Kouri Richins stood in a lime green jail uniform on Wednesday as a Park City judge prepared to sentence her for one of the state's most brazen crimes: poisoning her husband with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl, then cashing in on his death by publishing a children's book about grief.
The 35-year-old real estate agent was convicted in March of aggravated murder in the 2022 death of Eric Richins, her husband. Jurors also found her guilty of attempted murder for a Valentine's Day attack weeks earlier, when she laced a sandwich with fentanyl. He survived that attempt by injecting himself with his son's EpiPen and downing a bottle of Benadryl after breaking out in hives.
The case exploded into the true-crime spotlight when Richins was arrested in 2023 while promoting her children's book, Are You With Me?, which tells the story of a boy dealing with his father's death. The irony was too perfect for media outlets to ignore: the woman accused of murdering her husband had already written and was actively marketing a book about processing that exact loss.
Prosecutors painted Richins as a calculating killer motivated by greed. She had racked up millions in debt and opened multiple life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge. Court documents show she believed she stood to inherit his estate, worth more than $4 million. Text messages presented at trial revealed her fantasizing about leaving Eric for another man and claiming his wealth in a divorce. Her phone's search history told another story: queries about lethal fentanyl doses, luxury prisons, and whether poisoning shows up on death certificates.
At sentencing, the judge will consider statements from the couple's three sons, now ages 13, 11, and 9. The oldest told prosecutors he feared his mother would hurt him and his brothers if released. "I'm afraid if she gets out, she will come after me and my brothers, my whole family," he wrote. "I think she would come and take us and not do good things to us, like hurt us."
The middle son said he could finally "live a happy and successful life without fear of [her] hurting me or anyone I love." The youngest said he would be "so scared" if she got out.
Eric Richins' sister, Amy, said after the verdict that the family had finally gotten justice and could now focus on raising his sons. The sentencing hearing fell on what would have been Eric's 44th birthday.
Richins faces decades to life in prison. The aggravated murder conviction alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life or life without parole. Prosecutors have urged Judge Richard Mrazik to impose life without parole and to stack her sentences rather than run them concurrently. A conviction for attempted aggravated murder on the sandwich poisoning could add anywhere from five years to life, depending on how the judge assesses the severity of injury. Two insurance fraud counts carry one to 15 years each, and a forgery charge carries zero to five years.
Richins' defense team never called a single witness at trial. They rested their case confident that prosecutors had failed to prove murder beyond reasonable doubt. But the jury disagreed, returning guilty verdicts on all counts in a trial that ended ahead of schedule when Richins declined to testify in her own defense.
Author James Rodriguez: "The speed with which Richins pivoted from alleged murderer to grief memoir author while her husband's body was still warm tells you everything about her judgment and conscience."
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