Minneapolis police investigating suspicious death of woman found in South Side duplex

Minneapolis police detectives are investigating the suspicious death of a woman whose body was found Wednesday afternoon in a South Side duplex, a spokesman said.

The spokesman, John Elder, said that at 12:32 p.m. firefighters and paramedics responded to a 911 call seeking medical assistance at the duplex in the 400 block of Ridgeway Avenue in the Stevens Square-Loring Heights neighborhood. But when they arrived, they found the woman with "signs of trauma to the body," he said. They then called police, who arrived and secured the scene, Elder said.

Officers and detectives fanned across the area in the drizzly afternoon hours to try to find witnesses or surveillance video, he said.

Later on Wednesday afternoon, Elder said that the investigation was still in its infancy, and that he didn't yet know whether the woman lived in the duplex or who called 911.

Elder said the final call on whether her death was a homicide will be made by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office, which will also release the woman's identity in the coming days.

No arrests had been announced as of Wednesday afternoon.