Author of children's book about grief accused of poisoning husband with fentanyl

A Utah author who wrote a children’s book about dealing with grief was arrested on Monday for allegedly killing her husband by poisoning him with fentanyl. 

Kouri Richins, a mother of three, allegedly poisoned her husband, Eric Richins, 39, last year on Mach 3 in their home near Park City, Utah, while their kids were sleeping. 

The author called 911 in the middle of the night to report that her husband was “cold to the touch.” She told police that she had stepped out of the bedroom to check on one of their children and when she returned she found him unresponsive. 

An autopsy revealed that Eric Richins had five times the lethal dosage of the synthetic opioid fentanyl in his blood. 

Police linked Kouri Richins to the murder after an unnamed acquaintance told authorities that she sold fentanyl to the author, according to the warrant. She also deleted text messages from the night her husband died before giving her phone to investigators. 

Kouri Richins is the author of the children’s book about grief “Are You With Me?” "a must-read for any child who has experienced the pain of loss, and for parents who want to provide their children with the emotional support they need to heal and grow," according to the book’s description on Amazon.

Richins' inspiration for the book was the sudden death of her husband. "I lost my husband unexpectedly last year and we have 3 amazing young boys! As I was trying to find books that would help comfort them at night, I really couldn’t find anything! So I wrote my own and it just came out this week on Amazon," she posted on a Facebook group. 

Interviews with family members revealed that Eric Richins wanted to divorce his wife and had recently changed his will and life insurance policy to reflect it. One of his sisters also said that he had suspected his wife of trying to poison him once before.