North Liberty woman charged with murder in Minnesota

According to police, the victim and the suspect were former partners

A North Liberty woman has been charged with first-degree murder after police found her ex-partner’s body in a crashed car in Minnesota over the weekend.

Margot Lewis, 32, was arrested Saturday in Olmsted County, Minnesota, after the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office was called to a car crash near the intersection of Interstate 90 and Highway 42 in Eyota, east of Rochester.

Bystanders who witnessed the crash and stopped to help told officers that a body was in the back seat of the gray Chevrolet Sonic that Lewis had been driving. The car was in the center barrier of I-90. According to a criminal complaint, investigators reconstructed the crash and determined that the car was traveling about 105 mph when it left the road.

Officers looked into the car and saw a body later identified as 35-year-old Liara Tsai. She was wrapped in bedding and a mattress and covered with a tarp. She had a stab wound to her neck and it was clear she had not died in the crash, the complaint says. Tsai and Lewis were former partners, the complaint says.

Investigators were able to identify Tsai because she was the registered owner of the car Lewis was driving. A dog that had been in the car was also at the scene of the accident, and the animal’s microchip indicated that Tsai was the owner.

The sheriff’s office contacted Minneapolis police and requested a search of Tsai’s Minneapolis studio apartment. Police found Tsai’s bed and bedding covered in blood. There was a bloody plastic and metal object in the bed, and there was also blood in the apartment’s bathroom.

Items that may have been taken from the trunk of the car, such as antifreeze and a small shovel, were on the table in the apartment, and a knife was missing from the chopping block in the kitchen. Police did not find the missing knife in the apartment, the complaint states.

Tsai’s former husband told investigators that Lewis and Tsai’s relationship was “sordid and emotionally challenging” and that Tsai had scheduled Lewis to visit between Friday, June 21, and Saturday, June 29, the indictment says.

A ticket found in the crashed car and airport surveillance footage indicated that Lewis had flown from Boston to Minneapolis on Friday, even though her address was listed as North Liberty in court documents.

Investigators also found surveillance video from the street outside Tsai’s apartment that shows Tsai’s car leaving the apartment at 4:37 a.m. Saturday, about two and a half hours before the crash. The driver seen in the footage is wearing the same clothing Lewis was wearing when she was picked up from the crash scene later that day, and Tsai’s dog is seen in the passenger seat.

Lewis was taken to the hospital and then to the sheriff’s office after the accident. She did not verbally respond to questions from officers or medical personnel, and investigators learned that “she has taken a vow of silence and prefers to communicate using sign language,” the complaint states. She was uncooperative as investigators attempted to collect evidence from her and became combative.

She was initially charged in Olmsted County with tampering with a corpse or crime scene. On Wednesday, two second-degree murder charges were filed against her in Hennepin County, where Minneapolis is located. The first charge is premeditated but not intentional murder, and the second is wanton murder in the commission of great bodily harm.

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

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