A Utah mother who gained public attention after sharing her grief following her husband’s sudden passing has now been convicted of his m*rder, with the jury reaching a unanimous verdict after just three hours of deliberation.
Kouri Richins, who promoted a children’s book about coping with loss following the passing of her husband Eric, was found guilty of aggravated m*rder, forgery, and insurance fraud. She now faces life in prison with a minimum sentence of 25 years.
The case took a deeply troubling turn when evidence emerged during the trial that Richins had paid approximately $2,500 to a ghostwriter to produce the book she had publicly claimed to have written alongside her three young children.
“We found text messages in Miss Richins’ phone between her and a contact named Bookwriting Lane regarding them writing the book for her,” investigators testified. Despite this, Richins had appeared on television and social media presenting herself as a grieving widow, stating: “My kids and I kind of wrote this book on the different emotions and grieving processes that we’ve experienced last year.”
Eric Richins died on March 4, 2022. An autopsy later revealed his body contained five times the lethal dosage of a controlled sub stance. Kouri’s account of that evening placed her outside the bedroom, claiming she had fallen asleep with their children who were experiencing night terrors. She told 911 dispatchers and investigators that she discovered Eric cold and unresponsive when she returned to their bed in the early hours of the morning.
Prosecutors painted a picture of a marriage unraveling in secret. Evidence showed Eric had been quietly meeting with divorce attorneys and estate planning lawyers, deliberately keeping these meetings hidden from his wife.
One attorney testified that Eric “did not want me to have any contact with him via phone or email directly. He wanted everything to go through a third party, his brother-in-law.”
Eric had also discovered that Kouri had taken out a $250,000 home equity line of credit on their property without his knowledge, with a handwriting expert testifying there was strong probability she had forged his signature to obtain it.
Perhaps most unsettling was testimony that just weeks before his death, Eric had jokingly told friends and family that he believed Kouri may have tried to poison him after becoming ill on Valentine’s Day.
“We were laughing at the story. We all teased Kouri for trying to poison him,” one witness recalled. He passed away approximately two weeks later.
The prosecution’s most damaging evidence was a six-page letter, referred to as the “walk the dog note,” written by Richins to her mother from her jail cell in 2023. In it, she outlined how she wanted family members to portray Eric as a secret prescription d**g user when testifying, in hopes of creating an alternative explanation for his death.
The family’s housekeeper, Carmen, also testified that Richins had approached her on four separate occasions to purchase unauthorized pain medication, claiming it was for an investor. Carmen further testified that Richins later asked specifically for what she described as “the Michael Jackson d**g,” a request made just days before Eric fell ill on Valentine’s Day.
Richins’ sentencing is scheduled for May 13th, which would have been Eric’s 44th birthday. Her three children have now lost both parents as a result of her actions.
