Kouri Richins - The Husband Poisoner

July 15, 2024

In this episode, Payton and Garrett explore the mysterious case of Eric Richins, who was discovered dead in his home. The autopsy results uncovered a crucial detail that shifted the focus onto his wife, making her the primary suspect.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Well, well, well, we got something for you guys, for everybody. We got new merch, new Murder With My Husband merch. It's been a minute. It's really cute. It might be one of my favorites. I say that every time, deal with it. No, it's really cute. It's a little different, I would say, which is why I like it so much. It's not like our average other merch. It's just, I don't know, hipster, whatever you guys want to call it.

What are we calling it? Where's the files? Where's the files? Yeah, this is our Where's the Files merch. It's linked in the episode notes. If you're watching on YouTube, it is linked in the description. Also, obviously linked over on our social media. I've been wearing it. I wore it the other night. I looked fly. I looked fly.

I did want to give a brief warning that there are some knockoff pieces sometimes, and those people might not even send you the merch, charge you more, and also, it's not even supporting us. If there are problems, we obviously can't help because it's not us. So make sure to go through our channels and avenues to get the merch. Just for your safety, I mean, you never know. If you don't want to and you want to get a knockoff, you know, go for it. We still love you. Yeah, kind of a little less. You might not get it, but we love you less than we love other people, but we still love you. No, but go through our channels and links like Payton said. Love you guys and check it out.

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

And I'm Garrett Moreland.

And he's the husband.

I'm the husband. Holy cow, we are back. We are back. We are back. How's everybody doing? Hope everybody had a good break. I know nobody listened to the podcast without me, so I appreciate the loyalty there. Love you guys. Sorry if my voice sounds a little weird. I woke up and my voice wasn't there, so here I am. Everything's good. Back in action here, back on the podcast, excited to see you guys. Guess I don't really see you guys. Excited to talk to you guys, excited for you guys to hear my voice, excited to be here.

I guess that's all I got. I was trying to think how long I haven't recorded for and it feels like it's been a long time, but I think it's only been a month, like four episodes, but it feels like it's been a year, huh?

Yeah, we definitely missed you. Everyone missed you. We're very glad to have you back. This feels normal. This feels right. We're glad everything's good and we are ready to jump back into Murder With My Husband and make it better than ever.

Alright, well, you know what time it is. I guess the obvious if you're watching on YouTube, I'm currently growing a mustache. I'm committing to the cause, kind of going all in. Don't know what that mustache is going to look like yet, what type of mustache. We'll kind of see how it goes, how it turns out. Yeah, I'm committed to that. Been going to the gym a lot, working out, getting big as the kids would say these days, you know, getting swole. I don't know what the kids say anymore.

Um, actually, I was at the gym with Payton, and we were getting gym memberships at this gym. There were these two guys that were helping us, and I thought for sure they'd be around my age. But no, one was 19 and the other one I think was 21. I went, "Holy hell, I'm getting old!" Then they go, "Well, how old are you?" I said, "30." They looked like they turned over in their graves. They go, "Oh, well, you don't look like you're 30." I was like, "Thanks, guys, I appreciate it." But honestly, I felt like I looked the same age as them. Like, a little bit. No, they looked young. They looked like kids, I guess. So I just thought I was the same age. I guess I think I'm young still, so I was a little sad. That was a little depressing. But I'm here. We try to be at 100%. If I'm not, at least I'm at 99%. So I appreciate you all, and let's hop into today's case.

Our sources for this episode are CBS's 48 Hours, ABC7 Chicago, the New York Post, People.com, NBC News, The Guardian, KSL.com, NewsNationNow.com, CBS News, NBC News, AP News, and Fox13Now.com.

A little bit of a fun fact before we get into this episode: this was actually a case that I was going to cover at one of our live shows, but then I got nervous that someone in the audience might know these people. I was like, "Well, I don't want to go there." So that being said, I decided to cover it on an episode because then, at least if someone does know it, they don't have to yell it from the audience.

Okay, so getting into it. Everyone deals with grief in their own way. Some people shut out the world while they process their loss, and those who don't have the right tools might internalize their emotions, maybe lash out, take their pain out on others. Others choose to confront it by going to therapy, confiding in a loved one, or even by writing a book. Right? You lose someone, you're grieving, and you write a book. And that is what happened today in our story with a grieving widow, a 31-year-old woman with three young boys who, after the sudden loss of her husband, helped herself and her sons process their emotion by authoring a children's book. One specifically designed to tackle grief head-on.

And once she does this, the book was celebrated. It sold well, and she even did a small press tour to promote it. I mean, obviously, who doesn't want to root for a mom whose husband suddenly passes away, and instead of falling apart, she writes a book to help her and her children grieve?

Yeah, no, I already know where this is going.

So it was perhaps the one silver lining in a dark storm of this young mother's life.

Maybe I don't know where this is going.

Well, that was until everyone realized she was the one who did the rain dance.

Okay, again, I know where this is going. Last time I'm going to say that.

And her husband's unexpected death might not have been so unexpected after all, at least not to her.

Yes, ma'am. Let's get into it.

So it's 2009. We're just east of Salt Lake City, Utah. We are in the town of Park City, and we are actually in Home Depot. Home Depot in Park City.

Fun fact: Home Depot is one of my favorite stores.

Fun fact: Home Depot is one of my least favorite stores.

This is a regular spot for 27-year-old Eric Richins. He's a local mason and a contractor, and obviously, he's going to be at Home Depot all the time in Park City to pick up his supplies. During one of these runs, Eric spots a stunning 19-year-old brunette. She's a cashier with bright eyes and a perfect smile, and her name is Kouri Darden. She's cashed him out a few times before at this Home Depot, and each time he turns into a little schoolboy around her. He feels way too shy to ask for her number, and it's something Eric regrets every single time he takes his receipt and leaves the store.

This time, he is shopping with a friend, and this friend doesn't let Eric get back into the car without getting the hot cashier's number. So his friend runs back inside and comes out with Kouri's cell number. They’re like, "I'll get it for you." That was really when the rest of Eric Richins' life began. Kouri and Eric dated for the next four years. They got to know and fell in love with each other's families, and then they tied the knot in 2013. That was when they decided to buy a house together in Francis, Utah. They then went on to have three sons: Carter, Ashton, and Weston.

I don't even know where that is.

I don't know where Francis, Utah, is either. Maybe it's just a small city.

Probably.

Kouri changed careers, following her dreams of opening up her own real estate company where she also bought and flipped houses. Meanwhile, Eric's company continued to thrive, and this makes a little bit of sense. He was already 27 when he met her; he was kind of already established. Once they got married, Kouri started to discover her life, and that's when she got into real estate.

The Richins were living pretty comfortably by 2022, and when they weren't taking family vacations, Kouri and Eric were shuttling the boys to their respective sports. Eric actually spent a lot of his free time going hunting or fishing, while Kouri, a workaholic, enjoyed looking for new properties to buy and flip for a profit. In fact, on the night of March 3, 2022, Eric and Kouri were actually celebrating a huge milestone in Kouri's career.

Just outside of Park City, Kouri had been eyeing a property that started construction back in 2017 but was abandoned before it was completed.

This is recent.

Yeah.

But this wasn't like the other homes that Kouri had flipped in the past. This was a 20,000 sq. ft. mansion on 10 acres of land. The guest house alone was 4,000 sq. ft. That day, Kouri had finally closed on the property, purchasing it for $3.9 million.

Kouri's loaded.

Well, it was steep, but she knew it was a good investment for the family because when she finished the property, she actually believed she could sell it for $12 million.

Which honestly, in Park City, could happen. I mean, if you're going to finish this mansion that's already worth $3.9 million and has been abandoned for years, if you can throw more money into it, you probably could turn it around.

According to Kouri's mom, Lisa, Eric was supportive of the financial risk that his wife was taking. This was the biggest property she had ever attempted to do, and it was something that he was equally as excited about, which was why he and Kouri spent the night at home enjoying a few more cocktails than usual.

Later that night, at around 9:00 p.m., Kouri and Eric shared one last drink before she put the kids to bed. Since their 9-year-old son Ashton suffered from nightmares, she laid down with him until he fell asleep. Kouri ended up falling asleep in his bed as well.

At around 3:00 a.m., she woke up and went back to her and Eric's room. According to her, that's when she found Eric, her husband, unresponsive at the foot of their bed. Kouri tried to wake Eric up, but he was cold to the touch, so she frantically called 911. The operator talked Kouri through how to perform CPR while she waited for first responders to arrive. Minutes later, paramedics were rushing in to help, but it was too late. The now 39-year-old father of three was already dead.

So, Kouri explained to police that she and Eric had been drinking that evening and maybe he had a marijuana gummy, just a good old THC gummy. She said this was something he often did. Kouri's mother, Lisa, was also there at this point. Once the paramedics arrived, she showed up to help console her daughter. When Lisa was questioned about Eric, she mentioned that he hadn't been looking very good over the past couple of days, plus he'd been complaining that his chest had been hurting him.

Everyone was trying to figure out how a 39-year-old just suddenly dies and what could have happened. His wife was like, "Well, I don't know. We were drinking, and he could have taken a gummy." It's so hard because when a loved one dies, like a husband or a wife, they can just say anything they want. They can make up anything, say anything's been happening over the few weeks, and nobody will really doubt it because those conversations were between them.

In this case, they've now asked the mother-in-law, "Hey, what do you know about Eric?" She said, "Well, he hasn't been looking very good. He's been complaining that his chest has been hurting." Based on the paramedics' assessment, they believed Eric had suffered a fluke aneurysm, but they haven't done the autopsy yet.

As you can imagine, the next few weeks were not easy for the Richins family. Kouri said she and the boys were an absolute wreck. Kouri was hardly able to get off the couch. Family and friends rallied around them, showering them in condolences and home-cooked meals. Kouri's mom, Lisa, said it took nearly two months before her daughter could even step foot back into the bedroom where her husband had died.

During this time, Kouri was said to have abandoned her dream of flipping that mansion. Now seemingly overwhelmed by the prospect, she put it back up on the market for even higher than what she'd purchased it for, listing it at $5 million. But things got even more complicated for the Richins family when the results of Eric's autopsy came back.

It turns out Eric's cause of death was not an aneurysm after all. He had died of a fentanyl overdose.

Now, as I mentioned, Eric was known to take the THC gummies before bed. According to Kouri's brother Ronnie, Eric usually bought those gummies from pretty sketchy sources. In fact, Ronnie said he'd actually seen Eric buy them off the street on more than one trip that he'd taken with him. Which it is kind of crazy to buy a gummy off the street, I will say. Like, yeah, especially because nowadays you can go to any dispensary and just get them, or even order them online. So right, don't do that everybody, don't do that, don't buy them off the street.

But Eric didn't just have a gummy's worth of fentanyl in his system. As they're like, "Oh, he overdosed, maybe it was just because his gummy was laced with it," but he actually had five times the lethal amount in his system. Okay, so the medical examiner also discovered that Eric had a drug called Quetiapine in his system, and this is a drug that's used to treat depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.

Now, when news of this gets back to Kouri and her side of the family, it is devastating, but they all say it's really not a total surprise. Because according to them, Eric was a bit of a partier who not only dabbled in his weed gummies, they said he was also known to buy painkillers and other drugs. So they wonder if perhaps he had taken something else that night, something he had purchased before he went to bed. But Eric's family comes forward. When her side of the family comes and is like, "Well, he is kind of a little bit of a drug user," Eric's family comes forward and disputes this. They said, "No, Eric would never have dabbled in illegal drugs outside of marijuana. He wasn't an opioid user, and the Quetiapine was actually prescribed to his wife, Kouri."

So Kouri was the one with the actual prescription to the drug that was found in his system. Yet after that autopsy is released, police are still considering Eric Richins' cause of death to be a self-inflicted overdose. So the case is essentially closed, and Kouri is left playing the role of grieving widow. Yeah, they're like, "Well, either way, they closed it. We don't think that someone purposely did this to him. He accidentally overdosed on fentanyl, no matter how he got it. We don't know, and case closed."

Were they LDS or Mormon by chance? Do you know?

I don't think so. I'm not sure, but I think they weren't actively participating in the church, even if they were members at one point in their life.

Okay, got it.

Yeah, so the case is closed, she's the grieving widow, but it's in that role that Kouri sees an opportunity, a way to help her children cope with the loss of their father while also making a buck or two in the process. So this is when Kouri writes a children's book, and it's called ‘Are You With Me.’ It's about a little boy who's reassured that his father is still there beside him after his sudden passing, that during both big and small occasions in this little boy's life, his dad would still be watching over him. This just feels so creepy knowing how I think this is going to end, and that's just so messed up, man.

So the description likely written by Kouri herself calls it a "heartwarming and reassuring book that gently guides children through the difficult experience of losing a loved one," written by a loving mother who personally faced this challenge.

This book is designed to offer comfort and solace to young minds in a way that is both accessible and engaging. The 41-page illustrated book is even dedicated to Eric Richins, saying, "To my amazing husband and wonderful father."

Okay, so the book got so much traction that Kouri even went on to do a series of local interviews about it in April of 2023. For example, that month she went on KTVX TV in Salt Lake City, where she spoke about the grieving process she and her children had gone through over the last year after losing her husband and their father. She said, "Took some things that my kids have said to me in the last year and we kind of articulated it and then put it into a story," which is honestly like, it's an inspiring story when you hear about this, right?

Kouri even said self-publishing the book was therapeutic, that it helped all of them process their emotions, and that it actually got her and her kids' lives back on track. What Kouri didn't realize was less than a month later, her book was going to be pulled from shelves because this is when police would realize that Kouri Richins was the one responsible for orchestrating her husband's death.

All right, so there's got to be some evidence found, there has to be something that obviously sparked all this or she, no, I doubt she wrote about it in the book like OJ Simpson. So yeah, let's hear it. But you have to imagine the police are like, she's out doing interviews as they're like, she is responsible for this. It's a little crazy.

But in order to understand why and how we got here, let's rewind the clock to the days before Eric Richins died. Because like many smiling, seemingly bright and happy couples, the Richins had their fair share of problems. According to those who knew the couple, they had their disagreements at times. For example, Eric allegedly wanted Kouri to be a stay-at-home mom, but Kouri insisted that she loved to work. And on the other end, Kouri seemingly hated how much time Eric spent going off on hunting and fishing trips. But again, these things kind of seem small enough to work through, which the couple supposedly was doing around the time of Eric's death as they were going to marriage counseling.

But the truth was there were much larger issues, issues brewing between the two of them, issues that even a marriage counselor doesn't have the resources to solve, issues that started to become apparent, at least to Eric's side of the family, in the days after he passed away.

So it all began on March 6, 2022, just two days after Eric was pronounced dead. By the way, this is so recent. This is only a couple years ago, yeah. So that afternoon, Kouri hired a locksmith to come by the house to drill a hole into Eric's personal safe. So Eric has just died two days earlier and Kouri, his wife, is hiring this locksmith. It was a safe that contained court documents as well as over $125,000 in cash. Holy crap, that's a lot of cash to keep at your house, right? And apparently, oh my gosh, Kouri did all of this while Eric's sister Amy was over at the house. And when Amy approached Kouri about it and told her, "Hey, I just think you should leave the safe alone," Kouri reacted by punching her sister-in-law in the face.

Holy crap, man, so the drama is nuts.

Apparently, Kouri was upset about learning that Eric had recently opened up a trust, one she knew nothing about, and the documents regarding that trust were inside the safe. And the thing that caught Kouri off guard the most was that Eric had left that trust not to her, but to his other sister Katie. This is why the sister was like, "Maybe you shouldn't be going in the safe, like I don't think that money belongs to you. There are papers in there that we need to see what Eric actually wanted done with his assets." And Kouri's like, "Absolutely not, I'm drilling into the safe."

So as you can imagine, Eric's family is getting protective. They're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, you need to calm down a little bit." And it was Kouri's rage over the matter, over the trust and the safe and everything, that alarmed Eric's side of the family. Between that, the autopsy report, and a few other off-handed comments made by Eric over the years, which I will get into, they began to believe that Kouri was maybe responsible for their brother's overdose. They believed that despite what the police were calling it, this was not self-inflicted at all.

In July of 2022, the Richins pressured police to take a closer look at her while they hired their own PI to dig up whatever he could find on Kouri. And what they found was that Eric had been a victim of Kouri's long before he died.

It turns out Kouri's family got the wrong intel. Eric wasn't excited at all about the large investment that she had just made on that $3 million property. He was like, "This is way too expensive, we cannot afford this. Why are you attempting to do this?" In fact, the couple had been having disagreements over finances for a while. It had been so contentious that Eric considered getting a divorce way back in 2020, but his family said he changed his mind when he realized what it would mean for their three kids. So the couple stayed together and instead started keeping more and more secrets from one another, most of them money-related.

For example, on the day that Eric died, Kouri's personal account had a negative balance. That's not good, by the way. And she was being sued by a creditor because she owed over $3.1 million. Holy crap. So the day prior to her husband's death, she had also been on the phone with the IRS arguing over a $189,000 charge to them. $3.1 million, and then she also owes the IRS $189,000. Big money problems.

You're in the hole so deep at this point, which means while Kouri made it seem like her real estate company was doing well, probably even to her own husband, that couldn't have been further from reality. But since the couple seemed to keep most of their finances separate from one another, hiding the truth was pretty easy.

I'm kind of interested because they were married, so they had to have filed, I would assume, as a married couple on tax returns. Maybe they're just ignoring each other's... I don't know. I'm confused.

Well, all their finances were separate.

Yeah, but they're married, right?

Mhm.

So like taxes, they're probably filing jointly. They still... I'm interested. I mean, maybe not. I don't know. Um, so hiding the truth was pretty easy, and this was something that was established on the day they actually tied the knot because Kouri was asked to sign a prenup. Remember, he was 27, she was 19. It was a prenup that stated Kouri could only profit from her husband’s successful masonry business if he died while they were still married. This was the prenup she signed.

What?

Wait, when did she sign this?

When they got married, when she was 19 and he was 27, or they were a little older, but back then.

I'm surprised that he did a prenup at that time. It's interesting.

This meant if she wanted Eric's money, she would have to stay with him through thick and thin, like they would have to continue to be married. But things between the couple only got thinner over the years. Kouri was spending way beyond her means, but she also started to have a wandering eye, and she began looking outside the marriage for other partners. And it was only about 2 years after tying the knot that Eric suspected Kouri was having an affair, or three different affairs. Kouri denied it all, but her actions said otherwise, because that's when Kouri began doing everything she could to bleed her husband dry.

Between 2015 and 2017, Kouri took out at least four different life insurance policies on Eric totaling close to $2 million.

I just don't understand because he had to have...

No, these were policies that Eric knew nothing about.

What? I'm so confused. Alright, let's keep going.

If she's signing for him...

I mean...

Ah, that's true. Yeah, because I was going to say he has to at least acknowledge and sign it, right? But yeah, I guess she could just be signing for him. Although in September 2020, Eric discovered Kouri had taken out a $250,000 home equity line of credit against their house, and around the same time, she also withdrew $100,000 from his personal bank account and spent over $30,000 on his credit cards.

So she has to be signing for everything because if they're both on the title and they're doing a HELOC, like she's got to just be doing all this and he doesn't know.

Yeah.

So he learns all of this, and he confronts her about it in 2020, and she's like, "Don't worry, I will pay you back, no problem." But it was clearly a problem for Eric because just a month later, in October 2020, is when he went and saw a divorce lawyer and an estate planner. And that's when Eric was advised to change his will and form a living trust, which he placed in his estate under the control of his sister Katie.

Then in January of 2022, just two months before Eric died, Kouri made another bold move. Eric and his business partner had their own $2 million life insurance policy that listed each other as their beneficiary. But on New Year's Day, Kouri changed the policy to list herself as the beneficiary by again forging Eric's signature.

Oh, this is nuts.

But here's the thing, Eric finds out. Eric finds out that she has done this.

Okay.

Which is when he really started to get suspicious of his wife because it turns out his hunch was right.

In 2022, Kouri was actively having an affair with someone else, and according to court documents, she told her new partner that she felt trapped in the marriage and didn't see another way out. Texts were uncovered of her saying, quote, "I'm in love with a man that's not my husband. I want to, but I can't break up my family." When her lover replied, "I thought you were getting a divorce," she said, "What if that's in a year? You're just supposed to sit around and wait for me?" "No, I would never ask you to," he replied. But by this point, it wasn't just the marriage Eric was worried about losing; it was also his life.

So the first terrifying encounter happened back in 2019 when Eric and Kouri were on vacation with six of their friends in Greece. According to Eric, he got violently ill one night after Kouri handed him a cocktail that he drank. I'm not sure what his symptoms were, but those who heard the story said it practically ruined his entire vacation.

Kouri's brother Ronnie, however, heard a completely different side of the story. According to him, Eric was on some medication during his travels and was told specifically by his doctor to avoid alcohol. So apparently he ordered a virgin drink that evening but was handed an alcoholic cocktail by the waitress instead, and he was fine and back on his vacation the following day.

Which, okay, once again, maybe just some paranoid misunderstanding. But then it happened again a month before Eric's death. It was on Valentine's Day 2022, and that day Eric hopped in his truck to find a sandwich from his favorite takeout place in the passenger seat, along with a note from Kouri. But later, after just a few bites of that sandwich that his wife had picked up for him and left for him, Eric broke out in hives and could hardly breathe. Eric drank an entire bottle of Benadryl and even used his son's EpiPen on himself before passing out on the couch. But Eric knew he didn't have any allergies. It was far more than that; he believed his wife had tried to poison him again.

And you know what can cause hives and difficulty breathing? Fentanyl. Which, if you remember, Eric had five times the lethal dose of when he died just a month after this. So after that, Eric knew he wasn't being paranoid. In fact, he flat out texted a friend after he recovered to say, "I'm pretty sure my wife just tried to poison me." And he told his sisters and his parents, "If I die, you need to look at Kouri because she's been trying to poison me."

Oh my gosh, I swear, if anyone ever tries to poison me, I'm going to find out, and I'm going to poison them first. But when he was asked why he didn't just leave her, Eric says he needs time to figure things out. Like financially, he needs to figure out the best solution for the kids. But unfortunately, Eric didn't know what little time he had left.

That's so sad and crazy. It's horrible.

So between their own experiences with Kouri and the circumstantial evidence dug up by the PI, the Richins have more than enough to convince police that they need to take another look at the grieving widow. And they start by looking into the data from her phone in the days and weeks before Eric died.

What they find is just before Valentine's Day when Eric ate that sandwich, Kouri actually reached out to the family's housekeeper. It was a woman who had a history of drug charges, and Kouri said she was having trouble with her back, she was in a lot of pain, and she was wondering if she could get Kouri some fentanyl pills. The housekeeper's like, "Yep, no problem." So they meet in public on February 11th. Kouri hands over the cash, and the housekeeper gives her somewhere between 15 and 30 pills. Three days later, Kouri presumably works those pills into Eric's sandwich somehow. Only the next day, she realizes her plan didn't work.

But that doesn't stop her from texting her lover on February 15th, saying, "If I was divorced right now and asked you to marry me tomorrow, you would." Along with this disturbing message: "I just want to lay on the couch, watch a murder documentary, and snuggle." Oh my gosh, which, like, okay, it's not that disturbing until you realize that she just tried to murder her husband and then sent that. Yeah. And then on February 19th, she texts him again, clearly frustrated that she's still having to live her life with Eric, because she says, "If he could just go away and you could come here, life would be perfect."

So by the end of February, Kouri seemed ready to take another stab at her plan. She texted her housekeeper to say the fentanyl pills she sold her last time weren't strong enough, and she would need something more powerful. And according to the housekeeper, the phrase Kouri actually used was some "Michael Jackson stuff," which is just crazy. What, because he died, so the housekeeper got her more. And at the top of March, she came to the house, delivered the pills, and Kouri wrote her a check from her business for $1,300.

After speaking with the housekeeper and getting her side of the story, police finally feel like they have enough to charge Kouri Richins. Over a year after her husband's death, they have way more than enough at this point.

On May 8th, 2023, Kouri was arrested for aggravated murder and three counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. But during that arrest, police also obtained a warrant to seize and search Kouri's other devices. And it only got worse from there because Kouri had searched for a bunch of incriminating information after her husband died, including how to delete information from an iPhone remotely, can the FBI find deleted messages, what is a lethal dose of fentanyl.

It's so ironic. Like, can the FBI, can the police figure out if I'm deleting my messages or deleting my history? And it's like, yeah, they can, and they're reading exactly what you're searching. That's just so ironic.

Okay, but get this. She also searches this in the days after her husband died: luxury prisons for the rich in America.

Oh my God, I'm not going to lie, I've searched that before.

Why?

Because we were talking about, was it Martha Stewart, I think one time I was thinking of Abby the dance girl or whatever that's in jail. And I think they were in jail together or something at one point, and I was like, wait, were they in like some rich jail? They were. I didn't even know that. I think I might be making that up. I don't think it's them two, it's two others that were like both reality stars. It wasn't them two, and they were in this luxury prison, and I was like, dang, that's not so bad.

She also searched, "Can you receive a life insurance payout with the death listed as pending?" She was also looking for the addresses and personal contact info for the lead detectives on her case. Because of this, the judge actually considers her to be a substantial danger to society and refuses to offer her bail. Okay, and to pour salt in the wound, she's slapped with additional charges while she waits for her day in court: mortgage and insurance fraud for forging her husband's signature on multiple documents.

So over the next several months, Kouri's lawyer starts building a case to defend her innocence. They claim that not only is there no substantial evidence to support the murder charges, but there's not a single text message or piece of documentation that proves Eric felt like Kouri was trying to kill him. They say that while police seized several things from the home, they found no traces of fentanyl anywhere, including on the couple's glassware where Kouri is being accused of administering the drug. In fact, one motion filed by her defense attorneys pointed out, "The state has provided no evidence that there was fentanyl found in the home." Okay, nor have they provided any evidence that Kouri gave Eric the fentanyl at issue. So everything's pretty circumstantial for the most part. They denied the sandwich event ever happened, and Kouri argued her husband was fine that afternoon; he took a nap after. Because you have to keep in mind all the information they're getting is from his family. Yeah, it's all third party. She says he took a nap and then was playing with their kids by the evening. They also tried to paint Eric as a partier, someone who could very well have consumed this fentanyl on his own and then framed his wife.

Now, despite the fact that Kouri's lawyers were making it seem like Eric brought this upon himself, his family decides to rise above it. After the prosecution speaks with the Richins family, they choose not to pursue the death penalty for Kouri. They show her some mercy, which means her aggravated murder charge is instead downgraded to a non-capital first-degree felony. However, in September of 2023, the case against author Kouri Richins takes a pretty wild turn.

Around the 14th, Kouri had some sort of medical emergency and she needs to be rushed to the hospital. So she ends up being fine, but while she's out of her cell, guards find something interesting tucked inside a law school admissions test. It's a manuscript, it's 60 pages long, and it's titled "Walk the Dog."

What now?

When they find this, Kouri claims it's a fictional novel that she's working on while in jail. It's an alternate version of her life, she says. And in the book, Kouri and her deceased father flee to Mexico after Eric's death to stay at a ranch where Eric once vacationed. And there they meet the people who sold Eric the fentanyl that killed him, and while they simultaneously bust some human trafficking ring, they also become heroes in the process.

However, prosecutors believed there's another intention behind this novel, and it's actually a covert instruction manual for Kouri's mother and brother, coaching them on what they should say during their testimony. For example, there's a sentence that reads, "We need some kind of connection here is what I'm thinking, but you have to talk to Ronnie." This is Kouri's brother. "He would probably have to testify to this." End quote. It later reads, "Ronnie should have texts from Eric talking about getting high as well as reward this, however, he needs to make the point. Just include it all, the connection has to be made with Mexico and drugs." So they think, what the freak is going on? They think that Kouri is writing this manuscript to give to her family to tell them what evidence to come up with and what to say when it's time for — I mean, there's no reason that should be in a book, right?

So, and like that you're writing this book about an alternate life, it's some BS, and you're using real people like the characters in the book are her and her family. So, no matter how Kouri wants to play it, fiction or not, the prosecution is not buying it. Instead, they take it to the courts to try and keep Kouri from contacting her family, along with the hopes of additional charges of witness tampering.

However, because the book actually never left Kouri's jail cell, the judge shuts it down. Kouri is still allowed to communicate with her brother and her mother, who in another shocking turn of events also falls under suspicion in the fall of 2023.

So, there had always been some speculation from Eric's side of the family that maybe Kouri's mother Lisa knew more about this marriage and about the murder than she was leading on. Not only were there rumors that Lisa was at Kouri and Eric's house in the hours before he died, there were also text messages found between Kouri and her mother showing that Lisa had a lot of hatred for Eric.

So, mother-in-law hates him, yep, but the real kicker was this: after Kouri's arrest, some of Lisa's old skeletons came out of the closet. Apparently, Lisa had been investigated for a very similar crime back in 2006.

That year, Lisa Darden was living with another woman who she was romantically entangled with. But in April of 2006, that woman died unexpectedly, and when the autopsy results came back, it was determined that Lisa's girlfriend had died of an oxycodone overdose.

So, her girlfriend dies back in 2006 of an overdose, and then years later, her daughter's husband dies of an overdose. How... and might I add, I'm just... I get it. I guess there's a lot to cases, there's a lot to this stuff, but I feel like this should have been like one of the first things that comes up, right? Just putting two and two together.

It was also a little weird because just a short time before, the girlfriend had passed, Lisa had actually been named the beneficiary of her partner's estate.

So, my gosh, man, coincidence?

Unclear.

But to be fair, Lisa was never charged with anything in this woman's death. Plus, there are some arguments floating around out there saying her partner was prescribed oxycodone and had been dealing with abuse issues at the time of her death.

So while the similarities between this case and her daughter's are a bit eerie, and there was reason to believe Lisa was not only present but also had a problem with Eric, it's important to note that Lisa has not been implicated in Eric's death either. But the case is still ongoing.

In fact, as recently as May 21st, 2024, Kouri took another major blow: her defense team suddenly withdrew from the case just weeks before her preliminary hearing. Ah, sucks for her, man. At the time of this recording, there wasn't a clear reason why they dropped her, only that they cited an irreconcilable and non-waivable situation.

Now, when asked about the change-up, Kouri only said that the withdrawal was not her choice and that it was not a personal choice of anyone on her defense team. Her preliminary hearing was then delayed to June 21st, 2024, so Kouri's new defense team could get acclimated with the case.

And that was just a few weeks ago, right?

And after the switch-up, Kouri sent voice recordings to several media outlets maintaining her innocence. In fact, she doubled down, saying she'd been ripped away from her kids and her family, and that it was time to start speaking out and that she was ready to go to war. Except Kouri will have to wait another year before she can fight that battle because she isn't expected to go to trial until 2025, where she's facing 25 years to life for the homicide charge alone.

Oh, it's crazy how long this takes, right?

That doesn't include the additional time she could be sentenced to if she's found guilty for the insurance and mortgage fraud.

She's screwed, man. She's not going anywhere.

But Eric's family feels confident that the evidence, circumstantial or not, will speak for itself. And while they wait to face Kouri in court, her three boys have been staying with Eric's family as they are fighting to gain full custody.

I forgot about the kids. That's so sad.

So in the meantime, Kouri will have to find new ways to grieve her old life as her dreams of being a successful real estate agent, house flipper, and author disappear with each day that she spends behind bars. And that is the death of Eric Richins and the ongoing trial and charges against his wife, Kouri.

Obviously so sad about Eric because he didn't deserve it. And that's absolutely heartbreaking, horrible for his family. I just... I don't understand how... I guess I can comprehend obviously how you can kill someone. But I guess I can see, she killed them because she was having an affair and money and blah, blah, blah. But then the kids, it's like you have... You birthed three kids. Like, what are you doing, man? Like, what... What is wrong with you?

Well, also you have to keep in mind, she's in big money trouble, and she thinks if she's getting money, if her husband dies. So not only does she not want to be with her husband anymore, and she doesn't want him around, she's also like, "Wait, if he's dead, I could solve my money problem." This is all alleged. She's only allegedly freaking killed him.

Okay, but... Oh, man, that... Whoo, just throwing that out there. Hopefully, you guys aren't listening to the end. But I'm just saying, there's crazy reasons. I think that there's pretty strong reasons that she wouldn't have just left because she wants the money. Mhm. She's in money trouble, right? Like, that's big, serious money trouble. Yeah. I also need to know if she ever sold the $5 million house.

I haven't looked that up yet.

Probably not and probably got foreclosed on by the banks, my guess, probably.

All right you guys, that is our episode for today. Thank you for joining us, and we will see you next time with another one. I love it.

I hate it.

Goodbye.

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