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A 33-year-old mother from Park City, Utah, Kouri Richins was denied bail on Monday, June 12, 2023, for the alleged murder of her husband Eric Richins in March 2022. The court came to the decision after authorities found out that Richins had supposedly researched the potentially lethal effects of fentanyl.
Eric Richins was found dead in the couple's house in Utah on the night of March 3, 2023, and the autopsy revealed that it was due to a fentanyl overdose.
According to Utah authorities, Kouri Richins had made several fentanyl purchases prior to her husband's murder. Her phone searches also showed that she had Googled the question, "What is a lethal dose of fentanyl?" which elicited the suspicions of authorities. Richins was charged with aggravated murder and multiple counts of drug possession in connection to the death of her husband.
It is worth noting that Kouri has also written a book about the death of her husband to help her and her sons deal with the grief of losing a loved one.
The timeline of Kouri Richins' alleged plot
At the time of Eric Richins' death, he had been married to Kouri Richins for nine years and the couple had three children together. However, according to The New York Times, their marriage faced some trouble after Eric Richins began to suspect that his wife had been having an affair. Meanwhile, Kouri Richins also said that at one point, she suspected her husband of having an affair as well.
Family attorney Greg Skordas told Fox News Digital that Eric had had concerns and reason to believe that Kouri had been cheating on him. The attorney added that Eric also had reasons to believe that Kouri's relationship continued in person throughout their marriage.
In the weeks leading up to the murder, the alleged killer's search history indicated that she was conspiring to commit a crime. Along with questions about lethal doses of fentanyl, Richins also supposedly googled the quality of life in prisons for the wealthy. She even looked up questions concerning the police's abilities to uncover deleted messages. Kouri also allegedly made several fentanyl purchases.
Eric Richins died six days after his wife's last purchase of the drug.
Eric Richins' unresponsive and cold body was found at the foot of his and Kouri's bed on March 3, 2022. His autopsy revealed that he had as much as five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system. Needless to say, this raised suspicion among authorities, who saw it as a sign that he had been poisoned.
However, according to his wife's lawyers, authorities never discovered any fentanyl in the family home. The defense lawyers' motion read that the law enforcement officials never identified or seized any fentanyl or "other illicit drugs" from the family. The motion added that the state gave them no evidence that there was any fentanyl found inside the house. It noted that the state didn't provide any evidence that Kouri gave Eric the fentanyl either.
As mentioned earlier, a year after Eric's death, Kouri Richins wrote and published a children's book titled Are You With Me? to help the family deal with his death. The book depicted a deceased father as an archangel watching over his children. A few months after the release of the book, Kouri was arrested in May 2023 for the death of her husband.
The case currently remains under investigation by Utah authorities.
