\n About a year after her husband\u2019s death, Kouri Richins published a children\u2019s book to help her three sons cope with their grief.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cJust because he\u2019s not present here with us physically, that doesn\u2019t mean his presence isn\u2019t here with us,\u201d Richins said during an interview promoting the book on a local news program in April 2023<\/a>. \u201cDad is still here, it\u2019s just in a different way.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n A month later, the Utah mother was arrested and accused of poisoning her husband, Eric Richins, with a lethal dose of fentanyl in 2022.\n <\/p>\n \n On Monday, a jury will hear opening statements as Richins goes on <\/em>trial for the murder of her husband of nine years. Prosecutors allege<\/a> she killed him for financial gain and to start a new life with the man with whom she was having an affair. She is also accused of attempting to poison her husband on Valentine\u2019s Day, weeks before his death.\n <\/p>\n \n Richins, 35, has pleaded not guilty<\/a> to charges of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, insurance fraud and forgery. If convicted of the most serious charge, she could face up to life in prison.\n <\/p>\n \n Richins faces additional financial charges in a separate case. Court records indicate she has yet to enter a plea.\n <\/p>\n \n In a statement to CNN, Richins\u2019 attorneys said their client was eager to have her day in court.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cKouri 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\u2019s narrative that has dominated headlines since her arrest,\u201d her defense attorneys said in the statement. \u201cNow the state must prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Eric Richins, 39, was found dead in the couple\u2019s bedroom in the early morning hours of March 4, 2022.\n <\/p>\n \n Earlier that night, Kouri Richins brought cocktails up to their room to celebrate a success with her real estate business, according to an account she gave to investigators outlined in court records.\n <\/p>\n \n Richins told authorities one of their sons was having bad dreams, so she went to sleep in his room around 9:30 p.m., charging documents said. When she returned to the master bedroom roughly six hours later, she said she found her husband dead in their bed.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI turned over, like to put my arm around Eric and he was just cold,\u201d she told investigators in April 2023, according to court documents. \u201cLike it was like a \u2013 like putting your arm over a cement brick.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Richins called 911 at 3:21 a.m., and first responders arrived at the home in Kamas, outside Salt Lake City, shortly after. They noted it seemed like Eric Richins had been \u201cdead a while,\u201d the charging documents said.\n <\/p>\n \n Richins told investigators she left her cellphone in the master bedroom and called 911 immediately after she found her husband dead. Prosecutors, however, said a forensic analysis of her phone showed it was unlocked six times in the 15 minutes before she made the emergency call at 3:21 a.m.\n <\/p>\n \n The autopsy revealed Eric Richins died from a fentanyl overdose, with about five times the lethal dose in his blood.\n <\/p>\n \n Kouri Richins told investigators her husband would sometimes take THC gummies before bed \u2013 and that she believed they could have contained fentanyl. The night of his death, she told authorities she didn\u2019t think he had eaten one. A year later, Richins said she thought he did eat a gummy that night, prosecutors said in charging documents.\n <\/p>\n \n The medical examiner did not detect THC in Eric Richins\u2019 system, and prosecutors said the gummies in his home did not test positive for fentanyl.\n <\/p>\n \n A woman who cleaned Richins\u2019 houses told investigators that Kouri Richins asked for fentanyl in early 2022, charging documents said. The woman said she bought more than 15 pills she thought to contain fentanyl from a drug dealer on February 11, 2022, which she then gave to Richins.\n <\/p>\n \n A few days later, on Valentine\u2019s Day, Richins left her husband a sandwich and a note before leaving to meet up with her \u201cparamour,\u201d prosecutors said in charging documents. Later that day, Eric Richins texted his wife: \u201cI\u2019m gonna go lay down for a bit if I don\u2019t start getting better I\u2019m gonna head to the hospital.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Hours later, Eric Richins told two friends he felt like he was going to die after eating the sandwich, according to charging documents. \u201cI think my wife tried to poison me,\u201d he said to one.\n <\/p>\n \n Eric Richins told the other friend he broke out in hives, then injected himself with an EpiPen and drank a bottle of Benadryl. \u201cYou almost lost me,\u201d he said, according to prosecutors.\n <\/p>\n \n Eric Richins did not have any food allergies, but fentanyl and other opioids can sometimes cause \u201cpseudoallergic reactions,\u201d prosecutors said. His wife\u2019s attorneys have said in court records that Eric Richins believed he was having an allergic reaction, and that there is no evidence to show he ingested drugs that day.\n <\/p>\n \n In late February 2022, Richins allegedly asked the woman for more fentanyl, saying the previous drugs were not strong enough. Richins asked for \u201csome of the Michael Jackson stuff,\u201d the woman told authorities, but she couldn\u2019t remember if the Jackson reference was made during Richins\u2019 first alleged request or the second. Jackson died in 2009 from an overdose of propofol<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Prosecutors said the woman bought more drugs from the same dealer on February 26, 2022. Her phone records, outlined in charging documents, show contact with Richins around the time she met with the dealer.\n <\/p>\n \n Within a week, Eric Richins was dead.\n <\/p>\n \n Kouri Richins manually deleted more than 800 messages with the woman from January to mid-March 2022, as well as a \u201csignificant amount\u201d of cellphone data from that time period, prosecutors said. After Richins was informed of her husband\u2019s cause of death, her phone\u2019s internet history allegedly included visits to websites<\/a> about women\u2019s prisons in Utah, life insurance payments, and how police recover deleted cellphone data.\n <\/p>\n \n By that summer, Richins\u2019 phone had been used to make various internet searches, including one that read, <\/strong>\u201cif someone is poisned (sic) what does it go down on the death certificate as,\u201d according to charging documents.\n <\/p>\n \n A defense attorney who no longer represents Richins previously said the searches were merely a response to the investigation at the time and not indicative of guilt.\n <\/p>\n \n Shortly after her arrest, Richins told her family she asked the woman for pain pills that her husband wanted, but he threw them out because they weren\u2019t strong enough, according to court documents. Her former defense attorney said Eric Richins was known as a \u201cpartier\u201d who would \u201cconsume alcohol and THC in any form.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Prosecutors said Richins repeatedly told law enforcement that her husband didn\u2019t take drugs other than the occasional THC gummy.\n <\/p>\n \n Prosecutors allege Kouri Richins killed her husband to profit off his lucrative business and life insurance policies \u2013 funds she\ufeff<\/strong> could then use to support her struggling real estate business.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cShe 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,\u201d prosecutors wrote in court filings.\n <\/p>\n \n Richins told a friend in December 2021 that she felt trapped in her marriage and it would be better if her husband was dead, according to charging documents.\n <\/p>\n \n On the day of Eric Richins\u2019 death, his estate was worth roughly $5 million and his wife was \u201cspiraling toward total financial collapse,\u201d <\/strong>prosecutors said. Eric Richins\u2019 life was insured for more than $2 million through several life insurance policies, one of which prosecutors allege his wife fraudulently applied for weeks before he died.\n <\/p>\n \n However, Eric Richins met with a lawyer in the fall of 2020 to implement various estate planning methods that excluded his wife, charging documents said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cEric 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,\u201d prosecutors wrote.\n <\/p>\n \n Eric Richins appointed his sister to manage his trust and removed his wife as the beneficiary of a $500,000 life insurance policy, which Kouri Richins did not realize until after his death, according to prosecutors.\n <\/p>\n \n In 2023, the drug dealer who allegedly provided the pills to Richins\u2019 housecleaner confirmed he sold her fentanyl, according to court documents. Last year, however, he told investigators he had given the woman a different drug, not fentanyl, Richins\u2019 defense attorneys said in a motion last fall.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIf the state cannot place fentanyl in the hands of the defendant, the state has no case,\u201d Richins\u2019 lawyers wrote. \u201c(The dealer\u2019s) statement doesn\u2019t just poke holes in their case, it throws a grenade in the middle of it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Prosecutors argued in their own court filing that the dealer\u2019s recent claim isn\u2019t credible. However, even if the jury did take the dealer\u2019s recent statement into consideration, prosecutors said the panel could \u201cstill easily convict the Defendant.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In their <\/em>statement to CNN, Richins\u2019 defense attorneys said they believe the evidence at trial will support their client\u2019s claim of innocence.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cKouri is a mother who wants to go home to her children,\u201d her attorneys said. \u201cWe are confident this jury will make that possible.\u201d\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n About a year after her husband\u2019s death, Kouri Richins published a children\u2019s book to help her three sons cope with their grief. \u201cJust because he\u2019s not present here with us physically, that doesn\u2019t mean his presence isn\u2019t here with us,\u201d Richins said during an interview promoting the book on a local news program in April … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Kouri-Richins-wrote-a-book-on-grief-after-the-death.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21565,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21563\/revisions\/21565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Kouri](\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ap23163677762679.jpg\")
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