Estimated read time: 7-8 minutes
PARK CITY — Kouri Richins, a Kamas woman accused of killing her husband and then writing a children's book about grief, will remain in jail as her murder case moves forward, a judge ruled Monday.
After hearing from three investigators and the victim's sister during a bail hearing, 3rd District Judge Richard Mrazik ruled there is "substantial evidence" to support her charge of aggravated murder, a first-degree felony, which means she has no right to bail. He said a reasonable jury could rely on evidence prosecutors presented about means and motive.
The judge cited evidence showing that Kouri Richins purchased fentanyl pills one month before Eric Richins' death; that Eric Richins was not known to use illicit drugs; there were suspicious searches on her phone after the death; she would have assumed she would receive more money if her husband died during their marriage; and there are about 15 minutes unaccounted for on the date of her husband's death before Kouri Richins called 911.
He also determined the circumstances of the case "weigh strongly against" granting bail.
Mrazik said the charge carries a maximum punishment of 25 years to life in prison, which could create an incentive for the defendant to resort to desperate acts, and she would not be a good candidate for community supervision.
Impact on victims
Amy Richins, Eric Richins' sister, told the judge how the loss of her brother impacted their family. She said his death created a "Grand Canyon sized hole" in the community and had a significant negative impact on his three sons.
"Eric was a family man who always strove to be the best father and husband. ... Eric loved to have fun and always wanted to make sure everyone else did as well," she said.
Shortly after her brother's death, Richins said she went to his home to discover that Kouri Richins had hired a locksmith to break into Eric Richins' gun safe. She asked her sister-in-law why she hadn't just asked her father-in-law for the code and Kouri Richins' response was screaming and telling Amy Richins to get out of her house. She said she was punched in the face and neck by Kouri Richins.
"I will never forget the look in her eyes when she attacked me that Sunday morning. ... It took four people to pull her off me that day," she testified.
Amy Richins expressed fear for her family, and for Kouri Richins' children, if she were to be let out on bail, noting that each of the boys has a life insurance policy. She said Kouri Richins exploited her children for money, using their names and photos in a children's book about grief, and she worries she will exploit her children again.
She said it would be "morally reprehensible" to allow Kouri Richins to be released on bail using life insurance money from her husband's death.
"I may be naive, but I never knew evil like this existed," Amy Richins said.
She called Kouri Richins "desperate and manipulative" and said the woman was too distraught to help with her husband's funeral, yet in the 48 hours after his death she purchased a $2 million home, hired a lawyer and a locksmith and attempted to have her husband cremated.
Fentanyl
Summit County sheriff's detective Jeff O'Driscoll testified Monday that deputies responded to a 911 call placed by Kouri Darden Richins on March 4, 2022, in the early morning, during which she said her husband was cold to the touch and not breathing. Emergency responders said it seemed he had been dead for awhile.
He spoke about the autopsy and about multiple interviews with a witness, an employee of Kouri Richins currently facing drug charges, who said she provided fentanyl to Kouri Richins on at least two occasions.
That witness' phone showed she texted Kouri Richins from the location where she purchased fentanyl, according to O'Driscoll. He said someone who drove the witness to pick up drugs on one occasion said they picked up a check from Kouri Richins and used that check to get $1,000 in cash before going to the location of the drug deal.
Defense attorney Skye Lazaro argued that the witness who provided testimony was given information by detectives over multiple interviews until she told the story they wanted. The attorney said there is no evidence for the most important correlation to support the charge — that Richins was given the fentanyl. Lazaro said there was no evidence of fentanyl in the home.
"Being bad with money does not make you a murderer … (it) makes you bad at math, but it doesn't make you a murderer," she said.
She argued that Eric Richins' death left Kouri Richins in a worse financial position, and the life insurance money did not even come close to solving her money problems.
Lazaro said the death could have been accidental, and there is no proof that it wasn't.
Summit County chief prosecutor Patricia Cassell said the dire financial situation Kouri Richins was in was significant, and is motive for this case. Richins received $1.2 million in life insurance money after her husband's death.
"She was in debt, and the way to get out of that debt was to kill Eric Richins," she said.
O'Driscoll said Eric Richins, 39, had created a trust to ensure the well-being of his sons, and his sister was the trustee of those funds. A friend of the husband told the officer that he created the trust so he would "get the last word" in a divorce.
Cassell said Kouri Richins was not aware she would not have access to the money and assets in the trust. With such trust assets, it would have been more reasonable for her to think she could have paid off her debts.
Kamas woman accused of killing husband took out $2M in life insurance policies, police say
Amended charges against a Kamas woman accused of killing her husband with fentanyl now allege she owed millions in debt and took out almost $2 million in life insurance policies.Finances
Brooke Karrington, principal managing partner at Karrington Financial Forensics, testified about Kouri Richins' financial situation. She said the woman flips homes and is a real estate agent, and her business was going really well in 2021, perhaps growing too quickly.
"Things were growing quite significantly and sometimes that is problematic," she said.
At the end of the year she said there was a "noteworthy crescendo" of chaos, showing a lack of control.
In December 2021, Karrington said Kouri Richins paid $252,000 toward her approximately $6 million in debt in 94 separate payments, including a $5,438 payment owed weekly after she was sued. Multiple payments did not clear the bank, and for much of the month her account was in debt, causing dozens of overdraft fees charged to her account.
"It feels haphazard. There's not a pattern, there's not a practice," she said.
The majority of these debts were loans from hard money lenders, according to Karrington, which is typical in real estate business. But the loans have higher interest rates. The witness said Kouri Richins owns between six and eight homes, but had more previously.
In June, 2022, Karrington said Kouri Richins received about $1.2 million in life insurance policies. Karrington also testified that on New Year's Day in 2022, someone had logged into the portal for her husband's business life insurance account and changed the beneficiary to Kouri Richins, but the beneficiary had been changed back to Eric Richins' business partner before his death.
Chris Kotrodimos, a private investigator who pulled information from multiple iPhones in the case, said Kouri Richins' phone was last used at 10:33 p.m. on March 3, 2022, and was unlocked again at 3:07 a.m. He said a connected device for her phone, which could have been an iPad or smartwatch, moved multiple times in an area that would have to be near or in the home before Kouri Richins called 911 to report the death of her husband at 3:22 a.m.
O'Driscoll said Kouri Richins reported going to bed between 9:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. after having a drink with her husband, and then she said she went to a child's bedroom after her son reported having a nightmare. She said she returned to her bedroom around 3 a.m. to find her husband cold to the touch.
Although she said she performed CPR on her husband, emergency responders said he began foaming at the mouth when they performed CPR, indicating CPR had not previously been performed.
Kotrodimos said multiple records, including calls and messages shown on the carrier report, were likely deleted from the phone, although they could have just been missed in the download.
He did say a second iPhone, obtained after her iPhone was seized by police, showed some interesting web history searches, including, "What happens to deleted messages?" "How do police and forensic analysts recover deleted data from phones?" and "luxury prisons for the rich in America"
This phone owned by Kouri Richins also showed searches for how to remotely delete information from an iPhone and how poison would show up on a death certificate, Kotrodimos said.
