A Minnesota man accused of orchestrating the kidnapping and murder of a real estate agent more than five years ago was found guilty by a jury for a second time, but wants a third retrial.
After a nearly month-long retrial, 40-year-old Lyndon Wiggins was found guilty of aiding and abetting first-degree premeditated murder, aiding and abetting first-degree premeditated attempted murder, aiding and abetting kidnapping, and aiding and abetting first-degree murder while committing kidnapping.
His conviction is tied to the murder of Monique Baugh, a 28-year-old real estate agent and mother of two who was abducted and fatally shot on New Year’s Eve 2019 as part of a retaliation plot against her boyfriend.
Prosecutors say Wiggins and three other people tricked Baugh into setting up a home showing in Maple Grove, Minnesota. When she arrived, two men bound her hands and neck with duct tape and forced her into the back of a U-Haul truck.
“After about 2 ½ hours, the men eventually drove to Baugh’s home in Minneapolis, where J.M.-M. [the victim’s boyfriend] was watching the couple’s two children, and shot J.M.-M. several times,” court documents cited by Law&Crime state. “Berry and Davis later shot Baugh in an alley in Minneapolis. J.M.-M. survived his injuries, but Baugh died from her gunshot wounds.”
Baugh’s boyfriend and local rapper Jon Mitchell-Momoh, who is identified as J.M.-M. in court documents, later told authorities that he didn’t know who was responsible for the shooting, but said that if anyone wanted to harm him, it would be Wiggins, CBS News reported.
Evidence gathered by state prosecutors revealed that Mitchell-Momoh and Wiggins were involved in a bitter conflict at a record label belonging to the rapper and that he had allegedly snitched on Wiggins for drug dealing, according to the Minnesota Star-Tribune.
Wiggins was originally convicted in 2022 and sentenced to life in prison for charges connected to Baugh’s murder. The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed his conviction after learning that the trial judge had given the jury erroneous legal instructions.
Wiggins’ retrial, which began Oct. 14, ended in another conviction.
Now, he’s gunning for a third trial.
Wiggins was expected to be sentenced to life in prison on Nov. 13 without the possibility of parole, but his defense attorney filed a motion for a new trial, which delayed his sentencing. A judge said he’d have to read through the new motion before making a decision.
“I just think this is her strategy, this is the way that she works, and when I say she, I’m talking about his defense attorney,” Baugh’s mother, Wanda Williams Baugh, said. “Because you wait until the day of sentencing, you send a 13-page motion to get a new trial right before sentencing? I mean, who does that? Who does that?”
Wiggins’ co-defendants, Elsa Segura, Cedric Berry, and Berry Davis, were also convicted in connection with the murder case.
Segura, a former probation officer, set the plot in motion when she called Baugh pretending to be a home buyer and lured her to the home for the fake showing.
Berry and Davis kidnapped Baugh and carried out the killing. They were sentenced to life in prison.
Segura, who is described in court documents as Wiggins’ girlfriend, was also originally sentenced to life in prison, but her conviction was overturned after the state supreme court determined that prosecutors failed to present enough evidence to support the convictions for two of the four charges she faced. The court discovered the jury was also given incorrect instructions during her trial.
Similarly to Wiggins, a new trial was ordered for Segura, but she pleaded guilty last year to kidnapping in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence.
Baugh’s family was furious with the plea deal and the fact that she evaded a life sentence.
“I am sickened to know that when Elsa gets out and she gets released, she will be young enough to still start a family of her own. Maybe get married. Buy another house. Spend all the holidays with her family,” Wanda Williams Baugh said last year. “All the wonderful opportunities that Monique no longer has,”
“She should feel that for the rest of her life. Her family should feel it for the rest of her life,” Lucille Baugh, the victim’s aunt, told KMSP. “Not one time … you apologize. Not once, but you can sit, and you can figure out how to get your time cut short. That’s not acceptable.”
