Fame of author – who guided children on how to face grief – crumbles as alleged truth of her husband’s death is unleashed

The murder trial for Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who famously penned a children’s book about grief, is kicking off, and it’s set to expose a chilling narrative that completely upends her public image. What was once a touching tale meant to help her sons cope with loss has now become a key piece of evidence for prosecutors, pointing to a calculated killing.

Richins, a 35-year-old mother of three, self-published “Are You With Me?” in 2023, just a year after her husband, Eric Richins, died. She even promoted her book on a local TV station, earning praise for her efforts to help young children process the death of a parent. However, within weeks of the book’s release, she was arrested and charged with her husband’s murder.

AP News reported that prosecutors allege that Richins killed her husband in March 2022 by slipping a lethal dose of fentanyl into a cocktail he drank at their home. They claim she was drowning in debt and committed the murder for financial gain, all while planning a future with another man she was reportedly seeing on the side. 

This is the kind of story that gets made into true crime documentaries

Richins faces nearly three dozen counts, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud, and insurance fraud. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges. She has also been suspected of witness tampering through the investigation.

Her defense team, attorneys Wendy Lewis, Kathy Nester, and Alex Ramos, is confident the jury will rule in Richins’ favor. They released a statement saying, “Kouri has waited nearly three years for this moment: the opportunity to have the facts of this case heard by a jury, free from the prosecution’s narrative that has dominated headlines since her arrest.”

This wasn’t even the first alleged attempt on Eric’s life, according to the lawsuit. A month before his death, Eric told friends he broke out in hives and blacked out after taking a single bite of a sandwich his wife had left for him. Prosecutors say Richins had purchased fentanyl pills from the family’s housekeeper around the same time she bought that sandwich.

His friend stated in a written testimony that Eric believed his wife had tried to poison him. The very next day, Richins reportedly texted her alleged lover, “If he could just go away … life would be so perfect.” When Eric passed away, a medical examiner confirmed that Eric had five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system. 

Prosecutors are painting a clear financial motive. Charging documents show that Eric met with a divorce attorney and an estate planner in 2020. At the time, Kouri had a negative bank account balance, owed lenders over $1.8 million, and was being sued by a creditor. Prosecutors allege that Kouri mistakenly believed she would inherit her husband’s estate under their prenuptial agreement. They also claim she opened numerous life insurance policies on Eric.