Suspect in husband’s death fought family over estate

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah woman who wrote a children’s book on grief after her husband’s death but who prosecutors now allege killed him has been battling with his relatives over the family estate since he died last year, court documents show.

Kouri Richins, 33, is accused of poisoning her husband with a lethal dose of fentanyl at their home in Kamas, near Park City, according to charging documents.

The murder charges filed this week come months after Richins self-published “Are You With Me?” — an illustrated storybook chronicling a young boy who wonders how his deceased father remains a presence in his life.

Prosecutors allege that Richins called authorities in the middle of the night in March 2022 to report that her husband, Eric Richins, was “cold to the touch.” She told officers that she had made her husband a mixed drink to celebrate his sale of a multimillion-dollar home. She then went to soothe one of their three children to sleep in the next bedroom. When she returned, she found her husband unresponsive and called 911, according to prosecutors.

A medical examiner later found five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system.

In addition to the murder charge, Richins also faces charges involving alleged possession of GHB — a narcolepsy drug frequently used at dance clubs and in other recreational settings.

Richins’ attorney, Skye Lazaro, declined to comment on the charges. The Utah department of child protective services did not respond to questions about where the children are while their mother is being held without bail.

In search warrants obtained by KSL.com and KPCW radio, family members interviewed by investigators indicate that Eric Richins was seeking to divorce his wife and had recently changed his will and life insurance policy. One of his sisters told officers that her brother had long suspected his wife of attempting to poison him, including on a vacation to Greece several years ago.

The warrants describe conflict between the couple over a $2-million home that Kouri Richins had purchased with the aim to resell it quickly despite objections from her husband over the price.

Civil court filings submitted in different cases after Eric Richins’ death outline how the suspicious circumstances have become entangled with questions over his assets and an estate held in a trust and managed by his sister.

Kouri Richins and her sister-in-law had a fight the day after Eric’s death at the family home, according to the documents; she subsequently sued for more than $3.6 million and to remove Katie Richins-Benson as trustee, arguing that a prenuptial agreement she and her husband had signed entitled her to his assets if he died before they divorced.

It remains unclear how the estate dispute will be affected by the murder and drug possession charges against Richins. Utah law prohibits those convicted of homicide from profiting from their crime.

The charges are based on officers’ interactions with Richins on the night of her husband’s death and the account of an “unnamed acquaintance” who claims to have sold her fentanyl. The acquaintance told investigators that they sold Richins the opioid hydrocodone once and fentanyl twice, in February and March 2022.

The charging documents allege that Richins deleted text messages from the night of her husband’s death before handing her phone over to investigators and that she may have tried to poison her husband the month before, on Valentine’s Day.

“Shortly after their dinner [on Valentine’s Day], Eric became very ill. ... Eric told a friend that he thought his wife was trying to poison him,” investigators wrote.

Richins has told news outlets she decided to write “Are You With Me?” after her husband died, leaving her widowed and raising three boys. She said she found few materials for children grieving the death of loved ones, so she decided to create her own.