A woman accused of fatally poisoning her husband and then writing a book about children who have lost a loved one has been accused of taking out four life insurance policies on his life worth $2m.
Utah author Kouri Richins, 33, is alleged to have purchased the policies without husband Eric Richins’ knowledge between 2015 and 2017, prosecutors said in an update to charging documents.
The new allegations led a judge to postpone Richins’s detention hearing from its previously scheduled date on Friday (May 19) to June 12.
Prosecutors allege that the mom of three placed five times the lethal dose of fentanyl into a Moscow Mule cocktail she mixed her 39-year-old husband in March 2022.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid considered to be 50 times more potent than heroin.
READ MORE: Author who penned book on grief for children charged with husband’s murder
The New York Post reports that Richins was charged with murder after she had self-published a children’s book titled ‘Are You with Me?’ about a father who died and looked down on his sons as an angel. She promoted the book on TV and radio shows.
Prosecutors also said that during their marriage, she took out a $250,000 home equity line of credit and spent it, stole about $134,000 from her husband’s business, withdrew $100,000 from his bank accounts and spent more than $30,000 with his credit cards.
The Post said that Eric Richins only learned about his wife’s secret financial decisions in September 2020.
He then met with a divorce lawyer and estate planner, according to the documents.
Richins reportedly agreed to pay her husband back when he confronted her about the missing money, although it is alleged that before his death, Eric Richins had cut his wife out of his will and changed his life insurance policy as he sought a divorce.
Richins allegedly tried to name herself the beneficiary of that policy but was caught and Eric Richins reversed the move, putting his sister’s name back on the plan.
Both sides of the family have spent several months in court battling over the deceased man’s $3.6m estate.
His sisters told investigators that Eric Richins had claimed Richins had previously tried to poison him and that he warned them if anything happened to him “she was to blame”, according to court records.
The family also allege that he “had reason to believe” that she was carrying out an affair throughout their marriage.
According to prosecutors, Richins allegedly poisoned him a final time between the night of March 3 and early March 4, 2022. Police found his body on the floor at the foot of his bed and pronounced him dead at the scene.
Richins reportedly told officers that she and her husband had been celebrating plans to purchase a $2m home that night. She found him on the floor “cold to the touch” upon returning to their bedroom after sleeping in the children’s bedroom.
The Post reports that police later discovered she had placed two $900 orders for fentanyl pills from a drug dealer acting as an informant on the case.
Richins has been charged with first-degree aggravated murder and multiple counts of second-degree possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. She is currently being held in custody until her next court appearance scheduled for June 12.
