5 Developments in Accused Husband Killer Kouri Richins' Poisoning Murder Case

dynamics that we're talking about as far as I can tell exist Statewide Nationwide this case was covered by the BBC I don't know that you will find a jurisdiction that is certainly not the state of Utah that is going to be materially different than something can do in terms of its saturation with media coverage of this case it is the continuing criminal case of Corey richens the woman accused of poisoning her husband to death and then after words writing a children's book about grief well we've got some new updates for you including her brother speaking out welcome to sidebar presented by law on crime I'm Jesse Weber so I realized it's been a minute since we talked about arguably one of the most interesting cases to capture the nation's attention also a really sad and frightening one Cory richens the 33-year-old woman accused of murdering her 39-year-old husband Eric richens now I want to go over some of the relatively recent developments for those of you who haven't been following the case but a little bit back story so Eric and richens they were married in 2013 they have three sons together they were living in Utah he was operating a masonry business and then in March of 2022 Eric is found dead in their home at the foot of his bed and richens is accused of poisoning Eric with a fentanyl cocktail it would be determined that he had five times the least dose of fentanyl in his body and this is in stark contrast with what richens told authorities because she told authorities she simply prepared him a moscal mule before he went to sleep for the night by the way one of the reasons this story became so publicized is because after Rich and's death she published a children's book called are you with me she said it was a way to help the couples three young boys deal with the loss of their father she even in an interview with ABC 4 good things Utah I went on Amazon in Barnes & Noble and trying to find something that we could use to cope at nights nights are the hardest it seems like for everybody when you know dealing with anything but I just wanted some story to read to my kids at night and I just could not find anything I couldn't find anything that really you know suited them or helped them find comfort and peace and so you know I was like let's just write one she was charged the following month with his aggravated murder and drug possession with intent to distribute now Cory Rich's housekeeper a convicted drug dealer named Carmen Marie laber has allegedly confessed to authorities that she supplied richens with 15 to 30 fentanyl pills on two separate occasions approximately one month before Eric's death and that richens paid her about $900 each time come to find out also that this is not the only time that richens allegedly poisoned Eric it's been reported that Eric broke out in hives and had trouble breathing after eating a sandwich prepared by his wife the month before his death and it's also been reported that Eric became ill in Greece a few years back when he was on a trip with richens after she gave him a drink he allegedly said that she was trying to kill him and Eric even allegedly told loved ones if something happened to him richens was to blame now again some bad stuff here we're going to get into more she is innocent until proven guilty just laying out a little bit of the backstory hey everybody this is a Morgan and Morgan legal alert evident shows that Google has allegedly violated the privacy of millions of Americans via incognito mode your personal information and data may have been unfairly collected and then used for profit as America's largest injury Law Firm Morgan and Morgan has recovered over 20 billion in compensation for clients and they may be able to help you fight for justice if you've used incognito mode in Google's Chrome internet browser you can find out if you have a claim in only a few clicks by visiting www. forthepeople.com LC gooogle it only takes a few minutes to sign up and find out if you have a claim now I want to get into some recent developments and first up it concerns Rich's finances here's Third District Court Judge Richard mzik talking about it with respect to factor E1 the court finside factor is satisfied as a matter of law by the Court's determination that there is substantial evidence supporting the aggravated murder charge in this case regarding Factor E2 the court acknowledges that the difficulty of recreating chasing and reversing any flow of funds or dissipation of assets that might occur during the pre-trial period so yes the judge found here that there is enough evidence to freeze Rich's assets meaning she can't transfer change the title of or pledge any asset she or her realy company Cory Rich's realy has but the Court established a constructive Trust on all the property and assets of richens and her company in case she needs to make a transfer or dispersement to fund her criminal defense and that makes sense because the defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to counsel and sometimes interfering substantially and the defendant's ability to pay their legal costs can be an issue now the judge did allow Eric's family to maintain a financial interest in Cory's estate it's be used as collateral if she were to move money or assets around that turns out they have a right to but you also wouldn't order a trustees Bond or the appointment of a receiver in regards to Eric's estate by the way a side note richens is involved in a legal battle with Eric's family to determine who inherits his estate and there's a separate wrongful death law lawsuit that was filed against her by Eric's family by the way finances generally speaking they play a role here in this alleged murder plot leading up to Eric's death he was reportedly fighting with richens about her wanting to buy and flip a $2 million house which she ended up closing on the day before he died in the Years prior to his death she also allegedly purchased four life insurance policies on Eric in the millions of dollars something that Eric was not aware of he did find out though that she had allegedly been withdrawing money from his bank accounts running up thousands of dollars on his credit cards and misappropriating money that was intended to be used to pay taxes on Eric's business seemingly for her own use and then only a couple of months before Eric died richens is accused of changing a different life insurance policy to make herself the beneficiary instead of Eric's business partner Eric found out he changed it back to his business partner richens is accused of of then filing a new life insurance application for $100,000 on Eric's life and that's not even all of it because it's also been reported that behind Rich's back Eric changed his will created a trust and granted his sister control over his estate and one point he was even looking into a possible divorce and by the way as I just said that it made me think doesn't that kind of sound like a prosecutions opening statement in Corey Richard's criminal trial right putting all of these pieces together about a plot to kill her husband okay over now to another recent development and this concerned where the judge in this case had to decide Rich's motion to dismiss the criminal case and Rich's argument centered upon this letter that was found in her jail cell that was addressed to her mother according to prosecutors this letter provided instructions to rich and's brother to testify falsely to create the narrative that Eric was getting drugs from Mexico and that ties into the fentol that he died from meaning that he over dosed from his own drugs according to prosecutors Rich and's quote concocts a false narrative for Ronald Darden that's her brother to repeat whereby Eric told Ronnie that he got pain pills and fentol from Mexico from the workers at the ranch now while prosecutors asserted that this appeared to be a form of witness tampering richens hasn't been charged with that but prosecutors also wrote in their filing that this was not their only point of concern they also talked about a different incident quote significantly on the morning of September 13th 2023 on a video conference with Lisa Darden that's uh Cory's mother the defendant held up yet another letter for her mother to read silently to herself that letter was not found inside the defendant cell there is a strong inference that the September 13th 2023 letter was destroyed or flushed now Richmond's legal team took major issues with what the prosecution did here her lawyer said that prosecutors engaged in misconduct by filing the letter letter alongside what they wrote in their legal briefs their commentary they said now the public the media they see all of this and their argument was that what the prosecutors did here violated the court imposed gag order in this case that prevents the parties from communicating about the case outside of Court gag orders are a way to not paint a future jury pool also Richmond's lawyer said that prosecutors misconstrued what the letter was even about so Rich's move to dismiss the case but the judge here denied the motion the court simply isn't persuaded that the conduct of the submit County Attorney's Office violates rules 3.4 3.8 or has caused m richens a denial of due process or a denial of a right to a fair trial the court is confident that it can Pride over a sufficient board ire process to ensure that Miss richens does in fact receive a fair trial and what the judge ruled here makes sense considering this is already such a public case with so much written about it what you're really going to need is a careful jury selection process that's going to be necessary here and the judge feels confident that through the Vader or jury selection process you can weed out those people that shouldn't be there now the judge also denied enforcing the gag order again or imposing sanctions on the prosecution but another big development was that the judge denied the prosecutor's motion for a no contact order between richens and her mother and brother the defendant has a First Amendment right and to correspond with whom she pleases and to say What She Likes as long as she doesn't do anything that requires uh a prior restraint just justified by a sufficiently strong interest that countervails her first amendment rights here there's no evidence that she's done any such thing that requires her to be prohibited from speaking to any specific human being the walk the dog letters have several plausible readings it does not include any threats whatsoever or any other kind of communication that would Al uh justify a prior restraint on Free Speech moreover there's no evidence that it was ever handed to anyone and the state has it so to the extent they need to cross-examine a witness or impeach a witness with its contents at trial they would be able to do so absent some other ruling by the court excluding the letter or suppressing the search that founded so he acknowledged that there are different ways to interpret Rich's handwritten letter from jail there's not enough evidence to Warrant restricting Her speech and not to mention as the judge laid out this is a jail prosecutors can watch out for what she's doing in other ways including if she makes a call on a recorded Jailhouse phone line by the way talking about Cory Rich's family another development her brother Ronnie Darden who we just talked about well he has now come out in spoke to the media specifically here is what he said to kv2 News Salt Lake City first of all that she's innocent she absolutely did not and could never do this my thoughts on it um is accidental overdose that's just my that's my opinion and he went on to say that he knows that she didn't do any of this because she can't even squash a spider he says that he's worried about his sister's emotional state that he speaks to her every day that she misses her children children that she was crying and he also said that she loved Eric that the two of them had a great relationship they were in the best spot they had some up and ups and downs like you typically see in a marriage and his biggest concern is finding an unbiased jury not painted by the prosecution those were his words well those are just some of the recent developments in the Cory richens case and if something should unfold further we will make sure to cover it and that is all we have for you right now here on sidebar everybody thank you so much for joining us as always please subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify YouTube wherever you get your podcasts I'm Jesse Weber speak to you next [Music] time

Channel: Law&Crime Network

Views: 163,596

Keywords: law and crime, law and crime network

Id: w1rVP1pGQck

Length: 13min 48sec (828 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 23 2023