Kouri Richins is the Kamas-area mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in 2022.
Monday morning attorneys on both sides of the case made their opening statements, telling the Summit County jury what they will argue over the next five weeks.
Defense attorney Kathy Nester began by playing the 911 call Kouri Richins placed to Summit County dispatchers at 3:21 a.m. on March 4, 2022, almost four years ago.
“Those were the sounds of a wife becoming a widow,” Nester said afterward.
Richins faces five felony charges: aggravated murder, attempted criminal homicide, forgery and two counts of insurance fraud. She has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Chief prosecutor Brad Bloodworth says the state will show Eric Richins didn’t die accidentally, or by his own hand.
“The evidence will prove that Kouri Richins had the means, motive and opportunity to murder Eric Richins,” he told the jury Monday. “But please consider the evidence that proves no one else did.”
The prosecution believes Richins was “chronically unhappy” in her marriage and greatly in debt. They say she first tried to poison him with a sandwich on Valentine’s Day in 2022, while making plans for a future life with her boyfriend.
They also argue she was trying to cash in on life insurance policies and inherit Eric Richins’ estate valued at more than $4 million when he died.
But Eric Richins had made sure his estate would go into the hands of his sister, Katie Richins-Benson, who testified for a couple of hours Monday.
“It's not easy,” she said, recounting the phone call that woke her up on March 4, 2022. “[My dad] was screaming and crying and said, ‘Eric's not breathing. Eric's not breathing.’”
Richins-Benson, her husband and her father, all spoke to Eric Richins’ character as a dad, an uncle and a son.
Early on, the family was suspicious of Kouri Richins. As Richins-Benson testified, they hired a private investigator and offered tips and leads to the Summit County Sheriff’s Office investigating his death.
In the coming days and weeks, the prosecution will get to present its case based on that investigation first. Then the defense will have its turn.
Both will ask questions of potentially dozens of witnesses, who will include law enforcement, Eric and Kouri Richins’ friends, family and associates.
That includes people allegedly involved with selling Kouri Richins the fentanyl prosecutors say caused her husband’s overdose.
Nester reminded the jury that the state’s burden of proof is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Defendants are innocent until proven guilty.
She showed jurors a famous optical illusion, where some people see a lady in a fur coat and others see a downcast witch.
“They're going to show you the witch, and I'm going to take those same facts and those same witnesses, and I'm going to show you a widow,” Nester said. “At the end of the trial, if you can still see both faces, that's reasonable doubt.”
Tuesday, the jury is expected to hear from Summit County sheriff’s deputies and first responders who were at the Richins home after Eric Richins died.
The trial is scheduled to last five weeks through March 27.
Richins has been held at the Summit County jail since she was arrested and charged May 8, 2023.
Full Coverage: See complete coverage of the Kouri Richins case here.
