Sartaj Singh
Helmed by Panta Mosleh, ‘Mommy’s Stolen Memories’ follows the story of a mother dealing with memory loss who discovers terrible secrets surrounding her forgotten past. Mallory leads a seemingly perfect life with her husband and young son, Billy, but struggles with strokes and loss of memory. When Billy begins acting up after talking to a woman who meets him at the local climbing gym, Mallory begins an investigation into her motives. The search leads her to old missing person cases and inadvertently reveals long-lost secrets of her own past. The Lifetime mystery thriller weaves an intriguing and twisted tale about deception and family, its darker themes leading to questions about its real-world inspirations.
Mommy’s Stolen Memories: A Fictional Tale of Kidnapping and Amnesia
‘Mommy’s Stolen Memories’ is written by Adam Minneci and is an original work of fiction that has no grounding in true crime. However, there is an array of unfortunate true cases of women abducting the babies of others, which may lead one to believe that the story of ‘Mommy’s Stolen Memories’ could have actually taken place. The phenomenon is apparently pervasive enough that the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s (NCMEC’s) have drawn up a profile of women who are likely to carry out infant abductions. There have reportedly been 334 baby abductions in the U.S. between 1964 and 2021. And most of these have been carried out by women who are unable to have children of their own and have certain physical and psychological traits. While the majority involve infants being stolen from hospital wards, there have been several cases of murder and brazen kidnapping.
One of the cases that caught national attention was that of Heidi Broussard’s murder at the hands of a friend, Magen Fieramusca, who had the intention of stealing her newborn baby. The two Austin women had known each other since teenage, and in 2013, Broussard had her first pregnancy. Fieramusca lived with her ex-boyfriend, and when Broussard shared news of her second pregnancy in 2019, Fieramusca lied about being pregnant herself. When her friend gave birth in November of the same year, Fieramusca’s behavior began arousing suspicion in the celebrating family. She acted erratically, staying with Broussard and the baby for longer than she was supposed to, and pretending to be pregnant with a pillow stuffed under her clothes.
A month later on December 12, Broussard and her infant daughter went missing. The mother of two was last seen hugging Fieramusca outside her apartment before leaving in a vehicle with her, leading Austin Police to investigate the suspicious friend. Shane Carey, Broussard’s fiancé, initially thought that something may have happened to both women. As more agencies became involved in the eight-day search, Fieramusca was tracked down to a Houston home, where she was found with the missing infant, while Broussard’s body was stuffed in a duffel bag in the trunk of her car. Fieramusca had asphyxiated Broussard by strangling her with a leash. Three years later, Fieramsuca was sentenced to 55 years in prison after a plea deal with the Travis County district attorney. The case became the subject of the Lifetime movie, ‘Stolen Baby: The Murder of Heidi Broussard.’
Lifetime Movies with Similar Themes to Mommy’s Stolen Memories
Lifetime has produced several films surrounding the strong bond between a mother and her child, with many sharing common story elements with ‘Mommy’s Stolen Memories.’ In the movie, ‘Taken Back: Finding Haley,’ a photographer is separated from her young daughter at the carnival. After years of looking for her, she becomes convinced that another couple has been raising her secretly. The narrative shares several similarities with ‘Mommy’s Stolen Memories,’ which has the addition of amnesia in the mother who is raising the kidnapped child, adding several layers of mystery for her to unravel. Other Lifetime films with such parallels include ‘Missing at 17’ and ‘Finding My Daughter.’ While ‘Mommy’s Stolen Memories’ may have similarities with other Lifetime films and actual events, it is an imaginative and original work.
Read More: Murder Below Deck: Is the Lifetime Movie Based on a True Story?
