The children’s book Kouri Richins published after her husband died describes a father who stays close to his grieving child after death, a gentle presence that never really goes away.
Her sons have a different view of presence.
“I’m afraid if she gets out, she will come after me and my brothers, my whole family,” the oldest boy, now 13, said in court documents submitted ahead of Wednesday’s sentencing. “I think she would come and take us and not do good things to us, like hurt us. I miss my dad, but I do not miss how my life used to be. I don’t miss Kouri.”
His younger brother, now 11, kept his statement to the facts he could see most clearly. “My dad can’t be my coach anymore, and can’t be at any of my games,” he said. “He won’t be at my birthdays. He can’t teach me how to drive. He won’t be at my graduation.”
These are the boys the book was supposed to comfort.
What she sold as comfort
After Eric Richins died on March 4, 2022, Kouri Richins paid a ghostwriting company and self-published “Are You With Me?” The book was marketed as a children’s story about coping with the loss of a parent. She promoted it on local television and radio, saying it was a resource to help her sons process their grief.
The book’s publisher description called it “written by a loving mother who personally faced this challenge.” The challenge she had personally faced, a jury found in March, was murdering the father, whose death she was selling as a lesson in healing.
A forensic pathologist testified that Eric Richins died from fentanyl intoxication. Prosecutors told jurors that Kouri Richins laced his cocktail with five times the lethal dose at their home near Park City, Utah. He was 39. Their sons were 9, 7, and 5.
The first poisoning did not work
March 4, 2022, was not the first time.
On Valentine’s Day 2022, ten days after a new life insurance policy on Eric’s life went into effect, prosecutors said Kouri Richins gave her husband a fentanyl-laced sandwich. He broke out in hives, injected himself with his son’s EpiPen, drank a bottle of Benadryl, called friends, and said he felt like he was going to die. He survived.
She tried again three weeks later. This time, he did not.
Prosecutors said Richins, a real estate agent running a house-flipping business, was millions in debt and pursuing a new relationship. They said she took out life insurance policies on Eric without his knowledge, forged his signature, and believed she would inherit an estate worth more than $4 million.
She was not arrested until more than a year after his death. In that time, she made the book.
The son the jury never heard
During the 13-day trial, prosecutors called more than 40 witnesses. The defense called none.
What the jury did not hear was the testimony of the middle son, then 7 and now 11. Prosecutors said he would have directly contradicted his mother’s account of the night Eric died. Richins told police she had gone to sleep in the boy’s room before returning to the master bedroom and finding her husband dead. Her son said the TV was playing loudly in his parents’ room that night, the door was locked, and she was not with him.
His statement was not used at trial. He made it available for sentencing.
The text message after the guilty verdict
A jury convicted Kouri Richins of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, two counts of insurance fraud, and forgery in March. After the verdict, prosecutors said she sent a text message.
“I’m not going away, I won’t be silent,” it read. “They picked the wrong one. They think sentencing is ‘the end’ ‘closure’ it’s just the beginning… They haven’t seen anything yet.”
The children’s book promises that a lost father remains close. Its author was convicted of murdering him. Its intended readers asked a judge to make sure she never comes back. On Wednesday, the judge did.
The judge gave her sons what they asked for
Eric Richins would have turned 44 on Wednesday. His father, Gene Richins, addressed the court and described his son as a loving father who coached his children’s soccer team and built a life for his family. His sister Amy Richins also spoke.
Prosecutors asked Judge Richard Mrazik to sentence Kouri Richins to life without parole.
“Such a person should never again lurk among the rest of us,” prosecutor Brad Bloodworth wrote in the state’s sentencing memo. “Her children should never worry that they may one day encounter her.”
The judge agreed. Richins was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The three boys are being raised by Eric’s sister, Katie Richins-Benson, and her husband. They go to school. They play sports without their father in the stands. And now, if the sentence stands, they will not have to spend adulthood wondering whether the woman convicted of murdering him might come back.
Somewhere, the book still promises presence.