Prosecutors Make Their Case for Why Utah Children’s Book Author Should Face Trial in Husband’s Death

Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children's book about coping with grief after her husband's death and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, looks on during a hearing in Park City, Utah, on Aug. 26, 2024. Rick Bowmer/Pool via AP Photo

PARK CITY, Utah—Detectives on Monday described in court how they zeroed in on a Utah mother known for penning a children’s book about grief as the main suspect in her husband’s fatal poisoning. The multiday hearing will determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence against her to proceed with a trial.

Kouri Richins, 34, faces several felony charges for allegedly killing her husband with a lethal dose of fentanyl in March 2022 at their home in a small mountain town near Park City. Prosecutors say she slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a Moscow mule cocktail that Eric Richins, 39, drank.