HENNEPIN COUNTY, Minn. (KTTC) – The Iowa woman accused of murdering Liara Tsai, 35, of Minneapolis, made her first court appearance Monday in Hennepin County.

Margot Lewis faces two charges of second-degree murder in Hennepin County and one charge for interfering with a dead body in Olmsted County.

On Saturday, June 22, Lewis crashed the car she was driving on I-90 near Eyota. Good Samaritans found Lewis sitting in the grass median and noticed a body wrapped up in the back seat. The car’s registration led back to Tsai’s Minneapolis apartment where investigators found a “violent scene”.

During Lewis’s first appearance in Hennepin County, a judge set her bail at $1.5 million with conditions. Meaning if Lewis posts bail, she has to follow a set of rules laid out by the court.

New search warrants obtained by KTTC detail items taken by investigators from Tsai’s Minneapolis apartment. Most items were taken from the bed, which according to Lewis’s criminal complaint, was saturated with blood.

According to the search warrant, investigators also pulled blood-stained shoes from the garbage. Lewis’s criminal complaint says blood was also located in the apartment’s bathroom.

Lewis is tentatively scheduled for another court hearing in Olmsted County on July 5 and Hennepin County on July 30.

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MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – A Minneapolis police officer was injured when the driver of a stolen Kia hit their parked squad car, the Minneapolis Police Department said. 

According to a police press release, an officer with the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th Precinct responded to a report of an abandoned, stolen Kia Sol near 29th Avenue North and Emerson Avenue North around 6 p.m. on Sunday. However, when the officer arrived, the Kia was no longer in the area. 

The officer was in their parked squad car on 29th Avenue North facing Emerson Avenue North, when the driver of the stolen Kia returned to the area and then “collided with an occupied white SUV and then careened into” the officer’s squad car, police said. 

The officer was taken to the hospital for evaluation and treatment. Police did not share the extent of the officer’s injuries. The driver and passenger in the white SUV were not hurt, authorities said. 

After the crash, four to five “young males” ran from the Kia, police said. Three people were arrested: an 11-year-old boy, a 15-year-old boy and a 22-year-old man, with police noting “at least one of the males who fled” the scene was not found.

Teens hurt, stolen Kias left wrecked in chaotic Minneapolis shooting

One of the juveniles was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and will be booked into the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center for felony auto theft. The other juvenile was also booked into the Hennepin County Juvenile Center for felony auto theft.

The 22-year-old man had a gun, police said. He was booked into the Hennepin County Jail for felony auto theft and a weapons charge.

Police said the Kia had a “stripped steering column and a USB in the ignition.”

The crash is under investigation, police said. The officer involved has not yet been identified.

The 2024 Twin Cities Pride Festival was held in Minneapolis’ Loring Park on the last weekend in June, with a parade on Sunday winding down Hennepin from 3rd Avenue to Spruce. With 134 participants, floats represented groups from the local sports teams and Roller Derby to the Queer Caucus of the Minnesota Legislature and large local employers like U.S. Bank. The Twin Cities Pride organization, which coordinates the event, has summer camps and further pride events in other cities planned this summer. For more information, visit tcpride.org.