Utah Woman Who Wrote Book On Grief After Husband's Death Found Guilty Of Murdering Him

A Utah woman who wrote a children’s book about coping with grief after her husband’s death has been convicted of aggravated murder in his death.

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A Utah woman was convicted Monday of aggravated murder after poisoning her husband with fentanyl and self-publishing a children’s book about coping with grief.

Prosecutors say Kouri Richins slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that Eric Richins drank in March 2022 at their home outside the ski town of Park City. They say Richins was $4.5 million in debt and falsely believed that when her husband died, she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million. They also say she was planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side.

Richins stared at the floor and took deep breaths as the judge read the verdict.

The jury deliberated for less than three hours. Afterward, family members on both sides of the case left the courtroom hugging and crying.

She was also convicted of other felony charges, including an attempted murder charge in what authorities alleged was another effort to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him break out in hives and black out. Jurors also found Richins guilty of fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after his death.