As real estate pro Kouri Richins goes on trial for the murder of her husband, learn more about the wheeling and dealing that may lie behind the motive.
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Money, mansions and multiple murder attempts lie at the heart of the Kouri Richins murder trial, which begins today in Summit County, Utah. After years of delays, including multiple requests for a change of venue, the Utah real estate professional and mother of three faces life in prison based on multiple criminal counts related to the death of her husband, Eric.
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Learn more about the wheeling and dealing, the twists and turns, and the ins and outs of this eye-popping whodunit as the trial begins.
Who is Kouri Richins, and why did this case capture national attention?
Kouri Richins was the owner of K. Richins Realty LLC in Utah. Eric, a successful stone mason who owned his own business. In March 2023, she published a children’s book called Are You With Me? which depicted a father with angel wings watching over his son.
When she was subsequently charged in connection with her husband’s death, a little over a month after the book’s launch, the contrast between her public persona and the revelations of years of alleged financial malfeasance and multiple murder attempts fueled intense media coverage.
What exactly is Kouri Richins charged with?
Kouri Richins is facing one count of aggravated murder, one count of attempted aggravated murder, two counts of insurance fraud and one count of forgery. Some of the charges are related to alleged earlier attempts to kill her husband prior to the later successful attempt.
Prosecutors say that in 2022 Eric broke out in hives after eating food Kouri had prepared. He later told a friend he believed Kouri had tried to poison him. Years earlier, during a trip to Greece, Eric became ill after drinking something given to him by Kouri and told his sister he believed his wife had tried to kill him.
Kouri maintains her innocence.
What do prosecutors allege happened the night her husband died?
Kouri said that she made her husband a Moscow mule cocktail on the evening of March 4, 2022, to celebrate the sale of a property she was representing. She then said she went to sleep in one of the children’s bedrooms because he was having night terrors, and when she went back to her bedroom, Eric was “cold to the touch.”
A medical examiner found that Eric had five times the lethal dose of “illicit” (not medical-grade) fentanyl in his system and that the drug had been orally ingested.
The state’s key witness is Carmen Lauber, the Richins’ housekeeper, who told a detective she had sold Kouri dozens of fentanyl pills that she had acquired from a drug dealer named Robert Crozier. Lauber has been granted immunity in exchange for her testimony.
How does the defense explain her husband’s death?
The defense is expected to argue that Lauber did not give Kouri fentanyl and lied for legal protection. No fentanyl was found in the Richins house, and the dealer Lauber identified said he was in jail at the time he supposedly sold fentanyl to Lauber.
In a letter to her mother found hidden in a book in her jail cell, Kouri referred to her husband’s death as an “accidental overdose.” Prosecutors have characterized the letter as part of an attempt to coach her brother to testify that Eric had purchased the drugs himself.
How significant is the alleged financial motive?
The financial motive appears to have involved keeping Kouri’s real estate business afloat. According to the charging documents, in the five months leading up to Eric’s death, the realty company “realized $170,000 in revenue while its monthly debt service exceeded $250,000.” The company was found to have borrowed from dozens of lenders, and Kouri was allegedly using hard money loans to purchase additional properties in November 2021.
The next month, prosecutors believe, Kouri went under contract on an unfinished mansion using $2.9 million in high-interest loans. She was scheduled to close on that property the day her husband died, but delayed the closing until the following day.
“On the day of Eric Richins’ death, K. Richins Realty owed hard money lenders at least $1.8 million and the day after Eric Richins’ death, it owed them nearly $5 million,” according to the documents.
Kouri had opened multiple life insurance policies on Eric in the years prior to his death, totaling nearly $2 million in benefits. At the time that Eric died, court documents show she had a negative bank account balance, owed more than $1.8 million to hard money lenders and was being sued.
Without her knowledge, Eric had consulted divorce and estate planning attorneys in 2020 and had changed his will and formed a living trust. He placed his estate under the control of his sister, Katie Richins-Benson, and transferred partnership interest in his business to the trust. He also made the trust the beneficiary of his $500,000 life insurance policy.
What other charges are still pending?
In late June 2025, multiple charges related to financial crimes were filed against Richins, including multiple counts of mortgage fraud, money laundering, forgery and issuing a bad check, plus a single count each of communications fraud and “pattern of unlawful activity.”
The fraud charges are still pending and involve a $250,000 home equity line of credit (HELOC) that Richins allegedly took out on the home her late husband owned prior to their marriage, without his knowledge. Richins then allegedly invested that money in her real estate business.
Richins is also accused of stealing more than $100,000 from her husband’s stone masonry business and tens of thousands of dollar from his credit cards.
Kathy Nester and Wendy Lewis, Richins’ attorneys, said in a statement: “This sudden push to file new fraud charges over two years [after the initial murder charge] underscores the weakness of the state’s pending murder charges, since these fraud charges would not even come into play unless they fail to secure a conviction.”
Kouri Richins has also been the subject of multiple civil suits, including one brought by real estate clients in 2022 claiming that significant water damage and toxic mold were not disclosed to them prior to their home purchase. In addition, Eric Richins’ sister has sued Kouri, her mother, brother and the real estate business for improper financial actions.
Email Christy Murdock
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