Mother who wrote book to help children deal with father’s death will be tried for murder

A year after her husband’s death, Kouri Richins, a mother of three, self-published the children’s book “Are You With Me?” (You are with me). According to her, this helped the children deal with the sudden loss of their father. The book was promoted in 2023 on a TV station in Utah, in the United States, and received praise. Weeks after publication, Richins was arrested for her husband’s death and charged with murder. The trial begins next Monday (23) and should last a month. A jury of 12 will decide his fate. Richins, 35, faces nearly three dozen charges in connection with her husband’s death, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, real estate fraud and insurance fraud. Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children’s book about dealing with grief after her husband’s death and who was later accused of poisoning him. AP/Rick Bowmer Prosecutors say the woman killed her husband, Eric Richins, at home in March 2022 by putting fentanyl in a cocktail he drank. They allege she was heavily in debt and killed him for financial gain, while planning a future with another man with whom she had an extramarital relationship. She pleaded not guilty. His defense attorneys, Wendy Lewis, Kathy Nester and Alex Ramos, said they are confident the jury will rule in Richins’ favor after hearing his version of events. “Kouri has waited nearly three years for this moment: the opportunity to have the facts of this case heard by a jury, free from the prosecution narrative that has dominated headlines since his arrest. What the public has been told bears little resemblance to the truth,” his legal team said in a statement. No fentanyl pills were found in Richins’ home, and the housekeeper’s dealer said he was in prison and in the process of detoxing when he confessed to detectives in 2023 to selling fentanyl to Lauber. Later, in sworn testimony, he stated that he only sold the opioid OxyContin. The arrest caused great commotion at the time and captivated true crime story enthusiasts in the following years. Once praised as a moving read, her book has since become a tool for the prosecution to argue that she committed premeditated murder. Documents allege two poisonings On the night of her husband’s death, Richins called 911 to report that she had found him “cold to the touch” at the foot of the bed, according to the police report. He was declared dead and, later, the coroner found a dose of fentanyl in his system five times higher than the lethal dose. Opioids, including fentanyl, can cause serious allergic reactions. According to prosecution documents, this was not her first attempt on his life. A month earlier, on Valentine’s Day, Eric Richins told friends he broke out in hives and passed out after taking a bite of a sandwich Richins had left for him. She had purchased the sandwich the same week that, according to police, she also purchased fentanyl pills from the family’s maid. Kouri dedicated the book to her husband, Eric Reproduction Facebook/Via BBC After injecting himself with his son’s EpiPen and taking a tablet of Benadryl, an allergy medication, Eric Richins woke up from a deep sleep and called a friend saying: “I think my wife tried to poison me”, the friend reported in a written statement. The day after Valentine’s Day, Kouri Richins texted her rumored boyfriend: “If he could just walk away…life would be perfect.” Key Witnesses Friend Eric Richins called that night and the housekeeper, who claims to have sold the drugs to his wife, could be a key witness in the upcoming trial. Other names may include family members and the man Kouri Richins allegedly had an affair with. The prosecution’s star witness, housekeeper Carmen Lauber, told police she gave Richins fentanyl pills she bought from a drug dealer a few days before Valentine’s Day. Later that month, Richins allegedly told the housekeeper that the pills she had provided were not strong enough and asked her to get stronger fentanyl, according to charging documents. Defense attorneys are expected to argue that Lauber did not provide fentanyl to Richins and that he lied in search of legal protection. Lauber was not charged in the case, and detectives said at a previous hearing that she was granted immunity. Money as Motivation Charging documents indicate that Eric Richins met with a divorce lawyer and an estate planning consultant in October 2020, a month after discovering that his wife had made important financial decisions without his knowledge. She had a negative balance in her bank account, owed more than $1.8 million to creditors and was being sued by one of them, according to court records. Prosecutors say Kouri Richins mistakenly believed she would inherit her husband’s assets under the terms of their prenuptial agreement. She also allegedly opened several life insurance policies in her husband’s name without his knowledge, with benefits totaling nearly $2 million, according to the indictment. She is further accused of falsifying loan applications and fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after her husband’s death.

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