Man charged with supplying gun to Louisiana father who allegedly killed 8 children
A 56-year-old man has been arrested and charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Louisiana with supplying the weapon allegedly used by the suspect to kill seven of his children and a nephew in Shreveport, Louisiana, April 19, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Louisiana U.S. Attorney’s Office)
(NEW YORK) — A 56-year-old Louisiana man is facing federal charges for allegedly supplying an assault-style pistol that Shamar Elkins is suspected of using to allegedly kill eight children, including seven of his own, in a shooting in Shreveport over the weekend, officials said.
Charles Ford, of Shreveport, was arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and making false statements about the firearm to federal agents assisting in the investigation of Sunday’s massacre, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana. He faces a total of up to 20 years in prison if convicted of both charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“Words fall short in the face of the acts Shamar Elkins perpetrated in Shreveport on April 19 – they are beyond comprehension or description,” U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Keller said in the statement announcing the charges.
Elkins, 31, died after leading police on a chase following the mass shooting in Shreveport that also left two women hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
Keller said investigators probing how Elkins obtained the weapon were led to Ford through information they obtained from the original purchaser of the weapon.
“Elkins’ death means that our community will never see him face justice,” Keller said. “Our hope, as we continue to investigate and prosecute this case alongside our law enforcement partners, is that holding the person whose gun Elkins used to perpetrate the crime accountable will give some small bit of solace to our Shreveport community.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Family photo posted on Eric Richins’ Facebook. (Facebook / Eric Richins)
(NEW YORK) — The murder trial of Kouri Richins, a Utah mom accused of fatally poisoning her husband with fentanyl who self-published a children’s book on grieving following his death, is set to get underway with opening statements on Monday.
The 35-year-old realtor 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 cocktail with a lethal dose of fentanyl.
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.
She has pleaded not guilty. The trial in Park City is scheduled to last up to five weeks.
“Kouri has waited nearly three years for this moment: the opportunity to have the facts of this case heard by a jury, free from the prosecution’s narrative that has dominated headlines since her arrest,” Kouri Richins’ attorneys — Wendy Lewis, Kathy Nester and Alex Ramos — said in a statement ahead of Monday’s opening statements. “Now the state must prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“What the public has been told bears little resemblance to the truth,” the statement continued. “We welcome the courtroom, where evidence is bound by rules, not sensational coverage. Kouri is a mother who wants to go home to her children. We are confident this jury will make that possible.”
Prosecutors allege that Kouri Richins was in “financial distress” due to her realty company’s debts and believed she would have financially benefited from her husband’s death, according to the charging document. They also allege she was having an affair and purportedly told a witness months before her husband’s death that she “felt ‘stuck’ and ‘trapped’ in her marriage and it would be better if Eric Richins just died,” according to the charging document.
Eric Richins, 39, was found dead in the couple’s bedroom in the early hours of March 4, 2022. An autopsy determined 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 shortly before the Valentine’s Day incident and again before his death, at which point she allegedly asked for stronger drugs.
Weeks before her husband’s death, she is accused of fraudulently securing a life insurance policy for her husband with his forged signature, and then fraudulently claiming the benefits following his death, according to the charging document.
Kouri Richins has proclaimed her innocence, speaking out from jail in an audio recording released in May 2024.
“The world has yet to hear who I really am, what I’ve really done or didn’t do,” Kouri Richins insisted in the audio, provided to ABC News through a trusted confidant. “What I really didn’t do is murder my husband.”
Kouri Richins has remained in Summit County Jail since her arrest in May 2023.
A month prior to her arrest, the mom of three young sons appeared on a “Good Things Utah” segment on Salt Lake City ABC affiliate KTVX to promote her children’s book. In the segment, Kouri Richins said her husband of nine years died “unexpectedly” and that his death “completely took us all by shock.”
Kouri Richins also faces over two dozen charges in a separate case filed last year alleging she committed mortgage fraud in 2021. The charging document alleges she submitted falsified bank statements in support of mortgage loan applications for her realty business, committed money laundering and issued bad checks.
The charges in the case also allege she murdered her husband for financial gain as she “stood on the precipice of total financial collapse.” According to the charging document, around the time of Eric Richins’ death, her realty company owed lenders nearly $5 million, and his estate was worth approximately $5 million.
In these photos released by the University of South Florida Police Department, Nahida Bristy is shown. (University of South Florida Police Department)
(TAMPA, Fla.) — Investigators said Friday they identified remains found this week as part of the investigation into the murders of two missing University of South Florida doctoral students as Nahida Bristy.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said that forensic investigators took several days to identify the remains of the 27-year-old student because of the advanced stages of decay her body was in.
The announcement came a week after investigators found and identified the remains of Zamil Limon, 27, a friend of Bristy who was also reported missing from the campus on April 16.
“We are now actively working to release both bodies for religious reasons back to the families who live in Bangladesh,” Chronister told reporters.
Investigators allege that Hisham Abugharbieh, 26, Limon’s roommate, murdered the pair and dumped their bodies.
Chronister said that Limon was stabbed repeatedly. He did not reveal how Bristy was killed and said the investigation is ongoing.
“At this point we don’t know what the motive is. The why, we don’t know yet,” Chronister said.
Abugharbieh was arrested on April 24, following a standoff with police. His family called 911 about a domestic dispute involving Abugharbieh.
He was charged on with with two counts of first-degree murder with a weapon and ordered to be held without bond.
The sheriff revealed more details about the investigation, including that Abugharbieh allegedly used a cart that belonged to the apartment building he lived in to move the bodies to his car.
Chronister alleged that Abugharbieh searched for terms on his Internet devices related to murdering the victims including “can you bury a body in a trash bag and throw it in a dumpster” and “can a knife penetrate a skull?”
“This is someone very calculated,” the sheriff said.
Prosecutors alleged that the suspect used ChatGPT for those searches and it answered “that it sounds dangerous,” and then Abugharbieh allegedly asked, “How would they find out.”
Chronister added that tech companies have been cooperating with the investigation by providing them with the suspect’s search history.
“This might be able to provide us with the why that we are still searching for,” he said.
United States President Donald Trump, right, speaks to Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a North Atlantic Council plenary meeting during the the NATO summit on June 25, 2025 in The Hague, Netherlands. (Photo by Kin Cheung – Pool/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will host King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the White House for a highly anticipated state visit this week as the “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom is under a microscope amid the war with Iran.
“I look forward to the dinner. We’re having King Charles come; he’s a friend of mine. We’re really looking forward to it, we’ve spoken, and we’re going to have a great time,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last week.
While Trump has repeatedly praised King Charles as a “friend” whom he’s known for years, his relationship with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been another story as the president has repeatedly assailed the U.K. and other NATO allies over the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran.
“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said of Starmer in March as he criticized the U.K. for not doing more to support the war.
Starmer has waved off concerns about the relationship between the two countries.
“The special relationship is in operation right now,” Starmer said in the wake of Trump’s comments last month. “We are working together in the region, the U.S. and the British working together to protect both the U.S. and the British in joint bases, where we’re jointly located and we’re sharing intelligence on a 24/7 basis in the usual way.”
Trump says visit could help repair damage
Amid his criticism of the U.K.’s support of the war with Iran, Trump said the Charles’ visit — the U.K.’s constitutional and ceremonial head of state — may help restore any damaged ties between the two allies.
“Absolutely. He’s fantastic. He’s a fantastic man. Absolutely the answer is yes,” Trump told the BBC in a phone interview on Thursday when asked if the visit could help repair the relationship.
But whether pomp and circumstance with the king will translate into real geopolitical gains remains to be seen. Trump told Reuters in a phone interview on Friday that he was “going to talk about everything” with the king, including Iran, NATO and the U.K.’s digital services tax.
“I like Starmer, but…”
While Charles will officially represent the U.K. on the visit, Trump has repeatedly attacked Starmer, the U.K.’s top elected official, since the start of the war with Iran on issues both foreign and domestic.
Amid rising global oil prices, Trump has renewed his call for Starmer to begin drilling for oil in the North Sea and criticized the prime minister for his handling of immigration.
“I like Starmer, but I think he’s made a tragic mistake in closing the North Sea oil. You see, your energy prices are the highest in the world. And I think he’s made a tragic mistake on immigration,” Trump told the U.K.’s Sky News on April 14.
The president has even gone as far as to compare Starmer to Neville Chamberlain — the British prime minister infamous for his appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany before World War II — over Starmer’s purported refusal to send the U.K.’s navy to the Middle East at the start of the war.
“He made a public statement that we will send equipment after the war is over. It was a — well, you know, that’s a Neville — Neville Chamberlain-type statement, and Germany, the same thing. He said, ‘We didn’t start this war.’ Well, we helped them with Ukraine,” Trump told Fox News on April 12 about efforts to arm Ukraine in its war with Russia.
I response to Trump’s comments, Starmer said, “We do have mine-sweeping capability, I won’t go into operational matters, but we do have that capability — that’s all focused, from our point of view, on getting the strait fully open.”
But he reiterated his position that the U.K. would not join the conflict.
“My decision has been very clearly that whatever the pressure — and there’s been some considerable pressure — we’re not getting dragged into the war. The U.K. is not getting dragged in,” he said. “That’s not in our national interest, because I’m not going to act unless there’s a clear, lawful basis and a clear thought-through plan.”
Trump expressed surprise in a meeting with his Cabinet on March 26 that Starmer did not do more to send support to the U.S. amid the war.
“I think he’s [Starmer] a lovely man, I do. I think he’s a lovely man, but I think he did something that was shocking; he didn’t want to help us. And maybe in particular that country, you know, the longest bond, the longest ally, Australia, too. Australia was not great,” he said.
Moments later, Trump questioned whether the U.S. would be there for the U.K. and NATO in the future.
“I mean, we’re always going to be there — at least we were, I don’t know about it anymore, to be honest with you, I have to be honest. We were always there when they needed help, we always would have been there when they needed help,” Trump said.
But asked whether the political fallout from the war would impact his visit with Charles, Trump said no.
“No, he’s a friend of mine. He’s a great gentleman. As you know, he honored me and our country; he really honored our country. But we had an amazing time. I’ve known him as Prince Charles; I know him as King Charles,” Trump said.
“I’m proud of him. He’s fighting a tough battle. He’s tough,” Trump added. “He’s going to be here very soon, as you know, we’re going to have a state dinner, it’s going to be great.”
