A Utah television news anchor interviewing the grief writer accused of murdering her husband with a fentanyl-laced Moscow Mule spoke of the moment she received an email accusing Kouri Richins as the killer.
Deena Manzanares, host of KTVX’s “Good Things Utah,” interviewed the 33-year-old mother of three last April to talk about the book she wrote for her sons, which is about coping loss of her father.
But when the cameras stopped rolling, Manzanares said Richins blamed Covid for her husband’s death.
The day after the interview aired on the local television station, the entire news team received a response email saying, “You know she killed her husband!!!”
Deena Manzanares, host of KTVX’s “Good Things Utah,” interviewed the 33-year-old mother of three last April to talk about the book she wrote for her sons, which is about coping loss of her father
Deena Manzanares and Surae Chinn, hosts of KTVX’s “Good Things Utah,” spoke with Richins about her book on the show on April 4 last year – before she became the prime suspect in her husband’s murder trial
Richins is accused of poisoning her 39-year-old husband Eric (pictured right) by slipping five times the fatal dose of fentanyl into his drink in March 2022
After her husband’s death, the mother of three self-published a children’s book called “Are You With Me?” about a deceased father who wore angel wings and watched over his sons.
When Manzanares spoke to Dateline this weekend, he recalled the conversation.
“She said my husband died of COVID and had a lung problem.”
Still, Richins had told everyone in town how her husband had died of a brain aneurysm
“I come to work the next day, sit down at my computer, check my email and there’s an anonymous message across the station.
“I opened it up and all it says is capital letters and lots of exclamation points: ‘You know she killed her husband!'” Manzanares explained.
“That’s when things get so surreal.” It was definitely scary, it was definitely strange, but we didn’t think about it after the first “Woah!”
Former real estate agent Richins, who is also Mormon, has been in the Summit County Jail since her arrest May 8 and is charged with felony murder, aggravated murder and three counts of possession of a controlled substance.
Prosecutors allege she killed her husband of nine years, Eric Richins, with a toxic cocktail on March 3, 2022, before publishing an illustrated children’s book about an angelic father watching over his sons.
Richins is seen promoting her book on a local Utah station in April of this year. “We have three little boys,” she told the interviewer, “and my kids and I have kind of written this book about the different emotions and grieving processes that we’ve experienced over the last year.”
Eric’s family told investigators shortly after his death that they suspected his wife had killed the father of three
The 39-year-old farmer was found dead at the foot of his bed at his home in the town of Kamas, near Park City, on March 4 last year.
Richins initially reached out to Good Things Utah via email and asked to be a guest on the show. Manzanares wrote that it was “all about promoting her children’s book” – adding that she seemed “excited to get this 15 minutes of fame.”
Manzanares described Richins’ demeanor on set as “cold” and “stumbling” – but the hosts attributed this to her struggling with her grief.
“She was a bit cold, she wasn’t particularly emotional, but we are trained to show our guests in the best light, we tried to be on her side and I think she’s probably tone deaf, that’s the case .” “That only happened a year ago,” she said.
“She was nervous, she was stumbling over her words, I thought she was nervous being on live TV – but now I think she was nervous because she lied.”
The host said she found the email warning “bizarre” and “didn’t think anything of it” because they’re used to receiving “the occasional crazy email.”
“I never in a million years thought all this would happen in the next few months,” Manzanares said. “It’s really shocking.”
The day after it aired, the entire news team, including Deena Manzanares, received an email from an anonymous source saying, “You know she killed her husband!!!”
When the cameras stopped rolling, Manzanares said Richins blamed Covid for her husband’s death, even though others believed he died of a brain aneurysm
The news station’s employees initially thought little of the scary news
Richins, who has three sons – Carter, 9, Ashton, 7, and Weston, 5 – is alleged to have killed her husband of nine years on March 3 last year, advertising her 14.99 US -dollar expensive grief book “Are You With Me?” the month before her arrest on May 8 this year.
Police believe she gave Eric, a farmer, a fatal dose of fentanyl in the form of a “Moscow Mule” – a cocktail made with vodka, ginger beer and lime juice.
An autopsy revealed that Eric died of a fentanyl overdose and that the level of the drug in his body was five times the lethal dose.
A medical examiner stated that the drug used was “illegal” and not medically appropriate and was likely taken orally, a charging document states.
Prosecutors said Richins had tried in previous months to make herself the sole beneficiary of her husband’s life insurance policy.
But Eric had changed his will and power of attorney to give full control to his sister Katie Richins-Benson, 38, because he feared his wife would “kill him for money,” according to a police warrant.
In May, exclusively revealed that within weeks of his death, Kouri had launched a legal battle against his family to secure an estate worth over $3.6 million.
She claimed Eric tried to “cheat” her by secretly transferring the family home, all personal property and shares in the bricklaying business he ran with his friend and partner Cody Wright into a trust in November 2020 , which belonged to his sister.
Richins also took out several life insurance policies worth nearly $2 million and tried to “break into his safe” just 48 hours after his death, his family said.
She also allegedly tried to poison him on several other occasions – including in February 2022, when Eric developed a rash after eating a sandwich that Richins had placed on the seat of his truck on Valentine’s Day along with a love letter.
In the days before Eric’s death, the couple had also argued over Richins’ plans to purchase and remodel a $2 million home in the days before, according to court documents.
A coroner said they found five times the lethal dose of fentanyl – a painkiller 100 times more powerful than morphine – in Eric’s body after he died on March 4 last year. Pictured: Richins and Eric with one of their sons
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who authorities say fatally poisoned her husband Eric Richins and then wrote a children’s book about grief, appeared in court earlier this month
On March 4 – the day before the alleged murder – Kouri signed closing papers on the 10-acre property and invited her friends to a party at her home, where she drank and partied, according to search warrant affidavits.
Richins also faces a lawsuit seeking more than $13 million in damages for alleged financial misconduct before and after his death.
The lawsuit filed in state court by Katie Richins, Eric Richins’ sister, accuses Kouri Richins of, among other things, withdrawing money from her husband’s accounts before his death, diverting money to pay his taxes and taking out a fraudulent loan, among other things.