Utah Author Kouri Richins Allegedly Tried to Poison Husband With Sandwich
Kouri Richins has learned her fate two months after being convicted of killing her husband Eric Richins.
On May 13, the children’s author was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for Eric’s murder, which prosecutors said was enacted through Kouri lacing his cocktail with fentanyl.
During her sentencing, Kouri addressed her and Eric’s three young sons, telling them, “Be like your dad.”
“The one thing I need you boys to know is that I did not abandon you,” she read from a prepared statement, per The Salt Lake Tribune. “Regardless of what anyone tells you, I would never ever leave you boys. And I am so sorry that even for one second you think that I did.”
Kouri also admitted there were moments in her past that she was “not proud of.”
“Nobody is all good or all bad,” the 35-year-old added, per NBC News. “We are not defined by our best or our worst moments.”
However, in a statement read by their therapist in court, Kouri’s sons expressed anger at their mother and concerns about their own safety should she be released from prison.
“I’m afraid if she gets out, she will come after me and my brothers, my whole family,” her 13-year-old son said. “I miss my dad, but I do not miss how my life used to be, I don’t miss Kouri, I will tell you that.”
Meanwhile, her 11-year-old son said he “will be able to continue to feel safe and live a happy and successful life” if she remains behind bars.
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Kouri’s 9-year-old added, “If she got out I would be so scared.”
“She took away my dad,” his statement read. “Once she is gone I will feel happy and I will feel safer and relaxed and trust people more.”
Kouri was arrested in May 2023, more than one year after Eric’s death on March 4, 2022. The arrest came shortly after Kouri released Are You With Me?, a kids book centered around a child dealing with the grief from his dad’s death that she dedicated to her late husband.
During her trial, prosecutors accused Kouri of attempting to poison Eric with a sandwich on Valentine’s Day 2022, before successfully spiking his drink with a lethal dose of fentanyl one month later. They alleged Kouri was motivated by her affair and concerns of finances if Eric were to divorce her.
At her sentencing, Kouri told her sons in a statement that she “fell in love with someone who wasn’t your dad” and “your dad fell in love with someone who wasn’t me,” per The Salt Lake Tribune.
Vowing to “fight the charges” against her, she added, “In a perfect world, there might be justice. But in a perfect world, nothing ever goes wrong.”
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