Kouri Richins found guilty of poisoning and killing husband and trying to steal his $4M estate to run off with her handyman lover and pay back debts on her losing real estate business. Found guilty on all five charges, including forgery. Jury deliberated less than 3 hours. Mom of three had penned children’s book, ‘grieving husband’s loss.’
A children’s book author and mother of three has been found guilty of killing her husband with a fentanyl-laced Moscow Mule cocktail in a plot to start a new life with her handyman lover and steal his $4 million estate.
Kouri Richins, 35, was convicted of all five felonies she’d faced in connection with the death of Eric Richins, 39, on Monday following the completion of a three week trial.
The jury of six men and six women deliberated for just three hours at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah before returning their verdict on Monday.
Utah realtor, mom of 3 and children’s author Kouri Richins found guilty of all five charges
Richins faces possible life in prison at her sentencing on May 13 – what would have been her murdered husband Eric Richins’s 44th birthday. The most serious counts against Richins, aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder, carry maximum sentences of life in prison.
The verdict comes after jurors heard 13 days of emotional testimony about Eric’s death, in a case where extramarital affairs, financial woes, family rifts, drug deals and a children’s book about grief took center stage.
Richins also faced additional charges for mortgage fraud and forgery, after she allegedly signed to close on a multimillion-dollar real estate deal the day after her husband died. She had pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
During the case, Richins declined to testify along with the defense declining to call a single witness to testify.
Eric Richins fatal fentanyl overdose death
Successful businessman Eric was found dead inside the family home in Kamas, Utah, in the early hours of March 4, 2022.
Richins called 911 claiming she had returned to their shared room to find her husband cold in their bed.
Realtor Richins told the dispatcher they been celebrating her closing a deal on a $2.9 million mansion in Midway with some homemade Moscow Mule cocktails and a lemon drop shot.
An autopsy found Eric died from a massive fentanyl overdose, with more than five times the lethal limit in his system.
For more than a year, Richins ‘grieved’ her husband’s loss, including authoring a children’s book, titled, ‘Are You With Me?’ about dealing with grief and even appearing on local TV to promote it.
Utah mom had confided being trapped in marriage and life would be better if husband was dead
It wasn’t until May 2023, more than a year after her husband’s death that in May 2023, Richins was arrested and charged with her husband’s murder.
At the time of his death, Richins’s finances were ‘imploding,’ her real estate business in disarray, with the realtor owing $7.5 million debt to more than 20 payday loan and high-interest lenders.
But there was more. It was also revealed that Richin was having an affair with handyman and military veteran Robert Josh Grossmann. In texts before Eric’s death, she spoke of her dream that they could be together. In the days after, of her wish to make him her new husband and their upcoming vacation to a luxury Caribbean resort.
She had confided in friends about feeling ‘trapped’ in her marriage, with jurors hearing from one friend who testified Richins said that ‘in many ways it would be better if [Eric] were dead.’
Marriage in disarray
Court filings also showed that Eric Richins was considering divorcing his wife when he was killed, and had argued with her over whether to purchase a $2 million mansion that she could ‘flip’ for her real estate business.
With her husband gone, prosecutors argued Richins believed she would finally be able to start afresh with her lover and also get her hands on a much-needed cash injection from her husband’s $4 million estate.
In closing arguments on Monday, Summit County Prosecutor Brad Bloodworth described Richins as a ‘black widow’ who was motivated by money and an affair to murder her husband, and then went to great lengths to cover it up.
Closing trial arguments
‘She wanted to leave Eric Richins but did not want to leave his money,’ Bloodworth told jurors. ‘Their prenup meant if she left him, she would also leave most of his money.’
Pointing to the 911 call played in court, Bloodworth said that Richins immediately tried to lay out an alibi for herself and delayed performing CPR for almost six minutes after the dispatcher told her to.
‘The first minute is not the sound of a wife becoming a widow, the first minute is the sound of a wife becoming a black widow,’ Bloodworth said.
The prosecutor laid out the case that Richins wanted to end her marriage to Eric but wanted to keep his money.
Under the terms of their prenup, Richins would not have any rights to his successful stonemasonry business if they divorced but she would if he died.
New life insurance policy and forgery
Just weeks before Eric died, Richins also took out a new life insurance policy on her husband. A handwriting expert testified it appeared to have been forged.
Kouri Richins was a beneficiary of multiple life insurance policies on her husband, of which prosecutors said she had bought four, without his knowledge, between 2015 and 2017. He had tried to remove her from his life insurance policies and his will not long before he died.
Much of the case hinged on testimony from the state’s star witness, housekeeper Carmen Lauber.
Lauber testified that she sold drugs to Richins four times around the time of Eric’s death, including providing her with the fentanyl that was used to kill Eric.
A first plot to fatally poison Eric unfolded on Valentine’s Day 2022 when Richins laced a sandwich she bought for her husband from a local diner, prosecutors alleged.
Eric fell ill and allegedly told friends he feared his wife was trying to poison him.
It was after that failed plot that Richins allegedly requested more powerful fentanyl – asking Lauber for ‘the Michael Jackson stuff.’
Incriminating texts and searches: ‘if someone is poisoned,’
Equally revealing were text messages, Richins had sent her lover, Robert Josh Grossman, including asking him ‘what it felt like to kill someone,’ along with incriminating internet searches that included, ‘women Utah prison’, ‘how to delete cell phone data ‘and ‘if someone is poisoned, what goes down on the death certificate as.’
Richins had attempted to wipe her phone and internet data before her arrest never imagining that they would be found according to prosecutors.
The defense sought to paint Richins as a grieving widow who was the victim of a vendetta by Eric’s family. The defense claimed she was scapegoated because she wasn’t ‘grieving properly.’
‘They want you to look at a woman during the worst moment of her life and to judge her. There is no wrong way to grieve. They’re asking you to judge how she is acting at that moment and then use that moment as evidence of guilt,’ said defense attorney Wendy Lewis.
Ultimately, the panel of six men and six women took just three hours of deliberations to return their verdict of guilty on all charges.
Richins now faces a civil case with Eric’s family over his estate. She is also facing charges in a separate financial case.
