In the summer of 2024, the life of Michael Robert Riccio, a 70-year-old White man from Minneapolis, was cut short by a single gunshot. In his neighborhood, Riccio was known as "Mechanic Mike," and he sometimes worked on cars with the woman who would later take his life. While his family acknowledged he had "fought battles" and "made some mistakes," his sister later said, "Mike's life mattered. He didn't deserve to be brutally murdered."
On or around July 9, 2024, Riccio was at a home on Keating Court in Burnsville, Minnesota, when an argument erupted between him and 25-year-old Josephine Ann Powers. According to a witness, the confrontation escalated until Powers grabbed a handgun and shot Riccio once in the head. Powers later told an accomplice that Riccio "was f---ing with her and she could not take it anymore."
The shooting set in motion a clumsy, week-long attempt to conceal the crime.
In the aftermath, Powers wrapped Riccio’s body in a macabre bundle of garbage bags, rugs, and tarps. Days later, she recruited Christopher Michael Hawkins to help her move a "package" in exchange for a pickup truck. When Hawkins arrived, he saw blood throughout the downstairs area of the home and what he believed to be a body. He helped load the remains into a truck and transported them to a shed at a Minneapolis property where he kept his belongings. The cleanup at the Burnsville house was extensive; Powers’ father, returning from a two-week vacation, noticed what looked like brown paint splatters, saw a man in a hazmat suit removing carpet, and smelled a strong odor of bleach and ammonia permeating the residence.
The cover-up began to fall apart on July 18, when Powers herself called the Burnsville Police Department to report the shooting. Though she initially tried to blame someone else, her story quickly unraveled. Acting on information she provided, police went to the Minneapolis address and discovered Riccio’s remains inside a large gray container in the backyard. An autopsy confirmed his identity and determined the cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head, ruling it a homicide.
Authorities arrested Josephine Ann Powers and charged her with second-degree intentional murder. Christopher Michael Hawkins was also taken into custody for his role in the concealment of the crime. In February 2026, Powers pleaded guilty to the murder charge. In May 2026, she was sentenced to 261 months, nearly 22 years, in prison. Her accomplice, Christopher Michael Hawkins, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of aiding an offender by being an accomplice after the fact.
