Utah woman who wrote grief book faces sentencing in husband’s murder case
A Utah mother who wrote a grief book after her husband died was sentenced in the same case that jurors said she poisoned him with fentanyl.
Kouri Richins was set to learn how long she will spend in prison after a jury found that the Utah mother and real estate agent killed her husband, Eric Richins, then built a public image around grief that prosecutors say masked the crime.
The sentencing hearing was scheduled for Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Park City, after a judge denied her request to push it to June. The date fell on what would have been Eric Richins’ 44th birthday, adding another sharp edge to a case that has drawn national attention for the gap between Richins’ public story and the evidence jurors accepted at trial.
In March 2026, Richins was convicted of aggravated murder in Eric Richins’ death, along with attempted aggravated murder, insurance fraud and forgery. Prosecutors said she slipped five times the lethal dose of fentanyl into a cocktail Eric Richins drank in March 2022 at the couple’s home near Park City. The verdict closed a trial centered on how Eric Richins died and what investigators said followed in the months after his death.
That aftermath included a self-published children’s book, Are You With Me?, which Richins promoted as a story about a boy coping with the death of his father. The book portrayed Eric Richins as an angel who remained close by, a public posture that prosecutors and jurors weighed against the forensic evidence and the fraud-related charges tied to the case. Richins had also discussed the book in a local television interview before her arrest in May 2023.
Richins faces 25 years to life in prison, with the possibility of life without parole. Before sentencing, court filings included statements from the couple’s three sons, who said they feared their mother and would not feel safe if she were ever released. The oldest son, now 13, wrote that he does not miss his mom and fears she could come after him and his brothers.
Eric Richins’ family has already been forced to watch the case move from a private loss to a public trial and then to sentencing. For them, Wednesday’s hearing marked the final legal step in a case defined by a husband’s death, a mother’s public grief narrative, and a jury’s finding that the story she told did not match the evidence presented in court.
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