PARK CITY, Utah — Legal professionals are anticipated to present closing arguments Monday within the trial of a Utah lady who printed a youngsters’s e-book about grief after the demise of her husband and was later accused of killing him.
What was scheduled to be a five-week trial was lower brief final week when defendant Kouri Richins waived her proper to testify and her authorized crew abruptly rested its case with out calling any witnesses. Richins’ attorneys stated they had been assured that prosecutors did not produce sufficient proof over the previous three weeks to convict her of homicide.
Prosecutors say Richins, 35, slipped 5 instances the deadly dose of fentanyl right into a cocktail that she made for her husband, Eric Richins, inflicting his demise in March 2022 at their residence simply exterior the prosperous ski city of Park Metropolis.
She is also charged with fraudulently claiming insurance coverage advantages after her husband’s demise, making an attempt to kill him weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him black out, and different felonies, in response to court docket paperwork. Richins has pleaded not responsible to all costs.
Essentially the most severe cost — aggravated homicide — carries a sentence of 25 years to life in jail.
Prosecutors will goal to drive residence their argument that Richins killed her husband for his cash as she was planning a future with one other man she was seeing on the facet.
The protection is predicted to argue that the prosecution’s case is stuffed with holes and leaves a lot to hypothesis.
Prosecutors have stated Richins, an actual property agent targeted on flipping homes, was $4.5 million in debt and falsely believed that if her husband died she would inherit his property price greater than $4 million. She had opened quite a few life insurance coverage insurance policies on her husband with out his information, with advantages totaling about $2 million, prosecutors alleged.
They confirmed the jury textual content messages between Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the person with whom she was allegedly having an affair, by which she fantasized about leaving her husband, gaining tens of millions in a divorce and someday marrying Grossman.
A digital forensics analyst confirmed the web search historical past from Richins’ cellphone, which included “what’s a deadly.dose.of.fetanayl (sic),” “luxurious prisons for the wealthy America” and “if somebody is poisned (sic) what does it go down on the demise certificates as.”
Shortly earlier than her arrest in Could 2023, Richins self-published a youngsters’s e-book about grief to assist her sons course of the lack of their father. She promoted the e-book “Are You with Me?” on native TV and radio stations, which prosecutors have pointed to in arguing that Richins deliberate the killing and tried to cowl it up.
Summit County Sheriff’s detective Jeff O’Driscoll, the lead investigator on the case, testified that Richins paid a ghostwriting firm to put in writing the e-book for her.
O’Driscoll stated the sheriff’s workplace acquired an nameless bundle shortly after Richins’ arrest that contained the e-book and a observe: “There are two sides to each story. It is a true Kouri, a faithful spouse and adoring mom. Thought you need to know.”
Investigators later realized from Amazon that Richins’ mom despatched the e-book.
Protection attorneys sought to discredit the prosecution’s star witness, Carmen Lauber, a housekeeper for the household who claimed to have offered Richins fentanyl on a number of events.
Wendy Lewis, an lawyer for Richins, argued Lauber didn’t deal fentanyl and was motivated to lie for authorized safety. Lauber stated in early interviews that she by no means dealt the artificial opioid however later stated she did after investigators knowledgeable her that Eric Richins died of a fentanyl overdose, the protection famous.
The housekeeper was already in a drug court docket program as an alternative choice to incarceration on different costs when authorities arrested her in reference to the Richins case, investigators stated. She had additionally violated some situations of drug court docket.
The protection confirmed a video of regulation enforcement warning Lauber that they might pull her drug court docket deal and that she may face a prolonged jail sentence.
“Give us the small print that may guarantee Kouri will get convicted of homicide,” a person within the video stated.
Lauber was granted immunity for her cooperation within the case. She testified that she felt a have to “step up and take accountability of my half on this.”
Prosecutors confirmed the jury excerpts of a letter present in Richins’ jail cell that they stated seems to stipulate testimony for her mom and brother. Within the six-page letter, Richins instructs her brother to inform her former lawyer that Eric Richins confided in him about getting fentanyl from Mexico and “will get excessive each evening.”
Protection attorneys stated the letter accommodates a fictional story Richins had been engaged on. They’ve argued that Eric Richins was hooked on painkillers and requested his spouse to acquire opioids for him.
Nonetheless, Richins informed police on the evening of her husband’s demise that he had no historical past of illicit drug use, in response to physique digital camera footage proven in court docket.
