Family of Monique Baugh shares journey of hurt, healing after Supreme Court ruling
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - The family of a murder victim is speaking out, stunned after the state’s highest court overturned a conviction. The ruling reopened painful wounds for the loved ones of Monique Baugh.
"It was really shocking," Cherrell Sinkfield, Monique's cousin, told FOX 9. "That is the main word I can use."
Baugh was a local real estate agent and mother of two daughters, terrorized and killed more than four years ago.
In recent days, the Minnesota Supreme Court tossed out the convictions for Elsa Segura, one of the key players who was serving a life sentence in prison.
For the first time since the ruling, the Baugh family opened up about their journey of healing, and where they want the case to go from here.
Growing up without their mother, Baugh’s young children are still healing, attempting to fill the giant hole in their family with gravesite visits and birthday celebrations.
"When you look at her oldest daughter, and you're like, wow. Like you are Monique all over again," said Sinkfield. "And it is like really hard because sometimes, I just grab her and I just hug her because I am like, I picture this just, you know, being Monique and hugging her."
As part of their grieving process, the girls and Monique’s mother, Wanda Williams Baugh, dreamed up a children’s adventure book based on the purple pillow Monique used to lie on while reading to them, imagining a magical journey. The self-published book with colorful illustrations is titled, "Ruby & Onyx And The Magical Pillow Adventure". It is available for sale on Amazon.
"It is just not fair to not have her here with us. She was taken from us, she was stolen," Sinkfield told FOX 9’s Paul Blume during a recent interview in her home.
While Sinkfield and Baugh were cousins, Sinkfield explained, they were raised more as sisters. Their family jokingly nicknamed the pair Thelma and Louise.
More than four years later, Sinkfield’s heart remains shattered by the loss of someone so close and special.
"She just had this confidence and glow about her that you just wanted, like it was so infectious, like you just wanted to have whatever dose of Monique. Like what did you have, Monique? We want that," Sinkfield said.
Baugh was murdered on New Year’s Eve in 2019, after being kidnapped from a bogus home showing in Maple Grove and terrorized in the back of a U-Haul truck. Her killers then dumped her body in a north Minneapolis alley.
Four people were convicted on first-degree murder related charges as part of a conspiracy that ultimately targeted Monique’s boyfriend – Segura, Lyndon Wiggins, Cedric Berry and Berry Davis. The apparent motive was connected to a recording label dispute and allegations of snitching on a drug dealing operation.
Last week, the Supreme Court struck down Segura’s conviction, citing insufficient evidence and bad jury instructions. Segura, a former Hennepin County Probation Officer, who was dating Wiggins, the alleged plot mastermind, was serving a life sentence for luring Baugh to the scene of the eventual kidnapping by placing fake phone calls in which she expressed interest in touring the house for sale.
The case against Segura now starts over, Sinkfield insists the only option is a new trial with the same result, life, with no possibility of release.
"Because Monique's life cannot be released back to us. We cannot get her back," Sinkfield said. "So, why should anyone involved in such a horrific crime be eligible for any type of freedom? We don't have any freedom. Her kids don't have any freedom."
As another chapter unfolds in Baugh’s tragic story, loved ones are focusing on the magic she brought to their lives, trying to turn the page on the evil way she was ripped from them.
The family is targeting an even wider audience to share Monique’s spirit and light, and let the world know she is so much more than a headline and a statistic. They will appear in a new Hulu real-crime series called Me Hereafter that will debut for streaming at the end of February.
"I can speak confidently on behalf of my entire family, it does not get easier," Sinkfield said. "Even though the time goes by, the years go by, it does not get easier, because every moment, we think about her. She is in our living rooms, on our walls, and we think about her day in and day out."
Over the weekend, the Baugh family had their first meeting with prosecutors about the direction of the Segura case after the shocking ruling.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office can retry the now 32-year-old on a pair of original charges. The three other co-conspirators are serving life sentences.