The Murder of Eric Richins

Who was Eric Richins?

Eric Eugene Richins was born on May 13th, 1982 to Gene and Linda Richins in Bountiful, Utah. His family owned and lived on a cattle ranch, and it didn’t take long for Eric’s tenacity and affinity for hard work to become apparent. His obituary reads, “At an early age, Eric learned the joys of keeping horses and cows around. He spent countless hours helping his dad work the ranch, hauling hay, feeding the animals, and mending fences.”

Eric’s entire world was focused on his family. He was the oldest of the kids in his family, and always did his best to guide his younger sisters. Eric was incredibly kind, genuine, and willing to help anyone.

Throughout his life, Eric was a competitive athlete. He loved both watching and playing sports, like cross country, basketball, baseball, and soccer. As an adult, Eric coached or assisted with his sons’ sports teams. Those who saw him coach said that it was clear that he cared for each child he coached and had their best interests at heart. 

Eric enjoyed hunting and was described as “an excellent archer and marksman”. He’d traveled across the world for different hunting excursions.

Eric was adventurous and outgoing, someone who made everything fun. His obituary read, “there was never a dull moment when you were around Eric. Whether it be him showing up to a family dinner with no socks or sleeves on his shirt because he had to make an emergency bathroom stop along the way or his calling to tell you he rolled the four-wheeler for the umpteenth time, is stuck, and needs you to come get him.”

Eric had lots of different motorized “toys”, like four-wheelers, lifted trucks, and snowmobiles. His family said that he held the Richins family record for most rolls and collisions of motorized vehicles. He even has the record for the most stitches received, with 200 from one accident!

Another one of Eric’s passions was his education. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah in International Studies and a minor in Spanish, Eric went on to build an extremely successful stonework business. Not only did he have an incredible business sense, he had the ability to build and harbor relationships with those he worked with. He knew how to foster relationships and be someone that those in his life, whether business-related or personal, could always count on. 

“Eric loved fully, laughed loudly, and lived life with reckless abandon. He enjoyed great adventures to far off places, but also cherished the small and finer things in life, like his Under Armour sweat suits and spending time with his family and friends. No obstacle was too great for him, he simply viewed each one as a challenge. No peaks were too high and the next adventure was always just around the next bend.”

Eric’s first marriage unfortunately ended in divorce, so he was excited when he first met Kouri Darden. Kouri was a cashier at a Home Depot in Park City, Utah, and Eric was often in the store because of his masonry business. One of Kouri’s co-workers recalled how Kouri, who was sweet, sociable, and bubbly, always had the attention of men in the store. However, when Eric came in, it seemed different. His employees would come in and joke with Kouri about how he had a crush on her.

Eventually, Eric worked up the courage and asked for Kouri’s phone number. The two began dating and quickly fell in love. In July of 2012, Kouri gave birth to the couple’s first son, Carter. Almost a year later, in June of 2013, Eric and Kouri got married in a ceremony in the backyard of their beautiful home. In the next several years that followed, the couple had two more boys, Ashton and Weston. 

It truly seemed like the Richins were living a perfect life. Eric’s masonry business was thriving and there was no sign of it slowing down. Kouri, eager to have her own business venture, hired a nanny to take care of the boys, and dove into the real estate business, flipping houses and selling them. There didn’t seem to be anything that would indicate that the Richins family was moments away from a life-altering tragedy.

The Death

Shortly after 3AM on March 4th, 2022, a 911 call came into Summit County EMS. It was 33-year-old Kouri Richins. She said that she found her husband unresponsive in their bed and cold to the touch. The call taker instructed Kouri to get Eric off the bed and onto the floor, then had her start CPR. When first responders arrived, they found Eric on the bedroom floor. Unfortunately, Eric was beyond help. 39-year-old Eric was pronounced dead at his home. 

Sheriff’s deputies had Kouri write down everything that she remembered about the night before. She said that they put the kids down for bed around 9PM, then she and Eric had a drink to celebrate a new business venture for Kouri. She said specifically that her husband had a Moscow Mule to drink. They went to bed around 9:30-9:45PM. Shortly after they went to bed, Kouri said that she got up because one of their boys was having a nightmare. She said that she fell asleep in her son’s bed.

When Kouri came back into her bedroom around 3AM, she told deputies that she got into bed and snuggled up to Eric. She noticed that he was very cold, so she put a blanket on him and nudged him, but he didn’t respond. Kouri said that something felt strange, and when she noticed that Eric was unresponsive, she called 911.

Eric’s family was absolutely stunned. Why had a seemingly healthy young man died suddenly in his sleep? It just didn’t make sense. He didn’t use illicit drugs and had no significant health concerns. Kouri said that sometimes Eric would take a THC gummy before bed to help him sleep, but she wasn’t sure if he did that night. A friend who saw Eric the day before he died said that nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Rumors began circulating around town, some saying that Eric died peacefully in his sleep, or that he suffered from a brain aneurysm. His ultimate cause of death was found to be from a Fentanyl overdose. His autopsy and tox screen results showed that he had orally ingested FIVE times the lethal dosage of Fentanyl. A warrant obtained by investigators to search the Richins’ home revealed absolutely no evidence of drug use.

No one seemed to be able to comprehend what happened to Eric. The community sympathized with Kouri, who had become a single mother to three young boys overnight.

Things Get Weird

On April 6th, 2023, just over a year after Eric’s death, Kouri appeared on morning talk show, Good Things Utah. She explained to the two hosts about how her husband had passed away unexpectedly about a year prior, and she and her boys, ages 10, 9, and 6, had to learn how to grieve and cope with the loss.

In their efforts to come to terms with Eric’s death, Kouri said that she and her sons wrote a children’s book called, “Are You With Me?” She said that the book was intended to help other children process their emotions when dealing with similar circumstances. Kouri explained the three C’s that they used to deal with grief: connection, continuity, and care. She said that she did her best to encourage her boys that just because Eric wasn’t physically there, didn’t mean that his presence wasn’t there. 

After her interview, Kouri was speaking off-camera with one of the hosts. She told her that she believed Eric had actually died from Covid, specifically from lung issues. The other host later described how odd she thought it was that Kouri never removed her jacket during the interview and described her as “emotionless”.

While none of these REALLY concerned anyone, it wasn’t long before something came to the morning show staff’s attention that was VERY strange. Shortly after the interview aired, an email came through to every single staff member at the show. The subject line was the title of Kouri’s book. The email message read, in capital letters, with multiple exclamation points, YOU KNOW SHE KILLED HER HUSBAND. The sender was anonymous.

The host later said that they didn’t think much of the email. Surely it wasn’t the first time someone had sent them a negative email about a guest. However, about a week later, one of the hosts received another anonymous message, this time on her Facebook. The profile that sent the message had no identifying information or pictures. The message said that they needed to investigate the children’s book author and asked if they knew that she was a suspect in her husband’s death.

On May 8th, 2023, Kouri was arrested and charged with three counts of possession of drugs with intent to distribute and for the aggravated murder of her husband. It seemed as though while Kouri was playing the part of the grieving widow, investigators were building a case against her.

The Case

During their investigation, detectives found several inconsistencies within Kouri’s story, as well as a string of odd behavior that increased their suspicions. They found that the Richins family was living very, very comfortably. They owned many expensive things and took lots of vacations. While Eric’s business was continuing to be lucrative, earning a reported million dollars annually, Kouri’s house-flipping business was doing the opposite. 

Alec and Taryn Wright purchased a home from Kouri’s realty company in 2020, thinking they’d found the home they’d raise their children in. The 2,000 square foot home soon turned out to be a nightmare. After moving in, the family began getting sick more and more often. Taryn was pregnant, and was in and out of the hospital. Their daughter developed asthma and started having joint pain. Their son suddenly started failing in school and it seemed like he couldn’t retain any information. One day, Taryn pulled her son’s dresser away from the wall and found a puddle of water with mold. They also found mold growing out of the walls. Testing revealed that the house had dangerously high levels of mold and the family had to leave immediately.

The man who sold the house to Kouri said that he’d informed her that the house would need repairs following significant water damage. He recalled that when he showed her the home, she didn’t seem concerned about the damage. When the Wrights were shown the home, they said that Kouri didn’t mention anything about mold issues.

Forced to abandon their home and with reportedly no help from Kouri, the Wrights felt like their last option was to file a lawsuit against her and her realty company. Their civil lawsuit, which was filed abou six months before Eric’s death, alleged breach of contract and fraud.

Financial investigators found that Kouri had been using Eric’s personal and business funds, as well as running up credit cards on his account. She’d also used a fraudulent power of attorney to take out a $250,000 line of credit, using their home as collateral. She’d even taken out multiple life insurance policies in Eric’s name without his knowledge. 

Additionally, the celebration that Kouri said she and Eric were having the night before he died, likely wasn’t a celebration at all. A huge source of contention between the couple had been over an unfinished 20,000 sq ft. mansion on 10 acres at the base of Wasatch Mountains. Kouri wanted to flip the house, but it would cost millions. Eric didn’t want to buy the house, however, Kouri did it anyway. She even met with a notary the day after Eric’s death to finalize the purchase.

In early March 2022, just a few days after Eric’s death, Kouri called a local locksmith to open a safe that Eric kept in their garage. However, one of Eric’s sisters, Amy, was there and told Kouri that she had no right to open Eric’s safe, that she didn’t even have a right to anything involving Eric’s estate. Amy said that Kouri hit her, enraged at what she was saying to her. 

Despite Kouri’s insistence, Amy was right. The financial investigators found that in September of 2020, Eric’s bank and credit card funds were frozen because Kouri had misused them. After that, Eric met with a lawyer to draft a new estate plan, to ensure that his boys were taken care of. Eric’s lawyer said that Eric was insistent that Kouri didn’t find out what he was doing, and that if he needed to get in touch with him, he needed to go through his sister, Katie. He also put Katie in charge of his estate.

Eric’s family said that he’d told them, if something happened to him, Kouri was to blame. The family told investigators that years ago, when the couple had traveled to Greece, Eric had gotten extremely sick after drinking something that Kouri gave him. They reported that he told one of his sisters that he thought Kouri had tried to kill him.

On Valentine’s Day of 2022, less than a month before Eric’s death, he’d gotten extremely ill again after eating dinner at home with Kouri. He told a friend afterwards that he thought his wife was trying to poison him. 

Eric’s family told investigators that they believed Kouri poisoned Eric that night by putting Fentanyl into his Moscow Mule. With no evidence of drugs in the house, detectives searched Kouri’s phone records to figure out where the drugs might have come from. They found deleted texts between Kouri and a woman who used to clean houses for her. The woman had a history with drug abuse and drug distribution. Court documents later showed that Kouri asked this woman if she could get “some pain medication for an investor who had a back injury”.

The woman bought Hydrocodone pills and left them in one of the houses that Kouri owned. She said Kouri left cash in return. A few weeks later, the documents stated, Kouri asked the woman if she could get anything stronger, this time asking specifically for Fentanyl. Kouri paid $900 for 15-30 Fentanyl pills. This was reportedly three days before Valentine’s Day of 2022.

Two weeks after this, the woman stated that Kouri asked her for $900 of Fentanyl again. The woman left the pills in a fire pit of one of the homes that Kouri owned, where Kouri left cash for her. 

Also found on Kouri’s phone were indications that showed she was moving around on the night/morning of Eric’s death during the time she’d claimed to be sleeping in her son’s bed. 

About two weeks after her television interview, Kouri sent an email to detectives with the intention of clarifying things that she felt had been misunderstood. She explained the allegations about the “issues” with her real estate company by writing,

“Eric wanted us to live the typical conservative life where the man takes care of his family and the wife is a homemaker, wife, mom and that’s it. That is not my personality and not the way I was raised…I wanted to be more.”

Weirdly, she denied that the couple had any financial problems. Ever. She wrote, “No Eric and I did not have financial problems ever. Yes, Eric made more money than me, do you make more money than your wives? Have I ever been financially reliant on Eric in the last 5 years? Absolutely not.”

She also accused her late husband of having an affair. She said that she “moved out” for a weekend just to make Eric understand that she was serious about leaving him if he didn’t end the affair. She also said that Eric changed the woman’s name in his phone so she wouldn’t know about it. Kouri said that the two went to counseling, but just attended a few sessions, explaining that “it wasn’t for us”.

Kouri explained “allegations” of her taking “lavish vacations” after Eric’s death. She said that in October of 2022, she took her boys to Spain following an invitation for them to play at a Spanish soccer camp, and included their invitation letters. She also said that their family used to go to Mexico every year, and that in August of 2022, she took her boys and her mother to Mexico on a trip. 

She concluded the letter with,

“Happy to clarify or provide anything else you may need. I just want this over, I just want our lives back and to move on and grieve and mourn my husband without looking over my shoulder constantly for you guys, or the idiotic Private Investigator or the Richins family. Whatever I can do to help close this out, just ask I’ll give you or tell you whatever you want to know!”

Two weeks later, Kouri was arrested and charged with her husband’s murder.

After the Arrest

On June 12th, 2023, just a few weeks after her arrest, a bail hearing was held to determine whether Kouri would be able to post bail or whether she’d be held in jail until her trial. The prosecutor called witnesses to show that there was substantial evidence to support the murder charge. They alleged that Kouri’s motive for Eric’s murder was simple: money. 

A forensic accountant who’d investigated the Richins’ finances said that by the end of 2021, Kouri owed more than $4 million dollars to lenders and was $22,000 overdrawn on her accounts. She’d been counting on the $1.3 million from Eric’s life insurance, as well as millions more from his estate. She hadn’t known that he’d removed her from his will. Additionally, Kouri had to sign a prenup before the two were married, which didn’t guarantee her much money in the event of a divorce.

Suspicious searches on Kouri’s phone were brought up in the hearing as well. She’d googled the following:

“Can cops force you to do a lie detector test?”

“When does the FBI get involved in a case?”

“Luxury prisons for the rich in America”

Kouri’s defense team argued that there was no proof that the woman who “allegedly” sold Kouri drugs had actually ever sold her drugs. They said that the state’s claimed motive made no sense, that Kouri was financially actually in a WORSE position with Eric dead. If he was alive, the business would be continuing to make money. The defense even said, “being bad with money doesn’t make you a murderer.”

One of the state’s witnesses was Amy, Eric’s sister. She told the court about how she was afraid of Kouri and the physical altercation that had taken place when she told her that she couldn’t open Eric’s safe. Amy was adamant about the fact that if Kouri were released on bail, she wouldn’t only be scared for her own life, she’d be scared for the lives of Eric’s three sons.

After 3.5 hours, the judge ruled in the state’s favor. Kouri would not be granted bail.

In August of 2023, it was announced that the prosecution would not be seeking the death penalty. The Summit County Attorney’s Office released a notice stating,

“This decision was made in careful consultation with Eric Richins’ father and his two sisters, who are Eric Richins’ personal representative and victim representative…”

In September of 2023, evidence was found that led Kouri to be accused of witness tampering. Kouri had been given the wrong medication at the Summit County Jail and had a seizure. Sources said that this was the sixth time that she was given the wrong medication. The search of Kouri’s cell was conducted after her seizure and a 6 page handwritten letter addressed to Kouri’s mother was found. The letter is now referred to as the ‘Walk the Dog’ letter due to Kouri writing, ‘Walk the Dog!!’ in big letters at the top of the page.

Excerpt from the letter:

“However she [Skye, Kouri’s attorney] wants to link eric getting drugs and pills from mexican so we need some kind of connection…here is what im thinking but you have to talk to ronnie [Kouri’s brother]. He would probably have to testify to this, but it’s super short notice…he will need to tell Skye at the meeting next week.”

She then writes about how Eric often talked to her brother Ronney about getting pain pills and Fentanyl from Mexico. Initially, she writes about it like she’s telling the story, but then it switches to as if she’s writing what someone else should say, referring to herself in the third person. She writes about how Eric would put his drugs in Kouri’s bag at the airport so he wouldn’t get in trouble if they were found, that he couldn’t ruin his image. She wrote that Kouri never used pills and only occasionally used THC when Eric begged her to. After this section, Kouri drew an asterisk and wrote “Reword this however he needs to, to make the point, just include it all”.

Kouri explained that Eric kept his drugs in an allergy pill bottle that he kept in his work truck and that his work truck was emptied by his friend shortly after his death. Kouri instructed her mother to meet up with Ronney in person, that she was worried about her mother’s house and phone being bugged. 

“Skye has to make the connection between Eric and Mexico because that makes the most sense in her mind…tell Ronney don’t over analyze it…tell him I need him to do this. bring me home and then we will get those damn bitches!”

Most of the remainder of the letter is Kouri instructing her mother to tell friends and (what I assume) are other family members on what to say during interviews with the media. She included stories for them to tell about Eric searching for drugs in Mexico and how they could make Eric’s sisters look unreliable.

“Have Ali talk about how the sisters have always been jealous of me because anything they could do, Kouri could do better. Being a mom, college, stay at home wife until she built a million dollar company. A nice house, car, everything she had, they wanted. This comes down to jealousy, money, and eric’s partying that they don’t want to acknowledge and sadly an accidental overdose.”

Kouri ends the letter by asking her mother to sneak in some Crest white strips with her lawyer, complaining that her teeth are yellow from drinking coffee and tea all day. 

With the discovery of this letter, on September 18th, 2023, the prosecutors argued that Kouri was clearly witness tampering and a motion was filed to prevent her from communicating with her family members.

On the following day, Kouri’s attorney said that the six page letter was a part of a “fictional novel” that Kouri was writing in prison. Kouri said, “You can very much tell that the whole thing is very much a story…I said have [my lawyer] sneak me in some white strips because my teeth are getting yellow because all we do is drink coffee in the Mexican prison.” 

The actual quote about white strips in her letter never mentions a “Mexican” prison.

In January of 2024, new information was released from Eric’s autopsy results. There was a small amount of Seroquel found in Eric’s system. Eric didn’t have a prescription for Seroquel, an anti-psychotic often prescribed for different types of mental health conditions, but Kouri did. She claimed that she’d been prescribed the medication as a sleep aid, but the medical examiner’s office said that the medication is not prescribed for that. 

A date for Kouri’s trial has not been set, although assumptions are that pre-trial hearings will begin in early 2024. She is currently housed at the Summit County Jail.