PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Kouri Richins, a Utah real estate agent who self-published a children’s book about coping with grief after her husband’s death, was found guilty of aggravated murder in his killing for slipping five times the lethal dose of fentanyl into a cocktail he consumed.
It took jurors just under three hours Monday to convict Richins of murder and other felony charges in the March 2022 death of Eric Richins at the couple’s home outside the affluent ski town of Park City.
Kouri Richins, 35, stared at the floor and took deep breaths as guilty verdicts were read on charges of forgery, fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after his death and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him black out.
Huge debts incurred, extramarital affair alleged
Prosecutors say Richins was $4.5 million in debt, planning a future with another man and falsely believed she would inherit her husband’s estate worth over $4 million when he died.
She had opened numerous life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge, with benefits totaling about $2 million, prosecutors alleged.
Richins was accused of having an affair with Robert Josh Grossman. Jurors were shown text messages in which she fantasized about leaving her husband, gaining millions in a divorce and marrying Grossman.
A digital forensics analyst showed material from the internet search history on Richins’ phone, which included “what is a lethal.dose.of.fetanayl (sic),” “luxury prisons for the rich America” and “if someone is poisned (sic) what does it go down on the death certificate as.”
After playing Richins’ 911 call on the night of her husband’s death, prosecutor Brad Bloodworth told jurors that they had just heard “the sound of a wife becoming a black widow.”
Richins’ lawyers have said Eric Richins was addicted to painkillers and had asked his wife to procure opioids for him, despite body camera footage showing Kouri Richins telling police that her husband had no history of illicit drug use.
At trial, defense attorney Wendy Lewis attacked the credibility of the prosecution’s star witness, Carmen Lauber, a housekeeper for the family who claimed to have sold Richins fentanyl on multiple occasions.
Lewis argued Lauber, who was granted immunity for her cooperation in the case, didn’t deal fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection.
Lauber said in early interviews that she never dealt the synthetic opioid, but later said she did after investigators informed her that Eric Richins died of a fentanyl overdose, the defense noted.
The housekeeper was already in a drug court program as an alternative to incarceration on other charges when authorities arrested her in connection with the Richins case, investigators said. She had also violated some conditions of drug court.
Prosecutors use book against Richins
Shortly before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published a children’s book about grief to help her sons process the loss of their father. It’s an illustrated storybook about a father with angel wings watching over his young son after his death.
Richins promoted the book “Are You with Me?” on local TV and radio stations, which prosecutors have pointed to in arguing that Richins planned the killing and tried to cover it up.
Investigators say Richins paid a ghostwriting company to pen the book and that Richins’ mother sent the book to the Summit County Sheriff’s Office in an anonymous package with a note saying it exemplified the “true Kouri, a devoted wife and adoring mother.”
What’s next for Kouri Richins
Though she has denied the allegations against her, Richins didn’t testify at her trial, nor did she call any witnesses in her defense.
She faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison on her conviction for aggravated murder. Sentencing is scheduled for May 13.
Richins is also charged with 26 other money-related criminal counts in a separate case that hasn’t yet gone to trial.
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