Man at large after allegedly killing woman 8 months pregnant with his baby: Police

(NEW YORK) — Kouri Richins, a Utah woman accused of fatally poisoning her husband with fentanyl, who self-published a children’s book on grieving following his death, has been found guilty of murder following a weekslong trial.

The Summit County jury began deliberating late Monday afternoon before reaching a verdict after about three hours. She was found guilty on all five counts, including aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder.

Kouri Richins looked down and remained still while the judge read out each guilty verdict. Her sentencing has been scheduled for May 13.

During closing arguments earlier Monday, prosecutors alleged that the mom of three was obsessed with appearing “privileged, affluent and successful” and killed her husband to help pay the debts of her floundering home flipping business and to get a “fresh start.”

The defense, meanwhile, said the case was “sloppy” and “driven by bias” and argued that the state failed to prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.

Kouri Richins, 35, was charged with aggravated murder in connection with the 2022 death of her husband, Eric Richins, following a lengthy investigation. Prosecutors allege she spiked his drink with a lethal dose of fentanyl that she purchased illicitly after asking two people for the “Michael Jackson drug.”

“Kouri Richins was a suburban mother, real estate agent. She does not know a lot about the illicit street drug world, but she knows Michael Jackson died from taking drugs,” prosecutor Brad Bloodworth said during closing arguments on Monday. “She doesn’t know how to order a street drug, but she knows she wants the Michael Jackson stuff. She knows she wants it because it is lethal. It is fatal. It kills. And she wanted lethal, fatal death.”

Her charges also include attempted aggravated murder, with prosecutors alleging she gave her husband a sandwich laced with fentanyl on Valentine’s Day two weeks before his death in an initial, failed attempt to kill him.

Kouri Richins was also accused of committing insurance fraud by taking out a $100,000 insurance policy on his life with his forged signature and then submitting a claim following his alleged murder.

She pleaded not guilty and has maintained her innocence.

Her husband, 39-year-old Eric Richins, was found dead in bed on March 4, 2022. An autopsy determined that he died from fentanyl intoxication, and the level of fentanyl in his blood was approximately five times the lethal dosage, according to the charging document. The medical examiner determined the fentanyl was “illicit fentanyl,” not medical grade, according to the charging document.

Prosecutors allege that Kouri Richins purchased illicit fentanyl pills shortly before the Valentine’s Day incident and again before his death, at which point she allegedly asked for stronger drugs.

‘Downward financial death spiral’: Prosecutor
During his closing argument, Bloodworth said Kouri Richins was in “financial desperation” due to her realty company’s debts and needed a significant influx of cash immediately. He alleged she believed she would have financially benefited from her husband’s death — without realizing that his assets were in a trust for their children.

Bloodworth said October 2021 was the “beginning of the downward financial death spiral” of Kouri Richins’ realty business, and that she had a growing debt picture nearing $8 million.

He alleged Kouri Richins intended to cause her husband’s death as early as December 2021, when she was booked a vacation with her boyfriend for April 2022.

“Kouri Richins did not book that trip thinking Eric Richins would be alive in April, she booked it knowing he would not,” Bloodworth said.

Bloodworth referred to evidence that he alleged showed she intended to cause her husband’s death. A witness testified during the trial that in December 2021 Kouri Richins said to her that “in many ways it would be better” if Eric Richins “were dead.” In February 19, 2022, days after the alleged attempted murder attempt, prosecutors said Kouri Richins texted her boyfriend, “If he could just go away and you could just be here! Life would be so perfect!!”

Bloodworth said Kouri Richins tried to cover up her alleged role in her husband’s death, starting with the 911 call.

“Listen to how she tells the 911 dispatcher where she was when Eric died. She is distancing herself,” Bloodworth said before the call was played again for jurors. “Rather than, ‘He’s not breathing. He has no pulse. I have to figure out what to do. I need help,’ she’s saying, ‘Hey, look, I was not there. I was in my son’s room.’ That’s her alibi. She’s distancing herself from the time and the place that she murdered Eric.”

Bloodworth also said the call shows that the 911 operator asked Kouri Richins to perform CPR on her husband for 6 minutes before she purportedly did. “She is not immediately trying to revive him,” he said. 

Bloodworth said Kouri Richins deleted her texts and phone logs with multiple people, including her former housecleaner, Carmen Lauber, who testified about obtaining illicit drugs at Kouri Richins’ request in the weeks prior to Eric Richins’ death. He argued that Kouri Richins was worried about being investigated and her deleted messages in the wake of her husband’s death, as evidenced by searches on her phone such as, “can cops force you to do a lie detector test” and “can deleted text messages be retrieved from an iPhone.”

When the toxicology report showed that Eric Richins died from a fentanyl overdose, Bloodworth argued that Kouri Richins then needed to “explain” the presence of the drug — and that she allegedly planned to do so by claiming she got them for her husband at his request.

Bloodworth argued that Eric Richins did not die of an accidental overdose, citing testimony from his friends and family who said he did not use illicit drugs. He also argued that he did not die by suicide and had “every reason to live” — foremost being his three young sons.

“The evidence proves that Kouri Richins murdered, attempted to murder Eric Richins and that she committed two counts of insurance fraud and forgery,”  he said. “The evidence does not support any other explanation.”

Defense argues case had ‘confirmation bias’
Defense attorney Wendy Lewis argued during her closing that the case was impacted by confirmation bias from the start.

“Instead of looking at the evidence to determine what happened, the state has, they determined what happened, and then they found the evidence to support it,” Lewis said.

Lewis argued that there was “no evidence” that there was fentanyl in Eric Richins’ drink the night he died and that investigators failed to look into his recent trip to Mexico, which the defense had insinuated could have been the source of the fentanyl, or to test an old prescription bottle that was on his nightstand.

Lewis raised questions about the testimony of Lauber, who testified pursuant to several grants of immunity.

“Carmen Lauber was not able to tell you that she bought fentanyl. She agreed on the stand that it was the detectives that first put the word fentanyl in her mouth, in her head. She was told by detectives in this case that she bought fentanyl. ‘Eric died of fentanyl. You bought drugs. You bought fentanyl,'” Lewis said. “She took that story and she ran with it because she had everything to lose.”

On the affair, Lewis said Kouri Richins broke things off with her boyfriend and they never went on the trip. On the phone searches, Lewis argued that Kouri Richins was worried because she was innocent.

“Of course she’s worried. An innocent person would be worried. Anyone would be worried if they just found out that they are a suspect in a homicide investigation,” Lewis said. “She would have been scared to death.”

Lewis touched on Kouri Richin’s money troubles, acknowledging that the house flipping business was “struggling,” but argued that Eric Richins was “worth so much more to Kouri alive.”

She claimed that Kouri Richins was being judged for how she grieved.

“They want you to look at a woman in the worst moment of her life and to judge her grief,” Lewis said. “There is no wrong way to grieve.”

Lewis told the jury that if they believe Kouri Richins “accidentally obtained fentanyl,” and that Eric Richins then took those pills voluntarily and died, she argued that it is “not aggravated murder” and that they “must find Kouri Richins not guilty.”

On the alleged insurance scheme, Lewis argued that the state has not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that there was any fraud or forgery.

“The state has not proven their case,” Lewis said. “They don’t have the evidence that Kouri Richins killed her husband, so instead, they have tried to show you as much evidence as they possibly can to convince you she’s the sort of person who would.”

Prior to delivering its closing argument, the defense submitted a motion for mistrial, alleging that the state’s closing was full of “wild speculation,” dehumanized Kouri Richins and inappropriately commented on her demeanor. The motion was denied.

In his rebuttal, Bloodworth acknowledged that much of the evidence in the case is circumstantial.

“People do not video themselves poisoning their spouse,” he said. “But circumstantial evidence is just as good as direct evidence.”

Bloodworth argued that there was “plenty of proof to convict” Kouri Richins based on Lauber’s corroborated testimony. He also argued that much of the defense’s argument is based around trying to explain a letter found in Kouri Richins’ jail cell that prosecutors said appears to outline testimony for her brother instructing him to say that her husband got fentanyl from Mexico.

“All the evidence in this case proves that Kouri Richins murdered her husband, the father of her three children, Eric Richins,” he said. “There is no other rational explanation.”

“And despite all the evidence, Kouri Richins doubles down and blames Eric,” he continued.

Kouri Richins did not testify during the three-week trial and the defense called no witnesses.

During his testimony, the lead detective in the case said that Kouri Richins paid a ghostwriter for her children’s book.

A month prior to her arrest in May 2023, the mom of three young sons appeared on a “Good Things Utah” segment on Salt Lake City ABC affiliate KTVX to promote the book. In the segment, Kouri Richins said her husband of nine years died “unexpectedly” and that his death “completely took us all by shock.

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(ATLANTA) — A Georgia jury found Colin Gray guilty Tuesday on charges including second-degree murder and manslaughter, stemming from a 2024 mass shooting allegedly committed by his teenage son with a rifle he gifted him as a Christmas present.

The jury found the 55-year-old Gray guilty of 27 counts. Two other counts were dropped. The jury deliberated fewer than two hours before returning its verdicts.

Gray is the first parent in the United States convicted of murder due to the alleged acts of their child after prosecutors in various U.S. states in recent years have attempted to hold parents criminally liable in connection to their children’s deadly actions.

Colin Gray was charged with multiple counts of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and cruelty to children. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Gray’s son, Colt Gray, now 16, allegedly killed two students and two teachers and injured eight students in a Sept. 4, 2024, mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Colt Gray has been charged as an adult and is awaiting a separate trial on multiple counts of felony murder and aggravated assault. He has pleaded not guilty.

During the two-week trial, Barrow County prosecutors presented evidence that Colin Gray had been warned that his son had an affinity for mass shooters and was aware that Colt kept a shrine in his bedroom dedicated to the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Instead of getting his son psychological help, Colin Gray allegedly gave the boy an AR-15-style weapon as a Christmas present that he ultimately used to carry out the mass shooting at Apalachee High School, prosecutors alleged.

On Friday, Colin Gray took the witness stand in his own defense and broke down while being questioned about whether he noticed any “red flags” that would have led him to believe the boy was capable of committing a mass shooting.

“I struggle with it every day,” Colin Gray testified. “He’s a good kid, you know? He wasn’t perfect, but to do something, uh, that heinous, like I don’t, I don’t know if anybody would see that type of evil.”

During his testimony, Gray confirmed that he gave his son the AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas present, telling jurors the gift came with rules.

“This is a weapon that I want you to shoot when we go to the range, and if you keep doing really good in school, going to school and doing all the things you should, you graduate and you’re 18, this will be your gun,” Colin Gray said he told his son.

The landmark guilty verdict comes after several parents across the country have been charged and convicted in connection with mass shootings carried out by their children.

In December 2023, Robert Crimo Jr. pleaded guilty to seven counts of misdemeanor reckless conduct – one count for each person killed by his son, Robert Crimo III – during a mass shooting at a Fourth of July Parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. As part of a plea deal, Crimo Jr. was sentenced to 60 days in jail and two years of probation.

Crimo’s son, who was 19 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder and attempted murder in April 2025 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In 2021, Jennifer and James Crumbley became the first parents convicted in the United States of charges stemming from a mass school shooting committed by their child. Ethan Crumbley, then 16, pleaded guilty in October 2022 to charges he murdered four students and injured several others in a November 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Jennifer and James Crumbley were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials after prosecutors presented evidence of an unsecured gun at their home and their indifference toward their son’s mental health. They were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Tuesday issued an addendum to its sweeping settlement to end President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS that would bar the government from conducting audits of tax returns filed by Trump, his family and their companies. 

The filing, signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and posted to the Justice Department’s website Tuesday, states that the IRS is “forever barred and precluded” from “prosecuting or pursuing” examinations or reviews of Trump or “related or affiliated individuals” and businesses. 

The addendum expands the unprecedented settlement agreement announced by the DOJ Monday that establishes a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate those who allege they were wrongly targeted under the Biden administration, in exchange for Trump dropping his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS as well as two civil claims for $230 million related to the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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