Law&Crime Sidebar - Utah Mom Allegedly Killed Husband with ‘Michael Jackson Stuff,’ Wrote Book on Grieving a Dad’s Death

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

In March 2022, a father of three sons died unexpectedly at the age of 39 in Summit County, Utah after drinking a Moscow Mule his wife made for him in bed. Over a year later, Eric Richins’ wife is accused of murdering him with fentanyl that she allegedly described as “some of the Michael Jackson stuff.” After his death, 33-year-old Kouri Richins went on to write a children’s book about grieving a dad’s death and appeared on local talk shows, touting her book. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy breaks down the story so far with computer forensic expert John Lucich.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.

Wonderly Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wonderly 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. 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 a all by shock. Corey Richens wrote a book about helping her children grieve after the loss of their father. Now she is charged with murdering him. I'm Angelette Levy and welcome to Law and Crime's Sidebar podcast. Eric Richens died on March 4th of 2022 in his home in the Park City area of Utah. Police say he died of an overdose of fentanyl and that his wife Corey poisoned him with a Moscow mule.

She was arrested this week and charged with murdering Eric and possession of a controlled substance. Court documents claim Corey told police that she slept in one of her children's rooms the night Eric died without her cell phone and that she later found him dead. But the documents say her cell phone showed movement at that time and text messages from the time had been deleted. The documents also state that Corey Richens had asked a drug dealer for, quote, some of that Michael Jackson stuff. Michael Jackson died of an overdose of propofal, a drug used in surgery as anesthesia. Just recently, Corey Richens appeared on the local news in Utah to promote a book she wrote about grieving entitled, Are You With Me? She wrote that book for her three children.

I'm new to all of this. So kind of doing research and reading books and things to try and understand, you know, not only how to grieve as a widow as a wife, but also, you know, with my kids, how to help them. how to help them understand what just happened. It's also been reported that Eric had written Corey out of his will and that he actually believed that she was trying to poison him. The couple had also been arguing over the purchase of a home for $2 million, according to KPCWTV. Eric didn't want to buy the home and Corey closed on it the day after Eric died.

She later resold it. He spoke with John Lusich about this case. He is an expert in computer forensics and also a retired police officer. Well, I spent five years in uniform and the rest of the time, as an investigator with the Attorney General's Office, organized crime hero, and I worked a lot of cases, including some homicides. And they have a lot of evidence against her right now, just in dealing with the drug dealer and dealing with the insurance company and partners and her attempt to move things around. That is just part of it. And that's an overwhelming amount of evidence, the fact that he was put. Boys first got very sick and that she bought more drugs and he passed away as a result of that.

And I'm sure they're going to gather supporting evidence such as the digital evidence that comes from cell tower dumps and cell phones and other digital devices. But the way I see this is that they've got a lot of overwhelming evidence against this woman. It also discusses this complaint. It talks about her phone. It showed it was locked and unlocked multiple times. And this was movement recorded on the phone. I'm assuming that's the celebrate analysis of her phone.

Is that right? And so your phone tracks your health a lot of times. It tells you how many steps you've actually taken. We've actually worked a case where the phone was supposed to be off, and yet it was moving around. Somebody else was using this gentleman's phone. So yet there's a lot of artifacts on a phone. Now, an artifact could be one email message, could be one log.

It could be one picture. But there are a lot of other artifacts that show that people were logging in, logging out, can actually see that in the log, dates and times, as well as the movement. And so much other stuff that depending upon the apps that you have on your cell phone. One thing that's interesting to me is that some of these messages, and this always raises a red flag. You know, you've got her calling 911 and there are messages sent and received according to this, but then they were later deleted. Right. And they can tell that they were deleted.

And while they might not be able to tell the exact second they were deleted, if it came into 1035 and 10 seconds, then, and it was deleted, it was at least deleted 1035 and 10 seconds and or after, right? But before the cops were able to gather that. So when someone takes the affirmative action to delete something, that's nefarious, right? They're trying to hide something. But a lot of times, sell it right and other, you know, forensic products could bring that back depending upon how long goes by. Because remember, we use our cell phones so much more than we use our computers. They're on all the time. They're with us, unlike our computers.

It's got the smaller storage space. So things get overwritten within days and weeks rather than weeks and years. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime's Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcasts. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus.

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