Minnesota Dad Returns Home to Find Daughter Killed Man and Tried to Cover It Up, Now Sentenced to 22 Years

A woman from Minnesota was sentenced to prison for more than 20 years after she shot and killed a man at her father’s home and tried to hide the body while he was away on vacation. She was arrested by authorities and pleaded guilty to murder earlier.

A 27-year-old Minnesota woman identified as Josephine Powers was sentenced to 22 years in prison on May 19. Powers had pleaded guilty to second-degree intentional murder of a 70-year-old man at her father’s house. The victim has been identified as Michael Robert Riccio, who was shot and killed by Powers. The incident occurred at a residence in Burnsville, Minnesota, on July 9 2024.

Powers' father was on vacation when the shooting incident occurred at his residence. When he returned home, he saw what he believed were "splatters” of “brown paint” all over the house. When he came home on his lunch break from work, he encountered a man in a hazmat suit “cleaning up the brown paint” and ripping up the carpet in the basement.

Law&Crime previously reported that Powers’ father told the police that two days after he saw the man in the hazmat suit, he smelled “a strong odor of bleach” and saw patched-up bullet holes in the wall. Two days after that, on July 18, 2024, one of Powers’ friends told him that Riccio had been killed in his house while he was on vacation. That was the same day Powers reported the fatal shooting to the police.

She initially told the police that a male friend shot Riccio, and she enlisted a 48-year-old man called Christopher Hawkins to help clean up the scene and store the body. The man in the hazmat suit was identified as Hawkins, who told the police that Powers had asked him to “move a package in exchange for a truck,” according to the criminal complaint.

When Hawkins arrived at the Powers' house to retrieve the “package”, he told the police he saw blood throughout the home and “something wrapped up in the garbage bags and rugs” that he believed was a dead body. Hawkins helped Powers clean up the scene, then wrapped Riccio’s body and put it in his pickup truck.

The victim's remains were found in the grey storage tote on Hawkins’ property. He died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

According to the complaint, Hawkins and Powers both told the police that Riccio was “f------ with her and she couldn’t take it anymore, so she shot him.” Another witness who was in the home at the time of the shooting told the police that he heard Powers and Riccio arguing and throwing things. After Powers shot Ricco, she “freaked out and ran around the house.”

Powers pleaded guilty to second-degree intentional murder and was sentenced to prison for 261 months. She also received the credit for the 669 days she had already served. Hawkins pleaded guilty to aiding an offender.