Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who authored a children’s book about grief after her husband’s death, is on trial for his murder on Monday. File Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI | License Photo
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who authored a children’s book about grief after her husband’s death, is on trial for murder Monday for allegedly poisoning her husband.
The 35-year-old faces life in prison with five felony counts against her. She is charged with aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, two counts of insurance fraud and forgery.
Kouri Richins’ husband Eric Richins died on March 4, 2022. He was 39 years old.
Prosecutors allege that Kouri Richins poisoned her husband with a lethal dose of fentanyl, seeking to gain financially from his death. She took out a $2 million life insurance policy before her husband’s death.
Richins has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
“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,” Richins’ attorneys said in a statement. “What the public has been told bears little resemblance to the truth. We welcome the courtroom, where evidence is bound by rules, not sensational coverage.”
Eric Richins had five times the lethal dosage of fentanyl in his system when he died. Prosecutors say an acquaintance of Kouri Richins purchased fentanyl for her on Feb. 11. On Feb. 14, Kouri Richins allegedly poisoned a sandwich she gave to her husband and he told a friend that after eating it he broke out in hives and “felt like he was going to die.”
On Feb. 26, the charging documents say that Kouri Richins purchased more fentanyl. On the day of her husband’s death, she called 911 at 3:31 a.m. and reported that he was not breathing.
Richins said she was staying in her son’s room the evening of Eric’s death because her son was having bad dreams. She went to her son’s room at about 9:30 p.m. and stayed there for six hours before returning to her room where she found her husband dead.
“I turned over, like to put my arm around Eric and he was just cold,” Richins told investigators in April 2023, court documents say.
In 2023, Richins published the children’s book, “Are You With Me?” It was written to help her three sons cope with the grief over their father’s death.
Following her husband’s death, Richins allegedly assaulted her husband’s sister. Richins had learned around that time that Eric placed their home into a trust and Eric’s other sister was the trustee.
Richins was informed by the police on April 13, 2022, that her husband’s cause of death was a fentanyl overdose. Three days later, prosecutors say she used her cellphone to search “what happens to deleted messages,” “how do police and forensic analysts recover deleted data from phones,” and “signs of being under federal investigation.”
Richins told investigators that her husband sometimes took THC gummies before going to bed and they may have contained fentanyl. However, she said she did not believe he had taken a gummy the night of his death. She later amended that statement, saying she thought he did take a gummy that night.
No THC was found in Eric Richins’ system, a medical examiner ruled. Prosecutors say the gummies found in the Richins home did not test positive for fentanyl.
This week in Washington
President Donald Trump speaks alongside Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Thursday. The Trump administration has announced the finalization of rules that revoke the EPA’s ability to regulate climate pollution by ending the endangerment finding that determined six greenhouse gases could be categorized as dangerous to human health. Photo by Will Oliver/UPI | License Photo
