Missing Texas mom Heidi Broussard found dead, newborn daughter found unhurt as friend claims she recently broke-up with fiancé
JERSEY VILLAGE, TEXAS: Authorities have found a body that they believe belongs to Texas mother Heidi Broussard, who was reported missing along with her newborn daughter last week. The infant has been found alive and unhurt.
Tammy Broussard, Heidi Broussard's mother, told NBC News that police had informed her they had found a body in Jersey Village, a community of around 7,600 people in Harris County, northwest of Houston, and that it was likely it belonged to her daughter.
She said police had told her the medical examiner still needed to officially confirm the identity of the body, which was reportedly found in a car trunk, adding that granddaughter Margot Carey was found inside a home in good condition.
Craig Cummins, of the Texas Department of Public Safety, had earlier confirmed that investigators had responded to a home in Jersey Village in connection to the missing mother and her infant, though it is still unclear what led them to that location.
The FBI has similarly confirmed it was at the site, but a spokeswoman declined to comment further on what is still an ongoing investigation.
MEAWW previously reported that Broussard, 33, had been reported missing by her fiancé Shane Carey on the evening of Thursday, December 12.
She was last seen at 7:30 am dropping off her son, 6, at Cowan Elementary School in Austin, with Carey telling police he had not heard from her or spoken to her after 8 am that morning.
He told them that he became worried after he returned home at 2 pm and found her car in the driveway with her purse and belongings still inside. He said in the following hours, he tried to call her repeatedly but was unable to reach her phone and finally decided to call the authorities after her friends did not know of her whereabouts either.
As the search for the pair intensified, Carey had gone on a local TV station to plead for the return of his fiancée and their return baby, and with Broussard now seemingly found dead police may turn their suspicions to him.
A friend of the mother, who asked for her identity to be withheld, revealed to Crime Online that the 33-year-old's relationship with Carey had been rocky in the past and that they had gone through a difficult break-up earlier this year.
She revealed she had been taken aback when she found out that Broussard had got back together with Carey in May. "We didn't talk about Shane very often but the last conversation we had I was shocked to find that they were back together," she said.
"She had told me that they broke up but never told me they got back together [until this summer]," she continued. "I always found that weird. Wouldn't she have told me out of excitement? I knew she was pregnant I just didn't know she was back with Shane."
The friend rubbished suggestions that Broussard had left of her own volition, insisting she would not have gone anywhere without her six-year-old son. She also said the mom had planned to move out of Austin to a home in Kyle that Carey's father owned, but that it did not materialize for some reason or the other.