Utah Children’s Book Author Who Poisoned Husband Gets Life in Prison

A Utah mother of three, who wrote a children’s book about grief after murdering her husband, received a sentence of life in prison without parole on Wednesday.

Kouri Richins, 36, also faced convictions and consecutive sentences on four other charges — attempted murder, two counts of falsifying insurance claims and one count of forgery.

“A person convicted of those things is simply too dangerous to ever be free,” Judge Richard Mrazik said.

Prosecutors had argued that Richins had poisoned her husband, Eric Richins, in 2022 to inherit more than $4 million from him and receive about $2 million from life insurance policies that she had opened without his knowledge.

The sentencing came on what would have been her husband’s 44th birthday. Richins, who maintained her innocence throughout the trial, said she planned to appeal the verdict.

Yearslong Courtroom Drama

Richins was found guilty in April, capping a yearslong courtroom saga that caught national attention. On March 3, 2022, prosecutors said, Richins spiked a cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl that she had bought from a housekeeper. She then served it to her husband at their home outside Park City, Utah.

Prosecutors said it was the second time Richins had tried to kill her husband, who was 39 at the time. Weeks earlier, on Valentine’s Day, she had tried to poison him by putting fentanyl in his sandwich. Richins became extremely ill, charging documents said, but he recovered after using Benadryl and an EpiPen.

About a year after Eric Richins’ death, Kouri Richins published “Are You With Me?,” a children’s book she said she wrote to help her three boys process the loss, and promoted it on a local news station.

Richins had waived her right to testify during the trial, and her lawyers did not call any witnesses. But at the sentencing hearing at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City on Wednesday, Richins called her husband’s death “an unforeseen tragedy” and addressed her children.

“I did things behind your dad’s back, he did things behind mine. Don’t keep secrets. Always put your spouse first,” she said in a prepared statement.

Three social workers read victim’s statements on behalf of the couple’s three sons, who were 9, 7 and 5 when their father died. All three asked for a sentence of life in prison.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Remy Tumin

c.2026 The New York Times Company

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