Elsa Segura sentenced to 240 months for role in death of realtor

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office today reached a plea agreement with Elsa Segura over her part in the death of 28-year-old Minneapolis realtor Monique Baugh.

In court today, Segura pleaded guilty to kidnapping to commit great bodily harm/terrorize, and the judge sentenced her to 240 months (20 years) in prison. The agreement called for an upward departure from state sentencing guidelines based on the particular cruelty of the crime and the involvement of three or more perpetrators.

“Elsa Segura played a significant role in the murder of Monique Baugh and her 20-year prison sentence is one that we believe holds her accountable for her actions. Our hearts continue to be with Ms. Baugh’s family as they are undoubtedly still grieving her loss, knowing that nothing can bring her back,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty.

The full press conference is available here.

Over two days leading up to New Year’s Eve 2019, Segura called and texted Monique Baugh numerous times using a “burner phone” purchased by co-defendant, Cedric Berry. Segura posed as a potential client interested in a vacant home for sale in Maple Grove. On December 31, Ms. Baugh arrived at the home showing scheduled by Segura.

While there, two of Segura’s co-defendants, Cedric Berry and Berry Davis, kidnapped, bound with duct tape, and confined Ms. Baugh in the cargo area of a moving truck. Berry and Davis drove to Ms. Baugh’s home in Minneapolis, and one of them used Ms. Baugh’s housekey to enter the home and shoot Ms. Baugh’s boyfriend multiple times in the presence of the couple’s two young daughters, who were 3 and 1. Ms. Baugh’s boyfriend was seriously injured but survived and managed to call for help. About an hour later, Ms. Baugh was shot three times with the same gun and left in an alley in Minneapolis to die.

This Office charged five people in the case. In June 2021, a Hennepin County jury convicted Cedric Berry and Berry Davis of aiding and abetting premeditated first-degree murder, aiding and abetting attempted premeditated first-degree murder, aiding and abetting kidnapping, and aiding and abetting first-degree felony murder while committing kidnapping. A judge sentenced both Berry and Davis to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Shante Berry, Davis’s sister and Berry’s wife, received probation for aiding an offender.

In 2021, a jury convicted Segura and in 2022, her former romantic partner, Lyndon Akeem Wiggins, aka Lyndon Swarn, was also tried and convicted. Earlier this year, the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the convictions of Segura and Wiggins, sending the cases back to Hennepin County District Court for retrial.

Segura chose to enter a guilty plea in lieu of going to trial again, and the sentence today marks the end of her criminal case.

Wiggins is currently being held in the Hennepin County jail and faces retrial.

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