A man returned to his Burnsville home from vacation and found what he thought were brown paint splatters throughout his house, where he lives with his adult daughter.

Then, while home on a lunch break, the homeowner saw a male in a hazmat suit cleaning up the “paint” and removing portions of carpet from the basement floor.

Josephine Ann Powers (Courtesy of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office)

The Dakota County Attorney’s Office charged the homeowner’s daughter, 25-year-old Josephine Ann Powers, on Wednesday with murder. A prosecutor wrote in a memo to the court about bail: “The facts in this case allege an elaborate cover-up scheme perpetrated by Powers, but also allege that she is in fact the person who fired the lethal shot.”

Powers told Burnsville police last week that a man had shot and killed Michael Robert Riccio, 70, in her father’s home on Keating Court, near Minnesota 13, around July 9.

Powers said another man assisted in moving the body. She said that man kept his belongings in Minneapolis in a shed with tarps outside of it, and she described where Riccio’s body was concealed.

Police carried out a search warrant in Minneapolis on Friday and found a large container with what appeared to be human remains inside. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy, identified the remains as Riccio, and determined he died of a single gunshot wound to the head in a homicide.

Police took a statement from the man connected to the shed. He reported that Powers and a man asked him to move a package from a Burnsville address in exchange for a truck, according to a criminal complaint. He said he saw blood throughout the Burnsville home’s downstairs area, and saw something wrapped up in garbage bags and rugs. He wrapped an additional tarp around the object and loaded it into a pickup, and helped Powers clean up the blood.

The man also said Powers told him “a guy was (expletive) with her and she could not take it anymore, so she shot him,” according to the complaint.

The Dakota County Attorney’s Office requested $1 million bail for Powers. Judge Timothy McManus set bail at $750,000 with conditions or $1 million without conditions. An attorney for Powers wasn’t immediately listed in the court file.

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