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Murder & Mediumship is true crime meets intuition. Host & Psychic Medium, Kathryn, turns over missing people and murder cases as most true crime podcasts do - but then connects as a psychic medium to the events as well as the spirit world to dissect the evidence & to discover the unknown.
On December 31, 2019 at 8:38 p.m Minneapolis police responded to reports of gunfire in the 1300 block of Russell Avenue North in the William Hay neighborhood of North Minneapolis. Once they arrived to the alley, they found 28-year-old, Monique Baugh with her hands tied behind her back. She was suffering from three gunshot wounds, two to the chest, one to the head, barely clinging to life. She was rushed to North Memorial Medical Center.
I’m your host Kathryn and you’re listening to Murder & Mediumship. Before we get into today’s episode, I’d like to apologize to any listeners who had the incredible misfortune of hearing my unedited, uncut version of last week’s episode on Dante Barksdale. I was absolutely not feeling well and for anyone who listened to any amount of my coughing that was not in the final version, but somehow in my exhaustion and not feeling great state-of-mind - I uploaded the wrong episode and I’m not sure how as I thought I double checked, but anyway if you heard it - I’m so sorry. If you please for the love of God stopped listening, the right version is up and ready for your ears. If you began to listen to it on iTunes, then you have to “x” out of the app entirely and start it over. I would say that I’m embarrassed, but frankly, I don’t really care - we’re all only human, right? Speaking of being only human - my Intuitive Development course has launched yet again. I always say I’m not doing another and then about fifty of you ask and I pop it up again. So - still on a sliding scale basis - Intuitive Development 101 for the super basic beginner, ground level intuitive development - class starts March 7th at 8:30pm EST. The course runs for 6 weeks and we meet via Zoom for 45 min - an hour each week. If you can’t make it to the live version, then no worries - the recording is always sent out within 48 hours of class. These are always so much fun, super informal, and we are guaranteed to laugh together - I can promise you that. If you’re looking to dive into your intuition, now is the time. PS - I thought this was super well understood - but I do private readings - I’ve had a number of people ask me about this lately and absolutely yes. So go to www.KathrynAnnIntuitive.com and book a reading or sign up for the Intuitive Development course. Enough of this stuff though - onto the episode! Get out a notepad for this one or a bulletin board, multiple colors of string, and some thumb tacks, because this one is nuts - absolutely the stuff movies could be written about.
Monique Baugh was rushed to North Memorial Medical Center, but unfortunately she passed not long after arriving at the hospital. What police didn’t yet know was that just hours earlier, her boyfriend, up and coming rapper, John Mitchell-Momoh, had been sitting on the steps inside his home on Humboldt Avenue North - his 3-year-old hanging out on the couch and his 1-year-old asleep upstairs in their crib, when the front door unlocked and an unknown man in a black mask with one hole for the eyes entered and began shooting at Momoh. He was struck multiple times and fled upstairs to his 1-year-old’s room and shouted down the stairs to his attacker, “I am dead already! My babies are here!” The shooter left. I can’t believe he didn’t go up to “finish the job,” so-to-speak, but he actually left. Fortunately, the children were not physically harmed at all. Momoh called police around 5:30pm., and when they arrived, they found him with multiple gunshot wounds to his torso, covered in blood, and his two daughters sitting with him on the floor. Monique’s mom, Wanda Williams, was called to be with the kids while Momoh was taken to the hospital, where he made a full recovery.
When Monique’s mother arrived she noticed that the key the attacker had used to get into the house and had been left behind was actually Monique’s key. I can’t even begin to imagine the panic and confusion that must have been consuming Monique’s family while all of this unfolded. So what happened? For that, we have to go back a few days…
On December 29, 2019, Monique received a voicemail from a woman who called herself, Lisa Pawloski, requesting to see a house that was for sale - 830 Niagara Lane in the Maple Grove neighborhood - an area with relatively low crime rates, nice houses, and hard working citizens. Monique was a realtor with the Kris Lindahl Real Estate Team, and am ambitious and driven one. This was a little peculiar to Monique, as usually the agents with her team received their assignments from the office, not through calls to their personal numbers. “Lisa Pawloski” called Monique numerous times though and Monique agreed to show her the house in the Maple Grove Neighborhood on December 30th. She had mentioned to her boyfriend and a few other people how she had thought that it was strange to be reached out to directly. However, that next day a little bit after 11:00 a.m., Monique arrived at the house in Maple Grove with her co-realtor. At 11:19 a.m., Monique received a phone call from “Lisa’s” number again and Lisa inquired as to whether or not the house had a gas stove or was it electric, and then never showed up to the appointment.
On December 31st, Monique went back to the house on Maple Grove in an attempt to show the house to this mystery woman again. This time, Monique was alone. She drove over to the house in Maple Grove in her black BMW and pulled into the driveway around 3p.m. Monique got out of her car, used her realtor code to access the key to the house in the lock box, and entered the home. Thanks to a neighbor’s security camera footage, authorities could see that only moments later, a U-Haul Truck drove past the house and an unidentifiable male (the footage wasn’t super clear) walked from the direction of where the U-Haul had been headed, to the front door of the house that Monique was preparing to show. A few more minutes went by and then the U-Haul came back and parked next to Monique’s BMW. The garage door then opened and the man who had been seen walking in the front door, was seen walking out of the garage, getting into the U-Haul and he then backed out, and backed into the driveway so that the back of the truck opened up to the garage. He walked back into the house, and moments later came out closely holding a third person, seemingly with force, and those two got into the cargo section of the truck while the third person got into the driver’s side and drove away. All of this took place within less than twenty minutes.
These unidentified men then took Monique’s key and drove to her home on Humboldt Avenue North. Once there, one of the men took her key, opened the door and opened fire on Momoh. At the time, Monique was bound with tape in the back of the U-Haul. The U-Haul truck with Arizona license plates had been spotted at both the Maple Grove house as well as near Monique & Momoh’s house. Not only that, but the shell casings found near Monique’s body were the same as the ones found in their home where Momoh had been shot. Multiple witnesses in the Maple Grove area told authorities that they had seen an older model tan-colored Buick drive down the alley and then minutes later heard gunshots.
I imagine that during all of this, while Momoh was being taken to the hospital and no one could get a hold of Monique, they must have been absolutely terrified. Initially, police suspected that Monique was killed and Momoh had been shot because of a drug rivalry. While in the hospital recovering, Momoh told detectives that he believed that an old friend of his could have been behind this because of Momoh’s recent new recording contract. Of course, Monique’s BMW was found at the house in Maple Grove - where it was presumed she had been showing the house to prospective buyers. Inside the residence, one pink press-on nail was found.
Police had plenty of leads to go on - a bitter rap rival, potential drug rivalry, and a U-Haul with Arizona plates. Law enforcement was able to trace the U-Haul back to a small business in the neighboring area of Mounds View, MN. When they arrived at the location, the truck was sitting on the lot, unlocked with the cargo door open, absolutely reeking of ammonia. That wasn’t the only thing that was off about the cargo area though - they also found zip-ties and four more pink press-on nails matching the one they found in the house in Maple Grove, where Monique had last been seen. This investigation seemed to just slide together piece by piece. The owner of the business was thankfully very cooperative. He told the detectives that he had not touched the moving van except to open the cargo door to air it out because of how strong the smell of ammonia was coming from it. He also handed over a few more ties that he had found in the cargo area as well as the rental agreement that had the signatures of two new witnesses on it. When questioned, they pointed detectives to 41-year-old drug dealer and friend of theirs, Cedric Berry. Berry had asked one of them to rent the truck for him because he was moving to the Maple Grove neighborhood. In exchange for their trouble, Berry gave them a small amount of heroin. Fair trade, yeah? This is where it gets kind of crazy kind of quickly.
Police obtained an arrest warrant for Cedric Berry as well as a warrant to search his vehicle - a tan 2002 Buick, registered to his wife, Shante Davis. In his vehicle, they found two walkie-talkies, a black ski mask with one hole for the eyes, 13 baggies of heroin, and duct tape. Berry was arrested on January 2, 2020 around midnight and charged with second degree murder in the shooting death of Monique Baugh and the attempted murder of John Mitchell Momoh. Momoh maintained that he didn’t know Berry at all - while police believed this was a drug dealer rivalry. I’m not sure what to make of this, as Momoh really didn’t have any substantial charges. He had a marijuana charge that was later dropped, and a possession of heroin charge that wasn’t with an intent to distribute or anything like that - so??? Momoh was certainly the main target here, but why? He theorized that it was because of his falling out with the former friend of his around the record deal, or because people believed he was a “police cooperator.” Detectives had also received a tip that there had been a paid hit taken out on Momoh. Again - over what? Drugs? Rap? Both? Something entirely different? Could it have even been simply because Momoh had been on Instagram flashing wads of hundred dollar bills talking about how much money he had?
Berry’s bail was set at $2 million dollars because of his extensive “rap sheet” that went back twenty plus years. In 2002, he was convicted of manslaughter, had multiple narcotics convictions, and various other convictions resulting from assault, robbery, firearms use and possessions, and intoxicated driving. My assumption is that he not only needed someone to rent the Uhaul for him to keep his identity quiet, but also to actually get the Uhaul with his record. I don’t know that they would have approved his rental. I could also be sincerely naive to think anyone checks that stuff.
His accomplice? The other man seen getting in and out of the U-Haul and torturing/killing Monique was Berry Davis. Yes - Cedric Berry and Berry Davis. They were brothers-in-law as well. Davis fled town when shit hit the fan. He wasn’t taken into custody until May 2020 in Cook County, Chicago. Davis was charged with kidnapping and murder for Baugh’s death as well as attempted murder for shooting Momoh. According to the Order of Detention issued for Cedric Berry, between 12/29/2019 and 1/1/2020, Davis and Berry’s phones were in multiple areas pertinent to the investigation. Around 8:50 p.m. on 12/29 Berry took the U-Haul and cell phone records showed frequent contact between Berry and Davis. Between the hours of 11:45 a.m. and 8:35 p.m., there was zero cell phone communication between the two after days of constant contact back and forth. To prosecutors, this meant that they must have been together - and the walkie talkies found in Berry’s vehicle may have made that easier to achieve as well. Almost as soon as the U-Haul was returned around 8:45 p.m. on the 31st, frequent contact via cell phone resumed.
Remember Lisa Pawolski? Well her real name is Elsa Segura - a former probation officer for Hennepin County, Minneapolis. She was brought into the police department and interviewed on January 14th, just two weeks after the death of Monique and attempted murder of her boyfriend, Momoh. According to the Criminal Complaint filed against her, the cell phone that made the calls to Monique’s personal cell phone was purchased by Cedric Berry. There’s video surveillance of him purchasing the phone. It appeared that she was the girlfriend of Lyndon Wiggins - and this is who Momoh thought must have put a hit out on him. Segura’s former police colleagues verified that it was her voice pretending to be Lisa Pawolski and setting up Monique. She readily admitted to making the call and that it was in fact her voice.
The FBI got involved in the case as of February 2020. By then a fourth person had been charged in the murder and attempted murders of Monique and Momoh. Shante Davis - get ready for a little confusion - Shante Davis - the wife of Cedric Berry and the sister of Berry Davis drove her husband, Cedric Berry, to take possession of the U-Haul. She also booked a hotel room for them during the orchestration of the murder plot. It was Berry Davis’s (her brother’s) DNA that was found on the gear shift of the U-Haul. It was determined that Shante knew or at least had reason to know that her husband, Cedric Berry, committed a criminal act and she provided false or misleading information about the crime.
The plot continues to thicken as yet more defendants are added to this lengthy list. A few articles that I read cited there could be eight or more people involved in the plot to take Momoh’s and Monique’s lives. Lyndon Wiggins - the probation officer’s boyfriend was the former friend that had “beef” with him over the recent record deal. Though, according to Segura, the conflict wasn’t over a record deal, but was over drugs.
Berry and Davis were tried together and both convicted of first degree premeditated murder and attempted second degree murder for trying to kill Momoh. Elsa Segura was convicted of aiding and abetting premeditated first degree murder, aiding and abetting a kidnapping, and aiding and abetting first degree murder while kidnapping. Lyndon Wiggins - I feel like the center of it all for his standing conflict over music labels or drugs, whatever it may be or maybe even both - was convicted of aiding and abetting premeditated first degree murder, kidnapping, and first degree murder while committing kidnapping. All four defendants received life sentences without the possibility of parole. Shante Davis had yet to be sentenced at the time of writing this episode, but was found guilty of aiding an offender by being an accomplice after the fact. According to ABC News 5, she had waived her right to a jury trial and was found guilty in a stipulated evidence trial of the only charge filed against her.
Berry and Davis both appealed separately to the Minnesota Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court upheld the District Court decision to join Berry’s and Davis’s cases together. At Segura’s sentencing, Monique’s mother, Wanda Williams, read a victim impact statement in which she told Segura that she could have been a hero and warned Monique that the showing was fake.
When Wiggins was originally charged in this case, he was already in federal custody for an unrelated incident. If you do a bit of googling on this monster, you’ll find that in November of 2022, there were arrests made in money laundering schemes being operated on his behalf. He was behind bars and this was going on. For as many violent crimes as Berry committed and was convicted of, he had been let off fairly easily in the past as well and you have to wonder if they had received harsher punishments under the letter of the law, would this have happened?
Minnesota court documents are incredibly easy to access, so I did a bit more digging than I had originally anticipated doing. What I found was that after Monique’s murder, her parents filed for joint custody of her daughters. Her mom, Wanda, firmly believed that Momoh’s lifestyle was the reason for Monique’s death. Since Monique’s death, Momoh had only seen his daughters one time for a brief visit and this file was dated for the end of February 2020 - nearly two months after Monique’s death. No one knew for sure where Momoh was at the time of this hearing, but Monique’s father stated he believed he was in Georgia recording.
I know that he isn’t on trial here and that he didn’t kill Monique. I hope that the little girls who are the ultimate victims of this horrific crime are able to find peace. Monique was deeply loved by so many people. The real estate agency she worked for, Kris Lindahl, created a goFund me at the time of her death to benefit her daughter, making her mother the beneficiary. The agency matched the first $10,000 in donations. Almost all local news reports were followed with comments by readers who were work acquaintances or knew her in high school and spoke of how bright Monique shined, how determined she was, and how great her love of her children was. Not long after her death, the world was gripped by the Covid-19 pandemic and so much news went unreported or underreported. While Monique’s death made national headlines at the time, it’s only now in 2023 that sentencing is being wrapped up for some involved in the plot that lead to her unnecessary and untimely death. Be careful of who you keep in your company and be mindful of your surroundings. Next Monday, February 27th will be another patreon exclusive live episode with q&a after. I can’t wait to see some of you there. Until next time, stay safe.