A 25-year-old woman is accused of fatally shooting a man in Burnsville earlier this month and then trying to cover it up by moving his body to Minneapolis.
Police discovered 70-year-old Michael Riccio’s remains inside a shed at a home on the northside last week, according to the Dakota County Attorney’s Office.
The woman was charged with second-degree murder, according to a criminal complaint filed on Wednesday. A 48-year-old Minneapolis man is also charged with aiding an offender and interference with a dead body or scene of death.
The woman claimed somebody else shot Riccio and told them where to find his body, but a witness told police she actually pulled the trigger.
The 48-year-old man said he had been asked by the woman and another man to help move a package in exchange for a truck. When he arrived, he saw blood in the home and what he believed to be the victim wrapped up in garbage bags and rugs, he told police. He helped load the “package” into a truck and helped clean some of the blood. Police found him at the same location where Riccio’s remains were found.
In an interview with investigators, the man says the suspect told him that “a guy was f****** with her and she could not take it anymore, so she shot him,” charges say. She told him that she had shot Riccio using a pistol gifted to her by a friend, who had witnessed the shooting.
The person who witnessed the shooting told police that they heard the suspect and Riccio arguing before the woman grabbed a gun and shot Riccio.
Other witnesses recalled bullet holes, blood and the smell of bleach in the woman’s home.
The 25-year-old woman’s next court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 1. The man charged is in custody in Hennepin County.
