Utah woman who published book on grief after husband’s death to be sentenced for his murder

A Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband and was later found guilty of killing him will now receive her prison sentence. Kouri Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing her husband’s cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. Prosecutors said Richins, a 35-year-old real estate agent with a house-flipping business, was millions in debt and planning a future with another man. She had opened numerous life insurance policies on her husband, Eric Richins, without his knowledge and falsely believed she would inherit his estate worth more than $4m after he died. Jurors in Park City also found Richins guilty of four other felonies, including attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich. Her case captivated true-crime enthusiasts when she was arrested in 2023 while promoting her children’s book Are You With Me? about a boy coping with the death of his father. Richins faces several decades to life in prison at her sentencing hearing, which falls on the day her husband would have turned 44. She wore a lime green jail uniform and chatted with her lawyers on Wednesday morning while Eric Richins’ family members passed around pocket-size packs of tissues. Her lawyers declined to comment before the hearing. …