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The young sons of Utah author Kouri Richins said ahead of her sentencing hearing Wednesday that they would feel unsafe if their mother was ever released from prison after she was found guilty in March of killing their father.
Richins, 35, faces several decades to life in prison on five felony convictions, including aggravated murder.
Prosecutors said she laced her husband Eric Richins’ cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in March 2022 at their home near the ski town of Park City.
She then self-published a children’s book titled “Are You With Me?” about a boy coping with the death of his father shortly before her arrest in May 2023. She even promoted the book on a local Utah television news program.
In the book, Eric Richins is portrayed as an angel who is always close by.
“Yes, I am with you on Christmas,” Kouri Richins writes, “You can’t see my smile but it’s there. I’m here, and we’re together.”
David Jackson/Pool Photo via AP
Kouri Richins’ attorneys declined to comment Tuesday before her sentencing hearing, which falls on the day her husband would have turned 44.
The statements from their sons, who were ages 9, 7 and 5 when their father died, came in a memo from prosecutors urging Judge Richard Mrazik to sentence Richins to life without parole.
The oldest child, now 13, said he wants the court to know that he does not miss his mom.
“I’m afraid if she gets out, she will come after me and my brothers, my whole family,” he said. “I think she would come and take us and not do good things to us, like hurt us.”
Prosecutors allege that the boy suffered emotional and physical abuse from Kouri Richins after his father’s death, which they say is supported by findings from the Utah Division of Child and Family Services that are contained in a sealed court document.
Kouri Richins was a real estate agent with a house-flipping business who was millions in debt and planning a future with another man, prosecutors said. She had opened numerous life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge and falsely believed she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million after he died.
“He [Eric Richins] told his family, ‘If I die, you need to take a look at her because I think she’s trying to kill me,'” family spokesman Greg Skordas told “48 Hours” in a February 2024 interview.
Prosecutors alleged Kouri Richins had asked the family housekeeper to procure fentanyl for her in early 2022, and the housekeeper admitted to investigators that she had sold fentanyl to her, court documents obtained by “48 Hours” state.
“He wasn’t an opioid user…This doesn’t smell right,” Skordas told “48 Hours” of Eric Richins’ cause of death.
Jurors also found Kouri Richins guilty of other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him black out.
And according to court documents, Eric Richins’ family suspected that his wife had also attempted to poison him in 2019 during a vacation in Greece, when he fell ill after she served him a drink.
The Richins’ middle child, now 11, refuted his mother’s claim that she slept in his bedroom with him on the night of his father’s death. He recalled unusual circumstances from that night, like being put to bed early without a bath, his parents’ bedroom being locked and the television blaring from inside. The boy said his mother yelled at him to go away after he used a broom to try to reach a key to their bedroom, where Richins later told a 911 operator she found her husband cold to the touch.
The 11-year-old told the judge he is sad that his dad can no longer take him camping and fishing, coach him in sports or be present for major milestones. Like his older brother, he said he would feel unsafe if his mom wasn’t behind bars.
“With (her) in jail, I will be able to continue to feel safe and live a happy and successful life without fear of (her) hurting me or anyone I love,” his statement read.
The youngest son said he feels “hateful and ashamed” when people talk about his mom because “she took away my dad.” He said he would be “so scared” if his mother got out of prison.
“Once she is gone I will feel happy and I will feel safer and relaxed and trust people more,” said the boy, whose current age was not provided in the memo.
Kouri Richins also faces more than two dozen money-related criminal charges in a separate case that has not yet gone to trial.
Her aggravated murder conviction alone is punishable either by a range of 25 years to life in prison, or a life sentence without parole. Prosecutors did not push for the death penalty.
