PARK CITY, Utah — A Utah jury convicted Kouri Richins of aggravated murder on Monday after prosecutors said she poisoned her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl in March 2022.
Prosecutors told jurors that Richins slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that Eric Richins drank at their home outside the ski town of Park City. They said Richins was $4.5 million in debt and falsely believed that if her husband died, she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million.
Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth said in court, “She wanted to leave Eric Richins but did not want to leave his money.” Richins, 35, stared at the floor and took deep breaths as the judge read the verdict.
The jury also found Richins guilty of attempted murder for an earlier effort to poison her husband on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that prosecutors said made him black out. Jurors additionally convicted her of forgery and fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after his death.
Jurors deliberated for just under three hours. After the verdict, family members on both sides left the courtroom hugging and crying, with relatives of Richins leaving the courthouse without speaking to media.
Sentencing was scheduled for May 13, the day Eric Richins would have turned 44. The aggravated murder charge alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
Richins’ trial, which had been scheduled for five weeks, ended early after she waived her right to testify and her legal team rested its case without calling witnesses. Her attorneys said they were confident prosecutors had not produced enough evidence over the previous three weeks to convict her of murder.
In earlier arguments, prosecutors said Richins, a real estate agent focused on flipping houses, was planning for a future with another man and had opened numerous life insurance policies on Eric Richins without his knowledge, with benefits totaling about $2 million. Prosecutors also said Richins faced 26 other money-related criminal charges in a separate case that had not yet gone to trial.
Earlier Monday, prosecutors presented text messages between Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the man with whom she was allegedly having an affair. The prosecution said the messages included Richins fantasizing about leaving her husband, gaining millions in a divorce and marrying Grossman.
A digital forensic analyst testified about internet searches from Richins’ phone, including “what is a lethal.dose.of.fetanayl,” “luxury prisons for the rich America” and “if someone is poisned what does it go down on the death certificate as,” according to testimony described in court coverage.
Brad Bloodworth also replayed for jurors a clip of Richins’ 911 call from the night her husband died. He said, “It’s the sound of a wife becoming a black widow.” Defense attorney Wendy Lewis responded that the prosecution “looks at facts one way and sees a witch, but if you look at those facts another way, you see a widow.”
The defense sought to challenge the prosecution’s star witness, Carmen Lauber, a housekeeper who testified she sold Richins fentanyl on multiple occasions. Lewis argued that Lauber did not deal fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection, and the defense noted that Lauber initially told investigators she never dealt the synthetic opioid before later changing her account after investigators told her that Eric Richins died of a fentanyl overdose.
Prosecutors said Richins asked Lauber about “the Michael Jackson stuff,” which Bloodworth characterized as likely referring to a drug combination that killed the singer. Investigators described Lauber as already being in a drug court program as an alternative to incarceration on other charges when authorities arrested her in connection with the Richins case, and prosecutors said she had violated some conditions of drug court.
The defense also showed a video of law enforcement warning Lauber that they could pull her drug court deal and that she could face a lengthy prison sentence. In testimony described by AP, the video included a remark requesting, “Give us the details that will ensure Kouri gets convicted,” and prosecutors said Lauber received immunity for her cooperation in the case. Lauber testified that she felt a need to “step up and take accountability of my part in this.”
Prosecutors further argued that Richins’ self-published grief-themed children’s book supported the case. Shortly before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published “Are You with Me?” about coping with the loss of a parent and promoted it on local TV and radio stations, according to the coverage. Summit County Sheriff’s detective Jeff O’Driscoll testified that Richins paid a ghostwriting company to write the book, and he also said that after her arrest Richins’ mother sent the book to the sheriff’s office in an anonymous package with a note calling it an example of the “true Kouri, a devoted wife and adoring mother.”
Prosecutors also presented excerpts of a letter found in Richins’ jail cell, saying she instructed her brother to tell her former attorney that Eric Richins confided in him about getting fentanyl from Mexico and “gets high every night.” The defense said the letter contained a fictional story Richins was working on and argued that Eric Richins was addicted to painkillers and asked his wife to procure opioids for him. The coverage also said Richins told police on the night of her husband’s death that he had no history of illicit drug use, according to body camera footage shown in court.
After the verdict, relatives of Eric Richins said they were in shock and said they believed the case had been resolved. Amy Richins said, “Honestly I feel like we’re all in shock. It’s been a long time coming,” and added, “Just very happy that we got justice for my brother.”