The fiancé of a Texas woman strangled and stuffed into a car trunk has got their baby girl back from Child Protective Services – despite allegations of his domestic violence against the mother.
Pictures exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com show three-week-old Margot Carey back in her father’s arms after a kidnapping ordeal that left her mother, 33-year-old Heidi Broussard, dead in her best friend’s car.
Margot was permanently returned to Heidi’s fiancé, Shane Carey, at his father Ty’s house near Austin on Monday night, after Houston CPS dropped its application to take temporary custody of the child.
Margot Carey, the three-week-old infant whose mother was strangled to death and stuffed in the trunk of a car, is seen above on Monday night after she was returned to the custody of her biological father, Shane Carey
Baby Margot was returned to Carey by Child Protective Services on Monday night after the department dropped its plans to apply for temporary custody of the three-week-old girl
Last week DailyMail.com revealed that Broussard repeatedly tried to leave Carey and accused him of physically assaulting her.
Her friend, Cliff Nolte, showed photos she sent him evidencing injuries she suffered after her fiancé allegedly attacked her in a row over her planning to split with him.
Bruises to her arms and legs can clearly be seen in the pictures which Broussard sent to her friend of 20 years Nolte, 37.
In the social media messages that accompanied the photos, Broussard said the bruises were due to Carey 'grabbing' her.
'Shane grabbed me really hard because I tried to stop him because he stole Zeus [their dog] last last [sic] cause I told him I couldn't stay,’ she wrote.
A horrified Nolte then replies: 'You need to call the cops on him Heidi. You can't keep letting this happen.'
Shane Carey (top), 33, the fiance of murdered mother-of-two Heidi Broussard (bottom), regained custody of his three-week-old daughter on Monday
Margot was found in good condition at the home of Broussard’s best friend. Her mother was found strangled to death in the trunk of the best friend’s car in the backyard on Thursday, December 19
Broussard's friend and alleged killer, Megan Rose Fieramusca, aka Maygen Humphrey, is being held in county jail on kidnapping and corpse tampering charges
No record of police call outs to Broussard's home could be found and Carey has no publicly recorded convictions.
Carey, 33, was met with immediate suspicion following Broussard’s disappearance last week.
The Austin resident was even accused on social media of killing his bride-to-be when her body was discovered in Houston, and was forced to publicly deny involvement in her disappearance.
The bereaved father, who friends say has been in shock since Broussard was found dead, was soon cleared by Austin Police of any links to her murder.
Heidi Broussard's body was found inside the trunk of a car at a home in Houston and inside police found her newborn daughter Margot alive
A friend of Heidi Broussard has revealed that the mother-of-two's relationship with her fiancé Shane Carey (pictured together) had been rocky in the past
In one interview with FOX7, alongside his father Ty, Carey addressed the suspicions and insisted that he hadn't done anything wrong.
'I try to ignore that, I don't know how to handle it. But I know it's a question. I just ignore it,' he said. 'I know it's not true. It's negative.'
Cops arrested Broussard's best friend, Magen Fieramusca, in connection with the death, and charged her last Friday with two counts of kidnapping and one count of tampering with a corpse.
Police say another unnamed individual was arrested in connection with the case. Nobody has been charged yet with Broussard’s murder.
The Austin mother's body was discovered last Thursday after a tip led police to Magen’s home in Houston. They also found Heidi's three-week-old daughter Margot alive and well inside the home.
Authorities say Fieramusca, who also goes by Megan Humphrey, pretended the baby was her own with the name 'Luna Mae'
She had been faking her own pregnancy throughout Heidi's, with the intention of stealing her baby once she'd given birth, cops say.
Broussard, 33, and three-week-old Margot Carey (pictured) vanished on the morning of December 12, when the mother dropped off her son Silas at his Austin elementary school
Carey, pictured, gave tearful TV interviews saying that he didn't believe Heidi would leave on her own accord. He denied any involvement in the disappearance of his daughter and fiancée
She kept up the act with everyone she knew, including lawyers who represented her against a year-old theft case.
Fieramusca, also 33, had set up a baby registry on Amazon with Christopher Green, who owns the house where the body and baby were found.
Police said they found Magen, a 33-year-old wedding planner who had known Heidi for over 20 years, in the Houston suburban home, she had the baby alive and well in a swing.
A mutual friend of the two women, Caressa Nolte, said that Megan had told her on the phone last week that she had been breastfeeding the baby.
'I talk to Magen every day. She's been like sick over this. She just had a baby and she's breastfeeding...' Nolte told the Justice 4 Jay podcast.
'Her name is Luna Mae.... she's 15 days old, 16 days old,' Nolte told the hosts.
They asked Nolte whether she had seen a photo of Luna, and she replied that she had not, but said she heard 'Luna Mae' on the phone whilst speaking with Fieramusca.
'I even told her she sounded sweet,' she told the podcast.
Tiffani Butler Department of Family and Protective Services told ABC13 Margot was ‘fine, happy and healthy’ after being recovered from Magen’s home in Houston.
The department said they took a DNA test of the girl to check her identity, which confirmed she was Heidi’s child.
‘We do ask for DNA to be tested to make sure that the people who are coming forward and saying that they're relatives are actually relatives,’ explained Butler.