Utah woman found guilty of murdering her husband

• AP, PARK CITY, Utah

A Utah woman on Monday was convicted of aggravated murder after poisoning her husband with fentanyl and self-publishing a children’s book about coping with grief.

Prosecutors said Kouri Richins slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that her husband, Eric Richins, drank in March 2022 at their home outside the affluent ski town of Park City. They said she was US$4.5 million in debt and falsely believed that when her husband died, she would inherit his estate worth more than US$4 million.

“She wanted to leave Eric Richins, but did not want to leave his money,” Summit County Prosecutor Brad Bloodworth said.

Kouri Richins, 35, stared at the floor and took deep breaths as the judge read the verdict.

She was also convicted of other felonies, including attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him black out. Jurors also found Richins guilty of forgery and fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after his death.

The jury deliberated for just lass than three hours. Afterward, family members on both sides of the case left the courtroom hugging and crying.

“Honestly, I feel like we’re all in shock. It’s been a long time coming,” said Eric Richins’ sister, Amy Richins, adding that the family can now focus on honoring her brother and supporting his sons. “Just very happy that we got justice for my brother.”

Relatives of Kouri Richins left the courthouse without speaking to the media.

Sentencing was scheduled for May 13, the day her husband would have turned 44. The aggravated murder charge alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

What was scheduled to be a five-week trial was cut short when the defendant waived her right to testify and her legal team abruptly rested its case without calling any witnesses. Her attorneys said they were confident that prosecutors did not produce enough evidence over the past three weeks to convict her of murder.

The prosecution said Kouri Richins, a real-estate agent focused on flipping houses, was deep in debt and planning a future with another man. She had opened numerous life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge, with benefits totaling about US$2 million, prosecutors said.

Kouri Richins also faces 26 other money-related criminal charges in a separate case that has not yet gone to trial.

Prosecutors showed the jury text messages between Kouri Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the man with whom she was allegedly having an affair, in which she fantasized about leaving her husband, gaining millions in a divorce and marrying Grossman.

Bloodworth replayed for the jury a clip of Kouri Richins’ 911 call from the night of her husband’s death.

That is “not ‘the sound of a wife becoming a widow,’” he said, quoting the defense’s opening statement. “It’s the sound of a wife becoming a black widow.”

Defense attorney Wendy Lewis responded that the prosecution “looks at facts one way and sees a witch, but if you look at those facts another way, you see a widow.”

The defense focused on trying to discredit the prosecution’s star witness, Carmen Lauber, a housekeeper for the family who claimed to have sold Kouri Richins fentanyl on multiple occasions.

Lewis argued Lauber did not deal fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection.

Lauber said in early interviews that she never dealt the synthetic opioid, but later said she did after investigators informed her that Eric Richins died of a fentanyl overdose, the defense said.

Shortly before her arrest in May 2023, Kouri Richins self-published the children’s book Are You With Me? about coping with the loss of a parent. She promoted it on local TV and radio stations, which prosecutors pointed to in arguing that she planned the killing and tried to cover it up.

Summit County Detective Jeff O’Driscoll, the lead investigator on the case, testified that Kouri Richins paid a ghostwriting company to write the book for her.