Jury delivers guilty verdict
A Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the sudden death of her husband has been found guilty of his murder.
A jury found that Kouri Richins killed her husband in March 2022 by poisoning him with a fentanyl-laced drink. The Utah jury deliberated the murder case for about three hours before reaching its verdict on Monday.
Financial motives and trial details
During the trial, the court heard how Richins, 35, had racked up millions of dollars in debt, had taken out life insurance policies on her husband, and was having an extramarital affair.
Prosecutors called more than 40 witnesses, including the woman who said she sold the drugs used to kill Eric Richins. Her defence team chose to not call any witnesses, and rested their case without having her take the stand to testify in her own defence.
Fraud and attempted murder conviction
Richins was also found guilty of fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after her husband’s death at their home outside the ski resort town of Park City. Prosecutors said during the trial that she falsely believed she would in inherit his estate worth more than $4m after he died.
They also said she was planning a future with another man who she had been having an affair with.
Officials said Richins was found to have poisoned her husband’s sandwich in an earlier incident, nearly killing him, before later increasing the dosage until he died. She was also found guilty of attempted murder over this incident.
Evidence of poisoning plot
Richins pleaded not guilty to all the charges. The most serious, aggravated murder, carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
“She wanted to leave Eric Richins but did not want to leave his money,” said Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth.
Richins was arrested in March, 2023 – two months after she published the picture book Are You With Me?, which she said was designed to help people – including her three children – cope with the death of a loved one.
“We wrote this book and we’re really hoping that it provides some comfort for not just obviously, our family, but other families that are going through the same thing,” she told told radio station KPCW in an interview before her arrest.
She dedicated the book to her husband, calling him “my amazing husband and a wonderful father”.
Timeline leading to death
According to court documents, between December 2021 and February 2022, Kouri Richins texted a person who had previously been arrested on drug charges asking for prescription pain medication.
She received hydrocodone pills, the court documents said, before she requested something stronger, “some of the Michael Jackson stuff”, asking specifically for fentanyl.
Three days after she allegedly obtained the drugs, she and her husband had a Valentine’s Day dinner, after which he fell ill.
“Eric believed that he had been poisoned,” the court documents said. “Eric told a friend that he thought his wife was trying to poison him.”
Two weeks later, according to court documents, Richins acquired more fentanyl.
Prosecutors said that on 4 March 2022, Richins called the police in the middle of the night to say she had found her husband unresponsive.
She told authorities she had served her husband a mixed vodka drink in bed and then went to sleep with one of her young children who was having a night terror. She later returned to her husband in their room where she said she found him “cold to the touch”.
A medical examiner later found Mr Richins died from a fentanyl overdose. He had five times the lethal dosage of the drug in his system.
Source: BBC
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