Woman Allegedly Shoots Elderly Man After Argument, Accomplice Accused of Hiding Body in Shed
(DAKOTA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE)
A Minnesota woman faces a murder charge after allegedly shooting and killing an elderly man, with an alleged accomplice accused of cleaning up the crime scene and hiding the body. According to a press release from the Dakota County attorney’s office on Wednesday, July 24, several witnesses informed local police in Burnsville, Minnesota, that Josephine Powers, 25, shot 70-year-old Michael Riccio in the head.
Powers initially reported the shooting herself on July 18, telling officers that on July 9—while her father was away on a two-week vacation—a man referred to in court documents as “Witness 4” had shot Riccio. Despite Powers’ initial report, authorities allege that she and Riccio had an argument that led to Powers throwing objects at him before finally shooting him. In a criminal complaint filed on Wednesday, authorities wrote that a witness claimed she “freaked out and ran around the house” before calling in help to clean up the blood.
Days after Riccio’s alleged murder, Powers and an unnamed friend—identified only as “Mike” in court documents—asked a man named Christopher Hawkins to help her “move a package from her home in exchange for a pickup truck.”
After Hawkins agreed to help and arrived at Powers’ suburban Minneapolis home, he saw blood splattered around and “what he believed to be a body wrapped in garbage bags and rugs.” According to court documents, Powers later told him what had happened, admitting to shooting Riccio.
“Powers told him a guy was f—ing with her and she could not take it anymore, so she shot him,” court documents state, referring to Hawkins’ testimony to police. “Powers told him she shot the guy with a pistol that had been given to her by a friend who was present when the shooting happened.”
Hawkins then took the body to a shed in Minneapolis, the attorney’s office alleged. When Powers’ father returned home several days later, he told police that he saw what he initially believed to be brown paint splattered across the walls and saw a “tall, white male in his house wearing a ‘hazmat’ suit [who was] cleaning up the brown paint and removing portions of the carpet from the basement floor,” court documents state.
On another occasion, Powers’ father detected an “odor of bleach and ammonia in the house,” and one of Powers’ friends later told him what had transpired while he was away. Police later located Hawkins’ shed and searched it, finding Riccio’s remains inside a gray plastic container, the attorney’s office alleged. An autopsy revealed that the cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head, and the manner of death was ruled a homicide.
Hawkins is currently being held at the Hennepin County Jail in another case, according to jail records. Powers has been charged with second-degree intentional murder, and her bail was set at $1 million, the attorney’s office added. She is next set to appear in court on Aug. 1.
