Victim's sister shares heartbreaking statement after Kouri Richins is sentenced for murdering her husband
Topics: Utah, Crime, True crime
Callum Jones
Featured Image Credit: Trent Nelson - Pool/Getty Images
Topics: Utah, Crime, True crime
Katie Richins-Benson, the sister of a Kansas man who was fatally poisoned by his wife, has issued a heartbreaking statement after her sibling's killer was sentenced.
Eric Richins was found deceased in his Utah home in March 2022 after his wife, Kouri Richins, called the police to say her partner had found him 'cold to the touch'.
Earlier on that day, Kouri served her husband a Moscow Mule cocktail, which had been laced with with Fentanyl. The drug lead to Eric overdosing and passing away.
Prosecutors proved during a trial last month that Kouri had plotted her husband's murder for some time, with the children's author opening $2 million in life insurances policies under her partner's name.
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It took the jury just three hours to decide Kouri was guilty of murder, while she was also found to have committed the offence of attempted aggravated murder, two counts of insurance fraud and one count of forgery.
On Wednesday (May 13), Kouri was sentenced to life without parole, though she intends to appeal her conviction.
Katie, the victim's sister, spoke to press outside of the courtroom after Kouri was handed her sentence.
She stated: "Today does not bring my brother back. It does not restore the years his children lost with their father, the milestones he should have been here for, or the life our family believed he still had ahead of him.
"But today does matter. Today, the court recognized that what happened to Eric Richins was not an accident, not unexplained, and not something our family imagined."
Speaking of her brother, Katie went on: "Eric was more than the headlines that followed his death. A father, a friend, a person deeply loved by so many people. The public has heard about the investigation, the evidence and the trial.
"I remember the man himself, his laugh, his presence, his loyalty to the people he cared about and the place he held in our family that can never truly be filled. No sentence can undo the trauma this has caused."
Throughout Kori's trial, the killer refused to take to the stand and her defence called zero witnesses on her behalf.
The only message she had in court was for her children as she emotionally said: "The one thing I need you boys to know is that I did not abandon you. Regardless of what anyone tells you, I would never ever leave you boys. And I am so sorry that even for one second you think that I did."