Trial begins for Utah mom accused of killing husband then writing a children’s book about grief

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A murder trial is set to begin Monday for a Utah mother of three who published a children’s book about grief after her husband’s death and was later accused of killing him.

Kouri Richins, 35, faces a slew of felony charges for allegedly killing her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl in March 2022 at their home just outside the ski town of Park City. Prosecutors say she slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a Moscow mule cocktail that he drank.

She is also accused of trying to poison him a month earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him break out in hives and black out, according to court documents.

Prosecutors have argued that Richins killed her husband for financial gain while planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side. Richins has vehemently denied the allegations.

She faces nearly three dozen counts, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud and insurance fraud. The murder charge alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

Her defense attorneys, Wendy Lewis, Kathy Nester and Alex Ramos, said they are confident the 12-person jury will allow Richins to return home to her children after hearing her side of the story.

“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,” her legal team said in a statement, adding, “What the public has been told bears little resemblance to the truth.”

In the months before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published the children’s book “Are You with Me?” about a father with angel wings watching over his young son after passing away. The book, which she promoted on a local television station, could play a key role for prosecutors in framing Eric Richins’ death as a calculated killing with an elaborate cover-up attempt.

Years before her husband’s death, Richins opened numerous life insurance policies on Eric Richins without his knowledge, with benefits totaling nearly $2 million, prosecutors allege. Court documents also indicate she had a negative bank account balance, owed lenders more than $1.8 million and was being sued by a creditor.

Among the witnesses who could be called to testify throughout the trial are a housekeeper who claims to have sold fentanyl to Richins on three occasions and the man with whom Richins was allegedly having an affair.

The state’s key witness, housekeeper Carmen Lauber, told a detective she had sold Richins up to 90 blue-green fentanyl pills that she acquired from a dealer. Lauber is not charged with any crimes in connection to the case, and detectives said at an earlier hearing that she had been granted immunity.

Defense attorneys are expected to argue that Lauber did not actually give Richins fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection. None was ever found in her house, and the dealer has said he was in jail and detoxing from drug use when he told detectives in 2023 that he had sold fentanyl to Lauber. He later said in a sworn affidavit that he only sold her the opioid OxyContin.

Other witnesses could include relatives of the defendant and her late husband, and friends of Eric Richins who have recounted phone conversations from the day prosecutors say he was first poisoned by his wife of nine years.

One friend said in written testimony that they noticed fear in Eric Richins’ voice when he called on Valentine’s Day and said, “I think my wife tried to poison me.”

The trial is slated to run through March 26.