About a 12 months after her husband’s death, Kouri Richins printed a youngsters’s book to assist her three sons address their grief.
“Just because he’s not present here with us physically, that doesn’t mean his presence isn’t here with us,” Richins stated throughout an interview selling the book on a local news program in April 2023. “Dad is still here, it’s just in a different way.”
A month later, the Utah mom was arrested and accused of poisoning her husband, Eric Richins, with a deadly dose of fentanyl in 2022.
On Monday, a jury will hear opening statements as Richins goes on trial for the murder of her husband of 9 years. Prosecutors allege she killed him for monetary achieve and to begin a new life with the man with whom she was having an affair. She can also be accused of trying to poison her husband on Valentine’s Day, weeks earlier than his death.
Richins, 35, has pleaded not guilty to prices of aggravated murder, tried aggravated murder, insurance coverage fraud and forgery. If convicted of the most critical cost, she might resist life in jail.
Richins faces further monetary prices in a separate case. Court data point out she has but to enter a plea.
In a assertion to NCS, Richins’ attorneys stated their shopper was desirous to have her day in court docket.
“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 protection attorneys stated in the assertion. “Now the state must prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Eric Richins, 39, was discovered lifeless in the couple’s bed room in the early morning hours of March 4, 2022.
Earlier that night time, Kouri Richins introduced cocktails as much as their room to have fun a success with her actual property enterprise, in keeping with an account she gave to investigators outlined in court docket data.
Richins advised authorities one of their sons was having dangerous desires, so she went to sleep in his room round 9:30 p.m., charging paperwork stated. When she returned to the master suite roughly six hours later, she stated she discovered her husband lifeless of their mattress.
“I turned over, like to put my arm around Eric and he was just cold,” she advised investigators in April 2023, in keeping with court docket paperwork. “Like it was like a – like putting your arm over a cement brick.”
Richins known as 911 at 3:21 a.m., and first responders arrived at the dwelling in Kamas, exterior Salt Lake City, shortly after. They famous it appeared like Eric Richins had been “dead a while,” the charging paperwork stated.
Richins advised investigators she left her cellphone in the master suite and known as 911 instantly after she discovered her husband lifeless. Prosecutors, nevertheless, stated a forensic evaluation of her cellphone confirmed it was unlocked six instances in the quarter-hour earlier than she made the emergency name at 3:21 a.m.
The post-mortem revealed Eric Richins died from a fentanyl overdose, with about 5 instances the deadly dose in his blood.
Kouri Richins advised investigators her husband would typically take THC gummies earlier than mattress – and that she believed they might have contained fentanyl. The night time of his death, she advised authorities she didn’t suppose he had eaten one. A 12 months later, Richins stated she thought he did eat a gummy that night time, prosecutors stated in charging paperwork.
The health worker didn’t detect THC in Eric Richins’ system, and prosecutors stated the gummies in his dwelling didn’t take a look at constructive for fentanyl.
A lady who cleaned Richins’ homes advised investigators that Kouri Richins requested for fentanyl in early 2022, charging paperwork stated. The lady stated she purchased greater than 15 tablets she thought to include fentanyl from a drug supplier on February 11, 2022, which she then gave to Richins.
A couple of days later, on Valentine’s Day, Richins left her husband a sandwich and a notice earlier than leaving to satisfy up with her “paramour,” prosecutors stated in charging paperwork. Later that day, Eric Richins texted his spouse: “I’m gonna go lay down for a bit if I don’t start getting better I’m gonna head to the hospital.”
Hours later, Eric Richins advised two buddies he felt like he was going to die after consuming the sandwich, in keeping with charging paperwork. “I think my wife tried to poison me,” he stated to 1.
Eric Richins advised the different pal he broke out in hives, then injected himself with an EpiPen and drank a bottle of Benadryl. “You almost lost me,” he stated, in keeping with prosecutors.
Eric Richins didn’t have any meals allergy symptoms, however fentanyl and different opioids can typically trigger “pseudoallergic reactions,” prosecutors stated. His spouse’s attorneys have stated in court docket data that Eric Richins believed he was having an allergic response, and that there is no such thing as a proof to point out he ingested medication that day.
In late February 2022, Richins allegedly requested the lady for extra fentanyl, saying the earlier medication weren’t sturdy sufficient. Richins requested for “some of the Michael Jackson stuff,” the lady advised authorities, however she couldn’t keep in mind if the Jackson reference was made throughout Richins’ first alleged request or the second. Jackson died in 2009 from an overdose of propofol.
Prosecutors stated the lady purchased extra medication from the similar supplier on February 26, 2022. Her cellphone data, outlined in charging paperwork, present contact with Richins round the time she met with the supplier.
Within a week, Eric Richins was lifeless.
Kouri Richins manually deleted greater than 800 messages with the lady from January to mid-March 2022, in addition to a “significant amount” of cellphone knowledge from that point interval, prosecutors stated. After Richins was knowledgeable of her husband’s trigger of death, her cellphone’s web historical past allegedly included visits to websites about ladies’s prisons in Utah, life insurance coverage funds, and the way police recuperate deleted cellphone knowledge.
By that summer time, Richins’ cellphone had been used to make numerous web searches, together with one which learn, “if someone is poisned (sic) what does it go down on the death certificate as,” in keeping with charging paperwork.
A protection lawyer who now not represents Richins beforehand stated the searches had been merely a response to the investigation at the time and never indicative of guilt.
Shortly after her arrest, Richins advised her household she requested the lady for ache tablets that her husband wished, however he threw them out as a result of they weren’t sturdy sufficient, in keeping with court docket paperwork. Her former protection lawyer stated Eric Richins was often called a “partier” who would “consume alcohol and THC in any form.”
Prosecutors stated Richins repeatedly advised legislation enforcement that her husband didn’t take medication aside from the occasional THC gummy.
Prosecutors allege Kouri Richins killed her husband to revenue off his profitable enterprise and life insurance coverage insurance policies – funds she might then use to assist her struggling actual property enterprise.
“She also did so because she planned a future with her paramour, and divorcing Eric Richins would leave her without any proceeds from his business and possibly without custody of their children,” prosecutors wrote in court docket filings.
Richins advised a pal in December 2021 that she felt trapped in her marriage and it might be higher if her husband was lifeless, in keeping with charging paperwork.
On the day of Eric Richins’ death, his property was value roughly $5 million and his spouse was “spiraling toward total financial collapse,” prosecutors stated. Eric Richins’ life was insured for greater than $2 million by way of a number of life insurance coverage insurance policies, one of which prosecutors allege his spouse fraudulently utilized for weeks earlier than he died.
However, Eric Richins met with a lawyer in the fall of 2020 to implement numerous property planning strategies that excluded his spouse, charging paperwork stated.
“Eric Richins informed his lawyer that he wanted to protect himself in the short-term from recently discovered and ongoing abuse and misuse of his finances by the Defendant, and to protect his three children in the long-term by ensuring that the Defendant would never be able to manage his property after his death,” prosecutors wrote.
Eric Richins appointed his sister to handle his belief and eliminated his spouse as the beneficiary of a $500,000 life insurance coverage coverage, which Kouri Richins didn’t understand till after his death, in keeping with prosecutors.
In 2023, the drug supplier who allegedly offered the tablets to Richins’ housecleaner confirmed he bought her fentanyl, in keeping with court docket paperwork. Last 12 months, nevertheless, he advised investigators he had given the lady a totally different drug, not fentanyl, Richins’ protection attorneys stated in a movement final fall.
“If the state cannot place fentanyl in the hands of the defendant, the state has no case,” Richins’ attorneys wrote. “(The dealer’s) statement doesn’t just poke holes in their case, it throws a grenade in the middle of it.”
Prosecutors argued in their very own court docket submitting that the supplier’s current declare isn’t credible. However, even when the jury did take the supplier’s current assertion into consideration, prosecutors stated the panel might “still easily convict the Defendant.”
In their assertion to NCS, Richins’ protection attorneys stated they consider the proof at trial will assist their shopper’s declare of innocence.
“Kouri is a mother who wants to go home to her children,” her attorneys stated. “We are confident this jury will make that possible.”