Liara Tsai, the 35-year-old Minneapolis woman whose body was discovered in a crashed car in Minnesota last weekend and whose ex-partner has been charged with her murder, was a well-known electronic music DJ who had only recently moved to the Twin Cities from Iowa City, a friend said Thursday.
“She was very inspirational, especially in the Iowa City community,” said Angelia Word, who previously performed with Tsai. “She was one of the only women and trans DJs that were DJing in Iowa, and I feel like people really looked up to that.”
This week, Margot Lewis, 32, of North Liberty, was charged in Minnesota with second-degree murder of Tsai. The two were former romantic partners, according to law enforcement.
Lewis was arrested in Olmsted County, Minnesota on Saturday, after the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office responded to a single-vehicle 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 deputies that there was a body in the back seat of the gray Chevrolet Sonic that Lewis had been driving. The car was in the center median barrier of I-90. Investigators reconstructed the crash and determined the car had been traveling at a speed of 105 mph when it left the roadway, according to a criminal complaint.
Deputies looked into the car and saw a body, later identified as Tsai, wrapped in bedding and a mattress and covered with a tarp. She had a stab wound in her neck, and it was clear she hadn’t been killed in the crash, the complaint states.
Investigators were able to identify Tsai because she was the registered owner of the car Lewis was driving. There also was a dog at the crash scene that had been in the car, and the animal’s microchip indicated that Tsai was its owner.
The Sheriff’s Office reached out to the Minneapolis Police Department to ask that a search be performed at Tsai’s studio apartment in Minneapolis. Police found Tsai’s bed and bedding saturated with blood, the complaint states. A bloody plastic and metal object was in the bed, and there was also blood in the apartment’s bathroom.
Items that might have been taken out of the car’s trunk, like antifreeze and a small shovel, were sitting on the table in the apartment, and there was a knife missing from the butcher block in the kitchen. Police did not find the missing knife in the apartment, the complaint states.
Tsai’s former spouse told investigators that Lewis and Tsai’s relationship was “sordid and emotionally challenging,” and that Tsai had planned for Lewis to visit between Friday, June 21 and Saturday, June 29, according to the complaint.
An airline flight tag found in the crashed car and airport security footage indicated Lewis had flown to Minneapolis from Boston on Friday, despite her address in court documents being listed in North Liberty.
Investigators also found surveillance video from the road 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 clothes that Lewis was wearing when she was picked up from the crash later that day, and Tsai’s dog is visible in the front passenger seat.
Lewis was taken to the hospital after the crash and then to the sheriff’s office. She did not respond verbally to questions from officers or medical providers, and investigators learned “she has taken a vow of silence and would prefer to communicate with sign language,” the complaint states. She was not cooperative when investigators attempted to collect evidence, and became combative.
She was initially charged in Olmsted County with interference with a dead body or scene of death. On Wednesday, two second-degree murder charges were filed against her in Hennepin County, where Minneapolis is located. The first charge is for murder with intent, but not premeditated, and the second charge is for murder without intent, while committing felony assault.
Lewis is being held in the Olmsted County Jail on a $1 million bond.
‘She genuinely enjoyed helping people’
Tsai had only been living in Minneapolis for a few months after moving from Iowa City, where she worked as a DJ and as a crisis counselor, according to Word.
“She was very passionate about music and DJing, but also production. She played on some hardware and live synthesizers,” Word said. “She was a very spiritual person and into the surreal, the ethereal. She talked a lot about bringing magic into her DJ sets.”
Word and Tsai worked together through FemmeDecks, an electronic music collective that aims to empower and create inclusive environments in DJing for women, people of color and trans and nonbinary people.
“I think that (Tsai) inspired a lot of people in the community, especially women and queer people in the community, to see that electronic music was actually an option for them to pursue,” Word said.
Outside of DJing, Tsai spent a lot of time with friends and with her dog, a corgi named Ein. She also worked as a crisis counselor, but Word said she wasn’t sure which organization Tsai worked with.
“As soon as she told me that she had that job, I just thought it was the absolute perfect job for her. She is just very empathetic, and emotionally intelligent, and gentle and kind. I think that was a role that really came easy to her and that she genuinely enjoyed doing,” Word said. “She genuinely enjoyed helping people and supporting people and comforting people in their time of need.”
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