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A Utah judge sentenced Kouri Richins to life without parole Wednesday for the fentanyl poisoning murder of her husband Eric Richins, closing a case that drew national attention in part because she self-published a children's book on grieving after his death.
Richins, 35, was found guilty in March on all counts following a trial in Summit County. The jury reached its verdict after roughly three hours of deliberations, according to ABC News.
Eric Richins, 39, was found dead in bed on March 4, 2022. An autopsy determined he died of fentanyl intoxication. The level of fentanyl in his blood was approximately five times the lethal dosage, according to the charging document.
Prosecutors said Kouri Richins killed her husband for financial gain, spiking his drink with a lethal dose of fentanyl she had purchased illicitly after asking two people for the "Michael Jackson drug." She was also convicted of attempted aggravated murder for an earlier attempt on Valentine's Day, two weeks before her husband's death, when she gave him a sandwich laced with fentanyl. That attempt failed. She was additionally convicted of insurance fraud for taking out a $100,000 life insurance policy on her husband using his forged signature and submitting a claim after he died.
Before handing down the sentence, Judge Richard Mrazik said he weighed the impact either sentence would have on the couple's three sons. He noted that one of them might one day "resent" a life without parole sentence. But he said a lesser term carried its own risk.
"One or more of those young men may spend the next 30 years questioning why the court failed to protect them from the prospect of the person who murdered their father being released from prison at some time in the distant future, perhaps when they have families and children of their own," Mrazik said.
The judge said his consideration of the sons' future feelings came "from a place of genuine concern for them and humility regarding the court's inability to predict the future."
In the end, Mrazik said the facts of the case drove his decision. Richins had been convicted of trying to kill her husband, then doubling down and succeeding, all for money.
"A person convicted of committing that sequence of acts in that way, and for that reason, and who causes the absolute tragedy that has befallen Eric Richins' sons and family -- a person convicted of those things is simply too dangerous to ever be free," he said.
The judge imposed no fines. Sentences on her four lesser counts will run consecutively.
