PARK CITY, Utah: A Utah woman was convicted Monday (Mar 16) of aggravated murder after poisoning her husband with fentanyl and self-publishing a children’s book about coping with grief.

Prosecutors say Kouri Richins slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that Eric Richins drank in March 2022 at their home outside the ski town of Park City. 

They say Richins was US$4.5 million in debt and falsely believed that when her husband died, she would inherit his estate worth more than US$4 million. 

They also say she was planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side.

Richins stared at the floor and took deep breaths as the judge read the verdict.

The jury deliberated for less than three hours. Afterward, family members on both sides of the case left the courtroom hugging and crying.

She was also convicted of other felony charges, including an attempted murder charge in what authorities alleged was another effort to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him break out in hives and black out. 

Jurors also found Richins guilty of fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after his death.

Sentencing was scheduled for May 13, the day her husband would have turned 44.

“Honestly I feel like we’re all in shock. It’s been a long time coming,” said Eric Richins' sister, Amy Richin, adding that the family can now focus on honouring her brother and supporting his sons. “So just very happy that we got justice for my brother.”

Richins’ defence attorney said Eric Richins was addicted to painkillers and had asked his wife to procure opioids for him. Kouri Richins, however, told police earlier in a video that her husband had no history of illicit drug use.

“She wanted to leave Eric Richins but did not want to leave his money,” said Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth.

The most serious charge - aggravated murder - carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

What was scheduled to be a five-week trial was cut short last week when Richins waived her right to testify, and her legal team abruptly rested its case without calling any witnesses. Richins’ attorneys said they were confident that prosecutors did not produce enough evidence over the past three weeks to convict her of murder.

“They haven't done their job, and now they want you to make inferences based on paper-thin evidence,” defence attorney Wendy Lewis told the jury on Monday.

"A WIFE BECOMING A BLACK WIDOW"

Prosecutors said Richins, a real estate agent focused on flipping houses, was deep in debt and planning a future with another man. She had opened numerous life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge, with benefits totalling about US$2 million, prosecutors alleged.

They showed the jury text messages between Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the man with whom she was allegedly having an affair, in which she fantasised about leaving her husband, gaining millions in a divorce and marrying Grossman.

The internet search history from Richins’ phone included “what is a lethal.dose.of.fetanayl (sic)”, “luxury prisons for the rich America” and “if someone is poisned (sic) what does it go down on the death certificate as”, a digital forensic analyst testified.

Bloodworth replayed for the jury a clip of Richins’ 911 call from the night of her husband’s death. That’s “not ‘the sound of a wife becoming a widow,’” he said, quoting the defence’s opening statement. “It’s the sound of a wife becoming a black widow.”

Lewis responded that the prosecution “looks at facts one way and sees a witch, but if you look at those facts another way, you see a widow”.

"GIVE US THE DETAILS THAT WILL ENSURE KOURI GETS CONVICTED"

The defence focused on trying to discredit the prosecution's star witness, Carmen Lauber, a housekeeper for the family who claimed to have sold Richins fentanyl on multiple occasions.

Lewis argued Lauber did not deal fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection. Lauber said in early interviews that she never dealt the synthetic opioid, but later said she did after investigators informed her that Eric Richins died of a fentanyl overdose, the defence noted.

Richins had asked Lauber for “the Michael Jackson stuff", which Bloodworth said likely refers to the drug combination that killed the singer.

“She knows she wants it because it is lethal,” he argued.

The housekeeper was already in a drug court program as an alternative to incarceration on other charges when authorities arrested her in connection with the Richins case, investigators said. She had also violated some conditions of drug court.

The defence showed a video of law enforcement warning Lauber that they could pull her drug court deal and that she could face a lengthy prison sentence.

“Give us the details that will ensure Kouri gets convicted of murder,” a man in the video said.

Lauber was granted immunity for her cooperation in the case. She testified that she felt a need to “step up and take accountability of my part in this".

CHILDREN'S BOOK BECOMES A TOOL FOR PROSECUTORS

Shortly before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published the book Are You with Me?. 

She promoted it on local TV and radio stations, which prosecutors pointed to in arguing that Richins planned the killing and tried to cover it up.

Summit County Sheriff’s detective Jeff O’Driscoll, the lead investigator on the case, testified that Richins paid a ghostwriting company to write the book for her.

JURY HEARS LETTER FOUND IN JAIL CELL

Prosecutors showed the jury excerpts of a letter found in Richins’ jail cell that they said appeared to outline testimony for her mother and brother. 

In the six-page letter, Richins instructed her brother to tell her former attorney that Eric Richins confided in him about getting fentanyl from Mexico and “gets high every night”.

Defence attorneys said the letter contains a fictional story Richins was working on. They argued that Eric Richins was addicted to painkillers and asked his wife to procure opioids for him.

However, Richins told police on the night of her husband's death that he had no history of illicit drug use, according to body camera footage shown in court.

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump vowed on Monday (Mar 16) to "take" Cuba as the communist island plunged into darkness under a total power blackout linked to a crippling oil embargo imposed by Washington.

After nearly seven decades defying the United States, Havana's communist authorities are under massive pressure from a Trump administration determined to make history.

"You know, all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it?" Trump told reporters at the White House.

"I do believe I'll be ... having the honour of taking Cuba," Trump said.

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"Whether I free it, take it - think I could do anything I want with it, you want to know the truth. They're a very weakened nation right now."

It was one of Trump's most explicit threats and came as the Caribbean island of 9.6 million people grappled with yet another major power cut.

The blackout resulted from a "complete shutdown of the national grid," Union Nacional Electrica de Cuba (UNE) said in a statement, adding that work had begun to restore electricity flow.

Cuba's ageing electricity generation system is in shambles, with daily power outages of up to 20 hours the norm in parts of the island.

But since the US ouster of Cuba's top ally, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, on Jan 3, the island's economy has been hammered further as Trump maintains a de facto oil blockade.

No oil has been imported to the island since Jan 9, hitting the power sector while also forcing airlines to curtail flights to the island, a blow to the all-important tourism sector.

In a bid to relieve economic pressure - and meet US demands - a senior economic official in Cuba announced Monday that Cuban exiles would now be able to invest and own businesses there.

"Cuba is open to having a fluid commercial relationship with US companies" and "also with Cubans residing in the United States and their descendants," Oscar Perez-Oliva, who is foreign trade minister and also deputy prime minister, told NBC News.

The New York Times reported on Monday, relying on anonymous sources, that Trump administration officials have signalled to Cuban officials that the US wants President Miguel Diaz-Canel to be removed from power.

POPULAR UNREST

The blackouts, as well as regular shortages of food, medicine and other basics, are spurring frustrations. In a rare moment of violence, demonstrators vandalised a provincial office of the Cuban Communist Party last weekend.

It was part of a new trend of protests in which people bang pots and pans at night, at times yelling "Libertad", or freedom.

Fourteen people have been arrested after the office assault in Moron, a town of around 70,000 people east of Havana, the regional party chief told state-run newspaper Invasor.

The violence prompted President Miguel Diaz-Canel to acknowledge in an X post "the discontent our people feel because of the prolonged blackouts", including a major outage in early March.

"What will never be comprehensible, justified or admitted is violence," Diaz-Canel said.

The government has also rationed gasoline sales and some hospital services due to the fuel shortages.

Diaz-Canel confirmed last week that his government had held talks with the United States.

Trump has alleged the fuel blockade is a response to an "extraordinary threat" posed by Cuba to the United States.

Trump said Sunday that Cuba "wants to make a "deal", which could come quickly after his administration has finished the war against Iran.

"I think we will pretty soon either make a deal or do whatever we have to do," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.