(NEW YORK) —
The murder trial of Kouri Richins, a Utah mom accused of fatally poisoning her husband with fentanyl who self-published a children’s book on grieving following his death, is underway, with prosecutors alleging she killed the 39-year-old dad of three to “perpetuate her facade of privilege” while the defense maintained her innocence during opening statements Monday.
The 35-year-old realtor was charged with aggravated murder in connection with the 2022 death of her husband, Eric Richins, following a lengthy investigation. Prosecutors allege she spiked his cocktail with a lethal dose of fentanyl.
Her charges also include attempted aggravated murder, with prosecutors alleging she gave her husband a sandwich laced with fentanyl on Valentine’s Day two weeks before his death in an initial, failed attempt to kill him.
Prosecutors allege that Kouri Richins was in “financial distress” due to her realty company’s debts and believed she would have financially benefited from her husband’s death, according to the charging document. They also allege she was having an affair and purportedly told a witness months before her husband’s death that she “felt ‘stuck’ and ‘trapped’ in her marriage and it would be better if Eric Richins just died,” according to the charging document.
During opening statements, both the prosecutors and defense detailed the night of Eric Richins’ death in dramatic detail, with defense attorneys playing the 911 call that Kouri Richins made at 3:21 a.m. on March 4, 2022.
A distraught-sounding Kouri Richins can be heard saying that her husband is cold in their bed and confirms to the 911 call-taker that he is not breathing.
“Those were the sounds of a wife becoming a widow,” her defense attorney, Kathy Nester, said.
Nester said the two had had some “rough times” in their marriage and had contemplated divorce, but that they went to counseling and decided to stick it out.
“You’re going to hear testimony from one of Eric’s closest friends that in the few weeks before Eric died, he and Kouri were the happiest together that he’d ever seen them,” she said.
Prosecutor Brad Bloodworth, meanwhile, said that hours before her husband’s death, Kouri Richins texted her boyfriend, “Love you,” made her husband a drink that she took to him in bed and then found him dead hours later.
“The evidence will prove that Kouri Richins murdered Eric for his money and to get a fresh start at life,” Bloodworth said. “More than anything, she wanted his money to perpetuate her facade of privilege, affluence and success.”
On the day Eric Richins died, Kouri Richins owed over $4.5 million to over 20 different lenders for her house-flipping business, and she was about to take on an additional $3.2 million in debt upon closing on a mansion, according to Bloodworth. On the day that Eric Richins died, his estate was worth over $4 million, Bloodworth said.
Nearly two weeks earlier, Bloodworth said Kouri Richins texted her boyfriend, “I do want a future together. I do want you. Figure life out together. If he could just go away and you could just be here, life would be so perfect.” Three months before her husband’s death, Kouri Richins booked an all-inclusive vacation for her and her boyfriend at a Caribbean resort, to check in the month after his death, according to Bloodworth.
Bloodworth alleged that Kouri Richins had a “guilty conscience” about her husband’s death and engaged in a “cover-up” by deleting text messages and other data from her phone in the two months leading up to his death and a week or so after.
“Police seized that phone. She got a new phone, and on that new phone, there were the following internet searches: Can cops uncover deleted messages iPhone? Can you delete everything off an old iPhone without actually having it? Can deleted text messages be retrieved from an iPhone? How to completely wipe an iPhone clear remotely. How to permanently delete information from an iPhone remotely,” Bloodworth said.
When detectives informed her that her husband died from fentanyl poisoning, Bloodworth said her searches included “Can cops force you to do a lie detector test?” and “Luxury prisons for the rich in America.”
“The evidence will prove that Kouri Richins murdered Eric Richins, but also consider the evidence that proves that Eric Richins did not kill himself or die accidentally,” Bloodworth told the jury. “The evidence will prove that Kouri Richins had the means, motive and opportunity to murder Eric Richins, but please consider the evidence that proves no one else did.”
An autopsy determined that Eric Richins died from fentanyl intoxication, and the level of fentanyl in his blood was approximately five times the lethal dosage, according to the charging document. The medical examiner determined the fentanyl was “illicit fentanyl,” not medical grade, according to the charging document.
Prosecutors allege that Kouri Richins purchased illicit fentanyl shortly before the Valentine’s Day incident and again before his death, at which point she allegedly asked for stronger drugs.
Weeks before her husband’s death, she is accused of fraudulently securing a $100,000 life insurance policy for her husband with his forged signature, and then fraudulently claiming the benefits following his death, according to the charging document.
During her opening statement, Nester did not deny that Richins sought drugs, but said the defendant purchased Oxycodone from her house cleaner at her husband’s request.
“You’re also going to hear that in Eric’s autopsy, there’s no oxy in his system, so the pills that were purchased by [the house cleaner] could not have been the cause of Eric’s death. The fentanyl had to come from somewhere else,” Nester said.
Eric Richins, a stone mason and avid outdoorsman who suffered from back and knee pain, had recently returned from Mexico prior to his death, according to Nester.
“Guess where the fentanyl comes into this country from — Mexico,” Nester said.
The defense also did not contest that Kouri Richins signed the $100,000 life insurance policy, saying it was a flyer received from a credit union in the mail.
“They’re saying she forged his name on that little flyer when she mailed it in,” Nester said. “In order to prove that, they have to prove that Eric didn’t allow her to do it. I’m telling you right now, wives everywhere sign their husbands’ names on a lot of things. You got to find that she did it without his knowledge, and I don’t know how they’re going to prove that.”
Kouri Richins has pleaded not guilty. The trial in Park City is scheduled to last up to five weeks.
“Kouri has waited nearly three years for this moment: the opportunity to have the facts of this case heard by a jury, free from the prosecution’s narrative that has dominated headlines since her arrest,” Kouri Richins’ attorneys — Nester, Wendy Lewis and Alex Ramos — said in a statement ahead of Monday’s opening statements. “Now the state must prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“What the public has been told bears little resemblance to the truth,” the statement continued. “We welcome the courtroom, where evidence is bound by rules, not sensational coverage. Kouri is a mother who wants to go home to her children. We are confident this jury will make that possible.”
Kouri Richins has proclaimed her innocence, speaking out from jail in an audio recording released in May 2024.
“The world has yet to hear who I really am, what I’ve really done or didn’t do,” Kouri Richins insisted in the audio, provided to ABC News through a trusted confidant. “What I really didn’t do is murder my husband.”
Kouri Richins has remained in Summit County Jail since her arrest in May 2023.
A month prior to her arrest, the mom of three young sons appeared on a “Good Things Utah” segment on Salt Lake City ABC affiliate KTVX to promote her children’s book. In the segment, Kouri Richins said her husband of nine years died “unexpectedly” and that his death “completely took us all by shock.”
Kouri Richins also faces over two dozen charges in a separate case filed last year alleging she committed mortgage fraud in 2021. The charging document alleges she submitted falsified bank statements in support of mortgage loan applications for her realty business, committed money laundering and issued bad checks.
The charges in the case also allege she murdered her husband for financial gain as she “stood on the precipice of total financial collapse.”
She has not yet entered a plea to those charges.
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