3rd Co-Conspirator Convicted In Murder Of Monique Baugh, Who Was Kidnapping After Her Rapper Boyfriend's Record Deal Soured
Elsa Segura's conviction is the third for Hennepin County prosecutors in the apparent plot to kill local rapper Jon Mitchell-Momoh by first kidnapping his girlfriend, Monique Baugh.
A third person has been convicted in a botched plot to murder a Minneapolis-area rapper by luring his girlfriend to her death and using her key to his home to ambush and shoot the man.
Elsa Segura, 29, was found guilty of all charges for her role in the plot, which resulted in the murder of Monique Baugh, 28, on New Year's Eve in 2019. Segura was convicted of aiding and abetting premeditated first-degree murder for the death of Baugh and the shooting of Baugh's boyfriend, Jon Mitchell-Momoh, 29, and related kidnapping charges. She faces life in prison without the possibility of parole at her sentencing, which is set for Nov. 9.
Segura's convictions come after those of two men for the kidnapping and murder of Baugh and Mitchell-Momoh's shooting.
Cedric Berry and Berry Davis, both 42, were convicted in June of first-degree premeditated murder and kidnapping in the death of Baugh as well as second-degree attempted murder for the shooting of Mitchell-Momoh, who goes by the stage name Momoh. They were both sentenced in July to life without the possibility of parole in the murder of Baugh, 20 years for the shooting of Mitchell-Momoh and 158 and 161 months, respectively, for Baugh's kidnapping.
A fourth man who has been indicted in the plot, Lyndon Wiggins, 36, is reportedly in federal custody on narcotics charges but faces the same charges as Segura. Wiggins was reportedly Segura's love interest and a former business associate of Mitchell-Momoh, who had threatened the rapper prior to the murder and kidnapping.
According to testimony at Berry and Davis' trial, recounted by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Mitchell-Momoh had been signed to Wiggins' record label but exited in 2019, after which Wiggins threatened him. The rapper's family was so concerned that they moved out of their home, with Baugh and the couple's children staying in a North Minneapolis townhome owned by her mother, and Mitchell-Momoh staying at a separate location. This was where he was eventually ambushed by Berry.
Court documents filed in the Berry and Davis case in February indicate that police believed Wiggins had paid the men to murder Mitchell-Momoh over the soured record contract, according to the Associated Press.
According to charging documents in Segura's case, Berry purchased a phone for her to use to request a house showing from Baugh, who worked as a realtor, under an assumed name; though Baugh was concerned when the calls came into her personal cell phone, she met at the appointed home with another realtor on the morning of Dec. 30, during which Segura, using her assumed name, called her to inquire about the stove.
Prosecutors allege this was because Berry and Davis were attempting to determine if Baugh was alone at the house.
On the afternoon of Dec. 31, Baugh returned to the house. A neighbor's surveillance camera caught the moment she was abducted by two men and placed into a U-Haul van, which drove off around 3:17 p.m.
Testimony at the men's trial suggested that they tortured Baugh for several hours, including by ripping off her acrylic fingernails and likely striking her body, which was discovered with scratches, bruises she also had a chipped tooth. Baugh's mother claimed at sentencing that she likely held out because disclosing Mitchell-Momoh's location would have also potentially exposed their children to violence, according to the Star-Tribune.
Around 5:40 p.m. that day, Mitchell-Momoh called the police to report that he had been shot, according to charging documents. He told authorities that a masked man had entered the residence, using a key, and began shooting. Baugh's mother arrived to care for the couple's children after Mitchell-Momoh was transported to a hospital, at which point she expressed concern that her daughter was not there and noted that it was her daughter's key that the intruder had dropped upon entering the residence.
At approximately 6:38 p.m., a police gunshot monitoring system picked up three gunshot noises in an alleyway in North Minneapolis. Arriving at the scene, police found Baugh's body, with her wrists bound in duct tape. She had been shot twice in the torso and at close range in the face.