Summit County prosecutors open trial alleging mother poisoned husband for money

Summit County prosecutors opened a murder trial on Feb. 23, 2026, accusing Kouri Richins, 35, a mother of three, of fatally poisoning her husband by slipping five times a lethal dose of fentanyl into a Moscow mule cocktail. The state says the March 2022 death outside Park City was part of a calculated plan driven by mounting financial pressure and an alleged affair, and that the case will be presented to a 12-person jury in a trial expected to last about a month.

Charging papers allege Richins stood “on the precipice of total financial collapse,” and note that her realty company owed lenders nearly $5 million while Eric Richins’ estate was worth roughly $5 million. Prosecutors say those financial strains, coupled with an alleged plan to start a new life with another man, supplied motive for the killing. She is charged with aggravated murder and related felonies, and faces up to life in prison if convicted on the most serious counts.

Prosecutors contend that Richins attempted an earlier poisoning on Valentine’s Day weeks before the March death and that she promoted a self-published children’s book about grief, Are You with Me?, in a local television appearance the following April. The book, which depicts a father with angel wings watching over his child, was promoted publicly as a way to help her sons cope. In the TV segment she said, “Just because he’s not present here with us physically, that doesn’t mean his presence isn’t here with us,” and added, “Dad is still here, it’s just in a different way.” Prosecutors have signaled they may use the book and her media appearances to argue the death was a calculated act and that she sought to shape public perception afterward.

Forensic assertions are central to the prosecution’s case. Authorities allege the lethal fentanyl dose was administered in a cocktail Eric drank the night he died. Investigators also reported that gummies found in the home did not test positive for fentanyl and that the medical examiner did not detect THC in Eric’s system, but prosecutors maintain fentanyl poisoning as the operative theory. Public reporting around the case has not included the full autopsy and toxicology disclosures that could be expected to play a pivotal role in trial evidence.

Richins has remained in Summit County Jail since her arrest in May 2023. At a June 12, 2023 bail hearing a judge ordered she remain in custody until trial. Her defense team, led by attorneys Wendy Lewis, Kathy Nester and Alex Ramos, issued a statement that framed the courtroom as the first opportunity to rebut media narratives and to present the facts to jurors. “Kouri has waited nearly three years for this moment: the opportunity to have the facts of this case heard by a jury, free from the prosecution’s narrative that has dominated headlines since her arrest,” the statement said. “What the public has been told bears little resemblance to the truth.”

The case also includes a separate, extensive mortgage-fraud prosecution that alleges falsified bank statements, money laundering and bad checks tied to loan applications in 2021. That matter comprises more than two dozen counts and forms part of the financial backdrop prosecutors say motivated the alleged homicide.

As opening statements begin, jurors will weigh forensic claims, disputed financial records and competing narratives about motive and character. The outcome will hinge on whether the state can link the fentanyl allegation to the cause of death and demonstrate a financial or relational motive beyond a reasonable doubt.