A trans-identified male has been arrested in Olmsted County, Minnesota, in relation to the death of another trans-identified male. Margot Lewis was taken into custody after the body of 35-year-old Liara Tsai was found in his car.
The chilling discovery occurred on June 22 while the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office was responding to a single-vehicle crash on I-90 near the Highway 42 exit. Officers immediately noticed a corpse in the backseat, which was wrapped up tightly in a blood-soaked blanket.
The driver of the car, Margot Lewis, was taken into custody and the body was identified as belonging to Liara Tsai. A warrant was then obtained to search Tsai’s Minneapolis apartment.
Yesterday, Olmsted County Sheriff Kevin Torgerson held a press conference and revealed that Tsai’s home was a “scene indicating violence,” noting that the victim’s bed and bedding were saturated with blood. There was also a butcher’s cleaver missing from the apartment.
Torgerson also explained that the case and investigation would be complex, as Tsai’s body was found in Olmsted County but the potential murder occurred in Hennepin County.
It was also learned that Lewis had flown down to Minnesota from Boston just one day before the killing. Tsai was reportedly aware that Lewis would be coming, telling friends that he would have a guest staying at his home. Lewis and Tsai had been intimate partners in the past.
Since his arrest, Lewis has refused to cooperate with the police, taking a “vow of silence” and using sign language to communicate instead. He has allegedly assaulted police officers while in custody, physically lashing out when asked to speak with investigators.
According to journalist Andy Ngo, Lewis has been booked as a female and is currently being detained with females.
Lewis has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder, with felony interference with a dead body. He is being held on $1.5 million dollar bail, which was increased from $1 million just today.
Both Lewis and Tsai are being referred to as “women” in news reports, with some even referring to Tsai as a “female.” But many activist groups are suggesting Tsai’s death was the result of transphobia, ignoring the fact that Lewis is also transgender.
GLAAD, which bills itself as “the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) media advocacy organization,” issued a statement yesterday on Tsai’s death, subtly framing the incident as being a hate crime. Included on the page about Tsai was comment from OutFront Minnesota, the state’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization.
“LGBTQ+ individuals experience violence all too frequently—even here in Minnesota; and we commit ourselves to the work of ensuring that all our communities can live full and authentic lives,” the statement reads.
The Trevor Project similarly posted in honor of Tsai, noting that he volunteered as a member with their crisis intervention team. While the Instagram-based post did not explicitly suggest any potential motive behind the killing, users quickly jumped to assume it had been a hate crime, with some expressing hesitancy over openly identifying as transgender in fear of being the victim of an imminent hate-motivated murder.
On social media, many trans activist users also circulated the news of Tsai’s death, referring to it as having been a hate crime and blaming “transphobes” for the killing.
One user, @kennishaents, racked up over 13,000 ‘likes’ on an X post classifying Tsai’s murder as a “hate crime” motivated by “transphobia.” The user’s retraction clarifying it was not a transphobic hate crime attracted significantly less attention.
Another user who identifies as an author reacted to the news, writing: “This is why transphobes shouldn’t exist.”
While trans activists often claim there is an ongoing “genocide” occurring against transgender people, portraying their community as living in fear, there have been exceedingly few murders of transgender people where hate was a confirmed motive.
Every year, the Human Rights Campaign releases a list documenting “fatal violence against the transgender community” across the United States. While the list is often categorized under their “hate crimes” tag on the organization’s website, the vast majority of the murders have nothing to do with the victim’s gender identity. The most common motive behind the murders is intimate partner violence, with others being related to random crime, the sex trade, or drugs.
In 2023, Reduxx found that only one of the murders on the HRC’s completed list was a suspected hate-motivated crime.
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