North Minneapolis activist died of 'complex violence'

The Hennepin County medical examiner's office concluded that prominent community activist and artist Susan Spiller, whose body was found in her North Side home last week, died of "complex homicidal violence."

Authorities have publicly shed little light on how Spiller died, and they continue to investigate her death.

Her official cause of death, released on Monday, suggests that there was more than one type of trauma; police sources have revealed that she was either stabbed or beaten to death.

Spiller's body was found by police officers who were called to the house shortly before 9 a.m. Thursday for a welfare check, officials said.

When they arrived, they found signs of forced entry and Spiller's body in an unspecified part of the house.

She was pronounced dead at the scene.

A source with knowledge of the investigation described the crime scene at Spiller's home on the 5100 block of DuPont Avenue N. as particularly grisly.

A separate autopsy found that 27-year-old Major Connell Ivy, of Minneapolis, was killed by multiple gunshot wounds.

Ivy, whose age had been previously reported as 42, was fatally wounded in an early-morning shooting on July 16 outside a home in the Willard-Hay neighborhood, police said.

In that incident, gunfire erupted about 2:30 a.m. following an apparent dispute outside a house on the 2300 block of Thomas Avenue N.

The shooting left another man with serious but noncritical injuries, police said.

John Elder, a police spokesman, last week declined to comment on the other man's condition, citing patient confidentiality policies.