A mom who published a children’s book on grief after her husband’s death is convicted of his murder

Kouri Richins appears in court Monday for closing arguments in her murder trial.
David Jackson/Pool/Park Record

A Utah jury found Kouri Richins guilty of murder and all other charges she faced in the 2022 death of her husband, Eric Richins, who died of a lethal dose of fentanyl.

The jury deliberated for about three hours after hearing closing arguments on Monday. In addition to aggravated murder, the eight-person panel convicted Kouri Richins of attempted aggravated murder for a failed attempt to kill her husband on Valentine’s Day, weeks before his death. She was also found guilty of forgery and two counts of insurance fraud related to Eric Richins’ life insurance coverage.

The mother of three – who published a children’s book on grief after her husband’s death – bowed her head when the guilty verdict was read aloud in court. She could be sentenced to life in prison without parole, the maximum penalty for the murder charge. Her sentencing is scheduled for May 13.

Over 13 days, prosecutors called more than 40 witnesses who testified about purported troubles in the Richins’ marriage, her affair with another man and the millions of dollars she owed in debt – all factors prosecutors argued motivated her to fatally poison her husband.

“She did not have the money to leave Eric or the money to salvage her business,” prosecutor Brad Bloodworth said in his closing argument Monday, painting the defendant as a striver focused on maintaining the facade of her success and affluence. “Kouri Richins is an intensely ambitious person. She is a risk-taker. There was a way forward – Eric had to die.”

Eric Richins was found dead in the couple’s home in Kamas, Utah, early in the morning on March 4, 2022. An autopsy revealed he had roughly five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system.

Summit County Prosecutor Brad Bloodworth presents the state’s closing argument in Kouri Richins’ murder trial on Monday.
David Jackson/Pool/Park Record

About a year after her husband’s fatal overdose, Kouri Richins published a children’s book to help their three sons cope with the grief of losing their father. Weeks after appearing on a local TV program to promote her book, she was arrested and charged with aggravated murder in connection to his death.

The defense rested its case last Thursday without calling any witnesses. Kouri Richins’ attorneys argued she was wrongfully blamed for her husband’s death after a sloppy and biased investigation.

“They cannot tell you how Eric ingested that fentanyl,” defense attorney Wendy Lewis said in her closing argument Monday. “They haven’t done their job, and now they want you to make inferences based on paper-thin evidence.”

After the verdict, one of Eric Richins’ sisters thanked everyone who “worked tirelessly to bring justice for Eric.”

“Our focus is now on honoring Eric’s life and supporting his boys, as we all continue to heal,” Amy Richins said outside the courthouse in Park City.

In a statement to CNN before the verdict was announced, Richins’ defense team said prosecutors had failed to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

“Over the past several weeks, the jury has had the opportunity to hear the full evidence – not the headlines, not the speculation, but the facts,” her attorneys said in the statement Monday.

“We believe in the jury system, and we trust the process. Kouri should finally be able to go home to her three young boys and begin rebuilding her life.”

Kouri Richins was ‘unhappy’ in her marriage, prosecutors said

At trial, prosecutors argued Kouri Richins murdered her husband to reap a financial benefit from his death and because she was unhappy in her marriage.

The jury saw dozens of affectionate text messages between Richins and her then-boyfriend, Robert Josh Grossmann, including some where the defendant said she dreamed of their future together – though Grossmann testified the prospect was more fantasy than reality.

Several witnesses testified about alleged strife in the Richins’ relationship, with two friends saying Kouri Richins told them she felt “trapped” in her marriage.

Kouri Richins’ ex-boyfriend testifies at murder trial

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“She was unhappy,” Bloodworth said Monday. “She wanted to leave Eric Richins but did not want to leave his money.”

Although her friends said Kouri Richins appeared to be financially successful, a forensic accountant testified her real estate business flipping houses was “imploding.” Her net worth was negative $1.6 million the day after her husband’s death, the accountant said.

Eric Richins’ life was insured for approximately $2.2 million through several policies, including one prosecutors argued Kouri Richins had applied for fraudulently. The application for the $100,000 life insurance policy included errors, including an incorrect Social Security number for Eric Richins, an insurance agent testified. A forensic document specialist testified that Eric Richins’ signature on the application was probably forged.

“Kouri Richins wanted to murder Eric Richins, thus took out an insurance policy on his life to get money for murdering Eric Richins,” Bloodworth told the jury. “Then she murdered Eric Richins, and then she submitted a claim to get the money.”

In her own closing, Lewis argued Eric Richins would have been more financially useful to his wife if he were alive – since the money from his life insurance coverage wouldn’t have covered all her debts.

“Kouri spent that life insurance within a matter of weeks and was still in debt,” she said.

Prosecutors had also accused Kouri Richins of trying to kill her husband with a poisoned sandwich on Valentine’s Day 2022 – ten days after that insurance policy went into effect. Eric Richins called two friends that day and told them he felt like he was going to die after eating the sandwich, according to charging documents.

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A few weeks later, Eric Richins was dead. The amount of fentanyl found in his system, Bloodworth said, “shows that Kouri Richins wanted Eric not only dead, but good and dead.”

The night of his death, Eric and Kouri Richins had a drink to celebrate an achievement for her real estate business, according to a statement she gave law enforcement. Writings by Kouri Richins found in the family home indicate the couple drank a Moscow Mule cocktail and a lemon drop shot.

In his closing argument Monday, Bloodworth argued Kouri Richins had used the drinks to administer the deadly drugs to her husband, saying she had “learned from her mistake” on Valentine’s Day.

“One can season a sandwich with fentanyl, Eric can eat it, tell something’s wrong, set the fentanyl-laced sandwich aside,” the prosecutor said. “You throw a lemon drop shot back – by the time Eric would notice the shot was in, it was in his body. Moscow Mule, just to be good and sure.”

Lewis pushed back, arguing there was no evidence showing fentanyl was put into Eric Richins’ drink.

“That was argument. Argument is not evidence,” she said. “(The state) waited until closing to tell you, ‘Oh, she put it in a drink,’ without any evidence to back that up.”

Judge Richard Mrazik, who presided over Kouri Richins’ trial, is seen in court on Monday.
David Jackson/Pool/Park Record

Letter shows Richins tried to blame husband, prosecutor said

Carmen Lauber, a housecleaner who worked for Kouri Richins, testified the Utah mother asked her for illicit pills several times in early 2022.

Lauber bought pills from a man named Robert Crozier at a gas station in Draper, Utah, twice before Eric Richins’ death and a third time shortly after, she said. Cell phone data showed both Lauber’s and Crozier’s phones were near the gas station on February 11, February 26 and March 9, 2022.

“It’s those illicit street drugs that Kouri used to murder Eric Richins,” Bloodworth said.

Kouri Richins, left, appears in court Monday next to her attorney, Kathy Nester.
David Jackson/Pool/Park Record

In her closing argument, Lewis attacked Lauber’s memory and credibility, claiming she parroted the investigators’ narrative so they would help her avoid punishment on separate criminal charges unrelated to the Richins case.

Messages between Lauber and Kouri Richins from early 2022 were deleted from both their phones, a digital forensic analyst testified, but investigators were able to recover dozens of online searches made on a phone Kouri Richins started using in April 2022. The searches included queries about remotely deleting cellphone data, how investigators recover deleted messages, women’s prisons in Utah and life insurance payments.

The searches included: “what is a lethal.dose.of.fetanayl (sic),” “kouri richins kamas net worth,” and, “if someone is poisned (sic) what does it go down on the death certificate as.”

“She didn’t search if someone accidentally (overdoses),” Bloodworth said Monday. “She doesn’t search if somebody is dead for unknown reasons. She searches if somebody is poisoned, because that is what happened.”

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Bloodworth also showed the jury a handwritten letter recovered from Kouri Richins’ jail cell in September 2023. The letter, he said, detailed a “fake story” Kouri Richins wanted her brother to relay to her then-attorney, suggesting Eric Richins asked her to purchase drugs from Carmen Lauber.

However, throughout the investigation into her husband’s death, Kouri Richins never told authorities she bought drugs for him, Bloodworth said.

“Four months after she’s been arrested for Eric Richins’ murder, a year and a half after she murdered him, she knows that she bought fentanyl and she has to explain it,” Bloodworth said. “And how does she explain it, a year and a half after murdering Eric Richins? She blames it on Eric.”

Lewis said officials didn’t fully investigate the claims in the letter because they weren’t looking for evidence that could prove Kouri Richins’ innocence.

“It is absolutely possible that everything she said in that letter was true,” she said.