Burnsville woman, 25, shot man, 70, in her father’s home, staged ‘cover-up scheme,’ murder charge says

Mara H. Gottfried, Pioneer Press
Updated ·3 min read
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A man returned to his Burnsville home from a two-week vacation and found what he thought were brown paint splatters throughout his house, where he lives with his adult daughter.

Then, while home on a lunch break, the homeowner saw a male in a hazmat suit cleaning up the “paint” and removing portions of carpet from the basement floor. He later smelled a strong odor of bleach and saw what appeared to be recently patched bullet holes in the hallway.

The Dakota County Attorney’s Office charged the homeowner’s daughter, 25-year-old Josephine Ann Powers, on Wednesday with murder. A prosecutor wrote in a memo to the court about bail: “The facts in this case allege an elaborate cover-up scheme perpetrated by Powers, but also allege that she is in fact the person who fired the lethal shot.”

Powers told Burnsville police last week that a man had shot and killed Michael Robert Riccio, 70, in her father’s home on Keating Court, near Minnesota 13, around July 9.

Powers said another man, whom she referred to as “Chris,” assisted in moving the body. She said Chris kept his belongings in Minneapolis in a shed with tarps outside it, and she described where Riccio’s body was concealed.

Police carried out a search warrant in Minneapolis on Friday and found a large container with what appeared to be human remains inside. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy, identified the remains as Riccio, and determined he died of a single gunshot wound to the head in a homicide.

A man at the address, identified as Christopher Michael Hawkins, 48, reported that Powers and a man asked him to move a package from a Burnsville address in exchange for a truck, according to a criminal complaint. He said he saw blood throughout the Burnsville home’s downstairs area, and saw something wrapped up in garbage bags and rugs. He wrapped an additional tarp around the object and loaded it into a pickup, and helped Powers clean up the blood.

Hawkins also said Powers told him “a guy was (expletive) with her and she could not take it anymore, so she shot him,” according to the complaint, which didn’t offer any details about Powers’ precise relationship with Riccio.

The Dakota County Attorney’s Office charged Hawkins on Wednesday with aiding an offender by being an accomplice after the fact and interfering with a body or death scene with intent to conceal a body. He is being held in the Hennepin County jail and hasn’t yet appeared in court on the charges.

Another man told police that Powers picked him up the morning of July 9 and they went to her house. He said he was outside Powers’ bedroom, and could see and hear Powers and Riccio arguing. Powers started throwing things at Riccio, then grabbed a handgun and shot him, the witness reported, according to the complaint.

“Powers freaked out and ran around the house” and she began to clean up the blood, the complaint said of what the man reported. He said he hadn’t assisted with the cleaning or moving Riccio’s body.

Prosecutors requested $1 million bail for Powers. Judge Timothy McManus set bail Wednesday at $750,000 with conditions or $1 million without conditions. An attorney for Powers wasn’t listed in the court file.

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