A younger Utah mom who wrote a youngsters’s guide about grief after her husband died final yr has been accused of his homicide.
Kouri Darden Richins, 33, faces costs of aggravated homicide and a number of drug offenses, say paperwork filed Monday by prosecutors in Summit County and unsealed after her arrest that day.
Her husband, Eric Richins, was discovered useless on the household’s Francis dwelling on March 4, 2022, on the age of 39. The post-mortem discovered 5 occasions the deadly degree of fentanyl in his system, the paperwork say.
Based on prosecutors, Kouri Richins had obtained robust painkillers from an acquaintance — initially hydrocodone after which fentanyl, after she requested “the Michael Jackson stuff,” the seller reportedly instructed investigators.
Barely two weeks earlier than his dying, when he grew to become sick after a Valentine’s Day dinner, Richins instructed a good friend he thought his spouse was attempting to poison him, the charging paperwork say.
Kouri Richins instructed emergency responders that she final spoke together with her husband round 9 p.m. on March 3, 2022, when she made him a Moscow Mule and he drank it whereas sitting in mattress. She stated one in every of their sons was having unhealthy goals, so she slept subsequent to the kid till round 3 a.m., when she returned to her bed room and located her husband “chilly to the contact.”
Eric Richins’ sisters reportedly instructed investigators that the couple was having marital issues and had argued about cash, in response to paperwork cited by Park Metropolis radio station KPCW. In January 2022, the investigators’ paperwork say, Kouri Richins surreptitiously modified the life insurance coverage coverage that coated her husband and his enterprise associate, making herself the only real beneficiary.
Eric Richins was co-owner of a stone and masonry firm; Kouri Richins bought actual property. That they had been married 9 years.
The couple had three sons, ages 9, 7 and 5 on the time of their father’s dying. This yr, Kouri Richins self-published a youngsters’s guide known as “Are You With Me?” that's marketed as “a heartwarming and reassuring guide that lightly guides youngsters by the troublesome expertise of dropping a liked one.” The net description notes it was “written by a loving mom who personally confronted this problem.”
Kouri Richins is being held with out bond, and a detention listening to is scheduled for Could 19.