Utah youngsters’ guide creator accused in husband’s loss of life modified life insurance coverage insurance policies, prosecutors say

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah girl who wrote a kids’s guide about grief after her husband’s loss of life and was later arrested for killing him had made adjustments to her husband’s life insurance coverage years earlier than when she is accused of fatally poisoning him, in response to charging paperwork up to date Thursday.

The extra allegations, which have been beforehand talked about in search warrants however not the charging paperwork, led to the postponement of a detention listening to scheduled for Friday that may have been the primary time Kouri Richins was in court docket since her case grew to become the newest true crime sensation earlier this month. The listening to has been rescheduled for June 12.

Prosecutors say Kouri Richins, 33, poisoned her husband, Eric Richins, 39, by slipping 5 occasions the deadly dose of fentanyl right into a cocktail she made for him in March 2022. The mom of three later self-published a kids’s guide titled “Are You with Me?” about an angel wing-clad deceased father watching over his sons. She promoted it on tv and radio, describing the guide as a means to assist kids grieve the lack of a liked one.

Years earlier than, Kouri Richins purchased 4 life insurance coverage insurance policies on her husband’s life with out his data from 2015 to 2017 with advantages totaling practically $2 million, prosecutors alleged within the paperwork up to date Thursday.

The paperwork don’t disclose when Eric Richins found the adjustments however do say he met with a divorce lawyer and property planner in October 2020, a month after he found his spouse had carried out a number of different main monetary strikes with out his data.

Prosecutors stated Eric Richins discovered that his spouse had taken out a $250,000 dwelling fairness line of credit score and spent it, withdrawn $100,000 from his financial institution accounts, and spent greater than $30,000 on his bank cards, in response to the paperwork. Kouri Richins additionally stole about $134,000 from her husband’s enterprise meant for tax funds, the paperwork state.

She agreed to repay her husband when he confronted her, in response to the paperwork.

Relations interviewed by investigators indicated that Eric Richins was looking for to divorce Kouri Richins and had just lately modified his will and life insurance coverage coverage.

Earlier charging paperwork and warrants element the yearlong investigation that authorities pursued earlier than arresting Kouri Richins this month. The paperwork embody interviews with an unnamed informant who says she dealt Richins hydrocodone and fentanyl within the weeks and months earlier than her husband’s loss of life.

Richins, an actual property agent, informed the seller that each medicine have been for an investor with again ache. The seller stated Richins bought the hydrocodone shortly earlier than Valentine’s Day, when prosecutors say she laced medicine into Eric Richins’ sandwich.

After he survived, his spouse requested for stronger medicine, particularly “a few of the Michael Jackson stuff,” the seller informed investigators. When Jackson died of cardiac arrest in 2009, health workers discovered pharmaceuticals and highly effective anesthetics in his system, not fentanyl.

Kouri Richins’ lawyer, Skye Lazaro, has declined to touch upon the fees.

The case has directed the world’s eyes to the sleepy cities on the bottom of Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, that are quickly evolving from predominantly agricultural communities to high-end bed room communities, the place first- and second-time owners just like the Richinses can take pleasure in easy accessibility to snowboarding, mountaineering trails and the alpine lakes of the close by Uinta Mountains. The Richinses lived in a brand new improvement within the city of Francis, which is roughly 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Salt Lake Metropolis.

Eric Richins descended from a big household, well-known domestically, with members energetic in native politics and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He met Kouri Richins when she labored at a neighborhood Residence Depot the place he usually shopped, a former colleague informed KUTV.

Eric’s household informed investigators that he had raised suspicions that his spouse had beforehand tried to poison him, together with on a trip to Greece a number of years in the past. Additionally they raised questions on marital disagreements stemming from adjustments to his will and the acquisition of a incomplete close by mansion in Halfway, Utah, that Kouri Richins purchased hoping to shortly promote.

The one that says she bought Kouri Richins the fentanyl informed investigators she left the drugs on the expansive, unfinished dwelling — a 20,000-square-foot (1,860-square-meter) manor that, when full, can have eight bedrooms and an indoor volleyball court docket, a video advert selling its sale reveals.

Marital disputes over the house are the idea for one among many unanswered questions on motive that can seemingly come up ought to Richins’ case go to trial. Since Eric Richins’ loss of life, his kin have fought his spouse over his property, together with competing claims over how you can cut up a masonry enterprise along with his former accomplice and what claims Kouri Richins has to a belief put aside for his subsequent of kin.

Greg Skordas, an lawyer and victims’ advocate working with Eric Richins’ kin, stated Richins’ three kids are staying with an unnamed relative whereas their mom awaits trial. Katie Richins-Benson, Eric Richins’ sister and the trustee to his property, filed for guardianship over the youngsters.

Civil court docket filings that have been submitted in numerous circumstances after Eric Richins’ loss of life define how what attorneys name “the suspicious circumstances” surrounding his loss of life have lengthy circulated. The homicide expenses have change into entangled with questions over his belongings and an property held in a belief and managed by his sister. Kouri Richins has fought with members of her deceased husband’s household for the reason that day after his loss of life, the paperwork present.

Kouri Richins and her sister-in-law had a combat the day after Eric Richins’ loss of life on the household dwelling, in response to the paperwork. Kouri Richins subsequently sued for greater than $3.6 million and to take away Katie Richins-Benson as trustee, arguing {that a} prenuptial settlement she and her husband signed entitled her to his belongings if he died earlier than they divorced.

Utah regulation prohibits these convicted of murder from cashing in on their crime.