Amy Richins is the sister of Eric Richins, who prosecutors allege was killed by his wife Kouri, amid marital disputes and fights over finances.
As part of a detention hearing Monday, Amy was offered a chance to speak as part of a victim impact statement. Such statements describe the emotional, physical, and financial impact people have suffered as the direct result of a crime.
Amy called Kouri greedy, manipulative, and desperate.
“How could anyone value human life so cheaply? I cannot comprehend it,” Amy said. “I’m overflowing with grief and pain at the thought that Eric meant so little to her.”
She pleaded with Third District Court Judge Richard Mrazik not to release her ahead of the trial.
“There’s no consoling thought in the way Eric died, in his last moments, after being intentionally poisoned, he was faced with betrayal and terror," she said. "The thought of it is unbearable. I am haunted by the horror of it. This last year has been a living hell for our family. We have watched as Kouri has paraded around portraying herself as a grieving widow and victim, while trying to profit from the death of my brother. Both by trying to profit from a book about his death, and trying to get life insurance and assets that should go exactly where Eric wanted them to, to his boys.”
Immediately following Eric’s death, Amy said Kouri told the family that she was too distraught to help plan for his funeral. But Amy said Kouri proved otherwise.
“In fact, she pulled herself together enough to go close on the purchase of a $2 million home, hire a real estate agent, hire an architect to create CAD drawings of the home, hire a lawyer in order to file a lawsuit on Eric’s trust, hire a locksmith to come break into and clean out my brother’s safe, and attempt to have Eric cremated,” she said. “She mustered up the strength and resolve to do most of this within 48 hours of his death.”
Amy also recalled when Kouri allegedly punched her in the days following Eric’s death, when Kouri learned she was cut out of her husband’s will.
“I told her that she could not kick me out of my brother’s house, my sister was now the executor of Eric’s trust and estate,” she said. “Kouri looked at me with pure hatred and rage. I was messing up her plan, I was getting in her way. And because of that, she attacked me. She punched me in the face and neck multiple times. It took four people to pull her off me that day.”
Amy described her brother Eric as a loving family man and successful entrepreneur who loved hunting, sports and motorized vehicles.
Defense attorneys said prosecutors "simply accepted" the narrative from Eric Richins' family that his wife had poisoned him "and worked backward in an effort to support it.”
But the judge ultimately agreed with prosecutors Monday, and chose to not grant Kouri Richins bail. She will remain in custody at the Summit County Jail.
