Before a decide sentenced Kouri Richins for fatally poisoning her husband, the couple’s three younger sons made their emotions clear.
They urged Judge Richard Mrazik to sentence their mom – who two of them referred to as “Kouri” – to life in jail, saying they might worry for his or her security if she had been ever launched.
“I don’t want you out of jail because I will not feel safe if you are out,” the center youngster, recognized as A.R., wrote in an announcement learn aloud in court docket Wednesday. “You have never said sorry for anything that you have done to me and my brothers. I don’t want you to hurt anyone again.”
The youngest son, W.R., mentioned he wanted her to go to jail “forever.”
“If she got out, I would be so scared, really mad, and I wouldn’t want to go with her anywhere,” he wrote.
After listening to statements from the couple’s kids and family members of Kouri Richins and the sufferer, Eric Richins, Mrazik finally sentenced the mom of three to life in jail with out parole – essentially the most extreme sentence she confronted.
Richins’ protection attorneys instructed the court docket they plan on interesting the sentence and submitting a movement for a brand new trial.
Earlier this yr, an eight-person jury convicted Kouri Richins, 36, of aggravated homicide for fatally poisoning Eric in March 2022.
At trial, witnesses testified about troubles in the couple’s marriage, her yearslong affair and her spiraling debt – all causes prosecutors say she killed him. Kouri Richins was additionally discovered responsible of tried homicide for making an attempt to kill him weeks earlier, on Valentine’s Day, in addition to insurance coverage fraud and forgery associated to his life insurance coverage protection.
“A person convicted of those things is simply too dangerous to ever be free,” the decide mentioned throughout the sentencing.
Before Mrazik handed down the sentence, three therapists learn the youngsters’s sufferer influence statements, explaining the boys every determined how their remarks can be shared with the court docket.
“Our roles are to read their words exactly as they wrote,” one of many therapists, Jessica Black, defined. “The boys want the court and the world to hear their side.”
The children had been all youthful than 10 years outdated when their father was discovered lifeless in their Utah household house with roughly 5 occasions a deadly dose of fentanyl in his system.
Their mom, Kouri Richins, published a children’s book on grief a few yr after his dying, saying she wrote it to assist their sons deal with their loss. She was arrested shortly after the ebook’s publication.
“You took away my dad for no reason other than greed, and you only cared about yourself and your stupid boyfriends,” A.R. wrote in his assertion. “You were not caring and watching over me and my brothers.”
The two oldest kids mentioned they felt like had to handle one another, with one describing how they might stroll the youngest sibling to the bus cease and feed him. The oldest son, recognized as C.R., mentioned his mom was “always drunk or gone,” and would ceaselessly lock him in his room.
“Kouri would lock me up if I told her she was drunk,” he wrote. “This happened pretty much daily.”
C.R. and A.R. each lamented that their animals weren’t taken care of correctly, saying a few of them ended up dying.
“You wouldn’t let me put my kitten in the garage for safety at night and we found it eaten by raccoons the next day,” A.R. wrote. “You wouldn’t let us turn on and use the heater lamp for the chickens and bunnies and they froze to death.”
The youngest youngster, who was in preschool when his father died, mentioned he feels “hateful and ashamed” when individuals point out his mom.
“She took away my dad,” W.R. wrote. “It’s made me have a hard time trusting people.”
The boys – who’re presently being raised by their paternal aunt and uncle – mentioned they really feel happier and safer with Kouri Richins behind bars.
“I miss my dad, but I do not miss how my life used to be,” the oldest son wrote. “I don’t miss Kouri, I will tell you that.”
A spokesperson for Richins’ protection crew didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The children’ statements stand in stark distinction to that of Kouri Richins’ mom, sister and sister-in-law, who all described her as a faithful mom who beloved her kids immensely.
“I don’t minimize what Kouri’s boys are saying today. I understand it’s contradictory to what other people are saying regarding Kouri as a mother,” protection lawyer Wendy Lewis mentioned on the sentencing listening to. “I don’t know why they’re saying these things, but what they think and feel today – they’re allowed to think and feel those things.”
In a prolonged assertion addressed to her sons, Kouri Richins repeatedly instructed them how a lot she beloved them and mentioned they’d a proper to really feel confused and unhappy about their father’s dying.
“As much as you’ve been influenced into thinking that dad was murdered, that I took your dad from you, that is completely wrong. An absolute lie,” Richins mentioned in court docket Wednesday. “And the thought of that is still as absurd today as it was four years ago.”
In her assertion, Richins acknowledged the boys may not imagine her.
“I still and will always love you, and I’m asking that you please just don’t give up on me,” she mentioned. “I’m coming home. Not today, not this year, but we’re going to make this right.”
Lewis argued the decide ought to impose a lesser sentence with the potential for parole in case the youngsters change their minds and later determine they need a relationship with their mom.
“Don’t allow their statements at age 9, 12 and 13 to become another tragedy, another trauma that they may end up suffering as adults,” she mentioned.
Mrazik ruminated on the potential impacts completely different sentences would have on the couple’s younger sons earlier than he sentenced Kouri Richins to life in jail with out the potential for parole.
“Sitting here today, it is simply not possible for anyone, even those young men, to know how their view of this case may evolve over the next several decades,” he mentioned. “My hope is that every person affected by Eric Richins’ death will, over time, find their way to a state of peace.”