They had been friends since they were 11 years old, but behind that friendship Magen Fieramusca was hiding a chilling secret, investigators say. Fieramusca had fabricated her entire pregnancy before killing her friend Heidi Broussard and taking her baby in an attempt to raise the infant as her own.
According to FBI behavioral analysts, Fieramusca was driven by a desperate and pathological compulsion to have a baby, known as 'maternal desire.' Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Sanjay Adhia explained that some women fabricate pregnancies because they feel 'insecure in a relationship and their hope is that if they have a child, their relationship will be secure.'
Fieramusca's ex-boyfriend Christopher Green told authorities she had told him she was pregnant with his child right around the time he ended their relationship in March 2019. Though they separated, she continued living in his home during her so-called pregnancy.
Experts say that Fieramusca may have developed a deeply distorted fixation on becoming a mother, idealized in American society. Dr. Ann Burgess, who played a key role in developing the FBI's criminal profiling methods, said the killing and baby snatching was 'highly unusual' given the depth of the friendship involved.
Fieramusca's possessive behavior at the hospital, like asking to hold the baby when Margo's grandfather met her for the first time, suggested what Dr. Gary Brucato called 'pathological envy.' 'If there's a pathological envy, it explains why it had to be this person whose baby you took,' he said.
