Burnsville woman charged after body found inside container in Minneapolis

Lights on a police cruiser are seen in a file image. (Credit: FOX Television Stations)

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Stock image of police lights. (FOX TV Stations / FOX 9)

BURNSVILLE, Minn. (FOX 9) - A 25-year-old Burnsville woman is facing a murder charge after police say they discovered a body inside a container in a Minneapolis backyard.

Josephine Powers is facing one count of second-degree murder in connection to the death of 70-year-old Michael Robert Riccio. Christopher Michael Hawkins, 30, is also facing one count of aiding an offender by being an accomplice after the fact and one count of interference with a dead body by concealment for his alleged role in the incident.

What charging documents say

Powers called law enforcement on July 18 to report a fatal shooting that had happened 10 days prior.

Officers responded to her Burnsville home and noticed a strong smell of bleach. When later executing a search warrant, police say they discovered blood evidence in various areas of the house, including the garage and basement, along with a bullet hole in a bedroom.

A witness told police that on July 9, Powers and Riccio got into an argument, and she allegedly shot him once in the head. The body was then wrapped in garbage bags, rugs, and a tarp. Days later, Hawkins allegedly placed the body in a pickup truck and transported it to an address in Minneapolis.

The criminal complaint did not say how Powers and Riccio knew each other.

Powers claimed the body would be in a large gray container underneath tarps and a pallet. Officers executed a search warrant on the 3400 block of 2nd Street North in Minneapolis and discovered what appeared to be human remains in a container in the backyard.

The medical examiner identified the body as Riccio and determined he sustained a single gunshot wound to the head.

During the investigation, law enforcement spoke with Powers's father, whom she lives with in the house. The father explained that he came home from vacation and saw spatters of "brown paint" throughout the house.

When he came home from work one day, he described seeing a tall man wearing a "hazmat" suit who was removing parts of carpet from the basement and cleaning up the "paint." The man put the carpet in the bed of the pickup truck and drove away, charges allege.

Hawkins allegedly told investigators he helped Powers clean up the blood and loaded the object wrapped in the carpet and garbage bags into the pickup truck, according to court records.