Man charged with abduction, murder of realtor Monique Baugh
A man has been charged with the abduction and murder of 28-year-old Minneapolis realtor Monique Baugh, whose body was found in an alley on New Year's Eve.
Cedric Berry, 41, of Minneapolis, has been charged with 2nd-degree murder, 2nd-degree attempted murder and kidnapping over the death of the mother-of-two and the shooting of her boyfriend.
Baugh's body was found in an alley on the 1300 block of Russell Avenue North, with search warrants since revealing she had been lured to bogus house showing in Maple Grove, with Baugh being a realtor with Kris Lindahl Real Estate.
It was there she was abducted and taken away in a U-Haul truck, and was later found dead, having been tied up and shot multiple times.
Her boyfriend was shot on the same day, telling police a man wearing a black-colored mask entered their home on the 4800 block of Humboldt Avenue North at 5:40 p.m. and shot him multiple times in the torso, while his and Baugh's two children were in the house.
While no motive has been stated, police became aware that Baugh's boyfriend had recently signed a contract to record rap music "and had been flaunting his cash on social media."
Her boyfriend "indicated that numerous individuals knew that he was involved with [Baugh], but he did not believe that anyone who wanted to harm him knew where they lived."
How the shootings unfolded
Baugh's boyfriend was on the staircase when the shooter entered, with their three-year-old daughter on the couch and their 1-year-old sleeping upstairs. As the shooter opened fire, the boyfriend ran upstairs shouting "I am dead already, my babies are here."
The shooter had entered their home using Baugh's key, which prompted concern among her family given that she had not yet returned home from work.
About an hour later, three gunshots from Russell Avenue North registered on the police ShotSpotter system, with officers arriving to find Baugh's body.
She had been shot twice in the torso and once in the face at close range.
Police became aware that a U-Haul truck had been seen in the Humboldt and Russell Avenue areas around the time of the shootings, with Baugh's BMW later found at a for-sale house in Maple Grove, which Baugh had arrived at around 3 p.m.
Surveillance footage from a neighboring house showed a woman later identified as Baugh as being "closely, if not forcibly" held as she was walked to the U-Haul by two individuals.
Baugh was placed in the cargo section of the U-Haul with one of them, while the other drove.
Police traced the U-Haul truck to a rental facility in Mounds View, finding some of Baugh's press-on fingernails and some zip ties in the back, which also smelled strongly of ammonia.
The two people who rented the truck told police they had done so for a friend called Cedric Berry, who is known to police "for his violent and prolific criminal history."
Berry told them he needed the U-Haul because he was moving to Maple Grove, and paid the pair with a small amount of heroin to rent it for him.
Police arrested Berry at midnight Thursday, with police finding a Buick Regal that belongs to his wife – but which was seen near the Baugh household on Humboldt Avenue around the time of the second shooting.
They also found a black-colored mask and 13 baggies of suspected heroin in the car.
The criminal complaint does not state who the third individual seen at the Maple Grove house is.
Despite earlier search warrants suggesting the motive behind the shooting was because Baugh's boyfriend was a rival drug dealer to Berry, the criminal complaint makes no mention of this.
