PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband will serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled Wednesday.Kouri Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing her husband Eric Richins’ cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich. Judge Richard Mrazik said Richins is “simply too dangerous to ever be free” when handing down the sentence on the day that her husband would have turned 44.Her attorneys said they will appeal the conviction and sentence. Richins has been adamant in maintaining she is innocent, saying Wednesday that the verdict was “an absolute lie.”
Richins stood at the podium in a lime-green jail uniform as she asked her sons, who were not present in court, “Please just don’t give up on me.” She encouraged them to always “be like your dad.”
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Prosecutors said Richins, a 36-year-old real estate agent with a house-flipping business, was millions in debt and planning a future with another man. She had opened numerous life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge and falsely believed she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million after he died.
