Utah woman who published a book on grief after husband’s death to be sentenced for his murder

Kouri Richins appears at a sentencing hearing with her defense attorney Wendy Lewis, left, in 3rd District Court in Park City on Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool) 2026-05-13T04:03:27Z Park City, Utah (AP) — A Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband and was later found guilty of killing him finds out Wednesday how long she will spend in prison. Kouri Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing her husband’s cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. Prosecutors said Richins, a 35-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 Eric Richins without his knowledge and falsely believed she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million after he died. Eric Richins’ father, Eugene Richins, urged the judge Wednesday to impose a life sentence without the possibility of parole to protect his grandsons, who were ages 9, 7 and 5 when their father died. “This sentence is important so Eric’s three sons never have to live with the fear that the person responsible for taking their father could ever harm them again,” he said during the sentencing hearing, which fell on the day his son would have turned 44. Jurors in Park City also found Richins guilty of four other felonies, including attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich . Richins faces several decades to life in prison. She has been adamant in maintaining she is innocent. She wore a lime green jail uniform and chatted quietly with her lawyers while Eric Richins’ family members passed around pocket-size packs of tissues. Her lawyers had declined to comment before the hearing. The case captivated true-crime enthusiasts when Richins was arrested in 2023 while promoting her children’s book “Are You with Me?” about a boy coping with the death of his father. (