UT Author of Children's Book On GRIEF After Husband's Death Accused Of CAUSING It

A Utah woman who published a children's book about grief after the sudden death of her husband has been charged with his murder.

Kouri Richins, a mother of three, called police late one night in March 2022 and said her husband, Eric Richins, was "cold to the touch".

She told authorities she had made her husband a mixed vodka drink before finding him unresponsive hours later.

A medical examiner later found Mr Richins died from a fentanyl overdose.

He had five times the lethal dosage of the drug in his system, the medical examiner said.

According to court documents, between December 2021 and February 2022, Ms Richins had texted a person who had previously been arrested on drug charges asking for prescription pain medication for an investor with a back injury.

Ms Richins received hydrocodone pills, the court documents said, before she requested something stronger - "some of the Michael Jackson stuff", asking specifically for fentanyl.

Three days after Ms Richins allegedly obtained the drugs, she and her husband had a Valentine's Day dinner, after which he fell ill.

"Eric believed that he had been poisoned," the court documents said. "Eric told a friend that he thought his wife was trying to poison him."

Two weeks later, according to court documents, Ms Richins acquired more fentanyl.

Prosecutors allege on 4 March Ms Richins called police in the middle of the night to say she had found her husband unresponsive.

She told authorities she had served her husband a mixed vodka drink, Moscow Mule, in bed and then went to sleep with one of her young children who was having a night terror. She later returned to her husband in their room and found him "cold to the touch".
The charges come two months after Ms Richins wrote a picture book "Are You With Me?" to help children cope with the death of a loved one. She told local radio station KPCW the book was to bring "peace" to her and her three sons.

"We wrote this book and we're really hoping that it provides some comfort for not just obviously, our family, but other families that are going through the same thing," she told KPCW in an interview last month.

She dedicated the book to Mr Richins, "my amazing husband and a wonderful father".

In addition to the murder charge, Ms Richins also faces charges involving the alleged possession of GHB, a narcolepsy drug that is used recreationally and sometimes referred to as a date rape drug.

A detention hearing is scheduled on 19 May.

That's just all kinds of messed up.

originally posted by: Mrs Darko
That's just all kinds of messed up.

The new normal.

How very Victorian of her.

I hope those kids get some good therapy to help them work through all this. They're going to need it.

If you like this kind of thing, there's a YouTube series called A Brief Case where a Brit narrates crime cases from mostly turn of the century times. This kind of thing? It was unbelievably common back then with a wife and mother just poisoning her family members and then remarrying to do it all over again.

originally posted by: ketsuko
How very Victorian of her.

I hope those kids get some good therapy to help them work through all this. They're going to need it.

If you like this kind of thing, there's a YouTube series called A Brief Case where a Brit narrates crime cases from mostly turn of the century times. This kind of thing? It was unbelievably common back then with a wife and mother just poisoning her family members and then remarrying to do it all over again.

Granted. But writing a book about it? A CHILDREN'S book, on top of that? I mean, how do you do that and sleep at night?

a reply to: Mrs Darko

she sounds like the second chick in the Cell Block Tango song



did he have it coming though?

Absolutely insane story

a reply to: Mrs Darko

a reply to: Mrs Darko

sheesh, a simple "just want a divorce" would have sufficed.
(Looks for children's books on why mommy divorced dad with murder...)
And this will be a Lifetime channel movie by the end of Summer.
I hate when they scandalize the children.

Children don't need any book on 'Grief' in the first place.

a reply to: Mrs Darko

Sounds to me like she felt it would be the perfect cover. She was already crazy enough to murder him. How could someone who wrote a book to console her children be that kind of monster?

This isn't someone I would care to meet.

originally posted by: ketsuko
How very Victorian of her.

I hope those kids get some good therapy to help them work through all this. They're going to need it.

If you like this kind of thing, there's a YouTube series called A Brief Case where a Brit narrates crime cases from mostly turn of the century times. This kind of thing? It was unbelievably common back then with a wife and mother just poisoning her family members and then remarrying to do it all over again.

I've been doing genealogy research & have noticed some mass family deaths (not mine) while examining records where I'd felt horrible for the moms who seemed to survive a sweeping illness in the home that obliterated their family.

I seriously never considered that some could have been poisonings done during stuff like brief plague resurgances (there were & still are many) or a flu outbreak as cover.

That's #ing cold...

a reply to: Nyiah

Pretty sure your family is probably clean, but there is a reason why poison is seen as a woman's weapon. Some of those case histories are just horrible. The good news is that they're case histories because the culprit was generally caught although they sometimes got off.

In this case, I don't know what it says that she wrote the book, but I don't think she did it for the children.