Are You With Me?

Eric Richins was 39, a stonemason in Kamas, Utah, and in good health on the night of March 3, 2022. He and his wife, Kouri, had a real estate closing to celebrate, and she mixed him a Moscow Mule and a lemon drop shot. Hours later she called 911 to say she had found him cold in their bed. There was no blood, no struggle, and no reason a man his age should be dead.

His blood held roughly five times a lethal amount of fentanyl. Kouri was more than seven million dollars into house-flipping debt, was involved with another man, and had secretly insured Eric’s life. Investigators traced fentanyl she had obtained through her housekeeper in February 2022. Weeks before his death, on Valentine’s Day, Eric had eaten a sandwich she gave him, broken out in hives and passed out after using an EpiPen. He told relatives afterward that if anything happened to him, she was to blame.

In the spring of 2023 Kouri published a children’s book about grief and appeared on a Salt Lake City morning show as a composed young widow. She was arrested that May. On March 16, 2026, a jury in Park City convicted her of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, insurance fraud and forgery. She was sentenced on May 13, 2026, to life without parole, and filed notice of appeal later that month.