A Utah mom and children’s author accused of poisoning her husband wrote a chilling email to police attempting to explain away the ‘exotic vacations’ she took after his death.
Kouri Richins, 33, allegedly poisoned her husband Eric with a fentanyl-laced Moscow Mule in March 2022, before publishing a picture book to help children cope with losing a loved one.
In an email to authorities while the death was being investigated, Richins addressed questions about why she took lavish holidays while grieving his death.
‘You asked about any exotic vacations I have taken since Eric’s passing. I went on two trips last year,’ she wrote.
‘One, my kids tried out at a soccer camp in SLC [Salt Lake City] to qualify to play in Spain in June and both my kids made it. So yes, I took them to Spain in October 2022.’
Kouri Richins (pictured in court June 12, 2023) is accused of murdering her husband with a poisoned Moscow Mule in March 2022
The Utah mom (left) had allegedly changed the life insurance policy for her husband Eric Richins (right), before he died in their home in in Kamas, a small mountain town near Park City, Utah
In the months before her husband’s death, Kouri had attempted to make herself the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy.
A police search warrant noted that Eric had expressed concerns his wife was trying to kill him, and he had changed his will and power of attorney to give his sister full control before he was allegedly poisoned.
While investigations were ongoing, police found that Kouri had taken a number of trips soon after her husband’s ‘shock’ death.
Despite detailing two trips she took in 2022 in the email to police, she went on to also note a third trip to Mexico five months after he died.
‘I took my kids and my mom came with us in August of 2022 to Mexico. As I hope you understand, the months prior to this since Eric’s death have been hard to deal with,’ Richins wrote.
Although police probed the suspicious trips, the Utah mom claimed that her family routinely took overseas holidays every year.
‘Also, Eric and I went to Mexico every year, sometimes twice. We traveled A LOT. We have taken the boys to Mexico a few times,’ she said.
‘This is not new for us to go to Mexico or for us to go out of the country or on a vacation with our kids.’
In an email to police (pictured), Richins attempted to explain the ‘exotic vacations’ she took soon after her husband’s unexpected death
The Utah mom also detailed her past mental health issues and said her husband wanted her to be a ‘typical conservative wife’ instead of working
The email also saw Richins claim her husband ‘did not want me working’ because his ex-wife had an affair with a colleague.
She said Eric had wanted her to be a ‘homemaker’ and a ‘typical conservative wife’, and her job as a real estate agent threatened him.
‘Eric wanted us to live the typical conservative life where the man takes care of his family and the wife is a homemaker, wife, mom and that’s it,’ she said.
‘That is not my personality and not the way I was raised. I am very independent.’
Eric had reportedly been carrying out an affair for some time before his death, but Richins said the couple had been trying to work through their issues.
She added that she had been holding back from moving out of their home, and only threatened to do so to get him to end the supposed affair.
Richins detailed her mental health problems in the email to police, saying she took medication after suffering postpartum depression after the birth of her second child in 2014.
She said she was hoping to end the investigation into her husbands death as soon as possible, including halting alleged harassment by a private investigator and her husband’s family.
‘I just want this over, I just want our lives back and to move on and grieve and mourn my husband without looking over my shoulder constantly for you guys, or the idiotic Private investigator or the Richins family,’ she wrote.
‘Whatever I can do to help close this out, just ask I’ll give you or tell you whatever you want to know!’
A medical examiner said they found five times the lethal dose of fentanyl – a painkiller 100 times stronger than morphine – in Eric’s system after he died on March 4 last year. Pictured: Richins and Eric with one of their sons
Following Eric’s death, Richins wrote ‘Are you with me?’ – a picture book she wrote to help children cope after the death of a loved one
Earlier this year, Richins had appeared on local a local TV station to promote her book helping children deal with grief, named ‘Are You With Me?’
Video of that appearance shows her referring to her husband’s death as a ‘shock’, and talking wistfully about how she was guiding their three sons through grief.
‘My husband passed away unexpectedly last year. March 4 was a one year anniversary for us, He was 39.
‘It completely took us all by shock,’ she said.
‘We have three little boys, ten, nine and six, and my kids and I kind of wrote this book on the different emotions and grieving processes that we’ve experienced in the last year.’
She said she was motivated to write the book after searching Amazon and Barnes and Noble and finding ‘nothing’ to help them ‘cope’.
‘I went on Amazon and Barnes and Noble to try to find something to help us cope at night, nights are the hardest. I just wanted some story to read to my kids at night and I couldn’t find anything that suited them, so I was like “let’s just write one.”‘
Richins had told police she had performed CPR on Eric after finding him unresponsive in their home, but fire crew and medics who responded to the scene said this was unlikely as there was blood coming from his mouth.
Court documents say Richins had bought $900 worth of fentanyl pills from an acquaintance before the Valentine’s Day meal and two weeks later she asked for $900 more. Days later, Eric died of an overdose.
Court documents show he suffered an allergic reaction following a meal with Richins. He could not breathe and passed out after using an EpiPen and taking Benadryl.
Eric’s family told investigators shortly after he died they suspected Richins had killed the father-of-three. Pictured: Kouri and Eric Richens with their three children
Kouri Richins was arrested on Monday in Utah and is accused of poisoning her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl at their home in Kamas
Following Eric’s death, Richins had claimed he had an addiction to pain medicine in high school but there was no substance abuse issues since.
But friends and family told police said they hadn’t any idea of Eric being addicted to any form of medicine, and officers did not find any pain killers in the family home.
In addition to the murder charge, Richins also faces charges involving the alleged possession of GHB – a narcolepsy drug frequently used in recreational settings, including at dance clubs.
She was arrested on May 8 and faces charges of first-degree aggravated murder and possession of a controlled substance.
