US missile seen hitting building near Iranian girls’ school, experts say
Iranian national flag waved by a protester in front of a hospital damaged in a U.S.-Israeli strike, in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Shadati/Xinhua via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A newly surfaced video appears to show a U.S.-made missile hitting a building in Iran adjacent to a girls’ school where local officials say 168 people were killed, experts told ABC News.
The eyewitness video was first posted Sunday morning by the Iranian outlet Mehr News, and then shared online by Trevor Ball, a former U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician, who now works as a researcher with the investigative group Bellingcat.
Ball said in a post on X that the video showed a U.S.-made Tomahawk missile.
ABC News geolocated the video adjacent to the site of the deadly Feb. 28 strike, in which several buildings connected to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were destroyed along with a nearby building housing a school for girls.
The missile seen impacting in the video is not hitting the girls’ school but another building in the IRGC complex. Experts told ABC News the missile has the characteristics of a Tomahawk, which is used by the United States and is not known to be fielded by Iran or Israel.
Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told ABC News that the size and shape of the missile resemble the Tomahawk.
“I do believe this points towards U.S. responsibility for the strike in the area,” he said.
N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, also said the munition seen in the video appeared to be a Tomahawk.
“That indicates it is a U.S. strike,” he said.
Jenzen-Jones earlier cautioned that attributing responsibility for the strike on the nearby school would be difficult without access to munition fragments. He said the new video was still not proof as to who was responsible for striking the school.
“We can only be definitive about the one in the video. Of course, it makes it more likely the surrounding targets were hit by the U.S., but it doesn’t give certainty,” he said.
ABC News has reached out to the Pentagon for a comment.
The new storm will bring widespread rain and mountain snow starting New Year’s Eve and continuing through the end of the week.
An excessive rainfall risk level of 2 out of 4 is in place in the Los Angeles and Santa Barbara areas on Wednesday and Thursday.
Through Friday, 2 to 4 inches of rain is possible at higher elevations, and 1 to 2 inches at lower elevations like downtown Los Angeles.
In the Northeast, another cold front is moving through on Wednesday and Thursday, which brings the slight chance for a few snow flurries to mix in with confetti as the ball drops in Times Square. But no measurable snow accumulation is expected and the flurries will be gone by sunrise on Thursday.
The only part of the Northeast to get intense snow is the Great Lakes, where lake effect snow will continue through the week. A winter storm warning is in place in Orchard Park, New York, home of the Buffalo Bills, where residents could see up to 3 feet of snow by the end of New Year’s Day.
The rest of the country will be dry, with above average temperatures through the Plains and much of the South on New Year’s Day.
Photo of Richins Family posted on Eric’s Facebook account. (Eric Richins/Facebook)
(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.
(LAS VEGAS) — Multiple people who spent time inside a Las Vegas residence that houses a possible illegal biological lab fell ill, the property’s former cleaning employee told police, according to newly released court documents.
The former cleaning employee, who went by the pseudonym “Kelly,” tipped off authorities to the alleged operation early last month, according to an arrest report for the residence’s property manager filed with the Las Vegas Justice Court following a weekend raid at the home.
Kelly said she had been hired by the property manager, Ori Solomon, to clean the home, which was rented out by the room via websites, including Airbnb, according to the report.
Solomon, also known as Ori Salomon, was arrested over the weekend and faces both state and federal charges, including felony disposal/discharge of hazardous waste in an unauthorized manner and allegedly violating his visa by possessing firearms.
Kelly told police that while working at the house in April 2025, she entered the garage, which was usually locked, and found an assortment of “refrigerators/freezers, glass beakers with reddish liquid inside,” a biological safety cabinet and what she believed to be a centrifuge, according to Solomon’s arrest report.
She said the garage smelled “like a hospital (not like a clean hospital but more of a foul stale stagnant air smell),” the report said.
Kelly said she and Solomon’s handyman both got “‘deathly ill’ after going into the garage,” the report said. “Approximately five days after entering the garage, she was left with breathing issues, fatigue, ‘could not get out of bed,’ and muscle aches.”
The handyman had the “same symptoms,” and he “believed entering the garage was the reason that they both were sick,” the report said. Kelly said Solomon’s own wife also got sick after going into the garage, according to the report.
“Kelly said a lot of people who have lived inside the house have gotten sick. One female ended up in the hospital with severe respiratory issues,” the report said. “Kelly also noted when she was cleaning the house there would be many dead crickets found in the master bedroom,” which was “super uncommon as she had lived in Las Vegas for numerous years and never seen anything like that before.”
Police and FBI agents spent Saturday and Sunday removing equipment and materials from the garage and then transported the substances to a secure lab on the East Coast for testing, the results of which have not yet been released. Authorities have said they believe the Vegas property “is being used to house the biolab equipment” as well as potential viruses and “biological substances,” the police report said.
She told police that the refrigerators that she saw in the garage “were not medical grade ones but ones you would find in a normal home,” the report said.
The report noted that the description matches the “same type of fridge used” in a previous case in Reedley, California. Officials there said an illegal bio lab was discovered in a warehouse that allegedly had unauthorized biological agents, including samples of possible infectious diseases, along with misbranded medical devices and test kits. The alleged operator, a Chinese national, was arrested in 2023 and remains in federal custody awaiting trial. He has pleaded not guilty to his charges.
The report also alleges that Solomon had “direct knowledge of the biolab being owned and operated by” the Reedley bio lab’s operator — and that the pair had been in “constant communication” since his 2023 arrest.
While incarcerated, that previous operator had more than 460 calls with Solomon in the past year alone, the report said. Solomon “is known to execute the business dealings for” the prior operator — and then would transfer funds to the prior operator’s wife and business partner, who had absconded federal indictment in China, according to the report.
Kelly told police she believes Solomon is still in contact with the prior operator because the federal inmate “calls him every day to check on the residences,” the report said.
Kelly allegedly added that if investigators “contacted Ori, he would have the lab moved out of the garage immediately.”
Police said in the report that they believe the property is “being used to house the biolab equipment, viruses, and biological substances.” Four bottles of hydrochloric acid were also found in an “apparently abandoned and open box, stored haphazardly on an open shelf, according to the report.
Hydrochloric acid can “cause substantial permanent injuries to the human body if exposed to the skin, inhaled or ingested,” the report said, alleging that the bottles were not secure or stored “in a way to avoid inadvertent exposure or ingestion.”
“As a result, the failure to properly dispose of these chemicals imperiled the lives of anyone in or near the garage,” the report said. “Moreover, hydrochloric acid is known to be volatile if airborne and can cause respiratory injury if inhaled” — particularly concerning, the report said, since the house was “additionally being used as a short term rental property with multiple occupants, including an elderly male living mere yards away from the entry to that garage.”
Three people who rented a room in the house were safely removed from the residence and are not involved in the investigation at this time, authorities previously said.
