Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘So Many Red Flags’: Shocking Evidence Revealed in Case of Utah Mom Accused of Poisoning Husband

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

Thirty-three-year-old Kouri Richins stands accused of murdering her husband, Eric Richins, by poisoning him with fentanyl mixed into a “Moscow mule” drink in March 2022. After her husband’s death, she went on to write a children’s book about grieving a dad’s death and even appeared on a local talk show touting her book. Now, new court documents reveal disturbing evidence about Kouri’s behavior surrounding the death of her husband. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber breaks down the evidence and discusses what it means for this case with retired police sergeant and criminal justice professor Joseph Giacalone.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Save 10% on your entire POM Pepper Spray order by using code LAWCRIME10 at http://bit.ly/3IGNFxvSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. The latest in the criminal case of Corey Richens, the Utah woman accused of poisoning her husband and then writing a children's book about grief in the aftermath of his death. Retired police sergeant and criminal justice professor Joseph Jackalone breaks down the evidence against her. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. I have covered a lot of stories at law and crime, but if there's one thing I can tell you throughout all of them, it is that you have to stay safe. And that's why I want to talk to you

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called Are You With Me? She even did an interview about this book, about a month before her arrest. Joining us now is author of Are You With Me, Corey Richens, to share her three Cs to helping kids cope with grief. And Corey, I want to start with your story. What happened in your personal life? So my husband passed away unexpectedly last year. So it's March 4th was a one year anniversary for us and he was 39. It completely took us all by shock. And we have three little boys, 10, 9 and 6. And, you know, we kind of, my kids and I kind of wrote this book on the different emotions and grieving processes that we've experienced last year and, you know, hoping that it can kind of help other kids, you know, deal with this and kind of, you know, find happiness some

way or another. Now, the backstory. Allegedly, Mr. Richens claimed prior to his death that his wife tried to poison him on previous occasions. They had a rocky marriage reporting indicates that Corey had stolen money from her husband, borrowing money on his credit cards, forged his initials to borrow $250,000, took money that he had earmarked for taxes, and she tried to secretly change his life insurance policy for her to become the sole beneficiary. Eric caught wind of this, changed it back to his sister without telling Corey. In fact, right before he died, he was apparently going to tell her that he was cutting her out of

his will. And also the two disagreed about buying a $2 million mansion that Corey wanted to buy and flip. And after police say she poisoned him, hours later, she actually closed on that property and threw a party. Now, she was supposed to have a detention hearing where it would be decided if she could be released on bail. But that has been postponed to June 6 because new information has come to light. That new information is that prosecutors have learned that Corey also allegedly purchased four life insurance policies on Eric's life, totaling $2 million between 2015 and 2017, and Eric was seemingly not aware of this. It is quite the case.

She is currently facing a charge of first-degree aggravated murder, multiple counts of second-degree possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. Let me bring in right now, Joseph Jackalone, retired police sergeant and criminal justice professor, Joseph, great to have you on here. My goodness, I want to start with the motive. It's kind of textbook, right? The money trail. What do you think about this?

Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of what we refer to as old detective maxims, right? Follow the money. And then what we refer to as the homicide triangle, love money and drugs. In this case, has got all of them. Yeah. And the fact that Eric, after Eric dies, Corey gets into a fight with his sister about the assets, about the money. And she ends up suing his family for $3.6 million and for his sister to be removed as

the trustee of the property, Corey had argued that she was entitled to the assets as part of a prenuptial agreement. All of that evidence, is it just, could she argue, hey, it's just coincidental, or does it add up and look really, really bad for her? Well, one thing, investigators don't believe in coincidences, all right? So we look at this and you look at it, you said, follow the money, and you look at all these changes and the life insurance policies and all the things that come after it. There are so many red flags here, and it's unfortunate that the victim wasn't able to see some of these, and maybe that's where, you know, some of the laws need to be changed about opening up life insurance policies under someone else's names without them knowing

about it. Yeah, and the idea that this was about money and this was about that she was doing this and seemingly he knew about it. I want to talk to you about his previous statements because he alleged, he allegedly said, if something happens to me, check out Corey. He said on Valentine's day in 2022, she gave him a sandwich. He took one bite. He broke into hives. He couldn't breathe. He said years before Corey gave him a drink while in Greece, he became violently ill. Could all of that come into evidence? Could all of that be used by prosecutors? Well, unfortunately, it's all anecdotal in that respect, and you don't have the evidence to be able to prove it. So if, you know, if they would have kept the sandwich or the drinks

way back when and had it tested, then yeah, then everything else just becomes circumstantial in this part and parcel of the case here. So, I mean, they have this, you know, toxicology reports with this fentanyl levels that are off the charts and this is something where now they're basing their case on that and plus all the changes the circumstantial evidence is stacking up against her for sure yeah and look I know there might be hearsay issues but I will say there's a lot of exceptions to that so if he told people that she was poisoning him could it be a dying declaration could it be showing what his mindset was at the time maybe it could come in I still think it's ultimately relevant what do you make of the fact that

that hours after she allegedly kills him, she closes on the property that the two disputed about and throws a party. Now, it's not clear if any of the partygoers knew that he died, but that timeline of events, I think, is going to be very crucial. No, absolutely. And investigators are going to need to interview every person that was at that party and to see if there was any statements made.

And like you said before, you don't even know if they knew that he was no longer with us at that moment. So those are also some clues. So if somebody asked her about where he was and she, you know, she came up with a story about something else. That would also be an interesting part of this case. So there's going to be a ton of interviews and a ton of, like I said, there's going to be people coming into this courtroom going to be able to tell their side of the story about that party per se. Yeah, it's just, it's incredible. And for a woman who's accused of killing her husband for financial gain, the idea that she exploited his death so she could sell a book on Amazon.

I mean, it just kind of lines up with this. How do you, where do you see investigators going next in this case? Well, investigators are going to start seeing if they can find anything else within the house. We don't know if there's video surveillance in this house. I mean, they had a very large piece of property. There could be, you know, some information that we are unaware of that might have some other clues in on this, including, you know, if there was an alarm set, one was shut off and all those other things that happened, who came and who left. I guarantee you in a house like that. I mean, we've all seen the pictures that there's probably surveillance cameras in and around that property, which would be interesting to see her coming and going and her reactions about what was happening.

Well, let me tell you what I think is some of the most direct evidence. And I'm curious to your opinion on it. I think all the financial evidence really strong circumstantially, right? It kind of shows and builds up the story. But she claimed, she told law enforcement that she found him at 3 a.m., found him dead, called 911, right? but she claimed that she left her cell phone in the bedroom on the night that she found Eric dead. She claimed that she woke up, as I said, 3 a.m. She says that she left the cell phone in her bedroom.

She didn't take it into her son's room. But according to the data, the phone had been locked and unlocked several times. And she was texting. And those messages were apparently deleted. And then also, she didn't perform any life-saving measures because when they found him, there was blood on his mouth. What do you think of those two aspects? Well, sure.

I mean, this is what, you know, the forensic horseman, video surveillance, internet records and cell phone records, right? We've seen this happening now over and over again in these cases, putting people at the scene, putting information out there. So listen, we know that you can delete the text messages, but nothing has ever really deleted. So they'll drop the subpoenas and the warrants for the phones. And then investigators are all trained about that estimated time of death.

So what condition the body was in? Was it, you know, did live immortis, right? the pooling of the blood, it usually starts within 30 minutes, and rigamortes usually starts within a few hours. So they can tell just by looking at the body if the story of the person who found them matches or adds up. So those are all important things. And of course, the medical examiner's reports are going to try to zone in on that time of death also. And he had no history, right, of drug abuse. So it's going to be very hard for her to say if they connect her to buying the pills that she bought him for him, which, by the way, leads me to seemingly the crucial witness,

the state star witness, the drug dealer, a person who sold Corey the fentanyl, $900 worth of pills before Eric's death, apparently Corey asked for the Michael Jackson stuff. Do you find this witness as important as this person is could also be problematic for a state's case? Well, let's take the first part, right? So if they can find the drug dealer that sold her the drugs, this is going to be an important aspect because he's just going to say, yeah, I sold her $900 worth of pills. The second part of it is, of course, you're dealing with people who are also criminals who are also going to try to make a deal and make themselves look better so that they can avoid the jail time. So we're seeing a lot of states go after the drug dealers from manslaughter charges and the like.

So he'll probably try to break a deal or make a deal and try to get off on some jail time or no jail time at all just to testify against them. So the defense attorney is always going to hurt attorney's always going to bring out that, you know, that he's doing this to save his own skin. But that's just part of the whole process. What amazes me, we cover so many different cases on law and crime, on sidebar. She is innocent until proven guilty. We have to make that clear. But what just amazes me is that it seems almost textbook, right? Life insurance policies, money, trying to cover things up.

Why is it so textbook? It's amazes me that people who are planning to kill their spouses, they leave a trail of breadcrumbs in every case. And does that surprise you? Again, she hasn't been found guilty, but just the evidence that we're seeing, it feels like if you really were going to plan the murder of your husband, how do you leave this trail? Is that surprising to you at all? No, it's not surprising. Over the 20 plus years I was doing this, I mean, if you told me there was a pink elephant in the lobby, I'd say, all right, let's go see it. I mean, at this point, the evidence is stacking up against her,

and a lot of people think that they're smarter than the police, and that's pretty much they're downfall. They think they're going to be able to do this. And yet, there's not only just breadcrumbs, but there's probably a lot of electronic breadcrumbs too that we are unaware of at the moment that we're going to find out during the course of the preliminary hearings and everything else that goes on with this.

So it's going to be interesting to see how the prosecutor and the police put this all together. But right now, it doesn't look good for her, her defense. And I'll give you the most tragic aspect of this. So as I mentioned, Eric Richon suspected that his wife was going to kill him, that his life might have been in danger. The question is, why would he stay there?

Why would he stay with her? Well, the Richens family attorney indicated that he stayed with her because not only did he love her, but he didn't want to leave and divorce her and create a broken home for their three young boys, which is just incredibly sad to think about there was reports that he was considering divorcing and maybe was going to be speaking to a divorce lawyer, but the fact that he stayed knowing that there was this danger to him, and again, this is what the allegation is, it's just remarkable to think about that he wanted to make sure he kept a safe and a great home for his boys, just really sad to think about. Joseph, thank you for taking the time.

Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Jesse. And that's all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much. for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.