Charges: Burnsville woman fatally shot 70-year-old, hid body at Minneapolis shed for 10 days

A Burnsville woman shot a 70-year-old man in the head, then hired someone to hide the body outside a shed in north Minneapolis, where the corpse remained until police discovered it 10 days later, according to charges filed in Dakota County Court on Wednesday.

Josephine Ann Powers, 25, is charged with one count of second-degree murder, a felony, in the killing of Michael Robert Riccio. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner says Riccio died from a gunshot wound to the head. Prosecutors have also leveled two felony charges against Christopher Michael Hawkins, 48, for aiding an offender after the fact and interfering with a dead body.

Prosecutors say Powers reported the killing to police on July 18. She initially told officers another man had shot Riccio about 10 days prior, on July 9. When police were in the house, where Powers lives with her father, they smelled a strong odor of bleach and saw what looked like recently patched bullet holes in the hallway, the charges say.

A witness later told police Powers shot Riccio during an argument that day. He said he could hear Powers arguing with Riccio, throwing objects at him and that Powers grabbed a black handgun and shot him, the charges say. Riccio fell to the couch, while “Powers freaked out and ran around the house,” then started cleaning up the blood, the complaint says.

Powers later asked Hawkins to transport a “package,” according to charges. In exchange, she offered him a pickup truck.

Hawkins took the deal, prosecutors say, and when he arrived to pick up the package, he found blood spattered throughout the downstairs and what looked like a body wrapped in garbage bags and rugs. Hawkins helped clean up the blood, wrapped the body in a tarp and loaded it into the truck, according to charges.

A man at the house with Powers told Hawkins “a guy was [expletive] with her and she could not take it anymore, so she shot him,” the charges continue. The man said Powers shot Riccio with a pistol that had been given to her by a friend.

Hawkins drove the body to his shed, on the 3400 block of 2nd Avenue North in Minneapolis. Police searched the address on July 19 and found “remains of what appeared to be a body in a grey container,” according to a news release from the Dakota County Attorney’s Office. An autopsy showed the body was Riccio.

Powers is being held in Dakota County jail on a $1,000,000 unconditional bail, or $750,000 with conditions. Hawkins was incarcerated at the Hennepin County Public Safety Facility on an unrelated burglary charge, where he remains.