Supreme Court reverses accomplice's conviction in kidnapping, killing of Mpls. real estate agent

A woman who received a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole for aiding the kidnapping and murder of a Minneapolis real estate agent is entitled to a new trial, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.

Elsa E. Segura's conviction was reversed and remanded back to Hennepin County District Court but she remains at the Shakopee women's prison. Segura, 31, a former Hennepin County probation officer, was charged in the deadly 2019 New Year's Day kidnapping of Monique Baugh, a 28-year-old mother of two young daughters.

A jury in 2021 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. Segura used a "burner" cellphone and alias to lure Baugh to a bogus home showing in Maple Grove. Two men kidnapped Baugh and tortured her for information on the whereabouts of her boyfriend, who had a previous falling-out with one of the suspects.

In a 42-page opinion written by Justice Gordon Moore, he said the basis for Segura's new trial hinged on insufficient evidence to convict her of aiding and abetting first-degree premeditated murder, or premeditated attempted murder. Moore also found erroneous jury instructions materially misstated the law and could have affected the verdict. Justices Paul Thissen and G. Barry Anderson wrote a separate eight-page opinion partly concurring and dissenting with Moore. Justice Karl Procaccini took no part in the decision because he was not on the court at the time the case was submitted.

In her appeal, Segura argued that the state failed to prove that she knew of the kidnapping-murder plot or that she intended to aid those crimes. "The central issue is what Segura knew when she scheduled the house showing with Baugh," Moore wrote.

Moore said that Segura took part in the plan at the direction of her boyfriend, Lyndon Wiggins, who also enlisted suspects Cedric Berry and Berry Davis. Like Segura, all men received life in prison without the possibility of parole.

There are reasonable possibilities, Moore wrote, that Segura believed "the end goal of Wiggins' plan was some crime less serious than the murder of Baugh" and the father of Baugh's children, Jon Mitchell-Momoh.

Baugh's boyfriend was in a business dispute with Wiggins over a record label contract. Evidence at Segura's trial also showed that Wiggins accused Mitchell-Momoh of snitching on his drug trafficking. When Berry and Davis brought a duct-tape-bound Baugh to her Minneapolis home, Mitchell-Momoh was there watching their daughters. Baugh and Mitchell-Momoh were shot, but he survived.

"We reach out decisions in this difficult case with full recognition of the grievous loss suffered by Baugh's family and the communities involved with this case, as well as the injuries inflicted on [Mitchell-Momoh]," Moore wrote.

District Judge Peter Cahill said at Segura's sentencing that her role was lesser but still significant "because you could have stopped this from happening." Baugh's mother, Wanda Williams Baugh, said Segura "could have been a hero."