A cash and picture obsessed Utah mother overtly promoted a youngsters’s guide she wrote about her husband’s drug overdose dying to assist her children cope — however prosecutors say it was homicide she wrote.
Kouri Richins, a 35-year-old house-flipper, killed husband Eric Richins on March 3, 2022 with a fentanyl-laced Moscow mule cocktail so she may money in on his $4 million property and run off along with her handyman lover, prosecutor Bradley Bloodworth mentioned throughout opening statements Monday in Park Metropolis, Utah.
The case scandalized the rich ski enclave after allegations emerged that she used her husband’s homicide, and her personal children’ grief to advertise herself in TV and radio interviews.
Richins argues that her husband was a drug addict and overdosed on meds he took for his continual again ache.
“Kouri Richins murdered Eric for his cash and to get a contemporary begin at life,” Bloodworth informed the jury.
“Greater than something, she wished his cash to perpetuate her facade of privilege, affluence and success.”
The mom of three younger sons additionally beforehand tried to kill Eric by dosing his sandwich with the highly effective opiate weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day, Bloodworth mentioned.
Then a yr after the killing, Kouri wrote a youngsters’s image guide “Are You With Me?” — ostensibly to assist her and Eric’s three sons cope together with his dying.
“Richins values and trades on her perceived look, affluence, privilege and success,” the prosecutor mentioned.
The prosecutor laid out for the jurors a slew of allegedly damning circumstantial proof together with that Richins and the person she was having an affair with, Josh Grossman, texted one another hours earlier than the dying that they beloved one another.
And months earlier than Eric’s dying, Richins booked an unique trip to St. Martin within the Caribbean along with her lover — scheduled for a date after Eric’s alleged homicide, Bloodworth mentioned.
She additionally consulted a divorce lawyer throughout the identical interval, he mentioned.
She even texted her flame the day earlier than the killing: “If I used to be divorced proper now and requested you to marry me tomorrow, you’d?”
“I simply need to lay on the sofa and cuddle you. Watch a homicide doc and snuggle,” Richins added.
Bloodworth mentioned Richins’ actual property firm was financially drowning and he or she was $4.5 million in debt as she sought to venture a picture of success.
But when she inherited Eric’s $4 million property all her cash issues would go away, the prosecutor mentioned.
She wouldn’t have the ability to gather on the multi-million property in the event that they divorced, as a part of a prenuptial settlement. Then again, if Eric died, Richins was the beneficiary, the prosecutor defined to jurors.
Richins made Eric the toxic drink — that contained 5 instances the deadly dose of fentanyl — that night after which left the bed room, solely returning after 3 a.m. to search out him chilly and unresponsive, prosecutors say.
She opened her telephone first at 3:06 a.m. however didn’t name 911 for assist till roughly quarter-hour later at 3:21 a.m., the prosecutor mentioned.
After his dying, Kouri wiped her cellphone and received a brand new one, making web searches on the brand new machine together with, “Can cops uncover deleted messages iPhone?” and ultimately looking “ladies Utah jail” and “luxurious prisons for the wealthy.”
Richins’ lawyer, Kathryn Nester, in her personal opening statements argued Eric died of an unintentional overdose due to his use of ache medicine he used to deal with continual knee and again ache from his work as a stone mason and avid outdoorsman.
Eric’s household tried to pin his dying on Richins from the beginning, hiring a non-public investigator and monetary, toxicology and handwriting specialists as they allegedly tried to assist cops construct a case towards her, Nester claimed.
“No household ever needs to consider that behind closed doorways somebody you liked is utilizing medication,” Nester mentioned.
The protection legal professional mentioned Eric used marijuana gummies and oxycodone for his ache and claimed Eric requested Kouri to assist him get ache drugs.
Nester additionally performed the 911 name that Kouri made the evening of the homicide wherein she could possibly be heard saying via tears, “My husband’s not respiratory. He’s chilly.”
“These are the sounds of a spouse changing into a widow,” the protection legal professional informed the jury.
The primary three witnesses referred to as had been all members of the family: Eric’s dad and sister and the sister’s husband.
Katie Richins-Benson, Eric’s sister, cried as she testified she acquired a telephone name from her dad in the course of the evening sobbing and telling her Eric wasn’t respiratory.
The sister recounted how after they received to the scene, Kouri solely lastly broke the devastating information to her three sons, then ages 5, 7, and 9, after they noticed his physique getting taken out of the home on a stretcher.
Eric’s dad, Eugene Richins, informed jurors he found Kouri lied to him about Eric’s reason for dying, telling him the medical expert knowledgeable her her husband died of covid and a lung fungus — the identical means Eric’s mother died.
Richins-Benson’s husband Clint Benson, additionally took the witness stand, telling jurors how in 2020 Eric came upon Kouri took out a $250,000 residence fairness mortgage on their mansion with out ever telling him. The information prompted Eric to satisfy with a divorce legal professional, finally deciding to stick with Kouri however arrange a belief to guard his belongings.
Simply two months after selling her guide, Richins was arrested for the homicide of Eric, with whom she’d been married to for 9 years.
Richins has since been hit with a slew of extra monetary crimes tied to the homicide.
She additionally took out a life insurance coverage coverage in Eric’s title with out his data simply two weeks earlier than the alleged homicide, Bloodworth mentioned.
However the husband received sensible to her schemes and even suspected she’d beforehand tried to poison him, prompting him to alter his will and different life insurance coverage insurance policies, eradicating his spouse because the beneficiary, prosecutors mentioned.
She’s pleaded not responsible to aggravated homicide, tried aggravated homicide and drug possession.
She has been in jail since her arrest.
