SOLVED: Heidi Broussard: Stolen Baby

[Music] hello everyone what is up welcome back to another episode of Killer Instinct you guys thank you so much for joining me here today if you're new here hi my name is Savannah and I am your host of Killer Instinct before we get started make sure you go ahead and hit that subscribe button that way you never miss an episode WE Post weekly here on the podcast every single Wednesday as well as upload the video version onto YouTube on Wednesdays as well so make sure you are subscribed now you guys as you can tell by the title of today's episode today we are talking about the brutal case of Heidi brousard this is one of those cases that is truly terrifying and really makes you wonder who your true friends really are now as I mentioned a couple episodes back for the month of June we have dedicated the cat atory to fatal friendships and this one definitely falls under that category now I'm very interested to hear what you guys have to say about this episode this is an episode of betrayal it is a breach of trust it is backstabbing it is all of it so I'm very curious to hear what your thoughts are going to be and with that being said let's jump right on into it today Heidi brousard was born on June 15th 1986 so by the time you guys hear this episode her birthday would have just passed Heidi was born to her parents David and Tammy and she grew up in an area called Lake Charles Louisiana Lake Charles was a smaller more conservative and religious town the kids who grew up here grew up going to church and were taught the very traditional Christian values now growing up Heidi was a very compassionate person she loved all people and she also loved animals she even spent time working towards being a Vette Tech when she got older she graduated from lrange high school in 2004 and worked some different waitressing jobs while attending college she loved music she loved dancing and she was known to be everyone's best friend she was engaging welcoming caring and adventurous she always wanted everyone to have a good time and feel included she really always saw the best in everyone now something that was very important to Heidi and this was instilled from a very young age was her faith like I mentioned she grew up in Lake Charles and so from very early on in her childhood she was introduced to Christianity and the church that's how she was raised and she continued having that Faith all throughout her life her religion was very very important to her it was important that she surrounded herself with like-minded people but she was never judgmental she just wanted the best for everyone she always saw the good in everyone whether you agreed with her faith or you didn't Heidi attended church every Sunday and every Wednesday with her family growing up so over time it obviously became a very big part of her life because of that she was dedicating a lot of time to that and a lot of her friends were from the church as well Heidi was an active member in the Abundant Life fellow ship youth group now like I mentioned Heidi had a lot of friends in the church and she had a very strong Core group of girlfriends they were known as The Three Musketeers you had Heidi her friend Kelly and her other friend Rachel so you had this Trio of a friendship and all of them were quite literally thick as thieves they were attached at the hip they spent so much time together they spent time during youth group together they hung out outside of the church they really were each other's ride or die friendships and each one of them had a little bit of a different personality Kelly was known to be more on the quiet side she was a little bit more reserved and then you had Heidi who was much more outgoing she definitely was the one who was friends with everyone she was a little spunky She had a little bit of an edge to her but she was always including and welcoming to everyone around around and then you had Rachel who has described herself as almost the Wild Child of the group and like I said the three of them were inseparable they actually called themselves Charlie's Angels they were always spending time together with one another and making new memories sometimes it is very difficult as a trio of a friend group especially a trio of girls to not get jealous of one another or to not you know feel like other people might have closer friendships than you do the bonds sometimes tend to get threatened in a trio friend group but this one did not have that the three of them like I said were inseparable and all had that same Bond and love for each other and their friendship now while the girls were teenagers they ended up going to a summer camp one year and this was called Discovery country camp in Columbus Texas now this was a church summer camp so they were all going to go to church camp and Kelly Heidi and Rachel were all very excited to hear that they had the opportunity to go to this church camp because again Not only was their faith really important to them and if they were going to go to Camp they wanted it to be somewhere where they can continue practicing their faith and instilling those Christian values it was again very very important to them but also they were excited because it meant the three of them got to go together they got to create new memories as a friend group and and everyone was so so thrilled now even though it was a church summer camp the girls claimed that there was still clicks you still had your groups of people within the summer camp you still had your popular girls you still had all the other cliches of clicks that there are and according to Rachel and Kelly Heidi's friends they claim that their little Trio was almost the it group of this church summer camp they were the popular ones that was the friend group that they were in now when they got to this summer camp they also started making some other friends as well some of those other friends included caressa who lived in Columbus Texas at the time she was known to be really stylish she was really pretty she was really outgoing and Carissa fit in very quickly into the trio of Heidi Kelly and Rachel then you had another girl and this girl was named Megan fusa now Megan did not have the same seamless introduction to the group as Carissa did people who knew Megan at church camp described her as someone who was more of a follower some even used the term wannabe and try hard she wanted to fit into the crowd but she never really did but somehow she kept finding her way back into the Heidi Kelly Rachel friend group now according to the other girls in the group a big reason that Megan continued to come around was because of Heidi like I mentioned earlier Heidi was the girl who wanted everyone to feel included she wanted everyone to feel like they had a friend she didn't want anyone to feel left out and that was very clear here with Megan Heidi was always including Megan no matter what and according to the two other girls Rachel and Kelly they were not super thrilled that Megan was continuing to come around time in and time out a big reason for that was because Megan just had a very odd energy to her and by odd I mean possessive the girls felt like Megan was very possessive over Heidi they felt like because Megan was friends with Heidi they could not be friends with Heidi too or they couldn't have the same level of friendship that they once did because Megan would not allow it Megan would get possessive Megan would get obsessive and she would try and interject herself any way she could so that Heidi would not be able to hang out with anyone else she really wanted Heidi all to herself and that was very clear she would get upset at times if she felt like Heidi was going to hang out with other friends whether that was with Megan or without Megan she really tried to isolate Heidi from the rest of the friend group and so because of that the other girls were not a fan of Megan they didn't love when she came around and it really rubbed the other girls the wrong way now regardless of how everyone felt within this friend group at the the end of the summer the camp came to an end and everyone went home and went on their separate ways and as everyone grew up as they're growing from being a teenager to a young adult everyone is going off in different directions with their lives as far as Rachel and Kelly went Rachel and Kelly continued to live in Louisiana Megan herself moved to Houston Texas as I mentioned earlier caressa was living in Columbus Texas so she stayed there and Heidi herself went back to Lake Charles where she began working at a brand new casino in town and while she was there Heidi met a man named Shane now very very quickly Heidi fell head over heels for Shane the two of them immediately began dating they hid it off and everything seemed to be going smoothly now not long after Heidi and Shane initially got together Heidi found out that she was pregnant with their first child now as I mentioned earlier Heidi was very very passionate about her faith and so because she found out she was pregnant without being married she was very worried about how the public was going to perceive this pregnancy she didn't know if she was going to be judged she didn't know how people were going to react however she herself was so excited to become a mom once Heidi had her son she felt like like her true purpose was being a mother she loved her son more than anything and she was completely dedicated and devoted to being the best mom that she possibly could now after her son was born Heidi and Shane decided that they were going to take a move and move to Austin Texas a big reason for this was because Heidi and Shane really just wanted to start a new chapter in their lives heidy specifically had lived in Louisiana all of her life and she wanted something new she wanted something different she wanted her son to be able to grow up in a different environment that she did and so because of that that is why they moved to Austin Texas but even though everything was looking Picture Perfect on the outside as we all know typically that is not the case behind closed doors when Heidi and Shane moved to Austin Texas their relationship really started to get a little bit Rocky they had a tumultuous relationship it was very on and off they were breaking up and making up time and time again they really were the epitome of the on andof couple that I'm sure most of us know we all know that one couple they were consistently on and off however the love was always there and Heidi and Shane were both dedicated to making their family work for the sake of their son but also for the sake of themselves they really truly did love each other and they were fighting for their relationship now Heidi did become pregnant a second time after moving to Austin Texas and this was also an unexpected pregnancy now in the beginning of this pregnancy Heidi was very anxious she didn't know what the future of her and Shane's relationship was going to look like at that point because again they were very on and off at that time and at this time when she got pregnant she wasn't surrounded by her family during her first pregnancy she had her friends she had her parents and this time she was in Austin Texas really by herself and so because of this she really decided that she needed to lean on other friends in her life she needed to be able to have that support considering she was outside of where she was comfortable in so because of this at this time Heidi really turned back to Carissa and Megan the two friends from summer camp now Carissa and Megan at the time were still living in Texas and the three of them got very close Carissa was a little bit further out she wasn't as close physically to Heidi as Megan was however the three would always chitchat they were always talking but Megan and Heidi were seeing each other very very frequently and after some time passed and Heidi was really spending a lot of time with Megan doing different activities hanging out all the time she really started to feel better her spirits were lifted and she began feeling very very excited and hopeful for the future at this point her and Shane were back in a really really great spot thought all of Heidi's friends said that at this point Shane really stepped up to the plate in their relationship and became the man that Heidi always wanted him to be he was there for her he supported her and it seemed like their relationship was now on a very good and healthy track so they were in a really great spot so everything seemed to be going very very well at this point Heidi had her girls she had her friends who were supporting her she was pregnant they were expecting another baby she had her son and now her in are doing very well too but the good news didn't stop there because Heidi was thrilled absolutely over the moon when she heard that Megan was also pregnant Megan announced her pregnancy only a few weeks after Heidi announced hers and the biggest shock with all of it was when Megan said that her and Heidi actually had the same due date now you might be sitting here wondering who was the father father of Megan's baby well Megan had an on andof boyfriend at the time named Chris and the two were not dating for very long so it was unexpected that Megan was now pregnant however everyone was still very very excited for her in this new chapter of their lives and Megan and Heidi were especially excited because this meant that not only were they best friends but they were about to have babies at the same time they got to experience being pregnant together it was just a lot of excitement filling the air now despite all of this excitement that was going on the relationship between Megan and her boyfriend Chris was definitely a Rocky one the two of them were together technically but they really didn't spend a lot of time together they even lived on opposite sides of the house so they didn't see each other very often and Chris traveled a lot for work so he was not a home a lot to begin with and so because of this Megan really started leaning on Heidi there was times where Heidi leaned on Megan Megan was now leaning on Heidi for support because she claimed that she was scared about what the future was going to look like if she was going to be a single mother how she was going to navigate that she really confided in Heidi during all of this and turn to Heidi for support and Heidi felt a lot of compassion for Megan she knew what it felt like to be in a rocky relationship and Heidi really tried to be there to support Megan in every way she could she told her that no matter what she always had a place to stay she always had somewhere to go Heidi would always be there for her no matter what the future looked like whether she was with Chris or not with Chris so now we move on to 9 months later November 26th 2019 Heidi gave birth to her daughter she was a healthy baby and everyone was thrilled now Megan who was very far along in her pregnancy at this point because like I said her and Heidi had the same due date she was very far along but she really wanted to be there for Heidi when she gave birth to her daughter so she drove down from Houston to Austin to be there for Heidi when she had her baby now Heidi was very appreciative of the fact that Megan came she really loved the fact that her friend was there to support her and because of this Heidi and Shane decided that they wanted Megan to stay at their apartment for the night while they were at the hospital because the two of them didn't want Megan to have to worry about driving back to Us in that night while she was so pregnant they thought it would be better if Megan just stayed the night at their apartment and that is exactly what Megan did now two weeks later 2 weeks after Heidi had her daughter on December 6th 2019 Megan herself announced that she had also given birth to her daughter named Luna now this was very exciting because if you think about it it's very picturesque it's very storybook the fact that Megan and Heidi who are best friends now have two daughters who they get to raise and they're going to be best friends it all seemed almost too good to be true but regardless everyone was so thrilled for this new chapter but things began to change several days later on December 12th 2019 when Heidi never made it to pick her son up from school on the afternoon of December 12th 2019 Shane began calling around different friends in the area asking if anyone had seen or heard from Heidi because it was very unlike her to not pick up their son that was something that she always did she would have never missed picking up her son from school Heidi's mom tamy also began calling around asking the same thing however no one had heard from Heidi now this was obviously very worrisome for several factors however the biggest one being not only could no one find Heidi but no one could find their newborn daughter either Heidi's daughter was only about 3 weeks old at this time so her and Heidi did everything together Heidi was taking her everywhere if she needed to drop her son off at school or pick her son up from school anything that Heidi was doing she was at the phase where she was constantly bringing her daughter with her so the fact that no one had heard from Heidi meant that no one knew where her and Shane's daughter were either so now both of them are missing at this point Shane decided not to waste any time and he called the police department to file a missing person's report on Heidi and his daughter now the following day the police brought Shane in to conduct a more in-depth interview with him now during this interview Shane gave his timeline of events from the day before the 12th which was the last day that anyone saw or heard from Heidi according to Shane he claimed that this morning started off like any normal morning he woke up at 6:30 a.m. and left the apartment for work Heidi left to take their son to school and called Shane when she got back to the apartment around 8:30 and nothing seemed out of the ordinary after Shane got off work Shane tried calling Heidi but he wasn't getting an answer he then went back to the apartment after work and noticed that Heidi's car was still in the parking spot which definitely made him feel a little uneasy when he went up to the apartment he realized that the apartment door was unlocked he claimed that when he got into the apartment no one was in there Heidi was gone and their daughter was gone as well now even though the two of them were gone nothing seemed out of place in the apartment it wasn't rans sacked it didn't seem in any sort of disarray and everything was in the apartment that needed to be all of the baby bottles all of the baby clothes the diapers the wipes everything was there so Shane initially thought thought maybe Heidi took the baby for a walk maybe she's walking around the apartment complex with the baby maybe she went to go talk to a neighbor show The Neighbors the new baby there were other things that were running through his mind before he started to really really worry that something could be wrong it really wasn't until sometime later when Shane started to get worried because Heidi was not coming back to the apartment and her car again was still in the parking spot it was getting closer and closer to the time where her son would need to be picked up from school and shade noticed that the only things that were missing from the apartment were Heidi's purse and her car keys but even though the car keys were gone the car again was still in that parking spot Shane wondered if maybe there was some mixup some misunderstanding so he decided that he was going to go to his son's school himself and pretty much stake out there during the time that his son was supposed to be picked up to see if Heidi was going to come and get their son so he got there and waited for some time however Heidi still never showed up and this is when the concern really started to set in because this is when Shane realized that he did not know where Heidi was and he did not know where his daughter was and he also knew as did everyone else that Heidi would not miss picking up her son from school unless something was very very wrong so at this point Shane claims that he grabbed his son from school and brought him back to the apartment and that is when he began making phone calls around asking if anyone had seen or heard from Heidi however no one had when Heidi's friends began hearing that no one knew where Heidi was it definitely caused a lot of concern because everyone knew that this was very much unlike Heidi she would not just ignore everyone's calls or texts her social media seemed completely fine and no one ever really questioned the theory of Heidi just up in been leaving without telling anyone because they knew she wouldn't leave behind her son in an alternate universe if Heidi was to leave if she decided she just wanted to get away something happened and she just wanted to go she would have taken her son with her like I mentioned earlier being a mom was incredibly important to Heidi she wouldn't have left behind her son now even though Shane was the one who filed the missing person's report and he was the one who staked outside of the school to see if Heidi would show up people really started to point their fingers at Shane when questioning who would do something to Heidi Heidi did not have any known enemies she was not in any feuds with anyone Heidi's priorities in life were her friends her faith and her family she was not one who was involved in drama or starting feuds again no one didn't like Heidi Heidi liked everyone and she had tons and tons of people who loved and supported her so no one really knew who would want to do something like this to Heidi who would want to hurt Heidi but again time and time again as we see in these types of cases whenever anyone goes missing the first person that is automatically looked at is the spouse because that is the pattern of behavior that we're used to seeing when a husband or a wife or a boyfriend or a girlfriend goes missing the pattern that we see is that the spouse or the partner more often than not had some sort of Link some sort of connection and because Shane and Heidi had a previously tumultuous relationship people began to wonder if Shane could have been responsible for this police began looking more and more into Shane's Alibi they looked to see when he clocked in at work when he clocked out of work they looked to see if Heidi did in fact drop their son off at school that morning and everything seemed to check out everything seemed to match the story that Shane was saying now the one thing that Shane was doing which was not helping his case was being very active in the media he was doing a lot of interviews he was doing a lot of press and a big reason for this was because police were encouraging everyone who knew Heidi to get her name out there get her picture out there get her name out there let people see who Heidi is because more than likely someone knows something and they may not even know it so make sure you're talking about her make sure you're getting the news out there for her make sure everything is being posted out about Heidi and for Shane that included doing interviews it included doing press and media however Shane's behavior in front of the camera was definitely offputting while being interviewed Shane was doing things like laughing he just didn't seem very genuine he didn't seem very engaged and people were really tearing him down because of this because it was easy to see that and think that he had to have something to do with it and again you have to look at the time frame here we're looking at 2019 just about a little over a year before this is when the Chris Watts case took place and people were starting to see the similarities they were seeing Chris doing Med media interviews now they're seeing Shane doing media interviews they're seeing Shane's Behavior be a little dicey it seems a little bit suspicious so it was easy for everyone to point the finger at Shane but regardless of his behavior in the interviews other than that there was really no other evidence that was linking Shane to Heidi's disappearance there was no physical evidence there was no circumstantial evidence there was nothing at all that linked Shane to Heidi being missing now at this point the days are passing and Heidi is missing for a week now during that week of Heidi's disappearance that first initial week police were speaking to everyone who knew Heidi they were talking to her family they were talking to her friends and they started to notice that there was a concerning pattern in some of the things that the family and the friends were saying the family and the friends were bringing up Heidi's friend Megan they claimed that Megan was there for the birth of Heidi's daughter and while she was there she was acting oddly possessive over Heidi and the baby it was said by friends and family who were at the hospital as well as the nurses who were at the hospital that Megan continuously tried to interject herself between the baby and everyone else whether that was Shane whether that was Heidi's parents she tried to be the one holding the baby at all times anytime anyone else wanted to hold the baby she would say a passive aggressive comment she would try and get them to change the subject she would try and keep holding on to the baby the behavior was very very strange other people who were at the hospital claimed that Megan was holding a pillow over her stomach the entire time which people thought to be very strange because again she was 9 months pregnant but no one really questioned it it was just something that was like oh that's weird now when police were talking to Shane Shane said that in regards to Megan the day that Megan spent the night at their apartment when she came to see Heidi and she came to see the baby they gave her a key to their apartment because again Shane was staying at the hospital with Heidi Shane gave Megan the key said go stay the night at the apartment you don't need to drive all the way back to Houston tonight and Megan seemed very appreciative and said that she would leave the apartment key on the counter however Shane claimed that the following day the key was not there and he never saw it again now the things that people were saying about Megan were definitely raising alarm bells for police and they definitely were starting to hone in on the idea that Megan could have somehow been tied to this case they ended up talking to some of Heidi's neighbors who claimed that on the day that Heidi went missing on December 12th one neighbor claimed that they saw Heidi hugging a woman who matched Megan's description outside of Heidi's apartment there was also another neighbor who claimed that they saw Heidi and her newborn daughter get into a light colored four-door vehicle with a woman who matched Megan's description now at this point police knew that they wanted to talk to Megan they began looking more into Megan and who she was and learned that she had a four-door light colored car so the dots are beginning to connect Megan became the primary suspect at this point in this investigation while police are trying to gain as much information as they can on Megan they decide to put surveillance on Megan's home in Houston Texas now when they did that one specific day they saw Megan's boyfriend Chris leave the home he got into his car and he left the home and he drove to a Target store now police stayed in the parking lot as they saw Chris walk into the store and then walk out with bags filled of baby supplies now while Chris was putting the bags into the back of his car police saw their in and they took it they ended up approaching Chris and really explained what was going on when police explained that Megan's best friend Heidi was missing explained that Megan and Heidi were very close and really was just asking him about his newborn daughter Chris's daughter in general Chris was very very confused Chris told police that he had just had a baby with his girlfriend however he was not there for the birth he claimed that Megan had their daughter while he was out of town and she just brought the baby home Chris also claimed that he just had to assume that Megan was pregnant because he took her word for it he claimed that the two were living at the opposite sides of the house they were not sexually involved so he never saw her bare stomach he never saw her without clothes on so he just assumed that she was pregnant because again that's what she told him now police at this point showed Chris a picture of Heidi and Shane's newborn daughter and that is when Chris confirmed that the daughter and the girl in the picture was the same baby that was at his house the same baby that Megan claimed to be theirs now at this point police knew that they needed to fast so they stopped Chris from going home they told him do not go back to the house you're staying here and you're actually coming down to the police station to answer more questions but pretty automatically from the very beginning police were confident in the fact that Chris was not involved in this they never thought that Chris had anything to do with this they never believed that he was somehow tied to this he seemed just as confused as everyone else if not more confused when he was being told what was going on now at this point back at Megan's home the officers who were surveillancing the house storm through the doors and arrest Megan Now quickly when they do that they discover the baby as well they remove the baby from the home and the entire time Megan is kicking and screaming saying that that is her child that is her daughter however DNA tests confirm that the baby that was in Megan's house was in fact Heidi and Shane's daughter regardless of what DNA was saying Megan said it's not true Megan claimed that that was still her daughter that was still her baby the tests were wrong she was adamant in the fact that this was her daughter now when police began asking Megan some questions like when was the baby born where did you have this baby can we see the birth certificate Megan claimed that she had the baby in a birth center however she claimed she did not remember what the name of the birth center was she also claimed that she didn't know where the birth center was she claimed that the only person that was there for the birth of her daughter were the doctors and nurses which she also claimed she did not know the names of so everyone was pretty so when it came to Megan giving any information about where she had her baby but of course everyone knew that the reason for that was because that this was not Megan's baby now while there were some officers who were talking to Megan and having this this conversation with her other officers were canvasing the rest of the home to try and see if they could find Heidi now while some officers were walking through the driveway of the home and passing Megan's car they were stopped in their tracks by a pungent smell of what they knew to be a decaying body the police requested a search warrant for Megan's vehicle and once that was obtained they opened the trunk and inside of the trunk was a duffel bag and inside of the duffel bag was Heidi's body it was clear to police almost immediately that Heidi had been strangled to death the medical examiner did confirm this by concluding that the cause of death was strangulation and it is believed that Heidi was strangled with some sort of leash or rope as well as hands so she was strangled with both now Megan was immediately arrested that day and she was charged with two counts of kidnapping and one count of tampering with a corpse now on February 22nd 2023 which was just last year Megan plad guilty to First deegree murder and she was sentenced to 55 years in prison now this sentence if you think that it is a little too short why didn't she get life in prison this sentence was the result of a plea deal Megan basically just took a deal to get a lesser sentence now Megan herself has never publicly talked about this case she's never talked about what her motive was or why she did what she did she's never been public with the details surrounding this case however police have their own set of theories as well as the public as well the public has their own set of theories the police believe that Megan kidnapped Heidi's baby in order to continue having Chris as her boyfriend it's believed that she kidnapped the baby and murdered Heidi in order to keep chis whether this was because Megan simply wanted to become a mother and felt like this was the only way that she could do it or if this is because she felt like having a baby would keep Chris around that is what is believed to be the motive however Heidi's friends believe that from the very beginning Megan had a certain possessiveness and obsessiveness about Heidi whether that's she wanted to be Heidi or wanted the life that Heidi had there was something in Megan that always sought out Heidi and this goes all the way back to church camp and when you think about it going back that many years the eeriness that comes about from thinking that Megan could have been plotting and planning for God knows how long to do this to Heidi police believe that when Megan went down to see Heidi give birth to her daughter that is when she initially began planning the murder of Heidi however others believe that this has been in the works for much longer than that because as we we know Megan was never pregnant Megan was never pregnant so for those 9 months of pretending to be pregnant with Heidi she knew that at some point she was going to have to have some sort of baby to prove that she was in fact pregnant to prove that she was having a baby she wasn't lying she was going to be a mother so she knew she needed to produce for the lack of a better word some baby she needed to show up with a baby she needed to show everyone that she did have a daughter and in her mind she felt like the only way to do that was to go after the one woman who had been there for her all of her life the one woman who stood up for her the one woman who defended her the one woman who wanted her to feel included and loved and supported that is the woman that Megan went after I'm very interested to hear what you guys have to say about this one and with that being said you guys that is all for me today thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of killer Instinct again if you're new here hi my name is Savannah and I am your host of Killer Instinct again make sure you go ahead and hit the Subscribe button that way you never miss an episode WE Post weekly on the podcast every single Wednesday and you're not going to want to miss it I'll be back next week with a brand new one for you guys and until then stay safe bye guys [Music] [Music]