broussard's told police that she saw Broussard and Fieramusca hug outside Broussard's Austin apartment, then saw Broussard get into Fieramusca's vehicle with her infant, officers testified Thursday.

Investigators said they later found Broussard's body in a duffel bag in the trunk of a car outside Fieramusca's suburban Houston house.

A grand jury in early 2020 indicted Fieramusca on a capital murder charge, accusing her of asphyxiating Heidi Broussard by “ligature strangulation, with a leash and with her hand,” the indictment document says. Fieramusca has been held in the Travis County Correctional Complex in Del Valle since her arrest.

For months, Fieramusca had pretended to be pregnant and planned to present Broussard's infant as her own, her arrest affidavit alleges.

Green told the Texas Rangers that he had witnessed Fieramusca's belly grow during her pregnancy, but they had a rocky relationship and he never saw her pregnant stomach. She told him she was carrying his child. When a Ranger asked Green where she gave birth, he said, "She's been really distant with me about that stuff. I don't know why."

One day, Green came home, and there was an infant on the bed in his house, he told the Rangers. He and Fieramusca named the child Luna.

The Ranger also asked Green if he knew Broussard. He replied that Fieramusca knew her, and he knew she was missing.

"Is that starting to make sense to you — how it might be tied together?" the Texas Ranger asked Green.

"Tied together?" he repeated, baffled.

In court this week, defense attorneys zeroed in on the fact that, hours before obtaining signed warrants, a Texas Ranger jumped the fence of the suburban house that Green and Fieramusca shared, took photos and talked with Fieramusca in her backyard.

A Ranger testified that he told Fieramusca she had the right to remain silent while she was detained outside. Officers also said that they did not search the vehicle until obtaining a warrant, despite a clear smell of decomposition coming from the Nissan.

"It's fair to say y’all were right — the child was Margot, and Heidi was deceased," Brian Erskine, Fieramusca's attorney, said as he questioned a Ranger on the stand. "But you would agree with me that, as terribly important as it is to protect children and their safety, that there are laws before you go into someone’s home."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Magen Fieramusca appears in court 2 years after Heidi Broussard death