North Liberty woman arrested in Minnesota after body found in car

A North Liberty woman was arrested in Minnesota last weekend after a body was found in a vehicle she was driving.

Margot Lewis, 32, is charged with interference with a dead body or scene of death-conceal body, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

She is being held in the Olmsted County Jail on $1 million bail.

According to a criminal complaint, Lewis was driving a gray Chevrolet Sonic on Saturday morning when she crashed into the center median of Interstate 90 near its intersection with Minnesota Highway 42 near Rochester. No other cars were involved in the crash.

Deputies from the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office responded to the crash, where they found Lewis sitting on a folding chair in the median. The chair had been provided by another person who’d stopped when they saw the crash.

Bystanders told the deputies they believed a body was in Lewis’ vehicle.

The back seats of the car had been folded down, and deputies could see a body lying lengthways on the passenger side, with “the head of a human body that was wrapped in a bed sheet, a blanket, a futon-style mattress, and a tarp,” according to the complaint.

Investigators from the sheriff’s office, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Olmsted County Medical Examiner arrived and identified the body as the Sonic’s registered owner, Liara Tsai, 35, of Minneapolis, according to the complaint and a news release from the Sheriff’s Office.

There was a large wound on the right side of Tsai’s neck, around the carotid artery, the complaint states.

A preliminary autopsy performed Sunday determined that Tsai’s fatal injuries were not caused by the car crash but had been inflicted earlier. The initial cause of death is listed as multiple sharp force injuries, according to the complaint and the news release.

The sheriff’s office reached out to the Minneapolis Police Department later on Saturday to perform a wellness check at Tsai’s address in Minneapolis. A search warrant was executed at the residence that evening, and investigators found “a scene indicating violence,” according to the release.

Additional information about how Tsai died and whether additional charges will be filed has not been released.

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