A Utah mother of three, who wrote a children’s book about grief after murdering her husband, received a sentence of life in prison without parole on Wednesday.
Kouri Richins, 36, also faced convictions and consecutive sentences on four other charges — attempted murder, two counts of falsifying insurance claims and one count of forgery.
“A person convicted of those things is simply too dangerous to ever be free,” Judge Richard Mrazik said.
Prosecutors had argued that Ms. Richins had poisoned her husband, Eric Richins, in 2022 to inherit more than $4 million from him and receive about $2 million from life insurance policies that she had opened without his knowledge.
The sentencing came on what would have been her husband’s 44th birthday. Ms. Richins, who maintained her innocence throughout the trial, said she planned to appeal the verdict.
Ms. Richins was found guilty in April, capping a yearslong courtroom saga that caught national attention. On March 3, 2022, prosecutors said, Ms. Richins spiked a cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl that she had bought from a housekeeper. Shen then served it to her husband at their home outside Park City, Utah. The couple was meant to be celebrating the closing of a real estate deal by Ms. Richins.
Prosecutors said it was the second time Ms. Richins had tried to kill her husband, who was 39 at the time. Weeks earlier, on Valentine’s Day, she had tried to poison him by putting fentanyl in his favorite sandwich. Mr. Richins became extremely ill, charging documents said, but he recovered after using Benadryl and an EpiPen.
About a year after Mr. Richins’s death, Ms. Richins published “Are You With Me?,” a children’s book she said she wrote to help her three boys process the loss, and promoted it on a local news station.
Ms. Richins had waived her right to testify during the trial, and her lawyers did not call any witnesses. But at the sentencing hearing at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City on Wednesday, Ms. Richins called her husband’s death “an unforeseen tragedy” and addressed her children.
“I did things behind your dad’s back, he did things behind mine. Don’t keep secrets. Always put your spouse first,” she said in a prepared statement. “Your dad and I didn’t always do this but don’t be like us in that aspect. We made mistakes that I know I regret and I’m sure if he were here today he’d say there were things he regrets, too.”
“Be like your dad,” she later added.
While speaking, Ms. Richins maintained her innocence, calling the allegations against her “completely wrong” and an “absolute lie.”
Members of Mr. Richins’s family, including his siblings and father, read prepared statements. Both of his sisters said they had begged their brother to leave Ms. Richins before his death, and one of them, Dr. Amy Richins, said any sentence that included the possibility of parole would be “a recurring nightmare.”
Three social workers read victim’s statements on behalf of the couple’s three sons, who were 9, 7 and 5 when their father died. All three asked for a sentence of life in prison.
Sitting in a bright green T-shirt, Ms. Richins wiped away tears.
In charging documents, forensic analysis of burner phones used by Ms. Richins showed searches for “can cops.uncover deleted.messages iphone,” “if someone is poisned what does it go down on the death certificate as,” “how long does life insurance companies takento.pay” and “what is a lethal.does.of.fetanyl.”
Ms. Richins’s lawyers argued that Mr. Richins was addicted to painkillers and had asked his wife to buy painkillers for him; they suggested he may have overdosed.
In a sentencing memo filed with the court this month, Ms. Richins’s oldest son, now 13, said he wanted the court to know that he is “afraid if she gets out, she will come after me and my brothers, my whole family. I think she would come and take us and not do good things to us, like hurt us.”
“I miss my dad,” he continued. “But I do not miss how my life used to be, I don’t miss Kouri, I will tell you that.”
The middle son, now 11, said that with his mother in jail, “I will be able to continue to feel safe and live a happy and successful life without fear.” The couple’s youngest son said that when someone talks about his mother, “it makes me feel hateful and ashamed” and that if she was ever freed “I would be so scared.”
Ms. Richins’s mother and sister spoke on her behalf, as did her business associates.
“Kouri is more than the worst day of her life,” her mother, Lisa Richins, wrote in a letter that was read by a lawyer.
Ms. Richins still faces an additional two dozen counts in separate cases involving financial fraud, including opening life insurance policies worth nearly $2 million for her husband without his knowledge.
Remy Tumin is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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