At emotional hearing, accomplice in Minneapolis Realtor’s murder gets 20 years after life sentence overturned

Elsa Segura sat between her attorneys, still as a statue, as the courtroom exploded around her.

She had already pleaded guilty for her role in the kidnapping of Monique Baugh, the 28-year-old Minneapolis real estate agent who was brutally murdered on New Year’s Eve in 2019, but emotion had been percolating in Baugh’s family.

Segura, 32, had previously been sentenced to life in prison for her role in that killing. But the Minnesota Supreme Court overturned that decision in February, citing insufficient evidence to convict her of aiding and abetting first-degree premeditated murder, or premeditated attempted murder.

Her new trial was set to begin in October, but instead she pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of kidnapping to create great bodily harm and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

But before the plea hearing in Hennepin County District Court was over, Baugh’s family wanted Segura to feel their impossible pain.

Baugh was a mother to two little girls. Her mother, Wanda Williams Baugh, stood in front of Judge Mark Kappelhoff and explained how her granddaughters are living without their mom.

“This past Sunday, Monique’s youngest daughter, Legacy, lost her second front tooth,” Williams Baugh said. “I carefully placed her tooth under her pillow but she said she needed to put her mother’s picture under her pillow first. Legacy said she wanted the tooth fairy to see her mommy.”

For the first time since Baugh was murdered, Segura admitted to her role in the killing. Her lawyer, Sara Halimah, read the statement of facts into the official record and Segura explained how she knowingly set a plan into motion that would lead to Baugh’s kidnapping.

Segura’s boyfriend, Lyndon Wiggins, was in a business dispute with Jon Mitchell-Momoh, the father of Baugh’s children, over a record label contract.

Wiggins orchestrated a plan to kidnap Baugh to find out where Mitchell-Momoh lived. Segura used a “burner” cellphone and alias to call Baugh several times to create a fake real estate showing in Maple Grove. When Baugh got there, she was thrown into the back of a U-Haul truck. Wiggins also enlisted Cedric Berry and Berry Davis in the plan.

When Berry and Davis brought a duct tape-bound Baugh to her Minneapolis home, Mitchell-Momoh was there with their daughters. Baugh and Mitchell-Momoh were shot, but he survived. Baugh’s body was dumped in an alleyway.

Wiggins, Berry and Davis were all convicted and are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole.

In 2021 a Hennepin County jury convicted Segura on all aiding and abetting counts of premeditated first-degree murder, attempted premeditated first-degree murder, kidnapping and first-degree felony murder while committing kidnapping. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Segura appealed that verdict, arguing that the state failed to prove that she knew of the kidnapping-murder plot or that she intended to aid those crimes. The Supreme Court agreed.

Her guilty plea to kidnapping included an upward durational departure from Minnesota sentencing guidelines based on two aggravating factors — that Baugh was treated with particular cruelty and three or more defendants were involved in the crime.

On Tuesday, Baugh’s mother told Kappelhoff the life sentence Segura had been given was the only sentence that felt like justice to her, but she asked him to impose the strictest sentence he could in this case.

“She made an appointment for my daughter to come face to face with the purest form of evil,” Williams Baugh said. “As Monique’s mother I have an extremely hard time to divert my thoughts from what happened to Monique in that U-Haul.”

After the victim impact statement, a tribute video for Baugh played in the courtroom. It was soundtracked by the Beyonce song “I Was Here.”

It showed photos of her as a little girl standing in front of birthday balloons, around the tree at Christmas and cuddling on the couch with her family. It showed her growing into a teenager, paddling on a lake, hanging with friends. It showed her becoming a woman and a mother. An ultrasound photo. A picture at the hospital of Baugh holding her daughter. Her little girls growing, wearing matching dresses with their mom, sharing a kiss. It showed a video the family had taken honoring her life, releasing lanterns into the sky and saying, “We love you, mommy.”

Segura barely moved as the video played, but her eyes occasionally darted, taking little glances at the screen.

As the music swelled, Lucille Baugh, Monique’s aunt, stood and rushed to the front of the courtroom.

“Do you understand what you did?” She asked the question a dozen times as sheriff’s deputies held her back. “I don’t think she understands,” Lucille Baugh wailed as other family members bent over in anguish.

The video ended. Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Paige Starkey told Kappelhoff, “I don’t know how they have kept it together this long, how they have shown the grace and dignity that they have shown every step of the way for five years.”

Baugh’s family and prosecutors pointed out Segura had shown no emotion throughout the trial. That she had been chatty and chummy during the Supreme Court appeal.

“I understand the frustration of feeling like this defendant is getting off really easy,” Starkey said. “Feeling like she hasn’t ever taken accountability for what she really did, and I feel the same way.”

With that, Starkey paused briefly to cry.

Before sentencing, Kappelhoff asked Segura if she had anything she wanted to say to the court.

Segura, seated in an orange jumpsuit, wearing black-rimmed glasses with her hair pulled tight into a ponytail, turned to her lawyer, and shook her head no.

Kappelhoff read the sentencing order. With credit for time served and good behavior under Minnesota sentencing guidelines, Segura could be out in 10 years.

Staff writer Kim Hyatt contributed to this story.