The prosecution in the Kouri Richins murder trial wants to paint a picture of key witnesses’ whereabouts in the days leading up to the death of Eric Richins.
Kouri Richins has pleaded not guilty to the aggravated murder and attempted murder of her husband.
Prosecutors say she poisoned him with fentanyl first on Valentine’s Day and then fatally the night of March 3, 2022.
But her attorneys say none of the state’s witnesses will be able to prove she poisoned him.
So prosecutors are turning to Eric and Kouri Richins’ cell phones, which contain data from the night of Eric Richins’ death at his Francis home.
Summit County investigators also seized phones from Kouri Richins’ alleged boyfriend Robert Josh Grossman; her housekeeper and alleged drug dealer Carmen Lauber; and the original source of the drugs, Robert Crozier.
Here’s what those phones contained, based on the data prosecutors presented Monday and the testimony of digital forensics expert Chris Kotrodimos.
Drug deals
During the first week of the trial, Lauber testified she bought fentanyl from Crozier, a friend of a friend, three times. For all the alleged buys, prosecutors have data from both of their phones pinging cell towers, indicating their approximate location.
Kotrodimos walked the jury through visualizations of the data.
Jurors were able to see Lauber’s phone travel from the Heber area and into Utah County on Feb. 11, Feb. 26 and March 9, 2022. On those same days, Crozier’s phone moves from the Davis County area south and meets with Lauber’s phone, before they go their separate ways.
Both Lauber and Crozier agree they met at a gas station in Draper Feb. 11 and Feb. 26. However, Crozier has amended his recollection and no longer says he sold the housekeeper fentanyl. He says it was oxycodone.
Prosecutors haven’t shared their theory regarding the March 9 drug buy, which Lauber didn’t initially disclose to investigators. That alleged fentanyl purchase happened five days after Eric Richins had died.
And during cross-examination, defense attorney Alexander Ramos pressed Kotrodimos on the limitations of cell phone data. Kotrodimos acknowledged that it shows what a phone was doing and where it was, but it can’t confirm who had the phone at the time.
Lauber and Crozier have immunity from various state agencies in exchange for testifying truthfully and fully in Richins’ murder trial.
The day of the alleged attempted murder
Prosecutors believe the first time Kouri Richins tried to kill her husband in 2022 was on Valentine’s Day.
Monday, they presented the supporting cell phone evidence.
It includes messages between Kouri Richins and Grossman, the man she was allegedly having an affair with. Richins allegedly texted Grossman a photo of her GPS, showing her location and ETA on Feb. 14, 2022.
Eric Richins’ phone data includes when it was moved and unlocked, which Kotrodimos said could show when he laid down to rest.
Prosecutors have alleged he had an allergic reaction to a sandwich Kouri Richins bought for him. They believe she put fentanyl Lauber purchased three days before into the sandwich and left it in Eric Richins’ truck.
The night and morning of Eric Richins’ death
According to the prosecution’s presentation, activity on Kouri and Eric Richins’ phones stopped by 11 p.m. on March 3, 2022.
The last activity for Kouri Richins’ phone was moving 35 feet that night. Her husband’s phone received a work text before it went inactive. Kotrodimos says there’s no record that message was read. The state didn’t show any activity for his phone after that.
Kouri Richins’ phone becomes active again at 3:06 a.m. when it is unlocked. Fourteen seconds later, the speaker is activated, and at 3:08 a.m. it moves 243 feet. The phone is then unlocked a few more times before Kouri Richins calls 911 at 3:21 a.m.
The jury heard part of that call in the defense’s opening statements.
Prosecutors may compare the phone records with Kouri Richins’ previous statements that she had been sleeping in one of her kids’ rooms before waking, finding Eric Richins unresponsive and calling 911.
They also showed jurors three memes accessed on Kouri Richins’ phone at 8:29 a.m. March 4, 2022, hours after Eric Richins’ death.
One shows a woman holding money over her eyes. Another shows actor Kevin Spacey with the caption “Idiots. Idiots everywhere.” The final one shows President Donald Trump, captioned “I’m really rich.”
Kotrodimos says the images’ file paths indicated they were accessed as part of a text message. But it’s not clear who might have sent or received the memes.
“The source of these images was deleted from the phone. It no longer exists on the phone,” Kotrodimos said on the stand. “These three .PNG files are what we call ‘ghost’ or ‘orphaned’ images.”
He testified there were patterns of mass deletions of data from early 2022 on the phone Kouri Richins had at that time.
The time after Eric Richins’ death
Summit County prosecutors also presented data from Kouri Richins’ phones in the year after Eric Richins died. That included internet searches prosecutors introduced to the jury on the first day of the trial.
For the defense, Ramos pointed out that a search like “luxury prisons for the rich in America” may be taken out of context as evidence.
“Are you familiar with a real, a certain ‘Real Housewife’ in Salt Lake City recently, in April 2022?” Ramos asked Kotrodimos. “Are you aware of somebody maybe being sentenced around that time?”
Jen Shah, a former cast member on Bravo’s Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, was facing federal charges at that time. In July 2022, Shah changed her plea to “guilty” and went to prison for heading a telemarketing scheme.
Other searches on Kouri Richins’ phones that year included “can cops.uncover deleted.messages iphone” and “if someone is poisoned what does it go down on the death certificate as.”
Summit County attorneys are continuing to call witnesses and present evidence in the five-week trial. It is scheduled through March 27.
The defense has yet to present its case.
