A yr after her husband died, a mom of three in Utah self-published a kids’s guide that she stated helped her sons deal with the sudden loss. Kouri Richins promoted her guide “Are You With Me?” on a neighborhood TV station and drew reward for serving to younger kids course of the demise of a dad or mum.
Weeks after the guide’s publication in 2023, she was arrested in her husband’s demise and charged with homicide.
The arrest despatched shock waves by her small mountain city simply exterior Park Metropolis, the place a 12-person jury is ready to determine her destiny in a monthlong trial that begins Monday.
Richins, 35, faces almost three dozen counts in connection together with her husband’s demise, together with aggravated homicide, tried homicide, forgery, mortgage fraud and insurance coverage fraud. She has pleaded not responsible.
Prosecutors say she killed her husband, Eric Richins, at their residence in March 2022 by slipping fentanyl right into a cocktail that he drank. They are saying she was deep in debt and killed him for monetary achieve whereas planning a future with one other man she was seeing on the aspect.
The chilling case of a once-respected native writer accused of profiting off her personal violent crime has captivated true-crime fans within the years since her arrest. As soon as lauded as a touching learn, her guide has since develop into a instrument for prosecutors in arguing that she carried out a calculated killing.
Her protection attorneys, Wendy Lewis, Kathy Nester and Alex Ramos, stated they’re assured the jury will rule in Richins’ favor after listening to her aspect of the story.
“Kouri has waited nearly three years for this moment: the opportunity to have the facts of this case heard by a jury, free from the prosecution’s narrative that has dominated headlines since her arrest,” her authorized staff stated in a press release. “What the public has been told bears little resemblance to the truth.”
Paperwork allege two poisonings
On the evening of her husband’s demise, Richins known as 911 to report that she had discovered him “cold to the touch” on the foot of their mattress, in keeping with the police report. He was pronounced lifeless, and a medical expert later discovered 5 occasions the deadly dose of fentanyl in his system.
That was not her first try on his life, charging paperwork allege.
A month earlier, on Valentine’s Day, Eric Richins advised mates he broke out in hives and blacked out after taking one chunk of a sandwich that Richins had left for him. She had purchased the sandwich the identical week police say she additionally bought fentanyl tablets from the household’s housekeeper. Opioids, together with fentanyl, could cause extreme allergic reactions.
After injecting himself together with his son’s EpiPen and chugging the allergy medicine Benadryl, Eric Richins woke from a deep sleep and known as a good friend to say, “I think my wife tried to poison me,” the good friend stated in a written testimony.
A day after Valentine’s Day, Kouri Richins texted her alleged lover, “If he could just go away … life would be so perfect.”
Key witnesses
The good friend Eric Richins known as that evening and the housekeeper who claims to have offered his spouse the medicine may very well be key witnesses within the upcoming trial. Others might embody members of the family and the person with whom Kouri Richins was allegedly having an affair.
The prosecution’s star witness, housekeeper Carmen Lauber, advised police she gave Richins fentanyl tablets she purchased from a vendor a few days earlier than Valentine’s Day. Later that month, Richins allegedly advised the housekeeper that the tablets she supplied weren’t sturdy sufficient and requested her to obtain stronger fentanyl, in keeping with charging paperwork.
Protection attorneys are anticipated to argue that Lauber didn’t really give Richins fentanyl and was motivated to lie for authorized safety. Lauber will not be charged in reference to the case, and detectives stated at an earlier listening to that she had been granted immunity.
No fentanyl tablets have been ever present in Richins’ residence, and the housekeeper’s vendor stated he was in jail and detoxing from drug use when he advised detectives in 2023 that he had offered Lauber fentanyl. He later stated in a sworn affidavit that he solely offered her the opioid OxyContin.
Cash as motivation
Charging paperwork point out Eric Richins met with a divorce legal professional and an property planner in October 2020, a month after he found that his spouse made some main monetary choices with out his information. She had a destructive checking account steadiness, owed lenders greater than $1.8 million and was being sued by a creditor, in keeping with court docket paperwork.
Prosecutors say Kouri Richins mistakenly believed she would inherit her husband’s property underneath phrases of their prenuptial settlement. She had additionally opened quite a few life insurance coverage insurance policies on her husband with out his information, with advantages totaling almost $2 million, prosecutors allege.
She can also be accused of forging mortgage purposes and fraudulently claiming insurance coverage advantages after her husband’s demise.
