Sons of Utah author Kouri Richins fear for safety if she's released after murder conviction

The young sons of Utah author Kouri Richins told a judge ahead of her Wednesday sentencing that they would feel unsafe if their mother was released from prison. A jury found the 35-year-old guilty in March of killing their father, Eric Richins.

Richins faces several decades to life in prison on five felony convictions, including aggravated murder. Prosecutors said she poisoned her husband's cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in March 2022 at their home near the ski town of Park City.

She self-published a children's book, "Are You With Me?", about a boy coping with his father's death shortly before her arrest in May 2023. Richins promoted the book on a local Utah television news program. In it, Eric Richins appears as an angel always nearby. "Yes, I am with you on Christmas," she writes. "You can't see my smile but it's there. I'm here, and we're together."

Her attorneys declined to comment Tuesday before the sentencing, which falls on the day her husband would have turned 44. The sons' statements, from boys who were 9, 7 and 5 when their father died, appeared in a prosecutors' memo urging Judge Richard Mrazik to impose life without parole.

The oldest, now 13, said he does not miss his mother. "I'm afraid if she gets out, she will come after me and my brothers, my whole family," he said. "I think she would come and take us and not do good things to us, like hurt us."

Prosecutors allege the boy endured emotional and physical abuse from Richins after his father's death. They cite findings from the Utah Division of Child and Family Services in a sealed court document.

Richins worked as a real estate agent with a house-flipping business. She carried millions in debt and planned a future with another man, prosecutors said. She took out numerous life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge and thought she would inherit his estate, worth more than $4 million, after he died.

"He told his family, 'If I die, you need to take a look at her because I think she's trying to kill me,'" family spokesman Greg Skordas told "48 Hours" in a February 2024 interview.

Prosecutors said Richins asked the family housekeeper to get fentanyl for her in early 2022. The housekeeper admitted to investigators that she sold it to Richins, according to court documents obtained by "48 Hours."

"He wasn't an opioid user. This doesn't smell right," Skordas told "48 Hours" of Eric Richins' cause of death.

Jurors convicted Richins of insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder. The attempt came weeks earlier on Valentine's Day, when she served him a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him black out. Court documents state Eric Richins' family suspected she tried to poison him in 2019 on a vacation in Greece, where he fell ill after she gave him a drink.

The middle child, now 11, disputed his mother's claim that she slept in his bedroom the night his father died. He remembered being put to bed early without a bath, his parents' bedroom locked and the television blaring inside. His mother yelled at him to go away after he used a broom to reach for a key, he said. Richins later told a 911 operator she found her husband cold to the touch.

The 11-year-old said he misses his father taking him camping and fishing, coaching him in sports and attending major milestones. Like his brother, he said he would feel unsafe without his mother in prison. "With her in jail, I will be able to continue to feel safe and live a happy and successful life without fear of her hurting me or anyone I love," his statement read.

The youngest son said he feels "hateful and ashamed" when people discuss his mother because "she took away my dad." He would be "so scared" if she got out of prison. "Once she is gone I will feel happy and I will feel safer and relaxed and trust people more," he said. The memo did not provide his current age.

Richins faces more than two dozen additional money-related criminal charges in a separate case that has not gone to trial. Her aggravated murder conviction carries 25 years to life, or life without parole. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.