Featured Image Credit: CBS
Topics: True crime, Utah
William Morgan
A woman who wrote a book on bereavement for her children after their dad died has been found guilty of his murder, with it emerging in court that she had been running several schemes to profit from his demise.
Father-of-three Eric Richins, 39 was found dead at his family home in Utah on March 4, 2022, after his wife Kouri, then 31, had called the police to say that she had found him 'cold to the touch', after earlier serving him a Moscow Mule cocktail.
In the aftermath of his death, Kouri wrote and published a children's' book about grieving for a parent, called Are You With Me?. But while she was hawking the book on local media channels, the mom was also trying to net a multi-million dollar payday from her husband's death.
Kouri was arrested 14 months after her husband had died unexpectedly at home of an opioid overdose, with the ensuing trial revealing that Eric had concerns that his wife was trying to poison him and had even started to write her out of his will after some chilling incidents before his murder.
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Prosecutors proved to the jury that Kouri had plotted her husband's death for some time, with the deeply indebted defendant opening $2 million in life insurances policies under her husband's name - without his knowledge.
These policies were taken out on her stonemason husband between 2015 and 2017, with a neighbor stating that Kouri had told her in December 2021 that it would be better if he died after a fight at the family home.
The court heard about a number of likely poisoning incidents during the trial, at which Kouri refused to take the stand and her defense failed to call a single witness during 13 days of testimony from people who knew the couple.
Suspicions about Kouri arose during the initial investigation into her husband's death, with a number of his family members telling the police that they believed Kouri was behind it. Tragically, Eric had even shared that he believed his wife was trying to poison him.
Court filings seen by CBS showed that these attempts had begun a long time before his death, with Eric's sister testifying that he had told her that Kouri had tried to poison him on a vacation in Greece several years before he died.
In another incident not long before his death, Eric developed breathing difficulties and broke out in hives after his wife served him a sandwich on Valentine's Day, 2022. To save his own life, the dad injected himself with his son's epipen and took antihistamines.
Prior to his fatal poisoning incident, the couple had fought after Eric expressed doubts about purchasing a $2 million mansion as part of a scheme for his wife to flip it as part of her real estate business. The day after his death, the deal was signed.
It emerged that the mom-of-three had sourced a deadly dose of opiates from their housekeeper, purchasing $900 worth of fentanyl pills after previous poisoning attempts had failed. Fentanyl is an opiate roughly 100 times stronger than heroin that is often used in tiny amounts by hospitals as a painkiller.
She had asked the housekeeper to get her the 'Michael Jackson stuff', in reference to the superstar who was killed by his doctor after being given a lethal cocktail of legal drugs.
Police analysis of her phone was the final nail in the coffin for Kouri's defense, with recovered texts and searches reading: ‘women utah prison’, ‘can cops.uncover deleted.messages iphone’, ‘if someone is poisned what does it go down on the death certificate as’. ‘how long does life insurance companies takento.pay’ and ‘what is a lethal.does.of.fetanyl’.
In addition to the secret life insurance policies and more than $4.5 million in personal debt, prosecutors also revealed that Kouri had been conducting an extramarital affair when she slipped 15 fentanyl pills in his cocktail.
Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth said: "She wanted to leave Eric Richins but did not want to leave his money."
It took the jury just three hours to reach their guilty verdict on all counts, with Kouri also guilty of attempted murder, two counts of falsifying insurance claims and forgery, in addition to the murder of her husband.
She now faces 25 years behind bars and will not see a cent of her husband's money or assets, thanks to Utah's slayer law.
This means that a person's killer cannot benefit from their murder after a guilty verdict, even though Kouri maintains she is owed $3.6 million from the sale of their assets.