Woman accused of murdering 70-year-old man inside her Burnsville home

A 25-year-old Burnsville woman shot and killed a 70-year-old man inside her home earlier this month before arranging for his body to be moved to Minneapolis, new criminal charges allege.

The Dakota County Attorney’s Office on Wednesday charged Josephine A. Powers with one count of second-degree murder in connection with the death of Michael R. Riccio, of Minneapolis, who authorities believe was shot and killed around July 9 inside a home on Keating Court.

Criminal charges do not indicate the nature of the relationship between Powers and Riccio.

According to the complaint, Powers’ father told police he’d arrived home from a two-week vacation to find “splatters of what he believed to be brown paint throughout the home”, which he owns and shares with his daughter.

He said a man wearing a HAZMAT suit visited the home on Tuesday, July 16 and cleaned up the substance and removed portions of the basement carpet, which the man then hauled away in the bed of a pickup truck.

Powers’ father told police he woke to the odor of bleach and ammonia two days later, on Thursday, July 18.

Later that day, he said, a friend of his daughter’s visited him and said that Powers had shot and killed Riccio inside the house while he was on vacation.

Police were dispatched to the home the same day, as Powers called herself to report a homicide had occurred in the home approximately 10 days prior.

According to the complaint, Powers’ claimed Riccio had been shot and killed in the residence on or about Tuesday, July 9 by a Minneapolis man, who would later tell police he saw Powers kill Riccio.

During the interview, Powers said a man named "Chris" helped move Riccio’s body to a site in Minneapolis, where she said investigators would find Riccio’s body in a large container with tarps and a pallet on top.

Officers went to the Minneapolis location and found Riccio’s remains inside a container. An autopsy later confirmed he died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

At the scene, police spoke to the man identified as Chris (Bring Me The News is withholding his full name pending confirmation of criminal charges), who allegedly said Powers and a man named “Mike” asked him to move a package from Burnsville in exchange for a truck.

“Upon his arrival at the Burnsville house, he saw blood throughout the downstairs area of the home, and he saw something wrapped up in garbage bags and rugs which he believed to be the body of the Victim,” the complaint reads. “He wrapped an additional tarp around the object and loaded it into a pickup. He also helped Powers clean up the blood.”

In an interview with investigators, Chris said that Powers told him “a guy was f**king with her and she could not take it anymore, so she shot him,” the complaint alleges.

“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,” the complaint reads. “Powers told him her buddy took the pistol from her after the shooting.”

Powers’ allegedly showed Chris the body, which was already wrapped in tarps and carpet, and pointed out patched bullet holes in the wall as well as blood throughout the home.

Police located the witness who Powers had claimed shot and killed Riccio.

In an interview with police, the man reported Powers had driven him to her home the morning of July 9, where he found Riccio and another man, named Mike, already present.

He said that Powers and Riccio began to argue in the bedroom and Powers’ began to throw things at Riccio before she grabbed a black handgun and shot him.

The witness said Riccio fell onto a couch and was unconscious and “Powers freaked out and ran around the house” before beginning to clean up the blood.

The witness said he and Powers eventually left the house and went to his home in Minneapolis.

According to the complaint, he denied helping to clean up at Powers’ home and denied assisting in the moving of Riccio’s body.

Powers remains jailed with bail set at $1 million without conditions ahead of her next scheduled court appearance on Aug. 1.

The man who allegedly moved Riccio’s body to Minneapolis is currently in jail on an unrelated matter, according to the Dakota County Attorney’s Office. He is set to be transferred to the Dakota County Jail upon his release.