{"id":28352,"date":"2026-05-13T20:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/28352\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T20:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:44:10","slug":"utah-childrens-author-kouri-richins-pulls-faces-at-her-sentencing-as-her-kids-reveal-how-she-killed-their-pets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/28352\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah children’s author Kouri Richins pulls faces at her sentencing \u2014 as her kids reveal how she killed their pets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Utah children\u2019s book author Kouri Richins<\/a> pulled incredulous faces as her relatives \u2013 including her young sons \u2013 begged a judge at her sentencing to keep her locked up for the rest of her life for fatally poisoning husband Eric Richins.<\/p>\n

Richins \u2013 wearing a neon green jail t-shirt over a grey long sleeve shirt \u2013 continued to make astonished and outraged expressions <\/a>as a handful of Eric\u2019s kin emotionally spoke about how she ruined their lives with her \u201cevil\u201d deeds.<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old Kamas mother-of-three also gave skeptical looks and spoke to her lawyers as three social workers read statements from her boys, who were ages 5, 7 and 9 when their father was murdered.<\/p>\n

Utah children\u2019s book author Kouri Richins (in neon green jail T-shirt) pulled incredulous faces as her relatives \u2013 including her young sons \u2013 begged a judge at her sentencing to keep her locked up for the rest of her life. East Idaho News<\/p>\n

The kids described their devastation at how she took their dad away \u2014 and said she mistreated them and killed their household pets even before the murder.<\/p>\n

Eric\u2019s sister, Katie Richins-Benson claimed her 39-year-old brother \u2013 who would have turned 44 Wednesday \u2013 chose to stay with Kouri <\/a>so that she wouldn\u2019t have the chance in a custody battle to get time alone with the sons.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe believed Kouri was the most evil person he had ever met,\u201d Richins-Benson told the judge. \u201cHe knew her sons did not like her and preferred to be far away from her. He said he could never allow his children to spend half of their time alone with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comments prompted a dumbfounded look from Kouri.<\/p>\n

Another of Eric\u2019s sisters, Amy Richins, said Eric\u2019s murder wreaked such havoc and stress on the family that Amy miscarried twins.<\/p>\n

Richins continued to make astonished and outraged expressions as a handful of Eric\u2019s kin emotionally spoke about how she ruined their lives with her \u201cevil\u201d deeds. via REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the unrelenting stress.. I suffered a traumatic miscarriage of twins.\u00a0 We lost our children, we lost the future we were building,\u201d Amy said.<\/p>\n

And three social workers read statements written by Kouri\u2019s three young sons who all asked the judge to ensure their mother would never be allowed to be free again.<\/p>\n

The sons claimed Kouri was neglectful of their household pets, refusing to allow a cat into their garage at night causing it to be mauled to death. They said she failed to feed their chickens and turn on a heat lamp for them and their bunnies, causing them to die.<\/p>\n

They also claimed Kouri once hit their dog over the head \u201cas hard as\u201d she could after it peed in the house because the mom wouldn\u2019t let the dog outside.<\/p>\n

She also threatened to kill their pet lizard because they didn\u2019t want to watch TV with her, one son claimed.<\/p>\n

One of the boys said Kouri was \u201cdrunk almost daily\u201d and claimed would lock him in his bedroom.<\/p>\n

Kouri faces life in prison without the possibility of parole at her sentencing. Facebook \/ Kouri Richins<\/p>\n

He said his oldest brother \u201cmostly took care of me because I was locked in my room.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same child said he believed he may have been drugged the night of his dad\u2019s death because he woke up \u201cshaking\u201d and \u201ccouldn\u2019t talk for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

He claimed that when they were at the hospital, Kouri \u201cresisted\u201d having his blood drawn.<\/p>\n

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The boys said they would only feel safe if Kouri was behind bars until her death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want her to go to prison forever,\u201d one of the boys said.<\/p>\n

Richins was convicted of aggravated murder <\/a>for the March 4, 2022 slaying and faces 25 years to life in prison or life in prison without the possibility of parole.<\/p>\n

Kouri \u2013 a failed home flipper \u2013 killed Eric by dosing his Moscow Mule cocktail<\/a> with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl believing she would inherit his $4 million estate \u2013 to help her clear her business debt and so she could run away with her handyman lover.<\/a><\/p>\n

She also allegedly tried, unsuccessfully, two weeks prior to kill Eric by putting the same drug in his sandwich.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Utah children\u2019s book author Kouri Richins pulled incredulous faces as her relatives \u2013 including her young sons \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5814,434,6322,8,5722,3386,9,17285,17286,7,1250,1471],"class_list":{"0":"post-28352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-court","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-fentanyl","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-legal","13":"tag-murders","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-poison","16":"tag-sentencing","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-us-news","19":"tag-utah"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116569221529354941","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}