Utah bereavement author found guilty of fatally poisoning her husband
What happened
Kouri Richins, 35, was found guilty on March 17, 2026 of murdering her husband Eric Richins in March 2022 by poisoning him with a fentanyl-laced drink. A jury deliberated for approximately three hours before reaching its verdict. The prosecution presented over 40 witnesses, including a woman who sold the drugs used in the killing.
Richins had accumulated millions of dollars in debt, obtained life insurance policies on her husband, and was engaged in an extramarital affair. She was also found guilty of attempted murder for an earlier poisoning incident involving a fentanyl-laced sandwich, and of fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after his death. Eric Richins had five times the lethal dosage of fentanyl in his system when he died.
Richins was arrested in March 2023, approximately two months after publishing a children's book titled Are You With Me? about coping with grief. Between December 2021 and February 2022, she obtained hydrocodone and then fentanyl from a drug source. On March 4, 2022, she called police reporting her husband unresponsive after she claimed to have served him a vodka drink.
Who's perspective
This article appears to be written from a crime and courts reporting perspective, likely drawing on wire reports and court documents. That framing centers the prosecution's narrative arc — motive, evidence, verdict — and structures the story as a resolved legal case rather than an ongoing human situation.
Taken for granted
The article takes it as settled that the jury's verdict reflects what happened, presenting prosecutorial claims (such as the sandwich poisoning and the affair) as established facts rather than allegations that were contested at trial. This leaves out any acknowledgment that the defence chose not to call witnesses, which is a legally significant strategy the article mentions but does not explain to readers.
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