A mom who wrote a children's book about grief after her husband died has recently been charged with his murder.
Kouri Richins - a 33-year-old mother-of-three - was arrested for the March 2022 murder of her husband Eric Richins in Kamas, Utah.
She was accused of poisoning her 39-year-old husband with fentanyl. Eric was found dead on March 4, 2022, at the couple's home in the small mountain town near Park City, the Associated Press reports.
Prosecutors on the case have stated that Kouri made an emergency call in March last year, during which she claimed that her husband felt "cold to the touch".
Later on, she told police that she had made her husband an alcoholic drink, which included vodka, as they were celebrating a recent sale of a home. After making the drink, Kouri said she went to help one of her three children to bed and, when she returned, found her husband unresponsive.
AP detailed that the medical examiner found that Eric had five times the lethal amount of fentanyl in his body.
Kouri has been charged with murder, as well as a charge relating to possession of GHB, a narcolepsy drug often used recreationally. According to the outlet, the charges have been based on police's interactions with Kouri, as well as an account of an "unnamed acquaintance" who allegedly sold the drug to Kouri.
Interestingly enough, the charges came mere months after the mother-of-three went on TV to promote her children's book Are You With Me?, which she wrote to help children deal with grief. She appeared on a segment called Good Things Utah, saying that the sudden passing of her husband had affected not only her, but her three boys.
KPCW stated that the Richins family is well known in Summit County, and that a building in the area was even named after the family.
Eric's family had long suspected his wife had killed him. In fact, warrants stated that he had warned his family that "if anything happened to him, she was to blame". His sister claimed that he had called her several years ago while on a family vacation to Greece, and told her that one of the drinks Kouri gave him made him unwell.
It was also claimed that Kouri had tried to change her husband's life insurance policy to make herself the only beneficiary, something that was rectified just before his death - making his sister the beneficiary.
On February 14, 2022, Eric had a severe allergic reaction after having dinner with his wife - breaking out in hives and passing out after using his son's EpiPen. According to court documents, he was planning on divorcing his wife but this process had not yet begun at the time of his death.
