Law enforcement says foul play is suspected in the death of a man whose body was found in a Golden Valley home, two days after anyone last heard from him, with a severe neck injury and numerous cuts on his body.
Foul play suspected in death of man found in Golden Valley home with severe neck injury
The homeowner said the security system indicated numerous entries into the residence after the man was dead, according to a court filing.
Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a home in the 1400 block of Skyline Drive on May 19 about 2:15 p.m. Inside they located Kurt Jeffery Wiessner, 71, of Minneapolis, with his “head tucked completely under him,” according to a court document filed Tuesday by the Sheriff’s Office.
An autopsy by the Medical Examiner’s Office found that Wiessner had “lacerations over various parts of his body” and suffered an “internal decapitation,” which is a rupture of ligaments that connect the skull to the neck, the filing continued.
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jeremy Zoss said Wednesday the agency is treating the case as “a potential homicide,” but he otherwise declined to offer details about the investigation. No arrests have been made.
The filing cleared the way for law enforcement to search Wiessner’s car for evidence. It noted that Weissner was house-sitting at the residence, and it flagged several other reasons that they are suspicious about the nature of his death.
Key among them is that the owner of the home, which is just west of Theodore Wirth Regional Park, told sheriff’s detectives that electronic security monitors detected “numerous activations of external doors throughout the property and throughout the weekend [May18-19], even after the time Kurt was to have died,” the search warrant affidavit read. “It is not known who was at the home causing the door activations while Kurt Wiessner was deceased.”
Other factors noted in the affidavit are based on information shared with investigators by Wiessner’s son — that two days passed in which Wiessner had no contact with anyone; Wiessner’s involvement in dominatrix-style sexual activity, and his plans to meet with a sex worker hours after he was last known to be alive.