A Utah jury discovered Kouri Richins responsible of homicide and all different expenses she confronted in the 2022 dying of her husband, Eric Richins, who died of a deadly dose of fentanyl.
The jury deliberated for about three hours after listening to closing arguments on Monday. In addition to aggravated homicide, the eight-person panel convicted Kouri Richins of tried aggravated homicide for a failed try and kill her husband on Valentine’s Day, weeks earlier than his dying. She was additionally discovered responsible of forgery and two counts of insurance coverage fraud associated to Eric Richins’ life insurance coverage protection.
The mom of three – who revealed a kids’s e-book on grief after her husband’s dying – might be sentenced to life in jail with out parole, the utmost penalty for the homicide cost. Her sentencing is scheduled for May 13.
Over 13 days, prosecutors known as greater than 40 witnesses who testified about purported troubles in the Richins’ marriage, her affair with one other man and the thousands and thousands of {dollars} she owed in debt – all elements prosecutors argued motivated her to fatally poison her husband.
“She did not have the money to leave Eric or the money to salvage her business,” prosecutor Brad Bloodworth stated in his closing argument Monday, portray the defendant as a striver centered on sustaining the facade of her success and affluence. “Kouri Richins is an intensely ambitious person. She is a risk-taker. There was a way forward – Eric had to die.”
About a yr after her husband’s fatal overdose, Kouri Richins revealed a kids’s e-book to assist their three sons deal with the grief of shedding their father. Weeks after showing on a neighborhood TV program to advertise her e-book, she was arrested and charged with aggravated murder in connection to his dying.
The protection rested its case final Thursday with out calling any witnesses. Her attorneys argued she was wrongfully blamed for her husband’s dying after a sloppy and biased investigation.
“They cannot tell you how Eric ingested that fentanyl,” protection lawyer Wendy Lewis stated in her closing argument Monday. “They haven’t done their job, and now they want you to make inferences based on paper-thin evidence.”
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