The fatal stabbing of a 45-year-old woman in a downtown Minneapolis parking ramp over the weekend does not appear to have been the result of a random attack, police said Sunday.
An employee of the ramp at 9th Street and LaSalle Avenue called security guards about 9 p.m. Saturday after finding the woman lying on the ramp's concrete floor, and police were quickly summoned, said Sgt. Stephen McCarty.
The "suspicious death" of the woman, whose name has not been released, is under investigation, he said, and he gave no information about a possible motive. Police are interviewing people who were in the area at the time and reviewing surveillance tape from the ramp.
No one has been arrested, McCarty said.
The killing came on a busy weekend, with tens of thousands of residents and visitors flocking downtown to the Pride Festival and other events. No major problems were reported at any of those events.
Charlie Aucapina, 21, of Minneapolis, a valet at the nearby Le Meridien Chambers Hotel, 901 Hennepin Av., said Sunday afternoon that a coworker found the woman lying in the ramp the night before as he parked a car. Aucapina said his coworker thought she was intoxicated and called ramp security, but later found out that she had died.
"It's getting more dangerous in downtown Minneapolis the last few years," said Aucapina. "It's shocking that it happens right there. I'm [parking cars] there sometimes at 12:30 at night."
Aucapina said he parked a few cars in the same lot Sunday morning and noticed a strip of ripped-down yellow crime-scene tape and a pool of water on the basement level where he believes officials tried to clean up after the stabbing.
