A money and image obsessed Utah mom brazenly promoted a children’s book she wrote about her husband’s drug overdose death to help her kids cope — but prosecutors say it was murder 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 could cash in on his $4 million estate and run off with her handyman lover, prosecutor Bradley Bloodworth said during opening statements Monday in Park City, Utah.
The case scandalized the wealthy ski enclave after allegations emerged that she used her husband’s murder, and her own kids’ grief to promote herself in TV and radio interviews.
Richins argues that her husband was a drug addict and overdosed on meds he took for his chronic back pain.
“Kouri Richins murdered Eric for his money and to get a fresh start at life,” Bloodworth told the jury.
“More than anything, she wanted his money to perpetuate her facade of privilege, affluence and success.”
The mother of three young sons also previously tried to kill Eric by dosing his sandwich with the powerful opiate weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day, Bloodworth said.
Then a year after the killing, Kouri wrote a children’s picture book “Are You With Me?” — ostensibly to help her and Eric’s three sons cope with his death.
“Richins values and trades on her perceived appearance, affluence, privilege and success,” the prosecutor said.
The prosecutor laid out for the jurors a slew of allegedly damning circumstantial evidence including that Richins and the man she was having an affair with, Josh Grossman, texted each other hours before the death that they loved each other.
And months before Eric’s death, Richins booked an exotic vacation to St. Martin in the Caribbean with her lover — scheduled for a date after Eric’s alleged murder, Bloodworth said.
She also consulted a divorce lawyer during the same period, he said.
She even texted her flame the day before the killing: “If I was divorced right now and asked you to marry me tomorrow, you would?”
“I just want to lay on the couch and cuddle you. Watch a murder doc and snuggle,” Richins added.
Bloodworth said Richins’ real estate company was financially drowning and she was $4.5 million in debt as she sought to project an image of success.
But if she inherited Eric’s $4 million estate all her money problems would go away, the prosecutor said.
She wouldn’t be able to collect on the multi-million estate if they divorced, as part of a prenuptial agreement. On the other hand, if Eric died, Richins was the beneficiary, the prosecutor explained to jurors.
Richins made Eric the poisonous drink — that contained five times the lethal dose of fentanyl — that evening and then left the bedroom, only returning after 3 a.m. to find him cold and unresponsive, prosecutors say.
She opened her phone first at 3:06 a.m. but didn’t call 911 for help until roughly 15 minutes later at 3:21 a.m., the prosecutor said.
After his death, Kouri wiped her cell phone and got a new one, making internet searches on the new device including, “Can cops uncover deleted messages iPhone?” and eventually searching “women Utah prison” and “luxury prisons for the rich.”
Richins’ lawyer, Kathryn Nester, in her own opening statements argued Eric died of an accidental overdose because of his use of pain medication he used to treat chronic knee and back pain from his work as a stone mason and avid outdoorsman.
Eric’s family tried to pin his death on Richins from the start, hiring a private investigator and financial, toxicology and handwriting experts as they allegedly tried to help cops build a case against her, Nester claimed.
“No family ever wants to believe that behind closed doors someone you loved is using drugs,” Nester said.
The defense attorney said Eric used marijuana gummies and oxycodone for his pain and claimed Eric asked Kouri to help him get pain pills.
Nester also played the 911 call that Kouri made the night of the murder in which she could be heard saying through tears, “My husband’s not breathing. He’s cold.”
“Those are the sounds of a wife becoming a widow,” the defense attorney told the jury.
The first three witnesses called were all family members: Eric’s dad and sister and the sister’s husband.
Katie Richins-Benson, Eric’s sister, cried as she testified she received a phone call from her dad in the middle of the night sobbing and telling her Eric wasn’t breathing.
The sister recounted how after they got to the scene, Kouri only finally broke the devastating news to her three sons, then ages 5, 7, and 9, after they spotted his body getting taken out of the house on a stretcher.
Eric’s dad, Eugene Richins, told jurors he discovered Kouri lied to him about Eric’s cause of death, telling him the medical examiner informed her her husband died of covid and a lung fungus — the same way Eric’s mom died.
Richins-Benson’s husband Clint Benson, also took the witness stand, telling jurors how in 2020 Eric found out Kouri took out a $250,000 home equity loan on their mansion without ever telling him. The news prompted Eric to meet with a divorce attorney, ultimately deciding to stay with Kouri but set up a trust to protect his assets.
Just two months after promoting her book, Richins was arrested for the murder of Eric, with whom she’d been married to for nine years.
Richins has since been hit with a slew of additional financial crimes tied to the murder.
She also took out a life insurance policy in Eric’s name without his knowledge just two weeks before the alleged murder, Bloodworth said.
But the husband got wise to her schemes and even suspected she’d previously tried to poison him, prompting him to change his will and other life insurance policies, removing his wife as the beneficiary, prosecutors said.
She’s pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder and drug possession.
She has been in jail since her arrest.
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