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What is going on, true crime fans? I'm your host Heath. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody, hope you're having a good end of your week. She just sang that intro, hello everybody. Hello everybody.
I can keep going if you want. This story today was recommended by Christina. Thank you very much, Christina. This story is truly devastating. It should have never happened, especially because the woman that we're going to talk about today, Monique, the woman that the story is about, fought so hard so that this didn't happen to her. Yeah, she was trying to protect herself, protect her family.
It's just incredibly tragic all around. It really is. So thank you so much, Christina, for showing this story to us. And as we always say, if anybody else has a story that they want heard on the show, the best and only real way to do that is to email it to us. That's how we will see it. But we do have...
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In December of 2019, a 28-year-old realtor headed to an appointment with a prospective client and vanished. When her body was found in an alleyway, police uncovered the details of her grisly kidnapping and worked hard to put her killers behind bars.
With the help of surveillance footage and the knowledge of a threat being put on her family, police narrowed in on multiple people for the crime. This is the story of Monique Bowe. Monique Latrice Leanna Bowe was born on October 17th, 1991 in Minneapolis, Minnesota as the only child of Wanda and Frank Bowe.
Monique's uncle, so her mom's brother, later remembered, quote, quote,
A family friend on her dad's side echoed, quote,
After graduating from high school, Monique settled into a career in real estate and began selling properties for the prestigious Chris Lindahl Real Estate Group, encompassing St. Paul, Minneapolis and their suburbs. And she and her long-term boyfriend, John Mitchell Momaw, known professionally as Momaw, settled into a home in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, which is a suburb about 30 minutes north of downtown Minneapolis.
So things in life were awesome. And Monique and John also had two daughters together, who in 2019, when this story takes place, were the ages of one and three years old. And Monique's life totally revolved around them. I mean, they were her world. Friends online described her as, quote, one of the kindest moms who loved her girls fiercely.
Monique's mom, Wanda, added, quote, she was a young, kind, loving, beautiful mother and had a blossoming real estate career. Her daughters were her world.
But as happy as Monique's home life was, the couple had faced some trepidation recently in the form of what Monique actually viewed as a safety threat against her and her daughters. Her boyfriend John was an up-and-coming rapper who had found moderate success even collaborating on songs with well-known artists like Nipsey Hussle and Rick Ross.
John's friend, Lyndon Wiggin, signed John to his music label, which John then left in 2019. And although John claimed that Lyndon was simply bitter at his decision to depart his recording label for bigger things, Lyndon actually accused John of stealing music from him.
Sources say Lyndon also referred to John as a snitch after he was arrested for dealing drugs in October of 2019. So there are a lot of troubles between them, especially on Lyndon's side, because he openly stated that he believed that John worked with police to assist in his arrest.
So their exchange became so heated that it really scared Monique. And fearing Lyndon's retaliation, she decided to separate temporarily from John until this feud blew over. So nothing would happen to their daughters if things were to escalate to such a degree.
Feeling a responsibility to maintain a safe home life for her daughters, of course, Monique moved with them out of their home in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, and into a North Minneapolis townhouse that was owned by her mom, Wanda. This was just a temporary agreement, and the family still spent plenty of time together, but Lyndon was a pretty threatening presence in their lives, and Monique didn't want to take any chances where her young daughters were concerned.
On December 29th, 2019, 28-year-old Monique received a call from a woman who identified herself as Lisa and asked for a house showing in the area for the following day. When Monique didn't immediately respond, given that it was the holiday season, she received several more phone calls from this Lisa person.
Monique told a coworker that she found this very odd, as this caller was particularly persistent, and she had also inexplicably obtained Monique's personal phone number instead of calling her office, which was even more unusual. But despite the strange circumstances, Monique made plans to meet with this client at the house that the client requested to see in the Maple Grove neighborhood of northwest Minneapolis.
So Monique arrived at the home around 3pm and went inside this beautiful home. And we will post photos of the street because it's really a gorgeous neighborhood with lots of trees and it's just a stone's throw from multiple lakes, but just so you guys have a visual. Yeah, and the Maple Grove area is like really nice to begin with for sure, so yeah, Monique arrives to this great neighborhood ready to sell a house to this alleged woman named Lisa.
And a short while after she gets there, as seen in surveillance footage captured by a neighbor, a U-Haul truck arrived at this home, backing up closely to the garage. Which is obviously really strange because this is a house showing like nobody's moving in this day. So why is there a U-Haul truck there? Yeah, super suspicious.
So across town around 5:30 p.m., police received a call from a man who claimed that his home had been broken into and that he had been shot. And this man who made this call was Monique's partner, John. Police arrived at a home on Humboldt Avenue on the city's north side to find John nursing gunshot wounds to his arm, leg, and torso, one of which had narrowly missed his heart.
John explained that a gunman, clad in a black ski mask, had entered his home using a key to unlock the front door. Now, John had been home with the couple's two young daughters and recalled that the intruder burst in and began shooting towards John over the head of his three-year-old daughter, who was asleep on the living room couch.
John remembered screaming, quote, "You got me! I'm dead! I'm dead!" and "My babies are here!" But luckily, he and his daughters fled upstairs, where he was able to call 911. The floor was littered with silver bullet casings from a .45 caliber gun, and strangely, the key used by the intruder to enter their home was determined to belong to Monique. So where was she?
An hour later, police were again summoned after a report of gunshots. 911 had been called after shots rang out in an alley behind Russell Avenue North, which is like 11 minutes south of where John had been shot. When the police reported to the scene, they found Monique Bao unconscious on the asphalt ground of the dark alleyway.
She had been shot twice in the torso and once in the face, and duct tape constrained one of her wrists. She had suffered multiple scratches and bruises, she had a chipped tooth, and many of her acrylic fingernails had been ripped off. And more shell casings matching the bullets from the home invasion were scattered nearby. Again, this was from a .45 caliber gun.
She was rushed to North Memorial Medical Center, but sadly, she died shortly after her arrival, just hours before the new year of 2020.
Witnesses placed an older model tan-colored Buick in the area of Monique's discovery. And tracing her whereabouts back to her last known location, police pulled the surveillance footage from area homes and were able to see the U-Haul truck with Arizona plates that pulled up shortly after Monique's arrival to the house.
Neighbors of Monique's in the vicinity of the townhouse in which John was shot also reported having seen a U-Haul truck with Arizona plates that evening. So there's clearly a connection there. And police also recovered Monique's black BMW with a single pink acrylic fingernail inside, indicating that she may have attempted to flee in her own vehicle, only to be dragged away by the men in the U-Haul truck.
Based on the security camera footage from the Maple Grove house showing that afternoon, two men ushered Monique into the back of the U-Haul truck at 3.18 p.m., so an hour and a half before sunset.
And also like only 15 minutes after she got to the house. And then the truck arrived at her home at 5.16 p.m. So 45 minutes after dark and about two hours after the truck left the house showing. So what was going on for those two hours in this truck? I mean, we could only imagine. Yeah, probably some very horrifying things.
and terrifying things. Just so awful. So investigators believe that whoever had abducted her had been attempting to get her family all along, but that Monique was holding off on telling them where they were located in order to keep her boyfriend and daughters safe.
terrifyingly, the U-Haul could be seen circling the block of Monique's townhouse for 30 minutes before the intruder barged in. And basically, the key to the identity of the men who likely shot both John and Monique seemed to be concealed in this U-Haul truck.
But using the license plate, police were able to trace it back to a rental car company and they waited impatiently for it to be returned because they knew once, you know, I mean, it was just a rental. So whoever is bringing it back, like these are the people responsible, or at least they know the people who are responsible. Right. Yeah. And it's great that they were able to get that surveillance footage so quickly because they
It's possible that maybe if they did return the truck, it would be a lot harder to kind of track these guys down, you know? Yeah. I mean, if they didn't have that surveillance footage, they wouldn't know that a U-Haul was involved. Right. Exactly. Yeah. This changed everything. So it's amazing that they had this to utilize. Now, Minnesota state surveillance cameras also captured the U-Haul truck, which was particularly noticeable because it had a taillight out on the passenger side, but
fleeing the Willard Hay neighborhood of North Minneapolis, which is where Monique was found.
That same license plate was also captured leaving the area of Monique's home where John had been shot. So again, the fact that they have three different area cameras to show the same truck, they now know that there is a connection to all of this. Oh, absolutely. Which you could have guessed anyway, but now we've got the evidence. Right.
So when this truck was returned, investigators seized it immediately, fully forensically processing it in hopes of gleaning clues as to what happened in the missing hours of Monique's final day.
From inside the back of the truck, investigators recovered zip ties, packing tape, and more of Monique's pink acrylic fingernails. Like, I'm so glad they didn't clean all that up, but like, why didn't they? Yeah, it just seems like these guys want to get caught at this point. Especially because remnants of blood were also recovered, and law enforcement noted that the truck reeked of ammonia, as if someone had tried to clean up the crime scene. But not very well. Right.
So the assistant Hennepin County attorney who later posed to the jury what he believed happened to Monique on her terrifying final evening claimed that the forensic findings in the back of the truck were quote, "not pleasant" and that Monique had been quote, "bleeding significantly." Now based on the rental agreement, a woman who has never been named publicly had signed and paid for the truck.
When police tracked her down for questioning, she maintained that she had no idea what its purpose had been, and that she had rented it as a favor for her drug dealer, a man named Cedric Barry. And get this: Cedric had apparently been another rival of John's, aligning himself with John's former business associate, Lyndon Wiggins.
As investigators zeroed in on Cedric, they spoke to John about who he believed would have been capable of such a heinous act.
and John told detectives that he believed that he was being targeted by jealous individuals after flaunting his affluence and success on social media. He had also been accused of assisting the police in taking down local drug dealers, many of whom were in the orbit of Cedric Berry and also, of course, Lyndon Wiggins, leading to Lyndon calling him a snitch.
And then of course there was also the business deal that had gone south for Lyndon when John chose not to renew his contract with Lyndon's recording label. But on top of all of this, John also accused Lyndon of having a crush on Monique, and even added that Lyndon was quote "the only person that he could see doing this." Cedric's DNA was run alongside DNA found on the gear shift of the U-Haul, and guess what? It was a fucking match.
His cell phone data also showed that he was in the vicinity of both Monique's home and the home in Maple Grove from which she was abducted. But who was the other man with him at the time? And how did Lyndon Wiggins factor into this crime?
With this information being uncovered, it's so sad that we know Monique was afraid of something like this happening and she wanted to keep her family and her daughters safe. So she went to go stay in her mom's townhouse and they still found the townhouse and attacked it anyway. Yeah, I mean, she was taking all these safety measures to keep herself and her family safe. And unfortunately, these guys were just relentless in their pursuit.
to find her and her family. And it's just, it's incredibly sad that they were able to do so. And even setting up this fake showing, like, it's just plain evil.
On Monday, January 6th, 2020, a week after Monique's brutal slaying, police tracked Cedric Berry to a Doubletree Hotel in the Blackstone neighborhood of West Minneapolis. And upon his arrest there, the Hennepin County attorney Mike Freeman announced, quote, I cannot begin to describe how vicious the behavior was in this case.
We have charged Mr. Berry with setting a trap for Miss Bao, assassinating her at close range, and shooting her boyfriend while in a house with two small children. We are seeking high bail and will do all in our power to prove him guilty.
After Cedric's arrest, police announced to the press that they had determined the identity of the second man involved in Monique's murder and John's shooting, but that he had not been arrested yet. What followed was an aggressive search for justice that would result in five total arrests.
So not to be confused with Cedric Berry. Got a lot of fucking berries in this story today. Cedric Berry and Barry Davis. Yes. Don't forget. Two separate people.
Now, so he, Barry Davis, was nowhere to be found still. And it took police four months before he was tracked down via a police tip in Chicago.
A motive was pretty difficult to ascertain for Barry Davis because all parties maintain their innocence, but the criminal complaint originally filed against Cedric Barry stated, "...investigators were aware that John MoMA had recently signed a contract to record rap music and had been flaunting his cash on social media."
Moma indicated that numerous individuals knew that he was involved with Monique Bowe, but did not believe that anyone who wanted to harm him knew where they lived. Suspected of being the ringleader who masterminded this operation, Lyndon Wiggins was also arrested in Minneapolis.
Thus began an intense legal battle for Monique's family to see justice against the five people responsible for her death. ♪
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In the wake of Monique's murder and John's injuries, Monique's mom, Wanda, attempted to transition her granddaughters into life without their mom as seamlessly as possible. But the family's grief was palpable.
Chris Lindahl Real Estate, which again is where Monique worked as an agent, actually started a GoFundMe for her daughters and donated $10,000 themselves and then raised nearly $40,000 to leave behind for her girls. On June 4th, 2021, so about a year and a half after she was murdered, the first trial, which would determine the sentencing of Cedric Berry and Berry Davis, began.
Now, Cedric's legal team argued that while he was a known drug dealer, what he was not was a murderer. In fact, they argued that because he was a drug dealer and intended to sell drugs on the day that Monique was killed, he had simply rented the U-Haul to transport a large amount of marijuana.
His lawyer, Jared Mollenkopf, maintained his client's innocence, saying, quote, However, the state of Minnesota, on behalf of Monique Bowe, claimed that his criminal history said otherwise.
So aside from being a convicted drug dealer, Cedric had an extensive history of legal infractions dating back 20 years. There were multiple narcotics convictions for the use, possession, and sale. He had served time for driving under the influence, assault, robbery, and illegal possession of a firearm. In 2002, he was even convicted of manslaughter after a shootout with a rival gang resulted in a fatality.
he was described as, quote, having a long and violent gang history as well. Like Cedric's legal team, Barry Davis's defense team painted that Barry had nothing to do with John's shooting or Monique's murder.
Barry's attorney, Robin Gordon, claimed, "...this case against Barry Davis is the edge piece of a jigsaw puzzle with not a lot filling out the middle. A theory is not enough to solve this terrible murder of Monique Bao, just like the edge pieces of a puzzle isn't the entire puzzle."
Both defense teams stated that they believed that the police were simply bowing to the public pressure to solve the murder, and that they didn't care if they put the correct person behind bars as long as somebody paid for the crime that had been committed. But the jury just wasn't buying it, so on Monday, July 12th, 2021, both Cedric Berry and Barry Davis were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Judge Peter Cahill even tacked on 20 years required to be served after their life sentences in case the law ever changed and the men stood a chance of being paroled. Judge Cahill stated flatly that he didn't want them ever getting out. Wanda was present at every turn of each of the trials, seeing that justice would be served for her slain daughter. In her victim impact statement, she said through tears that her daughter had, quote, "...faced pure evil that night."
Saying sadly, "I can only imagine what was being said to her, how many times she begged for her life. These defendants treated my daughter as if she was less than human." But more than anything, Wanda said that she ached for her granddaughters, who would grow up never knowing the mother who loved them endlessly. Wanda stated, "Monique loved being a mother. I tell her girls that often."
So, the next trial was for Elsa Segura, who was Lyndon Wiggins' girlfriend of three years at the time of the murder.
Now, Elsa was arrested in 2020 for aiding and abetting Monique's murder. But she was kind of a unique case because she didn't deny that the other three men, Cedric, Barry, and Lyndon, had anything to do with the murder. And to be honest, she didn't even deny her role in the murder. However, she claimed that she didn't know what she was signing up for and that her contribution would be used to take someone's life.
Elsa was the one who pretended to be the woman named Lisa, calling Monique and asking her for a house tour on New Year's Eve. According to the court proceedings, Lyndon had requested Elsa's help, asking her to call Monique directly and request a house tour for that specific day and for that exact property, even offering her a burner phone on which to do so.
So, Elsa obliged, but claimed that she hadn't known until later that her efforts would be used to murder Monique. However, subpoenaed cell phone records proved otherwise, because on the evening of December 31st, Elsa had reported to work for the evening and spent her time Google searching "local Hennepin County jail rosters" and researching how to mitigate stress and anxiety.
I wonder what that was for. And the following day, she looked up multiple articles detailing Monique's death. She and Lyndon exchanged multiple calls, and during one FaceTime call, Elsa saved a picture of Monique to her phone.
She also Google searched, quote, the sacrament of confession and, quote, legal immunity. Yeah, sounds like you knew what was going on to me. Yeah, I don't, you know, you're trying real hard to paint yourself as a person who didn't know what was going on, but, you know, we have evidence. So in the days leading up to her arrest, she continued to speak to her boyfriend on a daily basis, saving more pictures of Monique to her phone and reading more articles about this murder.
One of the most egregious details about Elsa's involvement is that she actually worked as a probation officer, as well as part-time at a juvenile supervision center for young offenders. So she should have been like a bastion of law and order, but she chose otherwise here. Her feigned ignorance and plea of innocence is maddening, given that the two couples, she and Lyndon and Monique and John, were very well known to each other.
The four had commonly mingled at both work and social events, even after Lyndon and John had their falling out. Elsa even followed John on Instagram. Elsa's defense argued that Elsa only did what she was told because she was psychologically and physically assaulted by her partner, Lyndon Wiggins, and that she made the call without knowing that it would lead to Monique's murder.
She claimed in her testimony that she believed that she was just helping him with his drug business.
But Judge Cahill argued, quote, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Elsa Segura. This family would never know this pain. And the law recognizes that as it should. It recognizes that making a crime possible, even if they're not willing to pull the trigger, assisting others and committing that crime is equally worthy of conviction and punishment.
Granted, your role was lesser, but the state is correct. It is still significant because you could have stopped this from happening. And so it is not unjust to receive the same penalty as your co-defendants. On Tuesday, November 9th, 2021, Elsa was handed a life sentence for aiding and abetting the premeditated first-degree murder of Monique Bao.
Though it was an emotional sentencing for Monique's loved ones, Elsa showed no emotion in her trial. In another tearful victim impact statement, Wanda read, quote, "'The defendant, she actually could have been a hero. She could have warned Monique. She could have warned her that the showing was fake. The defendant had a choice, and she chose to please her boyfriend by sticking to the plan.'"
Elsa's boyfriend, Lyndon Wiggins, was on trial next. He was well known to police already, identified as a quote, large-scale drug dealer. He went by the street name Lyndon Swarn and was also known by his rapper name, Black Bag L.A.,
In October of 2019, just two months before he organized the murder of Monique Bao, Lyndon was found to be in possession of more than a thousand imitation oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl, three guns, over 400 pounds of marijuana, and over $30,000 in cash.
Multiple properties of his were raided, including a farm that he owned in Michigan. But even in the wake of Monique's murder and these discoveries, Lyndon continued his criminal endeavors until July 21st, 2020, when he was apprehended for a final time on charges of aiding and abetting the murder of Monique Bowe.
After his final arrest, police recovered nearly 35,000 additional pills laced with fentanyl, another firearm, and over $20,000 in cash.
On June 2nd, 2022, Linden was also found guilty of aiding and abetting a homicide, which is a charge that carries a mandatory life sentence in Minnesota. Now, the final member of the five to be handed charges was Shantae Davis, who was Barry Davis's sister and Cedric Barry's wife.
So, according to the criminal complaint filed in her case, Shantae assisted her brother and husband by booking hotel rooms for them to hide out in after their crime spree. And she also drove her husband Cedric to pick up the U-Haul truck. The criminal complaint states that she had actually been present at the Doubletree Hotel when her husband Cedric was arrested.
Cell phone data placed her in her husband's close vicinity for much of the day on December 31, 2019. Shantae had even purchased the burner phone from which Elsa Segura made the call to request a home tour. In October of 2022, Shantae waived her right to a jury trial and was found guilty via stipulated evidence.
She received a prison sentence of 90 days, with credit for 10 days served, and was placed on probation for two years. But why she received such a light sentence is still somewhat of a mystery. Wanda is credited with her dogged pursuit of justice and relentless quest for closure for her daughter and granddaughters.
Her tearful testimony rocked the courtroom and was even fodder for multiple local news anchors, with one reporting, quote,
At the sentencing of Cedric Berry and Barry Davis, Wanda stated in her victim impact statement, quote,
She also reported that her oldest granddaughter, who was three at the time of Monique's murder, told Wanda that she wanted to die so that she could see her mommy, which is just incredibly heartbreaking. Monique's oldest also asked Wanda, quote, Wanda added, quote,
But Monique's murderers gave a tepid response to Wanda's desperate sobs, denying their obvious involvement to the very end. When asked if he wanted to address the court, Cedric Berry stated simply, quote, "I hate that you guys had to go through this, and I always pray that the truth comes out." Berry Davis gave a similarly weak final statement, saying, quote, "Justice wasn't served. They didn't prove that. Nothing to do with me with this shit."
But Judge Peter Cahill, who became known for speaking his mind and was not one to mince words, responded, quote, quote,
Frustratingly, John Mitchell Moma provided his own set of challenges to the court and almost got himself brought up on charges. His frequent outbursts came to a head when he exclaimed that he couldn't believe that taxpayer dollars were being used for this trial.
A frustrated Judge Cahill was forced to retort, quote, you're about three inches from a jail cell right now. But John explained in media interviews that he had been maligned as having been responsible for the death of his partner and the mother of his children and that he had become fed up with it.
He lamented, quote,
I think it's because I really do not want to be around their crowd. I believe this is all because of jealousy and envy. There are people out there that would rather see me dead than successful, even if that means killing the mother of my children. I knew Monique since I was 16. She was in her prime. We were just getting started. Frustratingly, in January of this year, so 2024, the court overturned Elsa's conviction.
The Minnesota Supreme Court announced that she was entitled to a new trial on the basis that prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence on two of the four charges against her.
The court announced that the evidence was sufficient enough to support charges of kidnapping and of aiding and abetting first-degree felony murder while committing bodily harm. However, the court argues that evidence was not strong enough to convict her on the basis of aiding and abetting first-degree premeditated attempted murder nor premeditated first-degree murder.
Sadly, this means the continuation of the nightmare for Monique's friends and family over four years later. The Minnesota Supreme Court continued, quote,
Nevertheless, we are duty-bound to ensure that a defendant in a criminal trial is not convicted based on insufficient evidence. Shocked and saddened by this, her cousin, Shirelle Sinkfield, spoke to the press on behalf of the family, saying, "...Monique's life cannot be released back to us. We cannot get her back. 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. I can speak confidently on behalf of my entire family: It does not get easier. Even though the time goes by, the years go by, it does not get easier. Because every moment we think about her, she's in our living rooms, on our walls, and we think about her day in and day out.
However, on a lighter note, Shirelle says that the whole family takes comfort in her daughter's growing into the spitting image of Monique. Shirelle said proudly, quote, When you look at her oldest daughter and you're like, wow, like you are Monique all over again. And it is like really hard because sometimes I just grab her and I just hug her because I'm like, I picture this just, you know, being Monique and hugging her. Music
Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. And on Tuesday, we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. What a horrific story, especially, again, because she...
She almost could sense, Monique could almost sense that something like this could happen. It was in the realm of possibility for her. And she made the steps to try to avoid it, and it happened anyway. And, you know, obviously, nothing against John,
you know, he was just getting away from this recording label, but it also sucks that she had to be swept into this, this whole crime, you know, like nothing to do with exactly. Yeah. She had nothing to do with any of this shit and she ended up dead. It's just such an awful story, but thank you guys so much for listening. Big thanks again to Christina for recommending it. And, uh, we'll see you guys next week. All right, guys. So for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger.
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And here's the best part. Your insurance may cover 100% of the cost of your medication. So go to TryLifeMD.com to have your eligibility checked right now. Get started today at TryLifeMD.com. That's T-R-Y-L-I-F-E-M-D dot com.
