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A mother, Kouri Richins, who had written a children’s book about grief, was charged with murder in aggravated circumstances on Monday May 8.
INTERNATIONAL – His work is described in the ad as “calming and soothing”. A western Utah mother who wrote a children’s book about grieving after the death of her husband has been accused of poisoning him with a lethal dose of fentanyl. Kouri Richins was charged with aggravated murder on Monday, May 8.
The 33-year-old American mother had begun writing her book Are You With Me? (“Are you with me?”, in French) in the months following the death of Eric Richins, found in her marital bedroom in March 2022.
A deadly cocktail
After her husband’s death, she told police that she prepared a cocktail and brought it to her husband, who was lying in bed. Later, when she came back, it was “cold,” she said, according to local broadcaster Fox 13.
An autopsy revealed that he had died from an overdose of fentanyl, a particularly potent synthetic opiate of which he had taken five times the lethal dose.
Investigators found his wife had asked an acquaintance to get her strong painkillers, “stuff like Michael Jackson.” The singer died in 2009 from an overdose of propofol, an anesthetic.
“Written by a loving mother”
Kouri Richins eventually managed to obtain up to 30 fentanyl tablets. A few days later, Eric Richins “told a friend that he thought his wife was trying to poison him,” according to police documents seen by Fox 13.
Her book is presented in the promotional description as “comforting and soothing” to “bring peace and comfort to children who have lost a loved one” and “written by a loving mother who went through this ordeal herself.” The book gives children in particular the certainty that even if the loved one is no longer there, their presence is still there and they go through life with you as if they were there.
Less than a year ago, another American novelist and author of the essay How to Kill Her Husband was convicted of murdering her husband. Nancy Crampton Brophy, who shot her husband twice in the heart in June 2018, is serving a life sentence.
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