Gerrard Kaonga
A widowed mum-of-three accused of murdering her husband is now facing an additional attempted murder charge after prosectors claim she tried to poison him weeks earlier.
Kouri Richins, from Summit County, Utah, has been charged with murder for the death of her husband Eric Richins. She was arrested in May last year.
After her husband's death on March 4 2022, Kouri wrote a book to help children deal with grief and sorrow of losing a father.
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The self-published book was titled Are You With Me? about an angel wing-clad deceased father watching over his sons.
Prosecutors now claim in new court documents that Kouri tried to poison her husband weeks before he died.
The documents, that were filed on March 25, allege that a sandwich she got for Eric on Valentine’s day had been poisoned.
That same week she had purchased the sandwich according to witnesses and also bought several dozen fentanyl pills.
After eating the sandwich, prosecutors said Eric called two friends who have said they remember him saying 'I think my wife tried to kill me'.
The documents stated that before calling his two friends, Eric had rushed to inject himself with his son’s EpiPen and consumed many Benadryl pills to counteract his reaction to the drugs in the sandwich.
The latest court documents claim that Kouri had asked her housekeeper for the drugs she used to allegedly poison the sandwich. After this failed, she is accused of telling the housekeeper she needed stronger drugs and asking her to procure them.
In response to the new charges, Kouri's attorney Skye Lazaro told ABC News she 'continued to maintain her innocence' and 'there is nothing in the document that affects Kouri's approach to defending whatever charges the State levies against her'.
The drugs that were used to kill Eric proved to be significantly stronger as the Moscow Mule drink he had was laced with five-times the lethal dose of fentanyl.
When Eric died, Kouri called the police in the middle of the night to report that her husband was 'cold to the touch' after attending to her child in another room.
Kouri claimed that when she returned from dealing with her child's 'night terror' she found her husband unresponsive and deputies found Eric at the foot of the bed.
Prior to his death in 2022, Eric had changed his will to make his sister the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy. In addition to this, according to his family, he was also considering divorce from Kouri.
Eric's family has insisted that Kouri is the one responsible for his sudden death.