Utah Woman Accused of Killing Husband Then Writing Grief Book Requests Bail
PARK CITY, Utah (NEWSnet/AP) — Attorneys for a Utah woman who wrote a children’s book about coping with grief after her husband’s death, and later accused of fatally poisoning him, argued in court on Monday she should be released on bail for the duration of her trial.
Kouri Richins, 33, is charged with murder and drug possession and listened intently as prosecutors questioned the lead detective investigating her husband's death. As a rapt gallery made up of locals, including employees of Eric Richins' construction company, sat behind her, Richins grabbed tissues and inhaled deeply as detective Jeff O'Driscoll testified about the drugs authorities believe were used to kill him. She kneeled her head and was crying when they talked about finding him “cold to the touch.”
In court documents, prosecutors say Richins slipped five times the lethal dose of fentanyl into a Moscow mule cocktail she made for her husband, Eric Richins, amid marital disputes and fights over a multimillion-dollar mansion she ultimately purchased as an investment.
The mother of three self-published an illustrated book about an angelic father watching over his sons after passing away.
The case became a true-crime fixation when charges were filed last month, prompting people to pore over the children's book and scrutinize remarks she made while promoting it as a tool to help children grieve the loss of a loved one.
Summit County Chief Prosecutor Patricia Cassell said she planned to question multiple witnesses on Monday morning.
Prosecutors have painted a picture of a conniving woman who tried to kill her husband weeks earlier by lacing a Valentine’s Day sandwich with hydrocodone and repeatedly denied her involvement on the day of his death in March 2022, even telling police, “My husband is active. He doesn’t just die in his sleep. This is insane.”
In a motion calling for her release filed on Friday, Kouri Richins’ attorneys argued the evidence against her is circumstantial because police never seized fentanyl from the family home. They also called into question the credibility of the key witnesses expected to support the prosecutors' request to keep her in custody.
The attorneys said prosecutors “simply accepted” the narrative from Eric Richins’ family that his wife had poisoned him “and worked backward in an effort to support it" by spending about 14 months investigating and finding no evidence to support their theory. In a court filing containing a letter filed on Monday, her attorneys also claim detectives detained and questioned Richins unlawfully while executing a search warrant on the family home about a month after her husband's death.
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