PARK CITY, Utah – Prosecutors portrayed a Utah mother and children’s book author as a money-hungry killer Monday on the first day of a murder trial in her husband’s death, while her defense team urged jurors not to make judgments before hearing her side.
Kouri Richins, 35, faces a slew of felony charges for allegedly killing her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl in March 2022 at their home just outside the ski town of Park City. She has vehemently denied the allegations.
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Prosecutors say she slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a Moscow mule cocktail that he drank. She is also accused of trying to poison him a month earlier on Valentine's Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him break out in hives and black out, according to court documents.
After Eric Richins death, Kouri Richins self-published a children’s book about grief to help her young sons and other kids cope with the loss of a parent.
As arguments in the case got underway Monday, Richins sat next to her defense team, taking notes on a legal pad and wearing a black blazer and white blouse.
Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth told jurors that Richins was $4.5 million in debt and falsely believed that if her husband died she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million. Prosecutors have argued she was planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side.
“The evidence will prove that Kouri Richins murdered Eric for his money and to get a fresh start at life,” Bloodworth said. “More than anything, she wanted his money to perpetuate her facade of privilege, affluence and success."
Almost $2 million in life insurance policies
Defense attorney Kathryn Nester started her opening statement by playing the recording of Richins’ 911 call from the night of her husband’s death. Richins was sobbing hysterically on the call and seemed barely able to answer the dispatcher’s questions.
“Those were the sounds of a wife becoming a widow,” Nester said.
Eric Richins had Lyme disease and was addicted to painkillers, Nester said. She suggested he may have overdosed.
The couple had gone through a tough year, the attorney said, and both had contemplated divorce, but they went to marriage counseling and decided to stay together. She said they were happy and celebrating closing on a property deal the night of his death.
The trial is slated to run through March 26. A few dozen people hoping to watch camped outside the courthouse in lawn chairs starting at 4 a.m., four and a half hours before the trial began.
Among the witnesses who will likely be called to testify are a housekeeper who claims to have sold fentanyl to Richins on three occasions and the man with whom Richins was allegedly having an affair.
Richins faces nearly three dozen counts, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud and insurance fraud. The murder charge alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
In the months before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published the illustrated children’s book “Are You with Me?” about a father with angel wings watching over his young son after passing away. The book could play a key role for prosecutors in framing Eric Richins’ death as a calculated killing with an elaborate cover-up attempt. Bloodworth told jurors Monday about how Richins promoted it on local TV and radio stations.
Years before her husband's death, Richins opened numerous life insurance policies on Eric Richins without his knowledge, with benefits totaling nearly $2 million, prosecutors alleged. Court documents also indicate she had a negative bank account balance, owed lenders more than $1.8 million and was being sued by a creditor.
Bloodworth showed the jury a series of text messages between Kouri Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the man with whom she was having an affair. She texted Grossman about her dream of leaving her husband, gaining millions in the divorce and one day marrying Grossman.
Bloodworth also showed screenshots of Richins’ internet search history, which included “women Utah prison,” “luxury prisons for the rich America” and “Can cops force you to do a lie detector test?”
Empty pill bottles and marijuana gummies
The state's key witness, housekeeper Carmen Lauber, had told detectives she sold Richins up to 90 blue-green fentanyl pills that she acquired from a dealer. Lauber is not charged in connection to the case, and detectives have said she was granted immunity.
Defense attorneys argued Monday that Lauber did not actually give Richins fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection. None was ever found in Richins' house, and the housekeeper's dealer has said he was in jail and detoxing from drug use when he told detectives in 2023 that he sold fentanyl to Lauber. He later said in a sworn affidavit that he sold her only the opioid OxyContin.
Nester showed jurors photos of an empty pill bottle sitting on Eric’s night stand the night of his death and bags of marijuana gummies he was known to use regularly. She said he was dependent on painkillers and had asked his wife to procure opioids for him.