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A year after her husband died, a mother of three in Utah self-published a children\u2019s book that she said helped her sons cope with the sudden loss.\u00a0Kouri Richins\u00a0promoted her book \u201cAre You With Me?\u201d on a local TV station and drew praise for helping young children process the death of a parent.<\/p>\n
Weeks after the book\u2019s publication in 2023, she was arrested in her husband\u2019s death and charged with murder.<\/p>\n
The arrest sent shock waves through her small mountain town just outside Park City, where a 12-person jury is set to decide her fate in a\u00a0monthlong trial\u00a0that starts Monday.<\/p>\n
Richins, 35, faces nearly three dozen counts in connection with her husband\u2019s death, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud and insurance fraud. She has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say she killed her husband, Eric Richins, at their home in March 2022 by slipping fentanyl into a cocktail that he drank. They say she was deep in debt and killed him for financial gain while planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side.<\/p>\n
The chilling case of a once-respected local author accused of profiting off her own violent crime has captivated true-crime enthusiasts in the years since her arrest. Once lauded as a touching read, her book has since become a tool for prosecutors in arguing that she carried out a calculated killing.<\/p>\n
Her defense attorneys, Wendy Lewis, Kathy Nester and Alex Ramos, said they are confident the jury will rule in Richins\u2019 favor after hearing her side of the story.<\/p>\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 legal team said in a statement. \u201cWhat the public has been told bears little resemblance to the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the night of her husband\u2019s death, Richins called 911 to report that she had found him \u201ccold to the touch\u201d at the foot of their bed, according to the police report. He was pronounced dead, and a medical examiner later found five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system.<\/p>\n
That was\u00a0not her first attempt on his life, charging documents allege.<\/p>\n
A month earlier, on Valentine\u2019s Day, Eric Richins told friends he broke out in hives and blacked out after taking one bite of a sandwich that Richins had left for him. She had bought the sandwich the same week police say she also purchased fentanyl pills from the family\u2019s housekeeper. Opioids, including fentanyl, can cause severe allergic reactions.<\/p>\n
After injecting himself with his son\u2019s EpiPen and chugging the allergy medication Benadryl, Eric Richins woke from a deep sleep and called a friend to say, \u201cI think my wife tried to poison me,\u201d the friend said in a written testimony.<\/p>\n
A day after Valentine\u2019s Day, Kouri Richins texted her alleged lover, \u201cIf he could just go away \u2026 life would be so perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The friend Eric Richins called that night and the housekeeper who claims to have sold his wife the drugs could be key witnesses in the upcoming trial. Others may include family members and the man with whom Kouri Richins was allegedly having an affair.<\/p>\n
The prosecution\u2019s star witness, housekeeper Carmen Lauber, told police she gave Richins fentanyl pills she bought from a dealer a couple of days before Valentine\u2019s Day. Later that month, Richins allegedly told the housekeeper that the pills she provided were not strong enough and asked her to procure stronger fentanyl, according to charging documents.<\/p>\n
Defense attorneys are expected to argue that Lauber did not actually give Richins fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection. Lauber is not charged in connection with the case, and detectives said at an earlier hearing that she had been granted immunity.<\/p>\n
No fentanyl pills were ever found in Richins\u2019 home, and the housekeeper\u2019s dealer said he was in jail and detoxing from drug use when he told detectives in 2023 that he had sold Lauber fentanyl. He later said in a sworn affidavit that he only sold her the opioid OxyContin.<\/p>\n
Charging documents indicate Eric Richins met with a divorce attorney and an estate planner in October 2020, a month after he discovered that his wife made some major financial decisions without his knowledge. She had a negative bank account balance, owed lenders more than $1.8 million and was being sued by a creditor, according to court documents.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say Kouri Richins mistakenly believed she would inherit her husband\u2019s estate under terms of their prenuptial agreement. She had also opened numerous life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge, with benefits totaling nearly $2 million, prosecutors allege.<\/p>\n
She is also accused of forging loan applications and fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after her husband\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Utah #mother #selfpublished #childrens #book #husbands #death #trial #murder<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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