US children’s author sentenced to life for poisoning her husband
Authorities also said she had attempted to poison him weeks earlier by lacing his sandwich with the same powerful synthetic opioid, leaving him seriously ill.
The Utah case that shocked readers across the United States reached its grim conclusion as Kouri Richins, the American woman who wrote a children’s book about grief after fatally poisoning her husband, was sentenced to life in prison without parole, according to US media reports.
Richins was convicted of murder in March, and Judge Richard Mrazik said the mother of three was “too dangerous to ever be free,” the Salt Lake City Tribune reported.
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Prosecutors said Richins murdered her husband, Eric Richins, in 2022 by giving him a cocktail containing five times the lethal dose of fentanyl — a killing that cleared the way for her to inherit $4 million (€3.4m) and collect another $2 million (€1.7m) from life insurance policies she had secretly taken out.
Authorities also said she had attempted to poison him weeks earlier by lacing his sandwich with the same powerful synthetic opioid, leaving him seriously ill.
The case has gripped Utah, in the western United States.
Kouri Richins, 36, insisted on her innocence throughout the case.
“I’m broken, broken without your dad, broken without you boys,” she said in court yesterday, the Tribune reported.
She also spoke about infidelity in the marriage.
“Secrets diminish self respect,” she said.
“I fell in love with someone who wasn’t your dad. Your dad fell in love with someone who wasn’t me.”
The Tribune reported that, in statements read in court by therapists, one of her sons said: “I will not feel safe if you are out”.
Another child said she was “always drunk” and that he did not miss her.
“I miss my dad, but I do not miss how my life used to be,” the child’s statement said.
